THE CASH YOU NEED IS ALREADY TRAPPED 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 runs 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 free 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 carry 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 runs 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 run, 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 standing 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 sitting 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 sitting in it.
Supplier terms, negotiated rather than drifted into
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 carries $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 trapping 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.
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 runs 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 gets trapped 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 the squeeze.
The cash gets trapped 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 free six figures.
The cash gets trapped 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 gets trapped 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 drag 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, 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.
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