Calculator

Can I afford to deliver this contract?

You won a big job. You have to pay people and buy material for weeks before the first check lands, and the risk is not winning the work; it is funding the gap between doing it and being paid for it. This page builds the cash curve of the job from your own contract and cost schedule, tests it against your own bank balance and fixed outflow, then tells you one of four things: take it; take it with restructured terms (and names the ask); take it only with financing sized and committed before you sign; or decline, and why.

Every field starts blank on purpose. This page holds no typical retainage, no typical days-to-pay, no safe share of revenue, no months-of-cash rule and no financing odds; every number in the result comes from what you enter. Where a blank would change the answer, the page tells you which blank and stops rather than guessing. Your numbers stay in your browser; nothing is sent or stored.

1. The contract in hand

Read these off the contract or purchase order. Dates are the dates money actually moves; day zero is the commitment date.

Commitment date requiredThe day you signed, or the day you would sign. Every other date is measured from it

Contract value requiredThe total, before retainage

Billing schedule: each progress billing or milestone, the date you may invoice it and the amount (the amounts, plus any deposit below, must add up to the contract value)

Completion dateNeeded only if the contract carries no net-days term: receipts are then dated at completion

Payment terms as writtenNet days from invoice, as the contract states them. Leave blank if the contract pays on completion

Retainage held backAs the contract states it. Leave blank if none; blank is treated as none and flagged, never as a norm

Retainage release dateThe date the contract says the held-back amount is paid. If the contract states a condition rather than a date, put the date you expect; if you cannot, leave blank and the retained amount is reported as unscheduled

Does the retainage survive if the customer cancels?What the contract says, not what you hope

Deposit or mobilisation payment dateOnly if the contract as signed offers one

Deposit or mobilisation payment amountPart of the contract value, not on top of it

If the customer cancels, does the business keep the deposit?A term in the contract. Left unstated, the concentration test reports both branches

Is an advance recouped against later billings?If yes, later billings are reduced by the advance and the deposit lever is sized by scanning your schedule rather than in closed form

Are the billing dates fixed to the calendar, or do they follow the work?Decides whether a later start date helps or just moves the billings with it

Can the customer cancel or terminate for convenience?From the contract

2. How this customer actually pays

Observed days from invoice to money in the bankFor this customer, or for your customers generally: the last three invoices and the dates the money landed, from your bank statement. Leave blank and the curve runs on the contract terms, flagged, and the terms-versus-behaviour gap is not computed

3. What it costs to deliver, and when each cost is paid

From your bid worksheet, payroll calendar and supplier terms: every direct cost line with the date it leaves the bank. Leave your fixed overhead out; it is entered in section 4 so it is never charged twice. A curve missing outlays understates the hole, so if you cannot date them, stop here and fix that first (see the next action after you run it).

The contribution this job must clear for you to want itYour own bar, from the bid worksheet. Blank means the margin test only checks that the job is not below zero, flagged, and the plain "take" verdict is withheld until you set it

4. The business

Operating cash today requiredOperating accounts, not the line of credit

Monthly fixed outflow the business carries regardless of this job requiredRent, payroll for everyone not on this job, insurance, loan payments, the taxes the business pays

Reserve floor: the operating cash you will not go belowYour own number. Blank is treated as zero and flagged; it is never a months-of-expenses rule

5. Committed credit

A line agreement or a supplier terms letter in writing counts. "They would probably give me terms" is zero, and a draw is never assumed to be available.

Line limitFrom the agreement

Amount drawn todayFrom the last statement

Is the commitment in writing?

Do you know the conditions on it?Borrowing base, annual clean-up, covenant, personal guarantee

Would this job or this customer's share touch one of those conditions?Recorded as you state it; this page does not interpret the agreement

6. People

Does the job need hours the business does not have?

First day the schedule needs more hours than you have

Hours short in that periodHours the job needs beyond what your crew supplies

Overtime hours your own people could cover in that periodYour own stated capacity; no statutory rule is applied to it

Day a new hire would actually be productiveYour own hiring experience

Hires the plan addsZero if you would cover with overtime or a subcontract

Loaded daily cost of one hireWage plus the employer taxes and the rest, per working day, from your own payroll. Blank blocks the affordability test; it is never built from a published rate.Context beside this field, not inside it: Employer Social Security 6.2% to the 2026 wage base of $184,500 and Medicare 1.45% (IRS Topic 751, updated 2026-01-20); FUTA 0.6% net on the first $7,000 per employee (IRS Topic 759, updated 2026-02-25; a floor in credit-reduction states); FLSA overtime 1.5x the regular rate above 40 hours per workweek for non-exempt workers (29 USC 207(a)(1)); state unemployment tax is per state and not included. These are shown for context. This page does not build a loaded cost from them; a blank loaded cost blocks the affordability test and says so.

