PROFITABLE JOBS. EMPTY BANK ACCOUNT.
Most subcontractors who run out of cash are earning a profit while doing it. The money is real, but it reaches the bank 60 to 90 days after they spend it, and nobody is controlling the timing. Cash Control is the CFOS module that forecasts 13 weeks ahead and turns cash timing into a decision you make instead of a surprise you absorb.
You can build a good business, win repeat work, and still spend every Friday deciding which vendor gets paid. That isn't a sales problem and it usually isn't a pricing problem either. Construction runs on accrual accounting, so your profit and loss records revenue when you invoice and costs when you incur them, while your bank account only knows what cleared. Those two numbers diverge by tens of thousands of dollars in a normal month, and the divergence is what puts a profitable contractor into a line of credit. Cash Control closes the distance by forecasting 13 weeks of receipts and payments before the month starts, so you know which week is short while you can still do something about it.
WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT THIS SYSTEM.
Payroll gets funded by the last check that cleared
Labor goes out weekly and gets collected 45 to 90 days later, so payroll is always funded by work you finished two months ago. When one general contractor pays late, the shortfall doesn't read as a late payment, it reads as a payroll you have to cover from the line of credit. Owners describe this as a slow paying customer when it's really an unfunded 60 day labor float.
The line of credit becomes permanent
A line of credit is built to cover a few weeks of timing, and it works until it never gets paid back to zero. Once the balance stops touching zero, you're financing operations at 9 to 12 percent and calling it working capital. Every dollar of interest comes straight off net profit, and nothing about the jobs changed.
Decisions get made on the bank balance
When there's no forecast, the bank balance becomes the only number available, so bonuses, equipment, and hires get decided on whatever cleared that week. November and December look strong because summer work is collecting while almost nothing is being built, and April and May look terrible because you're staffing up against billings that haven't gone out yet. Buying a truck in December on a fat balance is how a contractor ends up drawing on credit in February.
WHAT OWNERS THINK IS WRONG. WHAT IS CAUSING IT.
What owners think: Owners tell themselves they need more revenue, better customers, or a tougher collections person, so they chase bigger jobs and hire someone to make calls.
What's causing it: The timing between spending money and collecting it's the constraint, and revenue makes it worse rather than better. A larger job spends more labor and material up front and collects on the same 60 day cycle, so growth widens the hole it's supposed to fill. Until somebody forecasts the next 13 weeks and manages the calendar of money, more work just means a bigger float to carry.
WHAT THIS MODULE DELIVERS.
WHERE IT HITS HARDEST.
Seasonal revenue against year round overhead
Civil contractors bill hard from spring through fall and then carry payroll, equipment notes, and insurance through two months with almost nothing to invoice. The winter draw is predictable to the week, which means it can be funded on purpose from summer collections. Without a forecast, that same predictable winter hits as an emergency every year.
Material buyout before the first pay application
Switchgear, wire, and equipment get bought early to lock pricing and hold the schedule, which puts six figures out the door before a single pay application is approved. Retention holds another 5 to 10 percent for months after the work is complete. The job earns well and still consumes cash for most of its duration.
Many small invoices, no single lever to pull
A specialty service contractor might carry 80 open invoices across 30 customers, none of them large enough to chase on their own. Cash comes in as a trickle of small payments whose timing nobody tracks, so a bad week looks random. Forecasting by week makes the trickle predictable and shows which handful of customers set the whole month.
THE OUTCOME IN PLAIN NUMBERS.
The first thing that changes is the calendar. Instead of learning on Thursday that Friday is short, you know six weeks out which week is short and by how much, which turns a scramble into a choice between accelerating a billing, holding a payment, or drawing deliberately on the line.
One civil client wanted to pay $100,000 in bonuses the week of Thanksgiving because they'd had a record year. We simulated it in the forecast and the problem was immediate: the collections to fund it wouldn't clear until mid December, so the bonus would come off the line of credit. Carried forward to February, with nothing substantial being built, they'd have been $20,000 into the line and climbing another $20,000 a week into late March.
So they paid a smaller bonus in November and moved the rest to a quarterly schedule that added up to $104,000 over the year. The people got more money, the business never touched the line of credit, and the only thing that changed was knowing the answer before writing the check.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
