Crownwick Advances, a small-business funding service in Lancaster, PA, arranges contractor business loans for builders and trades across Lancaster County, PA: lines of credit for draws and materials, equipment financing for machines and trucks, and working capital for payroll gaps. The county had 1,919 construction employers in 2023.
| Construction employers, county | 1,919 (CBP 2023) |
|---|---|
| Under five employees | 1,119, or 58.3% |
| Specialty trade contractors | 1,236 employers |
| Building contractors | 638 employers |
| Construction businesses without payroll | 6,593 (NES 2024) |
| Homes permitted in 2025 | 1,296 (BPS) |
The construction cash cycle
A contractor can pay for much of a job before being paid for any of it. Materials may be bought or put on account, crews may be paid weekly, equipment payments may run monthly, and the customer may pay by draw after an inspection, a sign-off and a processing period. On commercial jobs, part of each payment is held back as retainage until the project closes. So a builder can show a profit on every job and still be short on a Friday.
That is why construction company loans are rarely about one big purchase. They are about timing: covering the weeks between spending and collecting, without taking on a payment the jobs cannot carry.
Lancaster County, PA construction in the Census counts
Lancaster County had 1,919 construction employer establishments in 2023, more than any other sector, employing 22,032 people with an annual payroll of about $1.62 billion (County Business Patterns 2023). Of those, 1,119, or 58.3%, had fewer than five employees. Specialty trade contractors made up 1,236 of the total, with 12,431 employees; building contractors accounted for 638.
Another 6,593 construction businesses operated without payroll in 2024 (Nonemployer Statistics 2024), most of them specialty trades (5,198). Those are separate counts from a different program and year, so they are not added to the employer figure.
Residential permits give a sense of the pipeline: 1,296 new housing units were authorized in the county in 2025, after 1,184 in 2024 and 1,859 in 2023 (Census Building Permits Survey). Single-family homes accounted for 818 of the 2025 authorizations; 429 units sat in buildings of five or more.
Which funding fits which construction need
| Need | Usually discussed | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll before a draw | Working capital | A known gap with a named payment behind it |
| Materials across several jobs | Line of credit | Draw per job, repay per draw |
| Excavator, loader, truck, trailer | Equipment financing | The machine secures the deal |
| Shop or yard improvements | Term loan | One-time cost with a long life |
Sizing working capital for a builder
Working capital is current assets minus current liabilities: cash, receivables and work billed but not yet collected, less payables, payroll owed and short-term debt. To estimate how much working capital a construction company needs, look at the largest gap between costs incurred and cash collected on the jobs you expect to run at the same time, not just the average.
A hypothetical working capital calculation
Illustration only: a framing contractor expects to run three jobs at once. Each burns about $22,000 a month in labor and materials, and the first draw on each arrives about 45 days after work starts, minus 10% retainage. Peak exposure is roughly one and a half months of costs on all three jobs, about $99,000, less cash on hand. That figure, backed by the contracts, is a far stronger basis for a request than a round number.
A work-in-progress schedule showing each job's contract value, billed to date, cost to date and expected completion makes the calculation visible to a partner. Our post on how Lancaster County construction companies get funded walks through a WIP schedule and retainage in more detail.
Construction equipment financing
Compact excavators, skid steers, dump trailers, telehandlers and pickup trucks are core equipment for many trade businesses, and the equipment can secure its own financing. Used machines can be financed; partners want hours, age and condition. Structures for machines are laid out on the equipment financing page.
The trades have their own pages
Finish work, mechanical systems and electrical work each run a slightly different cash cycle. See painting, flooring and finish contractors, plumbing and HVAC contractors and electrical contractors. Residential contractors should also read the Pennsylvania home improvement contractor registration guide.
How to get a loan for a construction company
- Gather several months of business bank statements and your current contracts.
- Prepare a simple WIP schedule: contract value, billed, collected, cost to date.
- List equipment you own and what you still owe on it.
- Call (717) 675-6950 or send the online request with the purpose and timing.
- A partner reviews the file, may ask for more, and makes its own decision.
Partners commonly review deposits, receivables, the concentration of work with one general contractor, existing equipment debt, time in business and personal credit. No single published threshold applies across partners. County figures are on the Lancaster, PA data page; other sectors are on the industry pages.
By Crownwick Advances · Updated
