The arithmetic of a net-60 account
A commercial cleaning company invoices at the end of the month for that month's service, and the property manager pays 60 days later. By the time the first check arrives, the company has paid four to eight weeks of wages, supplies and fuel on that building, and started the next month. Across a dozen accounts, that is a business that is profitable on paper and short every Friday. Owners describe it as the defining cash problem of the trade.
Winning a big account makes it acute. A new building with six cleaners on it is six new paychecks a week for two months before it pays a dollar.
Funding the first sixty days
A working capital loan or a cash advance on your existing deposits, sized to two months of the new account's cost — wages, payroll tax, supplies, equipment for the site — and funded in one to three business days. Amounts run half to one and a half times a month's deposits, so a company depositing $40,000 a month can typically raise the ramp for a $12,000-a-month account in one offer.
Send the contract. A cleaning company with $40,000 a month of history and a signed agreement adding $12,000 a month from a named property manager is a growth story, and underwriters size offers to growth stories. Statements alone are a $40,000-a-month company asking for money.
Weekly payments, matched to the day your other accounts pay, not daily.
After the first check, it is a line-of-credit problem
The first payment does not end the gap; it turns it into a permanent one, sixty days wide, that grows with every account you win. A business line of credit sized to two months of payroll across all accounts, drawn on payday and repaid as invoices clear, is the shape of a cleaning business that stops living on advances. Apply for it once the new account has paid twice and the statements show the higher run rate.
In the meantime, ask new accounts for net-30 or a first-month deposit. Some property managers will not move. Some will, and every one that does shrinks the line you need.
Equipment on this contract
A floor scrubber or a carpet extractor for the new site is an asset and finances as equipment over two to five years at a far lower cost than working capital. Do not fund a $6,000 auto-scrubber on the same advance as payroll; two applications, two days apart, and the machine gets the cheap money.