San Rafael, CA Daycare Center Financing: Classroom Furniture, Vans and Payroll

Daycare equipment financing covers the movable things a classroom runs on: cribs and cots, changing tables, child-size tables and chairs, cubbies, shelving, nap mats, learning materials and the tablets teachers use for check-in and parent messages. A quote that lists each piece lets equipment financing treat the order as one purchase.

Worked example with invented numbers: 12 cribs at $415, 24 stackable cots at $68 and $3,150 of learning materials come to $9,762. Over 36 months at an invented 11.9% annual rate, the example program pays $323.77 a month; across all 36 payments that is $11,655.72, with $1,893.72 going to interest.

A program pricing new cribs in Marin County, CA belongs to a code the 2023 County Business Patterns count at 130 child day care services establishments with paid staff (NAICS 624410). The code includes preschools and infant care as well as before- and after-school care.

No single checklist applies, because every funding partner sets its own. The form on this site takes contact details and three ranges, nothing more; the papers below are what a call about a van, tablets or furniture may turn to:

• Business bank statements showing tuition deposits over recent months
• An enrollment and tuition report from the program's own records
• The dealer or vendor quote for the van, tablets or furniture
• The lease on the space and the years remaining
• Loans or leases the program already pays, with each monthly amount

Size varies across the field. In the 2023 size classes, 59 of the county's 130 child day care services establishments, 45.4%, had fewer than five employees (CBP). A small program and a larger one can bring the same kinds of records; the amounts on them differ.

Adding enrollment in a room the program already has means more staff and more furniture before more tuition arrives. The furniture is equipment. The staff are payroll, which fits a working capital loan rather than equipment financing. Adding rooms, walls, bathrooms or a kitchen is building work outside this site.

Illustration only, invented figures: two added teachers cost $7,400 in combined wages every two weeks, and the added families' tuition starts 28 days after they begin. Twenty-eight days hold exactly 2 biweekly paydays, so the example program carries $14,800 of wages, plus a $6,850 furniture order that can sit on its own equipment term.

Taken together, the county's 130 child day care services establishments had 1,266 people on staff in the March 2023 pay period and a combined $53.3 million annual payroll (CBP). Those are totals for all of them together, not a figure for one program.

Tuition that comes in once a month and wages that go out every two weeks do not line up. With 26 biweekly paydays in a year and 12 months, 2 months each year hold a third payday, and in those months the program meets three payrolls on one month's tuition.

A business line of credit fits that pattern: draw for the extra payday, pay it down when the next month's tuition arrives. Illustration only, invented figures: a $21,500 draw held 20 days at an invented 15% annual rate, simple daily interest in this example, costs $176.71 in interest.

ZIP 94901 on its own held 18 child day care services establishments in the 2023 ZIP Code Business Patterns. ZIP 94901 and the city of San Rafael, CA are not the same area. The daycare financing article adds a second site and a van to the payroll question.

Passenger vans for field trips and school pickups can be bought or leased. In this invented example, one van costs $52,900. Bought on a 60-month equipment loan at an invented 9.6%, it runs $1,113.59 a month and $66,815.40 over the term. An invented lease asks $905 a month for 60 months, then a $14,800 buyout to keep the van: $69,100 in all.

The lease is $208.59 less a month in this example and $2,284.60 more in total if the program buys the van at the end. Classroom furniture can go on a short equipment loan of its own or be paid from operating cash.

Programs run by an owner with no staff sit in a separate count: the 2024 Nonemployer Statistics list 435 child care services businesses with no paid employees in Marin County, CA (NAICS 62441). Physician and dental pages share the industries page with this one. A program buying another one can look at a term loan, and the San Rafael, CA page covers city license and lease steps.