TELECOM JOBS LOOK PROFITABLE. THE ACCOUNT IS STILL EMPTY.
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.
WHERE IT LEAKS OUT.
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.
WHAT MOVES MARGIN IN THIS TRADE.
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.
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.
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.
DAYS SALES OUTSTANDING.
Ninety days is weak, 45 is the target, 30 is strong. Nothing else moves cash faster.
| Position | Days | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Weak | 90 days | Roughly three months of work funded out of your own pocket. |
| Target | 45 days | You can get here on the days you control. Bill on time, send complete paperwork, and follow up in week two. |
| Strong | 30 days | Takes 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.
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.
