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WHY YOU'RE SHORT

TELECOM JOBS LOOK PROFITABLE. THE ACCOUNT IS STILL EMPTY.

QUICK ANSWER

Telecom subcontractors have no cash left for reasons specific to how the work is built and billed, on jobs that are making money. The three that cost the most in this trade are below, taken from telecom contractor research. Most are at 75 to 90 days from finishing work to holding the money, and 45 days is achievable.

Cash and profit are measured on different clocks. Your profit and loss records revenue when you invoice and costs when you incur them, while the bank account only knows what cleared. Labour goes out weekly and collects 45 to 90 days later, minus retention. That distance is what a growing, profitable telecom company funds out of pocket, and it widens as you grow. The specific things that widen it in this trade are what the rest of this page is about.

BY JOSH LUEBKERPublished 2026-08-06Updated 2026-11-02
WHERE THE CASH GOES IN TELECOM

WHERE IT LEAKS OUT.

01 · Carrier terms and documentation gates

Same carrier-calendar economics as the fiber file (unit-price MSAs, closeout-audit payment gates, 51-day average wait per Billd 2026), applied to ticket volume. A hundred small unbilled tickets are the same receivable as one big one, and harder to see. In telecom, billing when the documentation is complete means closing tickets daily: photos, sign-offs and closeout packages per ticket.

The system that controls this

THE THREE THAT DECIDE THE YEAR

WHAT MOVES MARGIN IN THIS TRADE.

LEAK 01

The Windshield Tax

Many crews, many tickets, and one number decides everything: billable hours per crew-day. Travel time, staging and access failures cut it. You won't see it until you track utilization per crew, per week.

LEAK 02

The Hundred Small Receivables

Carrier MSAs pay per ticket against closeout documentation. A hundred unbilled tickets are easier to miss than one big invoice. Close tickets daily (photos, sign-offs, packages). That's how you collect.

LEAK 03

The Blended Book

Maintenance pays small and steady. Projects pay big and slow. One P&L over both won't show which side pays for which, and you price both wrong until you split them.

THE NUMBER TO MANAGE

DAYS SALES OUTSTANDING.

Ninety days is weak, 45 is the target, 30 is strong. Nothing else moves cash faster.

PositionDaysWhat it means
Weak90 daysRoughly three months of work funded out of your own pocket.
Target45 daysYou can get here on the days you control. Bill on time, send complete paperwork, and follow up in week two.
Strong30 daysTakes work every month. It's the cheapest money you can get.

Moving from 90 days to 45 frees roughly annual revenue divided by 365, times 45 days. At $4M that's about $493,000. At $8M it's about $986,000. That money costs no interest and needs no bank. So we fix billing and collections before we talk about financing.

WHERE YOU SHOULD BE

TELECOM BENCHMARKS.

Telecom subcontractors at $1M to $5M net 7 percent, against the CFOS net profit target, set at your trade's net profit average at your revenue plus 3.5 points, never below 10 percent, before taxes. The working capital target is 13 percent of annual revenue, and the monthly close should finish by day 10 so the numbers can still change a decision.

Full telecom benchmarks
COMMON QUESTIONS

FREQUENTLY ASKED.

Because the jobs earn before the money comes in. Labour and material go out on a weekly cycle and collect 45 to 90 days later, with 5 to 10 percent held as retention behind that. In telecom specifically that distance is widened by carrier terms and documentation gates. None of that reads as a loss on any single job, which is why it goes unaddressed.

Once, from one capture point: the ticket. Field time recorded on the ticket goes into job costing and reconciles to payroll, with prevailing-wage classifications mapped where funded work applies. Check it at the handoff. Every mismatch is either an overpayment or a wage claim. (SPM structures and reconciles this flow; payroll processing itself stays with your payroll provider.)

Three tiers, and which one you are in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. On Core we build your plan every month and your team does the work: job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a monthly meeting that ends in decisions, while your bookkeeper keeps doing the books. On Strategic we build the plan, track it and adjust it every month: our team does the bookkeeping and the bank reconciliations, and the job costing and WIP software is set up and managed for you, on your own online software or ours. On Platinum we manage the money side for you every week: our team handles your bills and receivables the way an in-house controller would, and you approve every payment. We don't do payroll.
$10.7M+
Client AR Recovered Since 2023
48
Active Trade Specializations
60 DAYS
Average Onboarding Time
WHAT THIS TIES INTO
Josh Luebker, SPM The Construction CFO
Josh Luebker
FRACTIONAL CFO · SPM THE CONSTRUCTION CFO

Josh Luebker is a master electrician turned construction CFO, president of SPM The Construction CFO and author of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.

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