$365K AR RECOVERED. DEBT CLEARED.
A $2.3M commercial electrical subcontractor had a collections problem that spiraled into a debt problem. After building job costing from scratch and a systematic collections process, $365,000 in overdue receivables was recovered and all debt was cleared within 120 days.
This commercial electrical subcontractor had been borrowing to cover what wasn't coming in — AR sat uncollected long enough that the shortfall turned into real debt. There was no job costing structure underneath the business, so no one could say which jobs were actually funding the shortfall. Building job costing from the ground up and putting a systematic, scheduled collections process in place recovered $365,000 in aging receivables and cleared every dollar of debt in 120 days, ending with the first Christmas bonuses the owner had paid out in 11 years.
A $2.3M ELECTRICAL SUB. BORROWING TO STAY AFLOAT.
A $2.3M commercial electrical subcontractor came to SPM with a collections problem that had spiraled into a debt problem. Receivables were sitting uncollected, and the business had been borrowing to cover what wasn't coming in.
MONEY OWED. NO WAY TO CHASE IT.
The owner knew AR was piling up, but there was no consistent process to go after it. Some invoices got chased when someone remembered. Most didn't. Meanwhile, the gap between what was owed and what was in the bank kept getting covered with borrowed money — which meant every uncollected dollar was quietly costing more than its face value.
NO JOB COSTING. NO COLLECTIONS SYSTEM.
The diagnosis came down to two missing pieces working against each other in the Cash Control System: there was no job costing structure to show which jobs were carrying the business, and no systematic collections process to convert what was owed into cash on a schedule. Without either, AR aging turned into debt by default instead of getting caught early. Fixing it meant building both at once — see how the Cash Control System handles this for electrical subcontractors.
WHAT CHANGED, DOLLAR BY DOLLAR.
THE NUMBERS, NOT THE FEELING.
$365,000 in overdue receivables was recovered and all debt was cleared within 120 days. The owner paid out $23,000 in Christmas bonuses — the first time in 11 years the business had been in a position to do it.
Total time from first call to all debt cleared: 120 days. The AR recovery ran continuously across that period rather than landing in one lump collection.
DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
Contractors who recognize this pattern usually share these traits: AR that gets chased inconsistently instead of on a fixed schedule; borrowing to cover gaps that are really just uncollected receivables; no job costing structure to show which jobs are actually funding the business; and debt that crept up gradually rather than arriving all at once.
If that describes your business, the debt usually isn't the root problem — it's a symptom of AR that was never systematically chased. See how CFOS applies this specifically to electrical subcontractors on the Electrical Operating System page, or book a free diagnostic call.
