GETTING OUT OF DEBT WITHOUT KILLING THE COMPANY.
Construction debt spirals have a standard anatomy. Billing slips, collections drift, the line of credit maxes out covering payroll, and then the merchant cash advances come in with daily draws that consume the revenue that was supposed to dig you out. The exit sequence that works is to inventory every obligation by real cost, stop new leakage by fixing billing and collections first because that engine funds everything else, kill the advances before anything else since their effective rates run 60 to 200 percent, then restructure the survivable debt and refinance on clean books. A $3.4M civil sub eliminated four advances this way, and a $7.1M contractor cleared two maxed lines and an SBA loan in 90 days.
Debt is the symptom and the billing and collections engine is the cure, but the order of payoff is what decides whether the company survives the process. Nobody bids their way out of a 90 percent effective rate, which is why the sequence starts with recovered cash rather than with new revenue. Money you already earned and never collected is the cheapest capital available and it needs approval from nobody. Sequence beats effort here, and the one page debt inventory is what makes a sequence possible at all.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A merchant cash advance is short term funding repaid by a daily draw off your deposits and priced with a factor rate rather than an interest rate, which is why its effective cost commonly runs 60 to 200 percent.
The reason the spiral keeps running after the owner knows about it's that every obligation on the stack feels equally urgent, so payments go out by whoever called last. Ranking the stack by real cost and by what each creditor can do to you turns a panic into a plan. Nothing else on this page works before that ranking exists.
WHERE THE DEBT CAME FROM.
The line of credit ends up funding payroll
The anatomy is the same nearly every time. Billing slips, collections drift, and the line of credit gets drawn to cover payroll and not to cover timing. Once the line is fully drawn there's no buffer left, so the next tight Friday has nowhere to go. A line funding operations instead of timing has stopped being a tool and become a second problem.
The daily draw eats the money before you see it
Merchant cash advances take their cut daily off the top, which starves payroll, suppliers, and every other creditor of the same dollars. Daily draws commonly consume 10 to 20 percent of deposits while the work itself stays profitable. Mathematically they're always the most expensive debt on the page, and operationally they're a tourniquet on the company's throat.
The second advance exists to survive the first
The trap that runs across every trade starts with a missed payroll scare, then a same-day approval, then a second advance taken to survive the first. Each one is easier to get than the last and each one takes a bigger share of the deposits. Nobody bids their way out of a 90 percent effective rate, so the spiral is structural rather than a discipline problem.
The real cost of the stack is hidden by design
Most owners have never seen their debt on one page. An advance contract buries the effective rate inside a factor rate and a daily draw, so a 1.35 factor over six months is roughly 90 percent or more effective and still reads like a fee. Until the whole stack is listed with balances, payments, rates, collateral, and personal guarantees, no payoff decision can be made, because there's nothing to rank.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A verified civil client at $3.4M came in with four merchant cash advances draining the account daily, 5 percent gross margins, and 32 percent overhead. The full sequence of triage, engine, advance payoff, and restructure ran over eighteen months. Every advance is gone, margins rebuilt to 33 percent gross profit, overhead came down to 14 percent, and the company is on track to be completely debt-free in 2026.
A $7.1M civil contractor was days from signing his first merchant cash advance when the engine work started. $310K of AR was recovered in 30 days, $309K was in the bank by day 30, and both lines plus the SBA loan cleared in 90 days. Then $750K of new credit was approved on the clean books. He never signed the advance.
A $6.7M civil contractor's fully drawn $348K line wasn't funding timing, it was funding an unmeasured 30 percent overhead rate. Overhead was cut to 17 percent, collections were systematized, and the line was paid to zero in 60 days. The debt was never the problem. The leak was.
A $2.3M electrical sub broke the gear-debt loop with $365K of recovered AR. The debt cleared in 120 days, $89K was left in the bank, and the $80K line rested at zero. The gear had been fine. The collections behind it weren't.
FOUR STEPS OUT, IN ORDER.
List everything with its balance, payment, rate, collateral, and personal guarantee, and for the advances add the effective APR the contract hides inside factor rates and daily draws. A 1.35 factor over six months is roughly 90 percent or more effective. Most owners have never seen their debt on one page, and the page itself changes decisions. Rank by real cost and by what each creditor can do to you, because that ranking is the payoff order.
No debt plan works without new cash, and the fastest new cash is money you already earned: unbilled work, stale receivables, unsubmitted change orders, and retainage past due. Rebuilt billing structures and scheduled collections produced $310K of recovered AR in 30 days at one client and $365K at another. That recovered cash is what funds the payoff sequence, not revenue growth and not a miracle job.
Merchant cash advances take their cut daily off the top, so they starve every other creditor of the same dollars. Whether the path is payoff, settlement negotiation, or consolidation into term debt, the advances go first and no new ones get signed again. Four were eliminated at one $3.4M client, and the week the last daily draw stopped, the company could breathe.
Once the engine runs and the advances are gone, the surviving debt gets restructured from strength: clean monthly closes, a current WIP, a 13 week forecast, and 90 days of the line behaving like a timing tool. Banks lend into evidence and not into apologies, and that package converts you from a workout case into a bankable contractor. One client went from two maxed lines and an SBA loan to all three cleared in 90 days, plus a $750K facility approved he couldn't have gotten before.
Civil debt stacks on iron, with equipment notes priced for a backlog that softened, fuel and repair bills on the card, and then the line covering the spread, so the exit lever is usually equipment economics, where real per-machine cost bases reveal which iron earns its note and which should be sold into a strong used market. Concrete spirals start at the ready-mix desk, where supplier balances age past 60, deliveries go COD, and COD on material-heavy work breaks the billing cycle that was supposed to fix everything, so supplier workout agreements paired with recovered AR restore terms first and terms restore the cycle. Electrical subs borrow to fund gear packages, and then the slow-collecting jobs the gear went into can't service the borrowing, which is the loop a $2.3M electrical sub broke with $365K of recovered AR.
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.
