AFO · Professional services
Capital for people-led businesses with light asset bases.
Professional-services firms — accounting, law, engineering, consulting, design, healthcare practices, agencies — share a hard underwriting profile from a conventional lender's perspective: low hard-asset coverage, payroll-heavy fixed cost, lumpy project economics. The right capital stack works around that profile rather than against it: leasehold financing where the asset is the office build-out, equipment finance for tech and infrastructure, and structures that underwrite on cash flow rather than collateral.
What makes this industry vertical distinct
- CSBFP leasehold stream funds the office build-out that banks won't.
- Equipment finance handles tech infrastructure at 75–90% LTV.
- RBF fits recurring-revenue lines without dilution or personal guarantee.
How the capital stack works for professional services
Professional services, in practice.
CSBFP is more useful to professional-services firms than most owners realize. The leasehold-improvement stream funds office build-outs, fit-outs, and tech installations — a category that conventional senior lenders avoid because there's no hard asset to recover. CSBFP guarantees the loan; the lender funds it. Same Prime + 3% rate, same $1.15M combined cap. For a firm building out a new office or scaling into a second location, this is usually the first conversation.
Conventional senior debt funds the larger expansion or partner-buyout transactions where the firm has audited or review-engagement financials and a credible coverage story. Multi-partner firms with a 5+ year operating history, partner notes, and clean financials are a clean fit; founder-led practices in the first three years usually aren't. Equipment finance handles the tech infrastructure side — servers, workstations, AV — at 75–90% LTV on the equipment, often without personal guarantees for established firms.
Recurring-revenue lines — managed-services contracts, retainer engagements, subscription tools — are a clean fit for revenue-based financing. The fixed multiple (1.2–1.5x) on the advance is repaid as a fixed percentage of sales until paid back. No personal guarantee, no dilution. Where the firm runs a meaningful technical-development effort — a custom platform, an internal R&D pipeline — SR&ED applies even if the business is not a traditional tech company. The CPA scopes the eligible expenditure pool against the technical work the firm is doing.
6 programs in the catalog · 5 live
Programs that fit professional services.
Curated by underwriting profile, not by tagging — each card links to the program profile. Coming-soon programs are surfaced honestly: the screener routes there with a consultation CTA instead of a self-serve apply link until the integration is wired through.
Government-backed term loan for equipment, leasehold, and real property. Up to $1.15M.
Cash-flow-underwritten facility from a chartered bank, credit union, or Schedule II lender.
Equipment-specific term loan or lease at 75–90% LTV on the equipment.
Capital advanced against future monthly revenue, repaid as a fixed % of sales.
Federal refundable tax credit on eligible R&D salary, materials, and contractor expenditures.
Regional Development Agency Programs
Coming soonFederal regional programs (ACOA, FedDev Ontario, PrairiesCan, PacifiCan, CED-Q, CanNor).
Common stacks for this vertical
The combinations a CPA usually assembles for professional services.
A stack combines two or more of the programs above into a single capital-structuring answer — equipment + working capital, non-dilutive R&D, grant + debt. Each card names the programs AND the role each one plays.
- 3 layers
CSBFP + working-capital line
The single most common owner-operator capital stack in Canada layers a CSBFP equipment + leasehold loan with a conventional working-capital revolver. CSBFP covers the asset purchases at the cheapest available rate (Prime + 3%, government-guaranteed); the revolver handles the AR + inventory cycle. The two facilities never compete for the same dollar — they fund different parts of the business — but the package needs to be designed together so the lender sees a coherent overall ask.
Read the stack
Other industries
Different industry, different stack.
Each vertical has its own structuring conversation. A manufacturer’s balance sheet drives a different mix than a SaaS company’s payroll-heavy R&D — the programs that fit each shouldn’t be the same.
- 12 programs
Manufacturing
Manufacturers carry hard assets, long working-capital cycles, and a programmatic R&D spend — three traits that open distinct funding pools in the Canadian system. The hard assets unlock equipment finance and asset-based revolvers; the working-capital cycle drives the ABL or factoring conversation; the R&D spend pulls SR&ED, IRAP, SIF, and Clean Tech ITC into the stack.
Explore the vertical
- 9 programs
Technology & SaaS
Tech and SaaS businesses have an inverted balance sheet: little hard collateral, lots of payroll-heavy R&D, recurring revenue that scales faster than the company can self-fund. Most conventional debt structures don't fit. What does fit is the Canadian non-dilutive stack — SR&ED, IRAP, SDTC, digital media credits — followed by revenue-based financing on the working-capital side and equity only when the round is the right use of capital.
Explore the vertical
- 8 programs
Exporters
Exporters face two distinct capital gaps at once: the up-front cost of entering a new market (research, travel, trade shows, IP protection, translation) and the working-capital cycle of fulfilling export orders (longer DSO, currency exposure, foreign-buyer credit risk). Different instruments cover each gap; the right structure usually layers two or three rather than picking one.
Explore the vertical
Match the structure to the industry, not the other way round.
Twenty-minute call. Bring the business profile and the project; we’ll walk through which programs in this vertical fit, which grants and credits stack underneath, and how long the engagement takes.