PROFIT MASTERY PRESENTS
The Profit Move
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THE NUMBER
29.3
days is how long the average small business waits to get paid. The number is rising.
Late payments got better last quarter. Customers paid 8.5 days past due, half a day faster than the quarter before.
The wait still got longer. 29.3 days, up from 28.6.
Both are true because the delay is moving out of customer behavior and into the terms on your own invoice. Customers are not paying later. You agreed to wait longer.
That wait has a name on your balance sheet. Receivables. It is the first place cash goes to hide.
Source: Xero Small Business Insights, United States, June quarter 2026.
▍WORTH KNOWING
September 15 is a balance sheet event, not a P&L event.
Third quarter estimated tax is due one week from today. Extended S corp and partnership returns land the same day.
Here is the part owners miss. If you run an S corp, a partnership, or an LLC taxed as either, the business usually does not pay that tax. You do. The money leaves as a distribution, and a distribution is not an expense. It never touches your P&L.
It comes out of equity on the balance sheet, and it takes cash with it.
Which is how a month shows a healthy profit and a shrinking bank balance at the same time.
If that payment leaves the business account next week, book it as a distribution, not an expense.
Source: IRS quarterly estimated tax and extended return deadlines.
▍THIS WEEK'S MOVE
Find the line that ate your cash.
Ten minutes and your accounting login.
Run your balance sheet twice. Once as of January 1, once as of today. Most systems will produce both in under a minute.
Write down what cash did between those two dates. Up or down, and by how much.
Now write down what these three did over the same stretch:
• Receivables
• Inventory
• Fixed assets
Those three usually explain most of the cash change. The cash did not vanish. It changed shape. It became work you delivered and have not been paid for, product sitting on a shelf, or equipment in the yard. If those three do not explain it, look at debt payments and what you took out.
Cash has to be $55. The other three lines grew by $45, and total assets did not move.
None of that is automatically wrong. Growing businesses consume cash before they produce it. It only becomes a problem when you cannot name which line took it.
Name the biggest one. Next week we go find it.
▍THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE
Anatomy of the Financial Statements (Pt. 2)
A customer sends you $5,000 up front for a job you have not started. Where does it belong? Revenue, an asset, a liability, or cash in the bank?
Colin opens Saturday's piece with that question. The answer is less obvious than it looks.
From there he walks the balance sheet end to end, including why your bottom line ends up on the balance sheet every year as retained earnings.
Part two of three, after part one on the P&L. Cash flow is next.
Free to read. Substack will ask you to claim it first.
▍UPCOMING
Office Hours for PM Pro
Friday, September 11, 10:00am ET, two hours. Members only. Details
Price for Profit, Not Just to Win the Job
Friday, September 25, 10:00 to 11:00am ET, virtual. $39, free for PM Pro. Register
PMU Virtual Bootcamp
December 1 to 17, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 to 4:00pm ET. Six sessions, twelve hours. From $495, free for PM Pro. Details
Colin's Saturday series is working through one of the seven steps we teach: monitor your financial position.
The December bootcamp is all seven, taught live over twelve hours. Same curriculum as the in-person flagship, same instructor.
The average is 29 days. What is yours? Take receivables, divide by a year of sales, multiply by 365. Hit reply with the number.
Thanks,
The Profit Mastery Team
Know your numbers. Command your cash. Scale with confidence.
The Profit Move is education, not personalized financial or investment advice.