Nobody calls about the overdue invoices
Pick one person, one list and one weekly call, oldest invoice first.
In most small shops, collections is what happens when the owner remembers to call. The bookkeeper doesn't want to bother the GC, the PM figures accounting has it, and no one looks at the aging report until cash is tight. By then some invoices are past the point where a polite call helps, and a few are close to a lien or notice deadline. Collections is a habit, and the habit starts with a list that someone reads every week.
Three moves, in order
What CFOS does about it
CFOS has AR and AP aging and a collections list built from your own QuickBooks invoices, so the list updates without someone building it manually. You can see which invoices are overdue, by job and by customer, and assign the follow up to a person. The 13 week cash forecast uses your open invoices and pay apps, with the lowest week marked, so you can see which collections count most for the weeks ahead. The CEO Report and the WIP schedule use the same numbers. QuickBooks still keeps the books, and CFOS reads from it.
Who owns this: Office manager, with the PM on calls.
At $7M, a weekly collections list turns past due invoices into payroll.
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Step 07: Monthly cadence
Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month.
Other problems step 07 solves
Other things that go wrong
What owners ask
Construction collections overdue invoices?
Pick one person, one list and one weekly call, oldest invoice first. In most small shops, collections is what happens when the owner remembers to call. The bookkeeper doesn't want to bother the GC, the PM figures accounting has it, and no one looks at the aging report until cash is tight. By then some invoices are past the point where a polite call helps, and a few are close to a lien or notice deadline. Collections is a habit, and the habit starts with a list that someone reads every week.
Which part of the system fixes this?
The step is number 07, monthly cadence. Weekly bookkeeping, cost to complete, and one CEO report, on the same days every month. It's drawn from chapter 7 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Is this normal for my trade?
Across the 48 trades that publish a figure, net profit at $1M to $5M averages 7% before taxes. If you're well under that and this page describes your month, the two are usually the same story. The published average tells you where the pack is, and your own job costing tells you where you are, which is the number that pays payroll.
Where do I start?
Print or open your AR aging this week and sort it by oldest first, then mark every invoice that is past due and every one near a lien or notice date.
Who should call the GC about an overdue invoice?
The person with the best relationship, which is often the PM. The office can send the statement and keep the log. A call from someone the GC knows gets answered faster than a form email from accounting.
How often should I review overdue invoices?
Weekly. Monthly is too slow, because a 30 day invoice can age a whole cycle between reviews. A 20 minute weekly review beats a long monthly one.
When should I worry about lien or notice deadlines?
Look them up when the job starts, and put them on the same list as the overdue invoice. Deadlines vary by state and by contract, so ask your attorney for the dates that apply to you. The point is to know the date before it passes.
Can I fix this without touching anything else?
You can try, and it doesn't hold. Step 07 depends on step 03, overhead calculation and step 04, estimating system and step 05, software and bookkeeping alignment and step 06, project management. Install it ahead of those and it produces numbers the field won't trust, which is worse than the problem you started with.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.