Payroll is Friday. The account is short. You have 48 hours. Here's the immediate fix — and the structural fix so this never happens again.
Before you do anything else: the money to make payroll is almost certainly already in your business. It's sitting in outstanding invoices nobody has followed up on. Call on every invoice over 30 days today. Not a statement — a call. Tell them you need payment by Thursday. Most GCs will expedite on a legitimate invoice when asked directly.
An MCA gives you cash today and pulls $1,000–$2,500 per day starting tomorrow. If payroll is Friday, the MCA covers it. But next Friday the account has $7,000–$17,500 less in it from daily pulls — on top of the same payroll obligation.
The MCA is the last resort. Collect your AR first. Submit overdue pay apps. Call your GC. Exhaust every option before going that route.
Don't email. Call. Tell them you need payment by Thursday. Ask what it would take to get it processed. Most GCs have an expedite process they don't use unless asked. One large invoice paid early can cover the gap.
If you're 30%+ complete on a job and haven't submitted Pay App 1, do it today. Some GCs will process and pay within 5–7 days on an initial pay app when the relationship is strong and the request is direct.
Not AP — the PM or project executive. Explain you have a timing issue and ask if they can expedite the outstanding invoice. GCs want their subs solvent. A direct conversation is not weakness — it's running the business.
Revolving credit at 8–12% is the right tool for a short-term timing gap. An MCA at 80% annualized is not. If you have available LOC, use it here.
The payroll crisis isn't a surprise to the business — it's only a surprise to the owner because there's no system showing it coming. A 13-week cash flow forecast makes the gap visible 6 weeks in advance. With visibility you act. Without it you react.
Missing a GC's billing cut-off by one day pushes $200,000–$400,000 in payment back 30 days. Most contractors miss at least one cut-off per month on at least one job. Over a year that's hundreds of thousands in delayed cash.
The most consistent finding at SPM intake: $80,000–$300,000 in AR over 45 days that nobody has called on. The money is earned. The invoices are submitted. Nobody followed up. A weekly collections call eliminates this permanently.
Every invoice over 30 days gets a call every Monday. Log the response. Follow up again in 7 days. This single process eliminates the uncollected AR problem permanently. It takes 30–60 minutes per week and generates $50,000–$200,000 in the first 90 days from invoices simply never followed up on.
Every GC has a pay app cut-off. Map them all. Submit on the first eligible day of every period. Set a reminder. Missing a cut-off once costs 30 days. Missing it consistently costs your cash position permanently.
Map every payroll, sub payment, material order, and overhead cost against every expected pay app receipt and AR collection for 13 weeks. Update it every Monday. The gap that was a crisis on Thursday is a manageable planning item when you see it in week 6.
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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