Practice Management Member Conversations

Think now about how long you can sustain your workforce in your P/L statements. In this scenario, I have less than 1 month...

The first unpaid invoice is explained away as timing. The second arrives with a new story, a new approval chain, and a request for just enough additional work to keep the project from losing momentum. Each explanation is plausible on its own, which is what makes the situation so dangerous. The client remains responsive, joins meetings, praises the team, and speaks about future projects as though the current one has already been resolved. Meanwhile, we continue advancing consultant fees, payroll, insurance, software, and overhead on a project whose funding exists mainly in optimistic emails. The signed agreement gives us rights. The lien gives us leverage. Neither tells me whether the client is trapped beside us or calmly watching us absorb a risk they never intended to carry.

Then the project begins consuming more than cash. Staff members quietly ask when payment is expected. Consultants become less comfortable with reassurance and more interested in dates. Paying clients wait while our team protects deadlines for someone who has not protected ours. Every hour spent keeping this project alive is borrowed from another client, another employee, or the company itself. I begin reviewing the account balance before approving ordinary expenses and calculating how many more weeks of loyalty we can afford. The client still needs one final push to secure the permit, close the financing, or reach the milestone that will supposedly release payment. Stopping now could destroy the very outcome that might make us whole. Continuing could deepen the loss beyond anything the relationship could ever repay. The project is no longer simply behind on fees. It has entered the firm, taken a seat at the leadership table, and begun making decisions for us.