Which funding products does this apply to?

Working Capital, Business Line of Credit. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.

Are the figures here quotes?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.

The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.

How do I know a figure here is right?

Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.

Are the examples real deals?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.

Why do you never say what a typical rate is?

Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.

Can I reuse this content?

Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.

Timing problem or margin problem? Three tests that tell you

Is your cash shortfall a timing problem or a margin problem?

One of these is fixed by borrowing. The other is made worse by it, and the arithmetic that tells them apart takes about twenty minutes.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 1037 words 5 min read

Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.

Is my business cash shortfall a timing problem or a margin problem?

A timing problem means the business is profitable at current volume but cash arrives later than it leaves — the money exists, it is just not here yet, and a revolving facility repaid by an identified receipt is the right tool. A margin problem means revenue does not cover cost at current volume, so borrowing adds debt service to a deficit and accelerates the failure. The test is whether you can name the specific receipt that repays the borrowing and its date; if the answer is that trading will improve, it is not timing.

Run three calculations. They take under half an hour with a P&L and an aged receivables report, and they give a clear answer far more often than owners expect.

Test one: contribution at current volume

Take the last full quarter. Revenue, less the costs that vary directly with revenue — materials, direct labour, subcontractors, merchant processing fees, delivery. What remains is contribution.

Now compare that with fixed costs for the same quarter: rent, salaried staff, insurance, software, admin, and debt service.

If contribution exceeds fixed costs, the business is generating cash at current volume and any shortfall is about timing, mix, or a one-off event. If contribution is below fixed costs, the business is losing money at current volume, and what fixes that depends on the margin. Where each additional sale still contributes something, a level of revenue exists that covers the fixed costs and the real question is whether you can reach it. Where the contribution margin is itself negative — each job costs more to deliver than it bills — volume enlarges the loss. In neither case does financing repair it, and financing with debt service on top makes the monthly gap larger.

Test one, worked

Illustrative only —a quarter with $612,000 of revenue. Variable costs: materials $214,000, direct labour $168,000, subcontractors $46,000, card processing $9,000, delivery $12,000. That is $449,000, leaving contribution of $163,000 — a margin of 26.6%.

Fixed costs for the same quarter: rent $27,000, salaried staff $96,000, insurance $8,400, software $5,100, admin $11,500, debt service $21,000. That is $169,000.

The business is $6,000 short over the quarter, $2,000 a month. Small enough to feel like a timing problem, and it is not one.

Now the volume question. At a 26.6% contribution margin, covering $169,000 of fixed costs needs $634,500 of quarterly revenue — 3.7% above where you are. That is reachable, and it tells you the business is nearly viable rather than structurally broken.

Compare the price lever on the same numbers. A 3% increase across the board adds $18,360 of revenue that is almost all contribution, turning a $6,000 deficit into a $12,360 surplus in the same quarter with no extra work delivered. That is why price sits first in the list below, and it is why the arithmetic is worth doing before you decide a price increase is impossible.

Test two: the named repayment source

Write down, in one sentence, what specific cash event repays the borrowing and when it happens.

"Invoice 4471, $86,000, due 12 November" is a timing answer. So is "the seasonal sell-down finishing in March". So is "the equipment produces roughly $4,000 a month of contribution for at least seven years".

"Sales will improve", "we have a big proposal out", and "once we get through this quarter" are not repayment sources. They may be true. They are not something a facility can be repaid from on a schedule.

Test three: does the gap reverse or repeat?

Plot the last twelve months of month-end cash. A timing problem produces a saw-tooth: the balance dips and recovers, dips and recovers. A margin problem produces a slope: each trough is lower than the last and each peak is lower than the last peak.

The saw-tooth says a revolving facility sized to the amplitude of the dip. The slope says something in the operating model needs to change before more financing enters the picture.

What to do with each answer

If it is timing.Match the instrument to the gap. A revolving line, invoice financing, or negotiated supplier terms, sized to the gap and repaid when the identified receipt lands. Then work on the underlying cycle so the gap gets smaller. Financing timing is ordinary and often good business.

If it is margin.Financing is not the first move. The levers are price, cost of delivery, mix, and fixed cost base, and they work in that order for most businesses because a small price change usually moves contribution more than a large cost-cutting exercise. Do the arithmetic on what a 3% price increase does to contribution before assuming it is impossible.

If it is both.Common, and the sequencing matters. Stabilise the margin first, then finance the residual timing gap. Financing first buys time, and time is only useful if something changes during it. Be specific with yourself about what that something is and by when.

Two cases the three tests read badly

A genuinely seasonal business.Twelve months of month-end cash in a business that earns in five of them produces a shape that can look like either a saw-tooth or a slope depending on where you start the chart. Plot twenty-four months instead, and compare each month with the same month a year earlier rather than with the month before it. The question is whether this September is better than last September, not whether it is worse than August.

A business that has just stepped up.You won a contract, hired ahead of the revenue, and the last four months look like a slope. That is an investment consuming cash, not a margin problem, and the test that separates them is whether the cost increase is matched by contracted revenue with dates on it. If it is, you have a timing problem with a name and a date, which is exactly what test two is asking for. If the revenue is expected rather than contracted, you have taken on fixed cost against a forecast, and that is the position financing makes worse rather than better.

The failure mode this test prevents

A margin problem financed as a timing problem does not stay one facility. The first product does not clear, so a second is taken to service the first, and the daily debits from both reduce the cash available for operations, which makes the margin problem worse. That is the mechanical origin of a stack of positions, and it usually begins with a shortfall that was diagnosed as timing because timing was the easier answer.

The twenty minutes spent on the three tests above is the cheapest work available to you, and it is the only part of this that no lender or broker will do on your behalf.