We try to keep 3 to 6 months cash rewerves on hand for overhead and payroll - after we have paid off all of our consulting engineers. One problem comes at the end of our fiscal year. The cash reserves then show up as profit, and are subject to heavy income taxs. Instead of retaning and paying the income taxes on those earnings, we take those funds and distribute them to the partners and the staff as a bonus. Trouble is, then you have no cash reserves at the begening of the next fiscal year to fall back on. So we find ourselves popstponeing our year end billings, not cashing checks, etc. until after the begening of the new fiscal year. I know that this is hard for most Architects to do during these times, but it has worked for us for many years. So far we have not had to go to the bank for an operations loan in over 20 years.