OUT OF CASH WITH THE WORK SOLD.
A low bank balance tells you that money left faster than it came in. It doesn't tell you why, and the six usual reasons need six different responses: work performed and never billed, work billed and not collected, retainage piling up, an overhead rate too low to fund the business, growth consuming working capital faster than finished jobs return it, and debt service from a shortfall you already funded once. Five of the six are fixable inside a month. The sixth takes a year. Working out which one you have takes about half an hour with a job cost report, an AR aging and a bank statement.
Two contractors with the same balance and the same backlog can be four weeks from comfortable or fourteen months from solvent, and nothing on the bank statement distinguishes them.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Running out of cash in construction is a symptom with six common causes that are indistinguishable from the bank balance, and the fix depends entirely on which one a company has.
The reason this diagnosis gets skipped is that the symptom is loud and the causes are quiet. When payroll is Friday, a contractor reaches for whatever moves money fastest, which is usually financing, and financing converts every one of these six causes into the sixth one. That's why the order below is by speed of recovery rather than by how common each cause is: the two fastest need nobody's permission, and doing them first is what buys the room to fix the rest properly.
SIX CAUSES, ONE SET OF SYMPTOMS.
The balance gets checked daily and diagnosed never
An owner who looks at the bank balance every morning knows the number better than his accountant does and still can't say which of the six he has, because the balance is a result and the causes are all upstream of it. Watching it more often produces more anxiety and no more information. A month end close by the tenth, an AR aging and a job cost report answer the question in one sitting, and most companies in this position have all three available and haven't read them side by side.
The fastest fix gets tried last
Unbilled performed work is the one source of cash that needs nobody's agreement. It's your own invoice, on your own work, and it can be on a general contractor's desk this week. In our client work it's regularly the largest single item and almost never the first one anybody looks at, because it doesn't feel like a problem. Nothing is late, nothing is disputed and nobody is chasing you about it. The work is simply finished and unclaimed.
Financing gets used as a diagnosis
A line of credit draw or a merchant cash advance closes the immediate shortfall and leaves the cause untouched, so the same shortfall returns with debt service on top of it. That's how cause six is created, and it's why the sixth cause is the only one on this list that takes a year: you're now funding the original problem plus the cost of having funded it. Financing is a legitimate tool for a known and dated shortfall. It's a poor substitute for finding out which of the six you have.
A structural cause read as a timing problem
Causes one through three and five are timing. Cause four, an overhead rate too low to fund the business, isn't, and it's the one that no amount of faster billing repairs, because every job you win is priced below what running the company costs. It looks like a timing problem for a year or two, because growth masks it: new jobs bring in front end money that funds the previous jobs' shortfall. It stops looking like timing when revenue flattens, which is the point at which most contractors call somebody.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Take every open job. Compare cost to date against billed to date, both at your own margin. Where cost has run ahead of billing, you've performed work you haven't claimed. Fastest possible recovery, because it goes on this month's pay application and needs no conversation. If this figure is more than about two weeks of revenue you've found your problem, and the fix is a billing cadence rather than a financing decision.
Compute days sales outstanding: accounts receivable divided by revenue, times 365. Ninety days is weak, 45 is the target and 30 is strong. Then read the aging by general contractor rather than in total, because a healthy 45 day average made of two GCs at 20 days and one at 95 is one customer problem attached to a specific company and a specific subcontract. Recovery in two to eight weeks, and it's the cause most likely to be solved by a phone call to the right person.
Add the retainage held across every open and recently closed job. It's money earned that nobody is going to send on the normal cycle, and at five to ten percent of contract value across a full backlog it's regularly the largest single sum owed to a subcontractor. The recovery is closeout discipline and negotiated release at substantial completion rather than final, which is a subcontract term you can ask for. Slower than one and two, and the largest of the three.
Total fixed costs for the last twelve months divided by revenue for the same twelve months. Compare it to the rate in your bids. If the real rate is higher, every job you've won is underpriced by the difference, which on $4M of revenue and a four point difference is $160,000 a year that no billing cadence can recover. This one is structural, the fix applies only to work not yet bid, and it takes a full bid cycle before it reaches cash. It's also the cause most often mistaken for the other five.
Working capital is current assets minus current liabilities, and the standard is 10 percent of annual revenue at the low end, 13 as the target and 15 at the high end. A current ratio below 1.3 says the same thing a second way. A company growing 40 percent a year is funding the front end of new jobs out of the collections of old ones, and there's a revenue level at which that stops working with every job still profitable. The fix is a funded growth plan, or slower growth, and both are decisions rather than repairs.
Add every fixed monthly payment: line of credit interest, equipment notes, term debt, and anything with daily or weekly repayment. Against a debt to equity ceiling of 1.0, a company above that has a structural problem wearing a cash flow costume. Merchant cash advances and daily repayment products belong here, and they consume collections before the collections reach the operating account. Recovery is measured in quarters and it starts with the other five, because you can't refinance your way out of a company that's underpriced.
One and two first, because they're your own money on your own work and they can move within the week. Three next, because it's the biggest of the three timing causes. Four in parallel, because it applies to work not yet bid and every week of delay is another bid priced wrong. Five and six last, because both are decisions about the size and structure of the business rather than repairs, and both are much easier to make from a funded position than from a Thursday afternoon.
THREE MOVES, IN THIS ORDER.
All six tests above run off three documents: a job cost report with cost and billing to date by job, an accounts receivable aging, and twelve months of profit and loss. Most contractors in this position have all three and have never read them in one sitting, because each one lives with a different person. Set aside thirty minutes and write the six figures on one page. Whichever one is largest relative to a month of revenue is where your cash went, and it's usually not the one you would have guessed.
A forecast built on contract terms is wrong every month in the same direction. Date each receipt on how that specific general contractor has really paid you over the last year, put retainage on its own line because it doesn't come in on the normal cycle, and run thirteen weeks rather than a month, because the week you need to see is rarely the one you're in. This converts the question from whether you'll be short into which week and by how much, which is answerable and therefore fundable on your terms and not on a Friday.
The six figures move every month, and a diagnosis from a close six weeks stale routes you to last month's problem. Books closed and bank reconciliations done by the tenth, the job cost report reviewed against the forecast, and one meeting that ends in decisions and not in observations. That cadence is what stops this page from being needed a second time, and it's roughly what a company can run in about five hours a month once the structure underneath it's right.
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, and no add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
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.
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 rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
