A commercial finance desk behind your practice

Accountants and bookkeepers see a client’s funding problem before anyone else does. The trigger shows up in a BAS, a set of management accounts, a lease that is about to roll, or an offer on a truck. What usually happens next is “you should talk to a broker”, and the moment passes.

The DeMarque Finance referral partner program exists to close that gap. You refer the scenario. We come back to you, not around you, with an indicative outcome, usually within a day. If it is fundable we structure it, place it across bank and non-bank lenders, and manage it to settlement while you stay the client’s advisor.

The Eight Conversations That Are Really Finance Conversations

Most referrals start as something a client says in passing. These are the eight that are worth acting on.

1. The BAS shows a cash gap. Receipts land after the payments do. An overdraft, a line of credit or invoice finance sits behind that gap. See business overdrafts and lines of credit.
2. An EOFY equipment decision. The tax timing is your call. The finance structure is where it goes wrong.
3. New premises or a lease that is rolling. Buying the site instead of renewing changes the balance sheet. See commercial property finance.
4. A fleet or plant order. Vehicles, machinery, fit-out, new or used. See commercial asset and equipment finance.
5. An ATO payment arrangement. Often a working capital problem wearing a tax hat, and often fundable before it becomes arrears.
6. A growth year outrunning working capital. Revenue is up, cash is tight, and the business is funding its own growth from the trading account. See why working capital applications get declined.
7. A commercial property loan expiring or repriced. The rollover offer is the trigger. See refinancing a commercial property loan.
8. A bank has said no. Rarely about the numbers. Usually about which lender saw the file and how it was presented.

If you are recognising three or four of these from the last month, that is the normal reaction, and it is the reason this program exists. The one-page version is here: eight conversations that are really finance conversations.

How the Desk Works

You send the scenario, or send the client through. Whichever suits. A scenario is enough to start: what the client wants to do, roughly how much, the security if there is one, and the position as you know it. You do not need to prepare anything.

The client gets an indicative outcome. If you send them through the eligibility check, they get an indicative outcome in the console without a credit check.

Andrew reports back to you. Not a dashboard, not a notification. The broker who ran it tells you what came back, what it needs, and what happens next. If it is fundable, Andrew speaks to the client with you copied in.

We place it and manage it to settlement. Lender matching, the application, the follow-up. You keep advising your client on everything else.

Then the relationship goes back to you. After settlement the client comes back to you for the next decision, because you are the one who solved it.

Who Owns the Client

You do. This is the question underneath every partnership conversation, so it gets a straight answer.

We do not market to referred clients, we do not cross-sell them, and we do not take the next deal direct. That is written into the partner agreement in plain words.

It is also true in the software. Partners who use the Appetite platform see the reasoning on a scenario and never the lender names, so there is nothing to carry to another broker, and when a partner sends a scenario on there is no other broker it can reach. The guarantee is the absence of the option, not a clause you have to trust.

What You Get

Revenue share on every deal that settles. Upfront and trail, on the same basis, set out in a schedule attached to your agreement.

Fair both ways on clawback. Where a lender claws back, your share adjusts on the same basis.

A written agreement, not a handshake. Every partner signs the same document with their own schedule, so the terms are the terms rather than a negotiation.

The partner toolkit. The equipment finance calculator, the eligibility check and the finance explainers, badged for your practice, so a client can start with you and finish with us.

An Appetite invite, so you can check before you refer. See below.

The phone stays open. A partner who never logs in to anything can still ring and refer. That is a deliberate design decision, not an oversight.

Check It Before You Refer It

The hardest finance question an accountant gets is not which lender. It is whether to say anything at all. Guess low and you talk a client out of something that was fundable. Guess high and they walk into a decline with your name on the suggestion.

Partners get an invite to Appetite, the placement platform DeMarque runs the desk on. Describe a situation in plain English and it reads it against 190 lenders and 929 published products, then comes back with whether it is fundable, how it is likely to structure, and what a lender will want to see. It costs you nothing and there is nothing to sign for it.

Lender names are withheld on the partner view. What you get is the reasoning, not a list to shop. That is deliberate: it is what keeps this a referral rather than credit advice you are not licensed to give, and it is why the access is safe to hand over freely.

