The Cashflow Exposure Report: The Money Your Portfolio Has Earned But Not Yet Collected
A guide for Finance Directors, Managing Directors and Commercial Directors on the five types of payment exposure hiding in a live project portfolio and how to see them before they become problems.
- The five types of payment exposure hiding in a live project portfolio and how to categorise them
- Why 4 to 6% of active portfolio value sits uncollected in the payment chain at any given time
- A worked example: £1.625M in uncollected exposure across three projects, broken down by category and urgency
- Why the FD cannot see this in the management accounts until the window to act has already closed
- The portfolio cashflow exposure report: the single-page view that replaces a two-day compilation exercise
Finance Playbook
The Cashflow Exposure Report
The Number That's Missing
The management accounts show the aggregate. They don't show what's at risk.
At any given moment, a UK contractor with three or four live projects has between 4 and 6 percent of active portfolio value sitting uncollected in the payment chain. Some of it is clean timing exposure that will arrive next month. Some is heading toward a write-off. The management accounts show it all as debtors and WIP.
The Finance Director experiences it as a recurring frustration: debtors that don't move, working capital tighter than the profit position suggests, and money earned that is not being collected at the pace it should be. The conversation with the commercial director produces a spreadsheet three days later, when the moment to act has already passed.
This guide names the five types of exposure, works through the numbers on a three-project portfolio, and describes what a portfolio-level cashflow exposure view looks like in practice.
What's Covered
Seven chapters giving FDs and MDs the visibility they need over the payment chain:
What Cashflow Exposure Means
How it differs from WIP and why the distinction matters
The Five Types of Payment Exposure
Each with its own risk profile and required action
A Worked Example: Three Projects, One Portfolio
£1.625M in uncollected exposure with a clear priority order
Why the FD Cannot See This Until It Is Too Late
The structural information gap between commercial and finance
The Application Cycle as a Cash Management Tool
Four points where the cycle creates or destroys cash velocity
Building a Portfolio Cash Exposure View
The one-page report that replaces a two-day compilation exercise
Can You See Your Exposure? A Self-Audit
Eight questions for the FD to test current portfolio visibility
"The FD who first sees a cashflow exposure problem in the management accounts is seeing it three to five weeks after the commercial event that created it. For category 3 exposure under NEC contracts, three to five weeks is the difference between recoverable entitlement and an extinguished claim."
From the guide
Related Reading
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The Platform
Portfolio Payment Visibility Without the Compilation Exercise
StoneRise gives FDs and commercial directors a live view of earned value, application status, overdue payments and unreleased retention across the portfolio, updated in real time rather than assembled on request.
Real-Time Cost Tracking
Live portfolio view of earned value, certified sums and payment exposure updated continuously, not at month-end.
Payment Applications
Structured application cycle with submission tracking, deadline management and overdue payment visibility.
Commercial Management
Variation registers, subcontract accounts and retention tracking connected to portfolio-level commercial reporting.