Trigger: payroll is Friday
Payroll is Friday and you are not sure the cash is there
This is the deadline that does not move. Everything else can wait a week. Payroll cannot, and by Wednesday night the options have already narrowed to the ones you did not want.
What is needed
What has to happen this week, in order
A cash crunch is a sequencing problem before it is a revenue problem. You cannot decide anything useful until you know exactly what lands and when. Most owners are working from a bank balance and a feeling.
What you actually have, to the day
Thirteen weeks of cash in and cash out, by week. Which weeks are tight, which are fine, and how big the actual gap is instead of how big it feels at midnight.
What can move and what must not
Collections you can pull forward, payables you can stretch, draws you can pause. And the one line that is never a lever, which is covered below.
The order the decisions go in
Which moves buy weeks and which buy days. Done in the right order, the hard calls happen once with a full picture instead of three times in a panic.
Why it happened, so it stops
It is almost always receivable timing, job margin, or an owner draw that outgrew the business. Getting through Friday matters. Not being here again in six weeks matters more.
Straight answers
Questions owners ask at this point
What do I do if I cannot make payroll this week?
Get the exact position first: a week-by-week view of what comes in and goes out for the next thirteen weeks. Most owners are working from a bank balance and a feeling, and the gap is usually different from what they think in both directions. Then sequence the levers rather than pulling all of them at once. For anything involving reducing pay, furloughs, or terminations, involve an employment attorney before you act, because those decisions carry legal exposure that a finance model does not cover.
Can I delay payroll taxes to make payroll?
No. This is the one place to be blunt. Withheld payroll taxes are not your money, they are held in trust for your employees, and unpaid amounts can become your personal liability through the trust fund recovery penalty. The IRS pursues owners individually for it, and it does not go away in a bankruptcy. It is the most expensive money you can ever borrow, and there is almost always a better lever.
Why is my business profitable on paper but cannot make payroll?
Profit and cash are different things. Cash gets trapped in receivables you have earned but not collected, in inventory or work in progress, in debt service, and in owner draws. A business can post a good month and still miss payroll three weeks later, and it happens constantly in construction and trades where the money goes out long before it comes in.
Is it too late to bring someone in?
If payroll is this week, the honest answer is that a thirteen-week view and a sequencing plan help, but nobody creates cash that does not exist. What that work does is stop the second and third crunch, which is usually where the real damage happens. The first call is free and you will get a straight answer on whether this is worth doing rather than a pitch.
There is a deadline on this
Get the number right the first time.
One call, 30 minutes, no cost. Tell me the deadline and what the other side has asked for, and you will get a straight answer on what it takes.