How to finance big contracts when customers pay in 90 days
Upfront material and weekly payroll expenses drain bank accounts months before slow-paying clients finally clear their invoices. This massive cash flow gap forces business owners to risk missing payroll and nearly bankrupts them on jobs that should have made their year.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Negotiating for deposits or progress billingDid this help you?
- 2Using revolving lines of credit at a bankDid this help you?
- 3Utilizing factoring houses or purchase order financingDid this help you?
- 4Limiting client revenue concentrationDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I had to buy all the material up front, pay my guys weekly to do the work over three months, and the client paid on ninety day terms after delivery.”source ↗
“So for nearly five months I was funding a job worth more than my whole previous year out of a bank balance that could not cover it.”source ↗
“There was a week I genuinely thought I was going to miss payroll on the job that was supposed to make my year.”source ↗
“The contract almost bankrupted me a couple times over. The first six months were honestly terrifying.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6Why do contractors never show up on time?
- 12Why won't contractors take credit cards for large deposits?
- 6Why do clients take 30, 60, or 90 days to pay invoices?
- 20Clients who ghost after you finish the work and don't pay
- 2How to stop chasing contractor W-9 forms before payment
- 16Why hasn't my online order shipped yet?