Very Profitable. Always Broke.
Many businesses report profit and still struggle to breathe. The FBP can find a way to fix this to be very valuable
Welcome back. This is episode 3 of The Quick Win Series, and today I want to take you into cash chaos, one of the fastest places a Finance Business Partner can become genuinely useful to the business.
The Problem
Profit can be patient. Cash is not.
Profit sits in reports. Cash sits in decisions. Salaries. Suppliers. Rent. Stock. Tax. Loan repayments. Emergency transfers. That urgent call from the CEO asking, “How much do we actually have?” Even if a company makes profits, it cannot pay dividends if it doesn’t have cash.
That is why cash chaos feels different.
When margin leaks, the business may not notice immediately. When cash is tight, there is very little wiggle room.
In many businesses, cash is not really managed. It is chased. Collections are reactive. Supplier payments are emotional. Purchases are driven by pressure. Receivables age quietly until they become a crisis. Payables are handled by whoever shouts the loudest.
Then finance is expected to explain why a profitable business still has no money.
That is your opening.
As an FBP, you may not control every cash decision. But you can bring rhythm, visibility, and discipline to the decisions that shape cash.
And when you help the business breathe, people listen and trust you very quickly.
A Story
Some time ago, I was working with Ngozi, a finance manager in a growing service business.
The business was profitable by all measurable metrics, but every day was a slugfest.
The CEO would ask what could be paid. Suppliers would call. Staff reimbursements would sit pending. The operations team would push for urgent purchases. Sales would promise that customers were “definitely paying next week.”
Ngozi was frustrated because the accounts said the business was improving. But the bank balance kept telling a different story. It was always weird because every financial report she prepared showed that the company was doing well. This usually caused serious doubt over her credibility. You can imagine what this looks like in a business.
When we looked more closely, the issue was not only poor collections. It was the decision rhythm. Nobody was reviewing expected inflows and committed outflows together. Payment decisions were being made one by one, under pressure. Customer promises were accepted without follow-up dates. Stock and supplier commitments were approved before cash timing was clear.
So we helped her build a simple weekly cash view.
Opening balance. Expected collections. Critical payments. Optional payments. Risks. Owner. Date.
Nothing fancy. The first meeting was uncomfortable because the truth was finally visible. A customer payment everyone assumed would arrive that week was already ten days late. A planned purchase would have pushed the business into another shortfall.
Ngozi did not solve every cash problem that week. But she changed the conversation.
Cash stopped being a surprise. It became a decision that she helped facilitate. That is much better value than just reporting the shortfalls.
Ajibola’s Tips
1. Treat cash as a weekly leadership issue, not a month-end finance topic.
I have seen businesses wait for management accounts to explain a cash problem that had been forming quietly every week. By the time the report arrived, the impacts of those decisions were too late.
You should bring cash into the rhythm of the business. Cash decisions are too important to be left until a report is ready.
Action Tip: Create a cash view with six lines: opening balance, expected inflows, required outflows, optional outflows, cash risks, and closing position. Ensure that the business leaders see this and talk about it.
2. Separate profit confidence from cash confidence.
Due to accounting conventions, a business can be profitable and still come under pressure if customers pay late, stock moves slowly, or supplier terms are poorly managed. I learned not to let a positive profit number calm me when the cash cycle underneath it was weak.
As an FBP, part of your value is helping the business understand where profit is trapped: in receivables, in inventory, in poor payment timing, and in commercial decisions that look attractive but damage liquidity. Force those conversations by showing exactly where the money is trapped.
Action Tip: Pick your latest profit report and link it to cash. It should show you and the management team how profit and cash are linked together and, if not, where the money truly is.
3. Ask for dates, not promises.
I have heard “the customer will pay soon” too many times to mistake it for useful information. Soon is not a cash forecast. Soon does not pay suppliers. Soon does not fund payroll.
You should train the business to speak and work with ABSOLUTE dates, owners, and amounts. If sales says a customer will pay, ask when, how much, and who is following it up.
Action Tip: Review your top ten receivables and add three columns beside each one: promised date, owner, and next action.
4. Make payment decisions visible before they become political.
In many businesses, cash often goes to the loudest pressure or who has the biggest backing, not the best decision. One supplier calls repeatedly. One manager has direct access to the CEO. One urgent request jumps the queue.
Your role is to make the trade-offs visible. When cash is limited, every payment is also a decision not to pay something else.
Action Tip: For the next payment run, group payments into Critical, Important, and Deferrable before approvals are made. Clearly show the trade-off if payments in the critical sections want to be bypassed.
5. Connect cash discipline to business freedom.
Some teams hear cash control and assume finance is blocking them. I learned to frame it differently. Cash discipline is what gives the business room to move.
When cash is visible, the business can negotiate better, plan purchases better, avoid panic borrowing, and protect relationships. That is not a restriction. That is breathing space.
Action Tip: Transparency is the major play you have here. Show clearly how the business has used cash to force conversations on how to use it better.
“Profit tells you the business has value. Cash tells you whether the business can survive long enough to use it.” - Ajibola Jinadu
Grow With Us
If today’s issue resonated with you, then the next step is to build the skill to turn finance information into decisions the business can act on.
The Finance Business Partner Masterclass is where I teach finance professionals how to move from explaining numbers after the fact to shaping the choices that protect growth, cash, and profit. [Join the Masterclass here]. Only 2 days to go.
If you can’t join us and you want the practical book behind this series, get this eBook and start applying the ideas inside your own business. [Get the eBook here].
Conclusion
Cash chaos is not always caused by a bad business. Sometimes it is caused by good activity without rhythm.
Nobody is joining timing, commitments, and decisions into one clear view. That is where the FBP becomes useful.
When you help the business breathe, you earn trust quickly.
Tomorrow: We will look at what happens when a business does not really have structured pricing and how you can fix it.
Subscribe so you do not miss it.
Cheers,
Ajibola.