Most owners treat cash flow like weather. It’s either good or bad, and you just deal with it.
In a lot of service businesses, cash flow is not weather. It’s onboarding.
If the customer doesn’t clearly understand scope, price, payment terms, timeline, and how change orders get handled, you’re going to “win the job” and then fight for the money. And you’ll call it a cash flow problem when it’s actually a clarity problem.
The pattern I see
- You start work with a vague agreement.
- The customer expects one thing, your team delivers another.
- Supplements, change orders, short pays, and “surprises” show up.
- Collections become personal and emotional.
- Cash gets choppy. You start floating payroll.
The fix
The fix isn’t more chasing. It’s better onboarding.
Onboarding is not paperwork. It’s leadership. It’s the moment you set the relationship rules before emotions and urgency take over.
Strong onboarding usually includes:
- A real agreement that clearly states scope, exclusions, and how changes work
- A simple expectations script your team uses every time
- A documented payment path (when paid, how paid, what triggers billing)
- A “what happens next” roadmap so people don’t invent their own expectations
- A handoff process so operations doesn’t inherit confusion from sales
What to do this week
- Rewrite your job-start process as a checklist you can actually follow.
- Add one page that spells out payment terms and change order rules in plain language.
- Train your team on a short expectations script and require it on every kickoff.