You buy materials in week one, do the work in week two, invoice in week three and get paid in week seven. That is six weeks of your money funding someone else's project.
Example conversation with Cash & Profit
You
I turned over £112k last year and the business account has £3k in it. Where has it gone?
Cash & Profit
Nowhere. It is in other people's bank accounts, temporarily.
Your cycle: materials paid day 1, work finished day 12, invoiced day 14, paid day 47. That is 46 days of funding each job yourself.
At your volume that means roughly £14,000 permanently tied up in work you have already done.
Your profit is real. Your cash is trapped in the gap.
The fastest fix: a deposit on anything over £1,500. That alone releases about £8,000. Second fastest: invoice on completion day, not on the fourteenth.
Want me to work out your minimum cash buffer?
Your cycle: materials paid day 1, work finished day 12, invoiced day 14, paid day 47. That is 46 days of funding each job yourself.
At your volume that means roughly £14,000 permanently tied up in work you have already done.
Your profit is real. Your cash is trapped in the gap.
The fastest fix: a deposit on anything over £1,500. That alone releases about £8,000. Second fastest: invoice on completion day, not on the fourteenth.
Want me to work out your minimum cash buffer?
Profitable and broke, explained in one number: 46 days.
- Map when money leaves.Materials, wages, fuel, subscriptions, tax set-asides.
- Map when money arrives.Not when you invoice. When it actually lands.
- Find the widest gap.That gap is the amount of cash your business needs to exist.
Paste this to MAYA
I am busy but the bank balance never grows. Typically I pay for materials [when], do the work [when], invoice [when] and get paid [when]. Show me where my cash is tied up and what I could change.
Try it on your business
Every lesson ends with a question to hand to a Greymill specialist, who answers with what it knows about your business.
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