First payroll date for the hire

Length of a payroll period

Your overtime rateLoaded, per hour

Your base loaded ratePer hour

Does the cost schedule already price the shortfall hours at the base rate?If yes, only the premium is added; if no, the full overtime cost is added. This page shows both and does not choose

Payroll date the overtime is paid

Expediting premium you would actually payYour own figure

Date the expediting premium is paid

Subcontract bid you already hold for the shortfallA dated bid already in hand, not one solicited to fill this field

Amount the cost schedule already carries for that scope

Date the subcontract is paid

7. Concentration and notice

This customer's share of your revenue after awardFrom your sales-by-customer report. Or leave blank and enter the two figures below

Trailing twelve months of revenueUsed only if the share above is blank

This contract's revenue in the same windowUsed only if the share above is blank

Notice period requiredDays of notice the contract gives before the account is gone

Commitment horizon after notice requiredHow many days after a cancellation notice your committed spend on this job keeps going out: material already ordered, payroll you cannot stop

8. The work this job displaces

Contribution the crew or capacity would otherwise have earned over the same periodFrom your own backlog and past-job margins: the one owners never compute. Enter 0 if this job displaces nothing; leave blank and the test is reported as not run, which withholds a "take"

9. Your cost of money, and the one bound this page needs from you

Your own cost of moneyThe line rate if you would borrow, or what the cash would otherwise earn. Shown back to you for context; the exposure is reported in days and dollars, never as an interest cost

Largest deposit or mobilisation payment this customer would realistically grantAs a percent of contract value, from your own knowledge of the customer. This bounds the deposit lever: an unbounded day-zero receipt is not a lever, it is an escape hatch. Left blank, the deposit lever is not decided and no verdict rests on it.Provisional reference: 25% of contract value. Source: none. It is not a benchmark, it is not filled in, and it is not treated as a fact.

If no single change closes the cash, which combination would you actually ask for?Only read when no single lever closes the shortfall inside the bound above. The lever table shows which combinations close; nothing is selected for you

How the verdict is reached

First the job on its own: every receipt dated at its billing date plus the days this customer actually takes to pay (or the contract terms, flagged, if you have no observed figure), retainage held to its release date, and every cost on the date it leaves the bank. That is the cash curve; its deepest point and the days it spends underwater are the exposure, and the difference between the terms run and the behaviour run is the gap between what the contract says and how the money arrives. Then your business is laid under it: cash today, less fixed outflow accruing every day, less the reserve floor you set. The deepest point of that position is searched at every event and at the instant before each receipt lands, because the hole is deepest the day before the money arrives. If it dips below zero, that is the cash shortfall, reported cash-only first and with committed credit second.

Alongside the cash: whether the schedule needs hours before a hire could be productive; what overtime, expediting or a subcontract does to the contribution and to the curve; how much of the plan leans on credit that is not committed in writing; what the work this job displaces would have earned; and what losing this customer at the notice period would do to the reserve floor through the committed spend, with receipts landing on the notice day counted as gone. The four answers are reached in a fixed order: take, only if the plan funds itself and nothing fires; take with restructured terms, if a deposit, earlier billing, shorter terms, a retainage change, a price uplift or a start-date change closes the shortfall inside the bounds you entered and the concentration test after it finds no breach; take only with financing sized and committed in advance, tested only after restructuring has failed and only when the credit is clear in writing; and decline, whenever any one of four independent triggers fires and nothing cures it. A blank that would change the answer stops the verdict and names itself.

What this page will not do

It holds no benchmark: no typical retainage, no typical days-to-pay, no safe share of revenue, no months-of-cash figure, no owner-pay figure. Where you ask whether your number is normal, the answer is your number.
It produces no financing odds, no interest cost and no lender, factor or provider as a destination.
It does not interpret a contract clause, a covenant, a bond, a lien right or a worker's status. It scores the plan on what you say the documents say.
It does not fill a blank field, ever, including from a source that has been cleared for display.
The federal employer-tax and overtime figures shown beside the loaded-cost field are context from IRS Topic 751, IRS Topic 759 and 29 USC 207(a)(1) (read 2026-09-02); they are never placed inside a field and never used to build a number you did not enter.

This calculator is informational and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice. It uses the numbers you enter and nothing else. What your contract permits, what your lender has committed, and whether to sign are decisions for you with your attorney, your lender and your return preparer. Consult a qualified professional for decisions specific to your situation.