Hazelgrove Lending Group helps painting, drywall, tile and flooring contractors in Redding, CA and Shasta County compare painting business loans: working capital and lines of credit for crews and materials, and equipment financing for sprayers, lifts and vehicles. Shasta County counted 78 building finishing contractors in 2023. This page covers their cash cycle, a payroll example and partner review.
| Finishing contractors, Shasta County, CA (2023) | 78 |
|---|---|
| Under five employees | 67.9% |
| In ZIP 96001 | 13 |
| No-payroll finishing firms (2024) | 201 |
| Needs this page covers | Crew payroll, materials, sprayers and vans |
| Structures to compare | Lines of credit, working capital |
Last on the job, last to be paid
Building finishing contractors (NAICS 2383) include painters, drywall and plaster crews, flooring installers, tile and terrazzo setters and finish carpenters. They work at the end of a project, and when they work for a general contractor they may be paid after the general contractor collects its own draw. A painting company can finish a job and wait weeks for the check while the next job's crew is already on payroll.
That makes working capital for painting contractors, and for flooring and drywall crews, a timing tool first. For a crew whose cost is mostly labor, payroll is the bigger gap.
Business loans for painting companies and finishing crews
| Need | Structure | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Crew wages while a GC pays | Working capital | Short-term, closed by the receivable |
| Recurring gaps job to job | Line of credit | Draw per job, repay when paid |
| Sprayers, lifts, scaffolding, a van | Equipment financing | Secured by the equipment |
| Flooring stock for a large job | Inventory financing | Tied to the material itself |
Painting equipment financing options
Painting equipment financing covers airless and HVLP sprayers, scissor and boom lifts, scaffolding, pressure washers and the vans or trucks that carry them. Lifts and vehicles carry resale value; smaller sprayers and hand tools may be paid for from cash instead of financed, so compare the total dollar cost either way. Compare a rental for lifts you need only occasionally.
Flooring company financing
Flooring contractors can carry more material cost than painters: carpet, hardwood, vinyl plank and tile may be bought for a specific job and delivered before installation. Flooring company financing therefore can lean more on inventory and short-term working capital, with the job's contract and deposit as evidence of where the money will come from.
Illustrative example: a painting crew waiting on a general contractor
Hypothetical figures, not an offer. A four-painter crew works 40-hour weeks at a loaded labor cost of $32 an hour. Two weeks of payroll comes to $10,240. The general contractor pays 45 days after the invoice. Between finishing the job and being paid, the crew has worked another three payroll periods on the next job, so the company carries about $30,720 in wages before the first check arrives.
A line of credit drawn per payroll and repaid when the general contractor pays keeps that gap from swallowing the company's cash.
Homeowner jobs and GC jobs run on different clocks
Residential repaints may be paid on completion directly by the homeowner, sometimes with a deposit up front, so the cash gap can be short. Commercial and new-construction work runs through a general contractor, adds paperwork such as lien waivers, and can leave a finishing crew waiting until the general contractor's own draw clears. Firms that move from residential into commercial work can find the larger contracts strain cash more than the job size suggests.
Pricing jobs to cover the cost of waiting
If a job will be paid two months after the crew finishes, the cost of carrying that payroll belongs in the bid. Adding the expected interest on a line draw to the job's cost keeps a profitable-looking contract from losing money in the wait.
Paperwork that gets finishing crews paid
On commercial jobs, payment can depend on paperwork as much as on the work: signed change orders, invoices that match the contract schedule, and any lien releases the contract calls for. Missing paperwork can make a finishing contractor wait longer than the contract says.
Finishing contractors in Shasta County, CA
County Business Patterns counted 78 building finishing contractors with employees in Shasta County in 2023, 53 of them (67.9%) with fewer than five employees, and 13 in ZIP 96001. Nonemployer Statistics, a separate program, counted 201 finishing contractors without employees in 2024. The two programs cover different businesses and years and are neither combined nor compared.
What partners usually review
- Bank statements showing job deposits
- Open invoices and who owes them
- Contracts or purchase orders for upcoming jobs
- Equipment quotes for lifts, sprayers or vehicles
- Existing payments on vehicles and equipment
Finishing trades sit under the wider construction and contractor page. Related trades: electricians and plumbing and HVAC. County data: Redding, CA page.
