Our blog is where construction finance meets real-world advice. From cash flow strategies to industry insights, each post is designed to help contractors and business owners make smarter decisions.
A Service Level Agreement (SLA), the agreement between you and your customer on what each can and should expect from the other, is central to meeting customer demands and expectations, and working capital is essential to meeting the SLA parameters. Working capital represents the assets or cash flow available to make payroll, pay suppliers and […]
We’ve created a lot of resources about the importance of cash flow management for your business. Let’s take a step backward and start at the beginning. What IS cash flow and why is it so important to understand your company’s cash flow? What is Cash Flow? Cash flow is the net amount of cash (and […]
Manufacturers often evaluate supplier and vendor prices, but how often are you checking your vendor relationships? A solid vendor relationship can be more critical to your manufacturing company’s long-term success than a vendor’s price. And here’s the really good news — unlike pricing, there’s a lot you can do to create great supplier and vendor […]
Contract financing is a way for businesses that operate through contracted work to secure funds in advance of the work being performed. If you’ve ever turned down work because you didn’t have the cash flow for the initial labor, materials, or other costs associated with the project, contract financing might be the financial solution for […]
Cash is the lifeblood of your contractor business but getting that cash can be a nightmare. We asked Lori J Drake, CBA, Levelset‘s Payment Professional’s Community Manager, to join MF CEO Scott Peper for a conversation about the most common reasons payments get delayed, what to do if a GC payment is late, and how […]
The construction labor shortage was bad before the coronavirus pandemic; now it is a full-blown crisis. According to a CNN Business article, the construction industry lost 1 million workers during the initial months of lockdown. Now, the article states, the industry is losing workers faster than it can recruit new ones. According to the 2020 […]
The state of construction cash flow in 2021 is well below the level of comfort for most contractors; the industry is still recovering from the damaging effects of the pandemic. Our good friends at Levelset recently released the 2021 Construction Cash Flow & Payment Report, a detailed report on the state of cash flow and […]
Rising manufacturing costs are affecting manufacturing companies of all sizes. Many business owners solve for this through capacity reductions, plant closures, and layoffs. These are effective but drastic measures to increase working capital. There are cash flow management strategies that can increase your available working capital and improve costs of production. First, let’s define manufacturing […]
One of the most common mistakes manufacturing business owners make is to view debt as a bad thing, a thing to be feared, rather than as a tool for growth. It’s not hard to understand why. Traditional funding solutions like bank loans are often difficult for manufacturers to obtain, and not every funding source available […]
