Who Pays the Deposit When a San Luis, AZ Dental Office Orders a Panoramic X-Ray Unit?

Illustration only, invented figures: a dental office orders a panoramic X-ray unit quoted at $41,560. The dealer's terms in this invented quote ask for 25% at order, $10,390, and the $31,170 invented balance at delivery, about six weeks later.

An equipment loan is built around the delivered unit: the unit secures it, and a funding partner may pay the dealer once the unit arrives and is accepted. The deposit sits outside that window, so the office has to decide how to carry it before anything is financed.

Mounting the unit on a wall, new circuits and any shielding work in the room are property work outside this site; the request covers the unit itself.

Three lines on the dealer quote decide how much trouble the deposit causes:

• Whether the deposit is refundable if no financing is approved, and by what date
• Whether the balance is due on delivery, on installation or on a set number of days after either
• Whether the price includes training, software licenses and the first service visit, or lists them apart

A deposit that is lost when financing falls through turns a timing question into a real risk. Asking for a refund clause tied to the funding answer, before the order is signed, keeps the risk with the timing.

Illustration only, invented figures: financing the $31,170 balance over 60 months at 11.57% a year sets a monthly payment of $686.61. Across the full invented schedule the office pays $41,196.60, of which $10,026.60 is interest.

1. Day 0: the office signs the dealer quote and pays the deposit
2. About day 42: the unit is delivered and the office signs that it arrived in working order
3. Days later: a funding partner that approved the request may pay the dealer the balance
4. About a month after funding: the first invented loan payment comes due

A partner may also look at a term loan instead, where the money is not tied to the unit as collateral; the trade-off may show up in the rate and the documents asked for. The equipment financing page sets out how a unit-secured loan works.

Paying the invented $10,390 deposit from cash adds no interest at all when the account can spare it. When the same cash is earmarked for payroll and lab bills, a line of credit draw can carry the deposit instead. In this invented case the draw carries 15.42% a year and is paid down in six monthly amounts of about $1,731.67, the first one month after the draw.

The invented draw costs $467.29 in interest. Some partners may agree to include the deposit in the financed amount and reimburse it at funding; asking that on the first call can make the draw unnecessary.

A card or a dealer's own short-term plan is another way to carry a deposit; either may change in cost once a promotional period ends, and both leave less room on accounts the office uses for supplies.

Illustration only, invented figures: the office collects $78,600 in a typical month. For the six months when the loan payment and the line paydown overlap, they take $2,418.28 a month, 3.1% of those invented collections. After the line is clear, the loan payment alone is 0.9%.

Collections, not production, are the right base: production that has not been paid yet cannot cover a payment due this month. An office whose insurance payments arrive weeks after the visit reads the share against what actually reached the bank account.

In this invented case the overlap months are the tight ones, and they are also the first months of using the new unit. If the office expects the unit to add imaging visits, those visits are a reason to keep the six-month paydown short rather than a reason to stretch it.

That share is the number to set beside payroll, rent and lab bills before the order is signed. The dental office funding page works an implant motor and a second assistant's payroll the same way.