A production run is a long bet with known dates: materials and components are bought first, machine time and labour turn them into goods over weeks, and the customer's payment terms start only when the finished order ships. Funding the run means bridging that whole arc — advanced against your deposits, not against the purchase order itself.
Price the full arc before accepting the order
From materials deposit to customer payment can be a whole season: procurement lead times, the run itself, shipping, then thirty to sixty days of terms. Cost the funding for that entire stretch into the quote — an order priced only on materials and labour, without its cash timeline, can be profitable on paper and punishing in the account.
The two-part structure
Production is funded up front: working capital sized against your monthly deposits covers materials and the run for orders in proportion to the business. Once goods ship and the invoice exists, factoring can take over — an advance priced on your customer's credit that clears the production funding and resets you for the next run. The same two-gap pattern as wholesale, at industrial scale.
Machines are a separate conversation
Tooling, CNC capacity and line equipment belong on equipment finance with terms matched to asset life — not inside the working cash that funds runs. Mixing the two means a single slow-paying customer can strand a machine payment; separating them keeps one problem from becoming two.
Repeat runs want a revolving shape
A manufacturer producing monthly against standing orders is describing a line of credit: draw for each cycle's materials, repay as invoices settle, draw again. Consistent deposits from repeat customers are exactly the statement pattern that widens what can be approved — concentration in one customer is worth flagging and explaining up front.
Scrap and rework belong in the funding maths as well: a run priced at perfect yield borrows too little, and the shortfall lands mid-production when it is hardest to fix. Fund the run you actually ship, not the one the quote imagined.
Read next: Manufacturing funding · Invoice factoring · Wholesale order funding
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