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Cash flow — guides and articles
10 articles published between August 2026 and September 2026. Where to start is below; the rest follow, newest first.
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The Credit Limit Is Checked After the Truck Has Left
Almost every trading system has a credit limit field, and almost none of them has a credit control. The difference is not the rule — it is where in the order-to-cash chain the rule fires, and by the third of the three candidate positions there is nothing left to refuse.
Trading and distribution7 min read
The Credit Limit Is Checked After the Truck Has Left
Almost every trading system has a credit limit field, and almost none of them has a credit control. The difference is not the rule — it is where in the order-to-cash chain the rule fires, and by the third of the three candidate positions there is nothing left to refuse.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
The Bank Is Holding Money Against a Shipment Your System Has Never Heard Of
Letters of credit, trust receipts and bank guarantees are the machinery a trading business actually runs on, and almost none of it exists inside the ERP. It lives in a facility letter, a bank portal and one person's head — and the limit is discovered when it is reached.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
You Bought in Dollars, Sold in Dirhams, and Booked a Profit That Included a Bet
The dirham is pegged to the dollar, so a lifetime of dollar buying teaches a trading company that currency is not a thing it has to think about. Then it buys in euros, and the habit stays — and the margin it reports on the sale is fixed at one of four rates, three of which have not happened yet.
4 September 2026ReadProfessional services7 min read
Money Received Is Not Money Earned, and Your Bank Balance Does Not Know the Difference
The annual retainer is invoiced in January and the year's best cash month is the month before any of the work is done. What arrives is not a result. It is an obligation with the money attached, and almost nothing in a firm's system says so.
4 September 2026ReadProfessional services7 min read
The Work Is Finished. The Invoice Is a Decision Nobody Made
Unbilled work in progress is money you have already spent on salaries and not yet asked anybody for. The chain from work done to cash has six links, five of them have an owner, and the one that does not is the link that turns cost into revenue.
4 September 2026ReadConstruction10 min read
A Bank Guarantee Is the Only Document You Own That Expires by Being Ignored
Every other document in a contracting business ends by being completed. A guarantee ends when a date passes — and Article 418 says renewal has to be agreed before that date, not after. Which makes the expiry field the instrument, and the instrument sits on no ledger.
1 September 2026ReadConstruction12 min read
You Pay the VAT on Retention Long Before Anyone Pays You the Retention
The VAT law never uses the word retention. It gives you four dates in Article 26 and lets your contract and your invoice decide which one fires — which makes the tax point a systems question wearing a tax question's clothes.
1 September 2026ReadConstruction8 min read
Nobody Steals This Money. It Is Simply Never Asked For
Every system a contractor owns reconciles what was claimed against what was certified. Nothing reconciles what was built against what was claimed. Work that falls into that gap is not late — it is gone, and no report ever raises an error.
25 August 2026ReadConstruction6 min read
The Advance Payment Is a Loan, and Three Numbers Have to Move Together
An advance is money you were paid before you earned it, secured by a bank guarantee and repaid out of your own certificates. The balance, the recovery and the guarantee must stay in step — and in most systems only one of the three is tracked.
18 August 2026ReadConstruction7 min read
Retention Is a Loan You Made Without Deciding To
A percentage of every certificate is withheld, accrues against a cap, and comes back in two instalments years apart. Most systems record the deduction and forget the balance, which is how a contractor ends up unable to say what is owed to them.
18 August 2026ReadAfter the reading
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