Cash position, job by job
Contractors rarely fail because a job was unprofitable. They fail because the money went out before it came in, on a job that was going to be profitable eventually.
QScope Team · 4 February 2026 · 6 min read
Two questions look similar and are not:
- Is this job profitable? Value earned against cost incurred, over the life of the project.
- Is this job cash positive? Money received against money paid out, at this moment.
A job can be comfortably profitable and consistently cash negative for most of its duration. That is not unusual; it is the normal shape of construction, and it is why the second question needs answering separately.
The four figures
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Certified upstream | Net certified to you by the employer, after retention |
| Received upstream | What has actually been paid, and when |
| Certified downstream | Net certified by you to subcontractors, after their retention |
| Paid downstream | What has actually gone out |
Cash position is received less paid. Everything else is a timing question about how that number will move.
What drives the gap
Retention differential
Retention suffered upstream at 5 per cent while holding 3 per cent downstream means the difference is funded by you, on every pound of subcontracted work, for the whole job. It is not a timing difference. It does not come back until the retention releases do.
Timetable differential
Covered in detail elsewhere, but in cash terms: every day between paying downstream and being paid upstream, multiplied by the value in transit.
Your own costs
Directly employed labour, plant, materials bought directly and preliminaries are paid on supplier terms, which have nothing to do with the construction payment cycle. Materials on 30 day terms against a payment cycle that pays 45 days after the work is a permanent shortfall.
Late payment
The one that turns a manageable structural gap into an event. A single missed payment upstream does not pause anything downstream.
What to watch, and how often
Monthly is the natural rhythm, aligned to the valuation cycle, and for most jobs it is enough. Two situations warrant more:
Where a payment has gone past its final date. Then the question is not the cash position of the job but the exposure across the portfolio to that one payer.
Where a subcontract package is large relative to the job. A single package at 40 per cent of the contract sum means the job's cash position is essentially that package's timetable.
The figures that mislead
Turnover. Says nothing about cash and very little about profit. A practice growing turnover while the cash position deteriorates is growing its funding requirement.
Certified to date. A useful measure of progress and not a measure of cash. On a job where the employer is 45 days late, certified to date looks identical to a job where the employer pays on time.
Profit on the cost report. Correct and answering the other question. A job forecasting a healthy margin can still be the one that runs out of money.
The habit
- Record the date each payment is received, against the certificate it relates to
- Record the date each subcontract payment goes out
- Keep certified and received as separate figures, always
- Review the cash position at the same point each cycle, per job and across the portfolio
- Know the retention differential per package, because it is the part that does not correct itself
None of this needs a finance system. It needs the dates recorded when they happen, which is the same discipline that makes everything else in commercial management work.
QScope shows certified upstream against certified downstream for each project, so the cash position of a job is a figure on the dashboard rather than a calculation somebody has to build.