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$14M
equipment fleet, up from ~$3M in 2023
$600K
in cost reductions identified and cut
$1.2M
EBITDA this past year; profitable since 2022
Client snapshot
- The client
- K-Tech Equipment — heavy equipment sales and rental for the 1-to-20-person crew, Upstate South Carolina (ktechequip.com)
- Founded
- 2017, by brothers Eric and Andrew King — second generation of an equipment family (Ron King's Heavy Salvage)
- The growth
- From a one-acre shop in Pickens to 40,000 sq ft on 26 acres — $14M in equipment, 28 employees
- The turn
- Bootstrapped until 2023, when demand outran the fleet — nationals stock $15–$20M per location; K-Tech held ~$3M
- Spara's role
- Fractional CFO, entity-level reporting, banking, cost management, and strategic advisory
Services used
- Fractional CFO
- Entity-level monthly reporting
- Banking & lender relations
- Cash & debt management
- Cost & profitability analysis
- Ramp & internal controls
- Expansion & succession advisory
The challenge
Eric and Andrew King knew equipment. They grew up in it, launched K-Tech in 2017, and bootstrapped it on family capital and collateral — no outside debt. By 2023 the formula hit a ceiling. Their new facility was open, customers were calling faster than the fleet could turn, and the math was blunt: national competitors stock $15–$20 million in equipment per location. K-Tech held roughly $3 million. To compete, they had to at least double.
That meant debt — and a language the family had never needed. Andrew ran the operations cold but couldn't trust his own reports: a truck purchase miscoded as $112,000 of “office expense,” payroll that looked like $1,000 but actually cost $1,694 once taxes and benefits landed. Bankers loved the story over lunch. Underwriters wanted numbers.
Why Spara
The Kings already ran a roundtable of advisors — wealth management, estate attorneys, a tax CPA. One seat stayed empty: a CFO inside the business. A first fractional CFO reviewed emailed files once a month, but with unreliable books it was garbage in, garbage out. Through the dean of Clemson's MBA program, Andrew met Chris Rawlings, CPA — and Spara took the opposite approach: start in the bookkeeping itself, fix how every number enters the system, then advise on numbers worth trusting.
“It's one of those things — I can't afford a CFO. I can't afford NOT to have a CFO.”
The partnership, phase by phase
Phase 1 · Fix the foundation
Spara started where the numbers are born: the bookkeeping. Paper checks and folders of receipts became Ramp and QuickBooks Online, with internal controls around purchasing, approvals, and disbursements. Streamlined AP let K-Tech eliminate an administrative position — and the monthly reports turned professional enough that, in Andrew's words, you couldn't tell them from a $20 billion company's.
Phase 2 · Speak the bank's language
Spara sat beside Andrew in the meetings with bankers — opening the books, showing the trend, and explaining exactly what the money would buy and how it would be repaid. An independent advisor at the table changed how lenders read K-Tech. Loan renewals that once took weeks of report-gathering now go out with a click.
Phase 3 · Know the real numbers
Clean data exposed the truths gut feel had hidden: $13,900 to a single tire supplier in one month, and true monthly equipment payments well beyond what leadership had assumed. The family set a hard debt service coverage ceiling — a shared number, not a gut check — and spent the next years refining the fleet and processes inside it.
Phase 4 · Cut costs, fund growth
Working with Andrew on cost structure, Spara helped identify roughly $600,000 in reductions. Profitability has grown every year since 2022 — about $1.2 million in EBITDA this past year — and the next move is planned to the dollar: a new location modeled and forecasted to be funded by current operations and cost shares.
Results
$600,000 in costs cut — identified with Spara and executed by leadership — the single biggest driver of growing margins.
$1.2M EBITDA this past year, with profitability rising every year since 2022 even as gross revenue fluctuated.
$14M fleet, financed with discipline — growth capital raised with its banking partners under a family-set debt service coverage ceiling.
Weeks to one click — lender reporting that once took weeks of gathering now goes out same-day at renewal.
Expansion by arithmetic, not gut — the next location modeled and forecasted to be funded by current operations and cost shares.
In Andrew's words
“Going to a bank, you've got to speak an alien language. Spara helps you speak it.”
“I think if I erased the name off the front of our reports, you wouldn't know whether we were a $20 billion company.”
“Four years ago, Spartanburg would have been a gut-check feeling. Now I know what it will cost — and I can pluck out exactly 12 things to free that up. You can't put a dollar price on that.”
“If you have doubts about your numbers — or honestly, if you're too confident about your numbers — that might be just as much of a problem.”
“If another business owner called me tomorrow about bringing in Spara? You can't afford not to do it. Truly.”