Construction Cash Flow: 5 Numbers Every Contractor Should Check Weekly

You open your banking app - check the balance. Whew! There’s money in the account.

Payroll is due, a few big subs need to be paid, and a customer says the check is on its way.

You think you’re okay.

But you’re still doing the math in your head.

All the while you’re supposed to be paying attention to something else.

Managing cash in your head is one way to do this - and leads to a lot of uncertainty, anxiety and likely error.

Is there actually a cash shortage?

Has client billing fallen behind production/milestones?

Or is the information scattered across your bookkeeper’s reports, your project manager’s phone, and your memory?

A weekly construction cash flow review gives you a place to sort that out. Start with these five numbers, looking at the next two weeks.

1. Cash available after existing commitments

The bank balance tells you what’s sitting there. It doesn’t explain how much already has a job to do.

Start with the current balance, account for payments that haven’t cleared, and identify money reserved for taxes or committed to upcoming project costs. Customer deposits need attention here: receiving a deposit doesn’t mean the work it must fund has disappeared.

Ask your bookkeeper to show the adjustments. Be clear about which commitments you’ve already deducted so you don’t subtract the same bill again when reviewing upcoming payments.

The question is: “How much room do we actually have?”

2. Customer payments expected in the next two weeks

List expected receipts by customer, amount, and realistic collection date. Separate invoices already sent from payments that depend on reaching a project milestone.

“The client usually pays quickly” is an assumption. An invoice sent, received, and confirmed for payment gives you something more useful to work with. Even then, keep uncertain receipts visible rather than treating them as guaranteed.

If a payment slips, decide who follows up and when. You want that conversation happening before the missing money becomes Friday’s problem.

3. Payroll and bills due in the same period

Put payroll, related taxes, subcontractors, suppliers, overhead, and loan payments on a dated list. Include known purchases that haven’t produced an invoice yet.

The dates matter. A payment arriving next Tuesday won’t cover money leaving this Friday.

Look at the order money moves, not just the two-week total. Ask where the balance gets tightest and what needs a decision. If you need to discuss payment timing with a supplier, give someone responsibility for that conversation.

4. Completed work you haven’t billed

How much completed work is waiting for an invoice under your contract’s billing terms?

Maybe a milestone is ready, but nobody told the bookkeeper. Maybe an approved change order never made it into billing. Maybe the paperwork is waiting for you.

Give each item an amount, the reason it hasn’t been billed, and a person responsible for moving it forward. Keep work awaiting customer approval separate from work ready to invoice.

If every billing decision requires something only you know, there’s a handoff to fix. Get that information out of your head and into a process your team can use.

5. Job costs compared with the estimate

For each active job, compare recorded labor, materials, and subcontractor costs with the estimate for the work completed. Include known costs still coming.

Comparing half a job’s costs with the whole job’s budget can hide a problem. Ask what it will cost to finish, too.

If labor is running over, get curious. Was something missed in estimating? Did the scope change? Was work repeated? The useful answer points to an action on this job and a lesson for the next estimate.

A hypothetical example: $40,000 isn’t all available

Imagine your bank balance is $40,000. You have $3,000 in uncleared payments and $7,000 reserved for taxes. That leaves $30,000 before the upcoming bills.

Payroll of $14,000 and supplier bills of $12,000 leave $4,000. Those bills are counted once. A customer’s $10,000 payment is expected Monday, so it doesn’t increase Friday’s cushion.

You also find $6,000 of completed, billable work waiting for an invoice. Sending it matters, but it becomes cash only when collected. Meanwhile, one job needs another $2,000 of labor beyond the estimate.

Now you have decisions: confirm Monday’s receipt, send the invoice, and investigate the labor overrun before making another spending commitment.

What your bookkeeper should bring

Agree on a short weekly summary: the adjusted cash balance, dated receipts and payments, an unbilled-work list, and job costs against estimates. Ask them to flag missing records and show how current the numbers are.

You and your project team must supply milestone updates, approvals, upcoming purchases, and remaining-work estimates. Your bookkeeper can organize information; they can’t report what nobody has given them.

Make it a 20-minute weekly review

Use five minutes for cash and payment dates, five for billing gaps, five for job-cost concerns, and five to assign actions. Record who will do what, by when.

If preparation is missing, fix that handoff rather than spending the meeting hunting for receipts. Start with one recurring appointment and one shared summary. Give yourself a reliable way to see what needs your attention and get out ahead of it.

If you'd like help looking at what you're carrying as the owner and where to start, I offer a free, 60-minute Discovery Call with no obligation.