The cash position ambushes me mid-job

Profitable jobs run out of cash. Retention is held, materials are paid for before they are certified, and a month or more sits between spending the money and banking it, so the squeeze lands mid-job, exactly when the commitments peak. The programme can be on time and the margin intact while the account heads somewhere the bank statement will announce without warning.

A cashflow forecast is how the tight month becomes visible while there is still time to do something calm about it: the supplier conversation had in advance rather than in the week, the facility arranged before it is urgent, the application timed so the peak is funded. The ambush is not the shortfall itself, it is finding out late.