Insights
Notes from the cash side of manufacturing.
Short, numerate working notes on pricing discipline, billing speed, idle capital, and collections — written from the controller’s chair, not the content mill.
The notes
2026-08-29 · 3 min read
Why the biggest leak is usually the one nobody complains about
The working capital leaks that get fixed are the ones with a complaint attached. The costly ones — quote drift, un-billed extras, slow invoice release, stale WIP — are silent by design. A look at how to size them in dollars and days.
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2026-08-29 · 3 min read
Reading your own aging report the way a lender reads it
Your AR aging tells two stories: the one you read at month-end, and the one a lender reads when sizing your borrowing base. Here is how to read the second one, and where the cash usually is.
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2026-08-29 · 3 min read
Deposits and milestone billing: the terms conversation manufacturers avoid
Why made-to-order manufacturers fund their customers' projects for months, and how deposits and milestone billing convert that into cash without touching price. Includes worked arithmetic you can rerun on your own order book.
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2026-08-29 · 3 min read
What retainage really costs by the time you collect it
Retention is the slowest dollar in the business. What it costs to carry, why your lender gives you no credit for it, and the paperwork that actually delays it — with arithmetic you can run on your own contracts.
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