If your business cash flow is limited and you need a little breathing room, consider restructuring your equipment leases and loans. It is always possible to negotiate your existing leases. The main reason leasing companies don’t change the terms of the contract is because they are never asked to make changes. If you don’t ask, you don’t receive.

Here are 10 tips for renegotiating your equipment leases and loans.

1. Call the leasing company if you fall behind on your payments. Keep the lines of communication open.

2. Avoid late payment penalties. They can reach 10% of the lease payment. They add up quickly and are cumulative.

3. Negotiate late payment penalties if assessed. Sometimes leasing companies will forgive them if requested, as long as late payment has not been standard practice throughout the term of the lease.

4. Be proactive, not reactive, in the restructuring process. Have a plan. Make sure your financial statements and tax returns are ready to support your refinance application. Lenders will want to see your most recent year-end tax return and a current interim return with comparative periods for the previous year’s performance.

5. Discuss the possibility of restructuring payments. Options may include reducing payments by adding months to the end of the financial term. Support in the longer term with information on the useful life of the equipment.

6. Proposes an interest-only payment option for a few months to overcome a period of tight cash flow.

7. Deal with the manager of a leasing company or a bank officer. The customer service person is instructed to say, “We do not restructure leases.”

8. Know your contract options. This means reading your current lease document from start to finish. If pages are missing, request that they be sent to you.

9. Understand what will cause your lease to default. Often times, a default on a lease schedule means that all leases with the same financial institution will also default even though they are paid on time. Understand that breaching a lease will be very costly.

10. Refinancing and restructurings generally come with fees. The fee must be less than half percent of the total amount of the equipment acquisition cost.