THE CASH YOU NEED IS ALREADY HELD IN YOUR COMPANY.
Working capital optimization sounds like banker language for a simple idea: shorten the time between paying for work and getting paid for it, and the same company operates on far less cash. The levers, in order of speed, are billing velocity, since every day shaved off pay app submission is a day of float gone, collections discipline, which keeps invoices from aging, retainage managed as its own receivable class, because at most subs it's six figures earned and ignored, supplier terms negotiated deliberately, and overbilling used as the zero interest financing it is, visibly and on purpose.
None of the five levers require a bank, a new investor, or a better year. They move money your own company already earned out of other people's accounts and into yours. That's why the billing and collections work comes first in every engagement: it costs nothing, it moves in weeks rather than quarters, and it lowers the amount of working capital the business needs to tie up at the same time it raises the amount the business holds. The structural levers, supplier terms and the design of the schedule of values, compound behind those two once the fast cash is in the bank.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Working capital optimization is the work of shortening the time between paying for work and getting paid for it, so the same company operates on less cash.
Working capital isn't raised. It gets released from the cycle that's holding it. Two subs doing identical revenue with a 30 day cycle and a 60 day cycle need very different amounts of cash to operate, and the one with the longer cycle will spend years borrowing the difference from a bank instead of taking it back out of its own billing calendar.
WHERE THE MONEY IS STUCK.
Billing velocity, because every day between work and invoice is a loan you're making
The cheapest working capital improvement in construction is to bill faster and bill clean. Pay apps out on the GC's cutoff with zero rejectable errors, schedules of values front loaded to fund mobilization, stored materials billed the month they get to the site, and change orders on the next app rather than next quarter. A sub billing 10 days late on $500K monthly volume is permanently lending the GCs $165K. Rebuilt billing produced $310K of recovered receivables in 30 days at one civil contractor, and the structure rather than the effort was the difference.
The collections cadence, because receivables age in silence
Confirmation at submission, a status check before the due date, a same week call at past due, and a recurring weekly AR review. Days sales outstanding dropping from 65 to 45 on $6M of revenue releases roughly $330K of permanent working capital, which is cash that was always yours held in other people's accounts. The cadence is what removes the silence, and it costs one scheduled hour a week.
Retainage as a managed receivable, because nobody owns the six figure balance
Retainage at 5 to 10 percent across an active book becomes the biggest single receivable in the company and the least managed, because nobody tracks release conditions to the day. The discipline is every job's retainage balance, contract release terms, and trigger dates on one schedule, reduction requested at substantial completion where the contract allows it, and release invoiced the day conditions are met. Subs who start managing retainage typically find months of overhead held in it.
Supplier terms, negotiated rather than accepted by default
The payable side of working capital is real and it has a cliff. Silently aging suppliers to 60 ends in COD, and COD on material heavy work destroys the whole cycle. The professional approach is to negotiate terms out loud: net 45 on major accounts, early pay discounts measured against your real cost of cash, and deposit structures on big buys moved toward delivery. Suppliers extend terms to subs who communicate and pay on the day they said they would, and that reputation is a working capital asset with a balance.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A verified civil client at $7.1M, days away from merchant cash advances, didn't need new money. He needed his own money back. Rebuilt schedules of values, pay app timing, and scheduled collections produced $310K in the first 30 days and $309K in the bank by day 30. The working capital was in the cycle the whole time.
The $12M vision's balance sheet shows $1.2M of working capital available, a $650K cash floor, and zero debt. Those numbers don't get raised from a bank. They accumulate out of a cycle that releases cash instead of holding it, then get protected by the 13 week forecast.
Days sales outstanding is the cleanest working capital metric a sub can manage. Twenty days of improvement on $6M of annual volume permanently releases about $330K, and it releases it without a single dollar of retained profit.
RESEARCH FROM OTHER SOURCES.
These figures come from another company's survey, not from SPM's clients. Each one cites the report and the page.
Billd's 2026 National Subcontractor Market Report found subcontractors who included the cost of capital in their bids reported average profitability of 14.6 percent, against 11.7 percent for those who did not, which Billd describes as 25 percent more profitable.
Source: Billd, 2026 National Subcontractor Market Report, page 15 (survey of 623 respondents, published May 13, 2026).
Billd doesn't say whether its profitability figure is before or after taxes, so it isn't comparable to the before tax net profit figures on this site.
WHAT GETS RELEASED, BY TRADE.
Billing modestly ahead of cost through front loaded schedules of values is construction's only zero interest financing, and it's legitimate when it's visible. The discipline is the WIP schedule: know the over and under position on every job monthly, treat the overbilled cushion as borrowed time rather than profit, and never let the back half of a job turn into a surprise. Overbilled and aware is a strategy. The target state for the whole system is the $12M vision, which operates on $1.2M of working capital and a $650K minimum cash floor, numbers a tight cycle produces and a loose one never will.
The cash is held between the ready mix invoice at net 30 and the pay app collecting in 60. Billing velocity and supplier terms do the heavy lifting here: stored material billing, front loaded schedules of values, and supplier terms negotiated before the big pour months rather than after cash gets tight.
The cash is held in mobilization and quantities, with big upfront costs, unit price billing that lags what the field did, and retainage on long public jobs. Quantity reconciliation every month and retainage tracked to release dates routinely release six figures.
The cash is held in the gear package, which is paid for months before it bills. Deposit negotiation, billing for fabricated items and stored materials, and change order velocity, meaning the forty small changes billed this cycle rather than eventually, are the electrical specific releases.
The cash is held in volume, with hundreds of small invoices where a few days of billing lag on each one compounds into permanent float. Per site billing automation and one consolidated collections motion per GC turn administrative delay into released cash.
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.