Who This Is For

Accountants and bookkeepers, financial planners, lawyers and conveyancers, real estate and buyers’ agents, insurance brokers, developers and builders, business advisors and consultants. Anyone whose clients ask them about funding.

Finance and mortgage brokers referring commercial deals outside their lane are a different arrangement with a different offer. That program has its own page.

What You Can and Cannot Say to Your Client

This is written as respect for your licence, not as a set of rules.

A referral under the bare referral exemption is a name, contact details and a brief description of what the client needs. That is the whole of it. You do not quote a product, a lender, a rate, an amount or a structure, and you do not give the client an eligibility opinion. The referral form is built so those fields do not exist.

Appetite does not package or send applications. Nothing it produces is an application, a submission or a lodgement, and no credit decision is sought. A placement read is pre-assessment working material for the broker.

Where your professional body or the law requires you to disclose a referral arrangement to your client, you disclose it. We do not advise you on that obligation, and we will provide a ready-drafted disclosure line for your engagement letter when it is issued.

Commercial and business-purpose finance is what this program covers. Consumer and home loan referrals go to DeMarque Home Loans on 02 8046 6878 and follow the consumer credit rules, which are different.

What Happens Next

A 15-minute qualification call, then the partner application (entity, ABN, professional body, PI insurance), then the agreement with your schedule pre-filled, then your toolkit and your Appetite invite. Four of those five steps are things we do.

Talk to us about partnering, or send a client through now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my client have to deal with a bank?

No. That is the point of using a broker. We take the scenario to the lenders whose current policy actually fits it, across banks, non-banks and specialists, and manage the application from there.

What happens if the deal is declined?

We tell you honestly and we tell you why. A decline is usually about which lender saw the file and how it was presented, not about the numbers, so in many cases there is a different lender or a different structure. If there is not, you will hear that too.

Who owns the client?

You do. We do not market to referred clients, we do not cross-sell them, and we do not take the next deal direct. It is in the agreement.

How am I paid, and when?

You receive a share of our revenue on every deal that settles, upfront and trail, on a schedule attached to your partner agreement. The specifics are discussed on the qualification call and written into the schedule rather than published here.

Is there a cost to partner?

No. There is no cost to partner, no minimum, and nothing to buy. The toolkit and the Appetite invite come with partnership.

What about consumer and home loans?

They are a different licence lane. Residential and consumer referrals go to DeMarque Home Loans on 02 8046 6878, which follows the consumer credit rules including Best Interests Duty.

What do you actually need from me?

A scenario. What the client wants to do, roughly how much, the security if there is one, and the position as you know it. If you would rather just introduce the client and step back, that works too.

How fast is it?

An indicative outcome usually comes back to you within a day. Settlement timing depends on the product and the lender: equipment finance for an established business can be quick, commercial property and construction take longer. We do not promise timeframes.

What happens after settlement?

The relationship goes back to you and we report the outcome. The client comes back to you for the next decision.

Can I white-label it?

Partly. The client-facing tools are badged for your practice. The credit assistance itself is provided by DeMarque Finance under its own licence, and that is disclosed, because it has to be.

Can I check whether a client is fundable before I refer them?

Yes, and it costs you nothing. Partners get an Appetite invite from Andrew. Appetite is the placement platform DeMarque runs the desk on: describe the situation in plain English and it reads it against 190 lenders and 929 published products, then comes back with whether it is fundable, how it is likely to structure, and what a lender will want to see.

Lender names are withheld on the partner view. What you get is the reasoning, not a list to shop. That is deliberate, and it is what keeps this a referral rather than credit advice you are not licensed to give. When you send a scenario on, it goes to Andrew and to nobody else.

Contact

DeMarque Finance · International Tower One, Level 35, 100 Barangaroo Avenue, Sydney NSW 2000 · 1300 108 751 · demarquefinance.com.au

General information only, not personal credit advice. Results are indicative only and do not constitute a formal finance offer or approval. DeMarque Group Pty Ltd trading as DeMarque Finance is authorised Credit Representative 522568 under Australian Credit Licence 384704.