You're winning jobs. You're billing. You're working. And you're still short on cash. This isn't bad luck. It's a system problem — and it has a system fix.
Running out of cash doesn't mean your business is failing. Most contractors who come to SPM with a cash crisis have a profitable business — the P&L confirms it. The problem is that profit and cash are two different things that follow completely different timelines in construction. The billing gap is structural. Without a system built around it, every growth spurt makes it worse.
You mobilize on day one. Payroll starts immediately. You wait 30 days to submit Pay App 1, 15–30 days for GC approval, and 30 more days for payment. You're 75–90 days in before a dollar comes back. On multiple simultaneous jobs, this gap multiplies.
The average SPM client at intake has $80,000–$300,000 in AR older than 45 days with zero follow-up. The money is earned. The invoices are submitted. Nobody called. The GC isn't paying because nothing is making them.
Your overhead rate was set when the business was smaller. The business grew. Overhead grew with it. The rate in bids never changed. Now every job is underpriced by the difference and you're funding the shortfall from what you thought was profit.
Every new job requires upfront cash before the first payment arrives. Double revenue and you've doubled the cash gap you're funding simultaneously. The faster you grow, the deeper the hole — unless the billing system scales with it.
Most contractors find out they're short on Thursday for Friday payroll. A 13-week cash flow forecast makes the gap visible 8 weeks in advance. You can act instead of react.
Pull every invoice over 30 days. Call on every one — not a statement, a call. Most contractors collect $50,000–$200,000 in the first 30 days just by following up on what's already owed. This generates immediate cash without new work or new debt.
Get every GC's pay app cut-off date. Submit on the first eligible day of each period. Never miss a cut-off. One missed cut-off on a $300K/month job delays $300K by 30 days.
Add every fixed cost including owner compensation and divide by billable revenue. If the number is higher than what's in your bids, every future bid gets corrected immediately. The correction stops the slow bleed.
Map every outflow and inflow for 13 weeks. Update it weekly. The cash gaps become visible weeks in advance so you can act rather than react — and never call a lender in a panic again.
This contractor came to SPM with a $348,000 line of credit fully drawn and an MCA on top of it. The business was profitable. But cash was structurally impossible because the billing cycle was 45 days behind on every job and nobody was chasing AR.
In 60 days — from collecting outstanding AR and fixing the pay app timing on three active jobs. The cash was already there.
In employee bonuses paid after the LOC was cleared. The same cash that had been cycling through the LOC every month was now staying in the business.
A free call with Josh takes 30 minutes. Bring your last P&L and current bank balance. The gap between those two numbers is where we start.
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