A US software development company ($4M revenue) had revenue but no rhythm — delayed payments and fluctuating project timelines meant every month ended in a cash scramble.
-15%
average debtor days
90-day
forward cash visibility established
WHAT WE DID
Built the forward cash model and working-capital discipline
Set collection cadences and renegotiated client payment terms
Gave leadership a weekly read on cash, runway, and commitments
WHAT CHANGED
The 'are we fine?' question became a Tuesday-morning glance
Growth investments proceeded with confidence
Cash stopped driving decisions by panic
The situation
A US software development company with $4M of revenue had revenue but no rhythm. Delayed payments and fluctuating project timelines meant every month ended in a cash scramble.
The scramble is the symptom worth naming, because it is treated as a workload problem when it is a visibility problem. Month-end becomes an event — chasing payments, deferring vendors, checking the balance — rather than a date on which known things happen.
Revenue does not solve it. A profitable services business with unpredictable collection timing can be short of cash in any given week, and the profit figure offers no warning about which week.
What we did
Built the forward cash model and working-capital discipline. Forward is the distinction. Historical cash reporting explains the scramble that already happened; a forward model is what allows the next one to be avoided.
Set collection cadences and renegotiated client payment terms. A cadence removes the discretion. Collections that happen when someone has time will happen last, because there is always something with a nearer deadline.
Gave leadership a weekly read on cash, runway and commitments. Commitments alongside cash is the part usually missing. A balance that looks healthy against obligations nobody has listed is not information.
What changed
Average debtor days fell 15%, with 90-day forward cash visibility established.
The question of whether the company was fine became a Tuesday-morning glance. Growth investments proceeded with confidence. And cash stopped driving decisions by panic.
Panic-driven decisions are the real cost, and they never appear in the accounts. A hire deferred during a tight week, a discount given to accelerate one invoice, a supplier paid late to preserve a balance — each is a small, rational, expensive response to not being able to see far enough ahead.
What this means for services businesses
Cash discipline sounds like restraint and is mostly rhythm. The businesses that avoid month-end scrambles are rarely the ones holding more cash; they are the ones that always know what is arriving and when.
Ninety days is the horizon where the trade-off sits. Thirty is too short to change anything, since the invoices are already out. Beyond ninety, a services pipeline is too uncertain for the extra precision to be worth maintaining.
Debtor days is the lever with the shortest payback. It requires no capital, no new system and no sales effort — only that collections become scheduled work rather than an activity that happens when the month gets uncomfortable.