YOU EARNED THE MONEY. IT JUST ISN'T IN YOUR BANK YET.
Construction cash timing is the structural distance between when a subcontractor performs work and when cash comes in for that work. That distance, caused by billing lag, GC pay cycles, retainage holdbacks, and material procurement timing, explains why a profitable company can have no cash left on a regular basis. The work is real. The margin is real. The cash just hasn't caught up yet.
This isn't one problem with one fix. It's four separate delays stacked end to end, and each one has a different owner and a different cure. Billing lag is yours to fix and it is published in full. The GC pay cycle is a forecasting problem rather than a collections problem. Retainage is a contract term you can negotiate before signing and a release you have to go ask for. Procurement float is a scheduling decision made months before the invoice is sent. Owners who treat all four as one cash problem end up borrowing against three delays they could have closed for nothing.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Construction cash timing is the structural distance between when a subcontractor performs work and when the cash for that work reaches the bank, and it's caused by billing lag, GC pay cycles, retainage holdbacks, and material procurement timing.
FOUR PLACES THE MONEY STAYS AND WAITS.
Billing lag, work to invoice
This is the stretch between finishing the work and getting the invoice out. Commercial subcontractors typically take 18 to 22 days. On $500K a month in billing that's $330K of work performed and not yet invoiced, and on $6M annually it's approximately $1.1M held in that state at any given time. The money is earned and it's invisible, because nothing in the accounting system reports work you haven't billed.
GC pay cycle, invoice to payment
Once the invoice is in, the GC controls the calendar. Private commercial GCs typically pay within 30 to 45 days of invoice receipt, and public work through DOT and municipal agencies takes 60 to 90 days. Stack that on top of billing lag and the total window from work performed to cash deposited is 50 to 65 days on private work and 80 to 110 days on public work. That's a quarter of a year on the long end.
Retainage, payment held to project completion
Standard contracts hold back 5 to 10% of every payment until project completion or final acceptance. On a $1.2M subcontract at 10%, that's $120K withheld for the duration of the project, sometimes 12 to 18 months after your scope is finished. Without tracking it separately and asking for release on a schedule, retainage stays there indefinitely, because nobody on the GC's side is assigned to give it back.
Procurement timing, materials paid before billing
Material buying reverses the cash cycle. A concrete sub purchases $80K in rebar on net-30 supplier terms, pays the supplier inside 30 days, doesn't invoice the GC until month end, and then waits another 35 days for payment. That procurement float is funded out of working capital, which means the business made a loan to the project that the bid never priced.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Public pay cycles are the binding constraint. Payroll is weekly and DOT and municipal checks take 60 to 90 days. A civil sub spending $400K a month on public work is floating $800K to $1.2M of earned revenue in the collection cycle at once. The margins are fine. The money is months behind the payroll that produced it.
Material concentration makes it acute. Ready-mix invoices come due net-30 from the pour date while the pay app covering that pour collects in 45 to 60 days, so on multiple pours a month the supplier gets paid before the GC pays, structurally, every time. Aligning the pour schedule against the billing calendar is the operational fix.
Material packages create long float. A $180K gear package bought in March, installed in May, billed in June, and collected in July is a four-month float the bid never priced. Deposit billing and stored-material clauses recover most of it, and both have to be in the contract before the order goes in.
Small delays compound across many locations. Forty sites billing monthly with staggered approval cycles means cash comes in as a smear rather than a check, and emergency rain-event work bills late because the documentation trails the response. Same-week documentation discipline is what fixes it.
A $7.1M civil contractor headed toward merchant cash advance dependency rebuilt its billing process with SOV setup and pay-app timing discipline, and $310K in overdue receivables reached the bank in the first 30 days. The money existed the whole time. Separately, on $6M in annual revenue, the difference between invoicing 5 days after completion and 20 days after completion is roughly $246K permanently parked in unbilled float, either borrowed at LOC rates or pulled out of operations for zero return.
WHAT WE CHANGE.
Invoices get staged for submission 5 days before each GC's cutoff date rather than at month end. On most projects that cuts billing lag from 18 to 22 days down to 5 to 7 days, which recovers 13 to 15 days of cash timing on every invoice. Nothing about it requires the GC's cooperation, which is why it's the first thing we fix.
The forecast models billing lag, GC pay cycle, retainage position, and procurement timing at the same time, by project and by week. The owner sees 13 weeks of cash in and cash out that accounts for all four delays instead of a bank balance that reports the past. Every delay becomes a scheduled event rather than a surprise.
Every project's retainage balance gets tracked separately from current AR, with the release trigger mapped at contract signing. When the project reaches substantial completion the release request goes out within 5 days, instead of months later when somebody finally thinks to ask. Retainage is the easiest money in the business to leave on the table.
Major material purchases get modeled into the forecast when the purchase commitment is made rather than when the supplier invoice comes in. The owner sees the cash impact of a procurement decision before making it, which sometimes changes the order date and sometimes changes the terms. Either way it stops being a surprise in week six.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 to $3,300 | $1,000 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $5,300 | $1,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $8,300 | $3,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $11,800 | $4,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $14,900 | $6,000 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $17,650 | $7,500 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $22,400 | $9,000 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually | Quoted individually |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
