You're busy. So why isn't there more cash?
The crews are booked. The phone keeps ringing. Revenue is up from last year.
And you still check the bank balance before you run payroll.
If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. It's one of the most common things I hear from blue-collar business owners: contractors, trades and field service companies doing real work and real volume.
The problem usually isn't how hard you work. It's how cash moves through the business.
Busy, profitable and cash in the bank are three different things
A busy business has a full schedule. A profitable business makes money on the work it does. A business with cash has that money in the bank when the bills come due.
You can have the first two and still not have the third.
Here's why. You pay crews every week. You buy materials up front. Fuel, insurance and truck payments don't wait. But customers pay you 30, 45 or 60 days after the work is done, and sometimes later.
The more you grow, the bigger that gap gets. Growth eats cash before it makes cash. That's how a business can have its best year on paper and still feel broke.
Where cash gets stuck
In most blue-collar businesses, the cash is hiding in a few places:
Work that's done but not billed. Finished jobs waiting on paperwork, timesheets or someone in the office to send the invoice.
Change orders that never got paid. Extra work done on a handshake, with nothing in writing when billing time comes.
Jobs priced too thin. A 20% markup is only a 16.7% margin. Mix those up and you come up short on every job.
Slow-paying customers. Invoices sitting at 60 or 90 days while you float the costs.
Retainage. Money you've earned but can't touch until the job closes out.
Five ways to keep cash moving
1. Know your runway.
Take your cash in the bank and divide it by your average monthly expenses. Use your real expenses: payroll, materials, subs, truck payments, insurance.
That number is how many months you could run if every payment stopped today. Two months, and every slow week feels like a crisis. Four or more, and you can bid, hire and buy equipment from a position of strength.
2. Bill faster.
How often you bill is a cash decision, not a paperwork decision.
At a heavy industrial contractor where I served as CFO, we had a two-year, $30 million time-and-materials project. We billed once a month, which meant paying crews weekly and floating materials and equipment for a month or more. When we switched to weekly invoices, cash started coming in closer to when we spent it. The client liked it too, because they had current numbers to track their own costs.
If you can't bill weekly, bill at milestones. Just shorten the gap between finished work and the invoice.
3. Get every change in writing.
No change gets built until it's written down: what's changing, what it costs, and a signature or an "approved" reply. A text with a photo and "approved" beats a handshake. Then bill it with the next invoice, not at the end of the job.
4. Price for margin, not markup.
If you want a 20% margin, mark up 25%. Want 25%? Mark up 33%. Want 30%? Mark up 43%. Get this wrong and you're doing work for less than you think on every job.
5. Look 13 weeks ahead.
Most owners know where every crew is today. Ask how much cash they'll have in six weeks, and it gets quiet.
A simple 13-week cash forecast lists what's coming in and what's going out, week by week. It shows you a tight week before it shows up, while you still have time to push a collection, delay a purchase or line up your bank. It doesn't need to be fancy. A spreadsheet you update every Monday works.
Start with one number
You don't have to fix all five this week. Start with your runway number. Once you know it, the rest gets easier to prioritize.
If you want a step-by-step place to start, The Contractor's Roadmap walks you through it: your cash runway, the one bottleneck holding you back, and where your most profitable work is. It's free.
If you'd rather talk it through, book a free 30-minute Clarity Call. We'll look at your cash, your jobs and the one thing to fix first. No pressure, just a clear next step.
Darrin Brownlee is a fractional CFO & COO for contractors and trade businesses doing $500K–$20M. He spent 11 years as CFO of a heavy industrial contractor that grew from $1M to $30M. Versatile Solutions is based in Marshall, MN, and works with contractors across the Midwest and nationwide.
