It's Sunday night.
You should be relaxing. Watching TV. Spending time with family.
Instead, you're doing mental arithmetic.
"Wages go out Friday. That's £12K. The supplier needs paying Tuesday, that's £8K. The invoice from the council job should clear by Wednesday... should. If it doesn't, I'll need to move money from the VAT account. Again."
You've built a £1.5 million construction business.
And you're still lying awake on Sunday night playing financial Tetris.
That's not growth. That's survival mode with a bigger wage bill.
You're Not Alone. But You Shouldn't Be Here.
Last week, a director told me: "We're robbing Peter to pay Paul every single week."
Another said: "Some Mondays I wake up needing £10K just to cover wages. And it's like, shit, you know, we need to get this done to get this money."
This is the reality for most construction businesses between £500K and £3M.
You've grown revenue. But you haven't built resilience.
The business grew. The chaos just got more expensive.
It's Not Bad Management. It's Bad Visibility.
Here's what's actually happening:
Your clients pay in 60 days. Your team needs paying every Friday.
That mismatch creates constant pressure. You're funding your client's cash flow with your stress.
You've got no visibility beyond next Friday.
When that big materials invoice hits Tuesday, it's a surprise. When three clients delay payment by two weeks, it's a crisis.
You're driving at night with no headlights.
Your money is trapped in jobs.
Work done but not invoiced. Invoices sent but not paid. Materials bought for projects that haven't started.
And here's the killer: variations you've done but haven't agreed with the client yet. That bathroom upgrade the client asked for. The extra electrical work. The scope changes that happened on site.
You've done the work. Bought the materials. Paid your lads. But because it's not formally agreed or invoiced yet, it's invisible on your books.
Plus 5-10% retention held back on every project.
You've earned it. You just can't spend it. (I'll show you exactly how to track this properly in a couple of weeks - it's called Work-in-Progress, and it's one of the systems that breaks when you scale.)
The reality?
You're not bad at business. You're just managing cash flow reactively instead of proactively.
What This Costs You
The Stress Tax:
Every Sunday night. Every bank balance check. Every "will this clear?" moment.
Your family knows when it's "wage week."
The Opportunity Cost:
You're saying no to £50K contracts because you need £10K on Friday.
You can't invest in equipment. Can't hire the person you need. Can't take on bigger projects.
All because visibility is so poor that you don't dare commit.
(I wrote about how CIS makes this worse in Newsletter #018 - if you're suffering CIS deductions on top of everything else, that's worth reading.)
The Relationship Cost:
Chasing clients damages relationships. Delaying suppliers damages your reputation.
And your team feels it. They see you on the phone Monday morning chasing payments.
From Panic to Predictability: The 12-Week View
Here's what changes everything:
The 12-Week Rolling Cash Flow Forecast
Not complicated. Not a 50-tab spreadsheet.
Just a simple rolling forecast that shows you:
Week 1-4: Known invoices due, known payments going out, committed costs
Week 5-8: Projects finishing, expected payments based on client patterns, stage payments due
Week 9-12: Projects starting, materials ordering, equipment investments, buffer needed
The Result:
You see the dip coming in Week 6. So in Week 3, you chase invoices harder, delay non-essential payments, or simply don't stress. Because you know it's coming and you've got a plan.
(The 12-week forecast works even better when combined with the 5 bank account system I wrote about in #019 - the forecast tells you WHAT's coming, the accounts tell you WHERE the money is.)
My Story:
I used to check my bank balance three times a day.
Now? Once a week.
The forecast tells me if there's a problem two weeks before it arrives. That's the difference between panic and planning.
The Five Questions
Are you managing cash flow or is it managing you?
If you answered 'no' to more than two, you're still in survival mode.
And survival mode at £1.5M turnover is just expensive survival mode.
(This connects to what I wrote in Newsletter #017 about being "busy but broke" - high revenue doesn't mean healthy cash flow.)
What This Takes
A 12-week cash flow forecast needs to account for construction-specific challenges:
It's not just a bank balance spreadsheet. It's construction-specific financial planning.
But once it's set up? 30 minutes a week to update.
30 minutes a week for Sunday night peace.
That's the trade.
The Invitation
If you're tired of the Sunday night arithmetic and the Monday morning panic calls, it's time to build visibility into your cash flow.
A 12-week rolling forecast isn't complicated. But it does need to be set up correctly for construction - with CIS, retention, and WIP all factored in.
We build the forecast with you, show you how to maintain it, and review it with you monthly.
You get clarity. You get predictability. You get your Sunday nights back.
30-minute call. No obligation. Just honest conversation about moving from panic to planning
P.S. Last week I wrote about the £500K that gets lost when your accountant doesn't understand construction (#023). This week is about the stress that costs you sleep every Sunday night. Both are fixable. Both are worth fixing.
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