Santa Fe, Texas: planning cash around the storm calendar

A railroad name on State Highway 6

Santa Fe is a city in Galveston County, named for the Santa Fe Railroad, now part of BNSF Railway, which runs through the town alongside State Highway 6. At the 2020 census it had 12,735 residents. League City, Galveston, Texas City, Friendswood, Dickinson, La Marque, Hitchcock and Kemah are nearby, and Galveston County had 350,682 residents with Galveston as the seat.

A calendar of cash risk

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30. Coastal and marine firms around Santa Fe plan around it, and so do the shops and trades that serve them. A useful way to think about the season is as a series of questions with a dollar amount attached:

1. What does it cost to prepare, and who pays for it?
2. How many weeks of payroll can we carry if we are closed?
3. What do we owe vendors and the landlord during that time?
4. How will we pay for repairs if the claim has not been paid?

Most owners can answer the first and second. The third and fourth are where working capital helps.

Insurance, TWIA and the gap in the middle

TWIA is a not-for-profit insurer of windstorm and hail coverage for property owners who cannot get it in the regular market. Coverage is a good thing to have, but it does not change the fact that an adjuster, an estimate and a payment take time. During those weeks, a business still has bills. If you can cover that gap, you can keep staff and hold on to customers while the claim resolves.

Not just a storm story

Santa Fe also has the ordinary pressures of a growing suburb: contractors waiting on commercial customers, restaurants buying ingredients for the week, small manufacturers and haulers whose invoices run net-30 or net-45, and service firms that take on one more employee before the work shows up. Working capital addresses each of these the same way, by covering costs that arrive earlier than revenue.

Questions to settle before the season, not during it

Owners who come through a storm in good shape usually answered a few boring questions months earlier: where the key records are kept, who has authority to order repairs, which vendors will extend credit and which will not, and how much cash is available on day one after a closure. The last answer is the one that changes the most. Cash on hand during a closure turns a bad week into an inconvenience. If your answer is "not enough," it is better to find that out in a quiet month, and to look at funding then, than on the morning after.

For illustration only

A hypothetical Santa Fe air-conditioning contractor has $24,000 in equipment and parts to buy ahead of a busy summer, then a delayed commercial customer payment of $15,000. The owner can wait, or finance the stretch. Those round numbers are an example, not an offer or a typical case.

Start with a five-minute application

We consider $25,000 to $5,000,000, use a soft credit pull and can fund in as little as 24 hours. Sole proprietors can apply. Read about Greater Houston or Galveston County, or apply now.