CASH FLOW
You are already lending your clients money.
You just are not charging interest.
Turning finished work into collected cash takes up to ninety days at some 3PLs and closer to forty five at others. Part of that is contractual and will not move. Part of it is assembly. Only you know which part is which in your operation, so here is the arithmetic to check it against.
Three windows. Only one of them is yours to shrink.
Put your own numbers in the three boxes below. If you already run tight, the total will show it and we will be the first to say so.
2 to 30
Collecting what the work cost
Warehouse charges, carrier invoices and value add arrive from different systems on their own schedules. Fast if everything reports cleanly. Slow if you are waiting on whichever system reports last.
1 to 30
Assembling the invoice
Reconciling events against rate cards, chasing missing lines, waiting for the cycle to close. This is the only window that is entirely inside your building.
THE ONE WORTH ATTACKING15 to 45
Waiting on terms
The client pays when the contract says they pay. Negotiated, not operational. Nothing on this page will change it and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Your outflow does not wait. Payroll, rent and carrier bills leave on their own schedule regardless of where your total lands. Whatever the gap is between those two dates, you are funding it, every cycle, on work you already finished.
Priced as it happens, not rebuilt at month end
Every task, storage day and pass through lands against the rate card at the moment it occurs. The invoice is not assembled at the end of the cycle because it was never taken apart.
| Charge group | Source | Cost | Markup | Billed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receiving, putaway, kitting | Work Order View | 171.86 | 76.74 | 248.60 |
| Pick and pack | Order View, SO lines | 139.20 | 60.56 | 199.76 |
| Storage, 6 days | Inventory View | 24.36 | 10.92 | 35.28 |
| Freight | ShipStation, pass through | 1,284.60 | 0.00 | 1,284.60 |
| Invoice ready, day 6 of 7 | 1,620.02 | 148.22 | 1,768.24 | |
Internal Notes:
Storage basis pulled from client WMS, 22 Jul. Freight billed at cost per contract.
Four charge groups from four different systems, reconciled into one invoice on day six of a seven day cycle. Concept screen.
Your client sees the line you billed
Same rows, same amounts, different columns. Your margin stays yours because the rate card decides what renders, not who remembered to delete a column.
| Service | Basis | Units | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receiving, putaway, kitting | pallet, kit | 14, 48 | 248.60 |
| Pick and pack | unit, carton | 212, 96 | 199.76 |
| Storage, 6 days | pallet day | 84 | 35.28 |
| Freight | at cost | 96 | 1,284.60 |
| Invoice total, cycle 22 to 28 Jul 2026 | 1,768.24 | ||
Notes:
Kitting spec updated 24 Jul at your request. Freight billed at carrier cost.
The four amounts match the operator view exactly. Cost and markup are not hidden from your client so much as never sent. Concept screen.
Situations this gets built for
Not testimonials. These are the shapes of operation we work in, with names removed.
Four WMS platforms, twenty two sites
A prep and fulfillment operator where exceptions arrived from four systems that disagreed, and most of the exception volume turned out to be noise rather than real problems.
Billing waited on whichever system reported last.
Asset based, nationwide, own technology
An operator with proprietary systems they had no intention of replacing, needing per client rate cards and a clean handoff into accounting.
The requirement was addition, not migration.
Port to door across three regions
Two million square feet, freight arriving at one coast and shipping from another, with charges accruing on several legs of the same order.
One order, one invoice, several facilities.
Start with your ugliest account
Not the cleanest one. We baseline the hours your team currently spends assembling that client’s invoice, connect what you already run, and price a cycle in parallel with your existing process. If it does not hold up, nothing changed and nobody outside your building saw it.