Typical situations
- Certified work is not being paid on time, or pay-less notices are reducing anticipated receipts.
- Retentions are building up and cannot be used to fund current jobs.
- A main contractor delay is pushing cost onto subcontractors who still have to pay labour and suppliers.
- Plant, materials and payroll are being funded on thinner facilities than the current work programme requires.
Map the cash that is actually available
A construction cash review should start with applications, certifications, notices, retention schedules and the status of each live contract. A management account that ignores those items will understate the problem or hide the remaining value.
From there, directors can see which receipts are genuinely delayed, which are disputed, and which jobs are consuming more cash than they will return.
Retentions are value, not emergency cash
Retentions can represent real sums due later, but they rarely solve an immediate payroll or materials gap. A retention schedule should still be mapped so the board knows what may become available, what is disputed, and what depends on another party's solvency.
We do not run a separate retentions-only service page, because that intent belongs here with the rest of construction payment mechanics. Deeper reading is available in our construction cash flow insight.
When the main contractor has not paid
Unpaid certified work, pay-less notices and main contractor delay all create the same board question: can the company fund completion, or does continuing deepen the loss?
If the payer is itself insolvent or enforcement has started, the cash conversation sits beside construction creditor pressure. If tax filings are slipping while receipts stall, read construction HMRC debt at the same time.
Generic working-capital advice is covered on the company cash flow page. This page is concerned with construction payment mechanics.
Common questions
Should we keep taking new work to fix cash flow?
Not if the new work requires more working capital than the company can fund, or if it is being taken at prices that deepen the gap. Volume without cash can make the position worse.
How is this different from general cash-flow support?
The general page covers working capital, overhead and receipts for UK companies. This page is about applications, retentions, pay-less notices and contractor-chain delay.
Why is there no separate page for retentions or unpaid main contractors?
Those searches describe the same commercial problem as construction cash flow. Separate pages would compete with each other. The detail sits here, with creditor pressure covering enforcement and insolvency of the payer.
Related services
Construction HMRC debt
Address CIS, VAT, PAYE and Time to Pay issues that are specific to contractors and subcontractors.
Construction creditor pressure
Respond to supplier action, main contractor insolvency and enforcement without losing sight of live contracts.
Personal guarantees
Map personal guarantees, plant finance and director duties in a contracting business under pressure.
Related insights
Construction cash flow, late payment and retentions
How late certificates, pay-less notices and retentions create cash pressure in construction businesses, and what directors should examine first.
Personal guarantees when a business is under pressure
What UK directors should understand about personal guarantees if their company is facing cash pressure, restructuring or insolvency.
