Cash Flow
Cash flow is the actual timing of money moving in and out of your business — not how much you’ve earned on paper, but what’s really in the bank on any given day. A profitable month can still have terrible cash flow if the money you earned hasn’t arrived yet.
What it means
You can be fully booked, invoicing plenty, and technically profitable — and still not have enough cash on hand to buy materials for next week’s job, because the money for the last three jobs is still sitting in unpaid invoices. That gap between “earned” and “actually in the account” is the whole cash flow problem in one sentence.
Deposits, shorter payment terms, and progress invoicing on bigger jobs all exist specifically to narrow that gap — they move money toward you closer to when the work happens, instead of leaving you financing weeks of labor and materials out of your own pocket while waiting on one invoice at the end.
You’ve quoted and started three jobs worth $9,000 combined this month — on paper, a great month. But two of those clients are on Net 30 and haven’t paid yet, so the actual cash in your account this week is $1,200. That’s a cash flow gap, not a lack of profit.
Judging how the business is doing by looking at invoices sent rather than money actually received — which can make a genuinely struggling month look fine right up until a bill comes due.
See also
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