It's one of the most common — and most solvable — cash flow problems for growing $1M–$5M businesses. The sales are there and the business is busy, but the bank balance never seems to match — and it's keeping you up at night. Usually the cash isn't lost; it's trapped somewhere specific.
Below are the usual places it hides — with simple examples, and how we help you free it up.
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Profit is booked the moment you make a sale. Cash moves on a completely different timetable. A profitable, growing business can still be starved of cash for one very ordinary reason: the money gets committed somewhere before it comes back.
The gap between those two numbers isn't a mystery. It has a handful of usual suspects, and they fall into three groups.
The everyday running of your business quietly ties up cash. The faster you grow, the more it swallows — because you fund the next sale before the last one has paid you.
Stock is cash in a box. Sales jump 40%, so you buy 40% more stock to keep up — and that money leaves your account weeks or months before those units sell. Grow fast enough and inventory alone can outrun your bank balance.
You invoice $50k and book the profit today. The customer pays in 60 days. Every new sale means fronting another two months of cash before it comes back — so growth widens the gap instead of closing it.
A big order needs 50% up front. You pay in March; your customers pay you in June. For three months that cash is gone — and the faster you re-order to keep up with demand, the more is out the door at once.
Not sure how much cash is tied up in your stock, your unpaid invoices and your supplier terms? That's the first thing we measure — and often the fastest to free up. Let's take a look at yours together.
Book a Free Cash Flow CallGrowth needs capacity — people, space, equipment. But capacity is paid for now, while the revenue to justify it arrives later. Get the timing wrong and you fund an empty seat or an idle machine out of working cash.
You buy the $60k machine with cash instead of leasing it. Your P&L only shows a slice as depreciation each year — but your bank account felt the full $60k on day one. Owning outright can be the right call; the cash hit just rarely shows up where you're looking.
You hire three people and take the bigger unit for the growth you're sure is coming. Payroll and rent start immediately; the revenue to cover them is still months out. Build too far ahead of demand and the gap comes straight out of cash.
Wondering whether you've built ahead of your demand — or how to grow into it without a cash crunch? That's exactly the kind of call we help owners make. Let's talk it through.
Book a Free Cash Flow CallSometimes the problem isn't timing — it's the maths underneath the business. Whether each customer really pays their way, and whether you have enough of them to carry your overheads, decides whether growth fills the tank or drains it.
A customer costs $2k to win and is worth $8k over five years — a great business. But you pay the $2k today and collect the $8k drip by drip. The faster you acquire, the more cash goes out long before it returns.
Not every customer, product or channel actually makes money once you count the true cost to serve. If some lose money, winning more of them just digs the hole faster — and no amount of growth fixes it.
Every customer leaves you $400 after their direct costs — genuinely profitable work. But rent, salaries and systems run $20,000 a month, so it takes fifty customers just to break even. At forty, you lose $4,000 a month however hard everyone works. When each sale pays but there aren't enough of them, there are only two fixes: grow past the line, or cut the overheads you have to clear.
Not sure whether it's your customers, your pricing, or simply not enough scale to cover the overheads? That's exactly what we help you pin down — and whether the answer is grow, reprice, or trim. Book a free call.
Book a Free Cash Flow CallYou don't need to guess which of these is happening in your business — you need to see it. That's what we build. We connect to your accounts and produce a rolling 13-week cash flow forecast that shows exactly when cash gets tight and why, where it's trapped today, and how much you can free up. It's forward-looking financial analysis — not another look in the rear-view mirror. It's how you get on top of cash flow management, and actually improve your cash flow instead of just tracking it.
Most small business owners start with our fixed-scope diagnostic — the simplest way to get real help with cash flow. It pins down which of the causes above are draining your cash, and exactly what to do about each one:
But the first step is just a conversation.
We've helped 850+ founders and business owners get a grip on their numbers — and they rate us 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
★★★★★4.9/5 across 60+ reviews on Trustpilot →“As a self-funded startup, we cannot afford a full time CFO just yet. Monica and John have provided exceptional support!”
“Incredible support and attention to detail. Was able to help us create a wonderful forecast that allowed us to focus on other areas of the business.”
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If any of this sounds like your business, the cash is almost certainly recoverable — once you can see where it's going. A free 30-minute call is the place to start: we'll get to know your situation, help you work out where to look first, and agree the best way to proceed.
Book a Free Cash Flow Call