{"id":12317,"date":"2026-09-18T21:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunbeltnetwork.com\/lafayette-la\/?p=12317"},"modified":"2026-09-18T21:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:13:05","slug":"cash-habits-are-setting-the-buyers-working-capital-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunbeltnetwork.com\/lafayette-la\/cash-habits-are-setting-the-buyers-working-capital-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Cash Habits Are Setting the Buyer\u2019s Working Capital Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Main Street businesses with identical revenue can face very different demands at closing. The difference is usually how the owner has been handling receivables, inventory and payables.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two owners sit down with a broker in the same month. Both run about $3 million in revenue, both have a good crew, and both are ready to retire. One gets a buyer who asks for $300,000 of working capital to be left in the business. The other gets a buyer asking for a million. A third buyer, looking at either business, asks for nothing at all because his lender is funding it.<\/p>\n

Same size business, three different conversations. What separates them is a set of habits the owner stopped noticing years ago.<\/p>\n

Two Numbers That Get Called the Same Thing<\/h2>\n

Working capital<\/strong> is a formula: current assets minus current liabilities, which on most Main Street balance sheets means receivables plus inventory minus payables. It is a snapshot of what the business has tied up in its own operating cycle on a given day.<\/p>\n

Operating capital<\/strong> is the cash a new owner needs to run the business normally. Payroll on Friday, the supplier invoice on the 10th, materials for the job that bills in 45 days.<\/p>\n

The two terms get used interchangeably at the closing table. In an owner-operated business they can sit a few hundred thousand dollars apart, and that gap is where deals get tense.<\/p>\n

Three Habits That Inflate the Number<\/h2>\n

Owner-operators build up working capital for human reasons, and each one traces back to keeping somebody happy.<\/p>\n

Customers get to hold your money.<\/strong> Your invoice says net 30. Your best customer pays in 55, sometimes 70, and you have never pushed because you do not want to lose the account. Every day of drift in collection is another day your cash is funding your customer\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Inventory creeps up.<\/strong> You stock the odd part for the customer who comes in once a year so nobody has to wait three days for it. Do that for a decade and your inventory doubles. That is cash sitting on a shelf, and some of it will never move.<\/p>\n

Vendors get paid the day the bill arrives.<\/strong> Some of that is not wanting to upset a supplier. Some of it is that tracking due dates is a headache. Your suppliers handed you 30 days of free financing and you paid them in five.<\/p>\n

Honorable mention goes to the cash pile. Plenty of owners keep six figures parked in the operating account because it feels safe there.<\/p>\n

Add it up and the balance sheet shows a business that looks like it needs a fortune to operate. What it actually shows is how one owner has chosen to run it.<\/p>\n

What That Looks Like in Dollars<\/h2>\n

Take a $3 million distribution business with $1.8 million in COGS and $750,000 in operating expenses after the usual adjustments for discretionary, non-cash and one-time items.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
$3M Business, $1.8M COGS, $750K Expenses<\/th>\nAs the Owner Runs It<\/th>\n\u00a0Run to Terms<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Days AR (terms are net 30)<\/td>\n\u00a058 days<\/td>\n\u00a030 days<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Days Inventory (operation needs 45)<\/td>\n\u00a0120 days<\/td>\n\u00a045 days<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Days AP (terms are net 30)<\/td>\n\u00a05 days<\/td>\n\u00a030 days<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Cash Conversion Cycle<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a0173 days<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a045 days<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Accounts Receivable<\/td>\n\u00a0$477K<\/td>\n\u00a0$247K<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Inventory<\/td>\n\u00a0$592K<\/td>\n\u00a0$222K<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Accounts Payable<\/td>\n\u00a0($25K)<\/td>\n\u00a0($148K)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Working Capital Tied Up<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a0$1.04M<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a0$321K<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Same business, same customers. The owner has $1.04 million tied up in working capital, plus $400,000 sitting in the bank. A buyer who collects on terms, pays on terms and carries what the shelf actually needs runs that operation on $321,000. About $723,000 comes loose.<\/p>\n

Now the question that matters at closing. COGS plus operating expenses is $2.55 million a year, which is about $6,986 a day. Thirty days of that is roughly $210,000. Sixty days is roughly $419,000. That is the operating capital a buyer should plan for, and it covers the stretch after closing while the buyer\u2019s own receivables build up.<\/p>\n

The buyer looking at a $1.44 million balance sheet needs about $210,000 to $419,000 to run the business. The rest is habit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why You Usually Keep Your Cash and Your Receivables<\/h2>\n

Main Street deals are almost always cash-free and debt-free. You keep the money in the bank and the receivables you earned. The buyer takes the business, the equipment and the operating inventory. Work in progress is the common exception: a job you have already paid labor and materials on that the buyer will invoice, which gets trued up at or shortly after closing.<\/p>\n

Buyers can finance their operating capital, and lenders expect them to. An SBA 7(a) acquisition loan can include working capital in the proceeds, and plenty of buyers set up a line of credit alongside it. So when a buyer insists you leave a few hundred thousand dollars of your own money in the business, the honest answer is that the next buyer will finance it. In a deal priced between $500,000 and $3 million, that is usually where the conversation ends.<\/p>\n

Where That Changes as the Price Goes Up<\/h3>\n

The higher the purchase price climbs, the less that holds. Above the SBA range, buyers are private equity groups, family offices and strategic acquirers using their own capital stack, and their agreements set a normalized working capital target, often called a peg. Deliver less than the peg at closing and the shortfall comes out of your proceeds dollar for dollar.<\/p>\n

Here is the part sellers miss: the peg is built from your own history. Fifty-eight Days AR and 120 Days Inventory get read as the capital this business requires, and the target gets set there. A buyer who fully intends to fix your collections in his first 90 days will still ask you to fund the old number on the way out. Your habits stop being a footnote and start being a line item on the settlement statement.<\/p>\n

So the exposure runs in both directions. In a smaller deal, inflated working capital costs you buyer confidence and a round of arguing. In a larger one, it costs you cash at closing.<\/p>\n

What to do About It, Starting Now<\/h2>\n

Twelve months is enough time to move all three numbers, and none of it requires a consultant.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Collect to terms. Call on day 31, every time. Most customers pay slowly because nobody asks.<\/li>\n
  • Clear the shelf. Sell, return or write off what has not moved in a year before a buyer counts it and discounts it.<\/li>\n
  • Use the terms you already have. Paying on day 30 costs you nothing and holds cash in your account.<\/li>\n
  • Document work in progress. Any true-up at closing should come off written records.<\/li>\n
  • Know your cash conversion cycle. Days AR plus Days Inventory minus Days AP. Be ready to say the number out loud and explain the trend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    None of this changes what the business earns. It changes how much cash a buyer has to bring, how much a lender has to fund, and how the offer reads when it lands on your desk. A buyer who can see that the business turns cash quickly writes a cleaner offer than one staring at a million dollars of working capital, wondering how much of it he is going to have to replace.None of this changes what the business earns. It changes how much cash a buyer has to bring, how much a lender has to fund, and how the offer reads when it lands on your desk. A buyer who can see that the business turns cash quickly writes a cleaner offer than one staring at a million dollars of working capital, wondering how much of it he is going to have to replace.<\/p>\n

    The Habits Behind the Working Capital Ask<\/h2>\n

    Two Main Street businesses can post the same $3 million in revenue and get very different treatment at closing. One buyer asks for $300,000 of working capital to be left in the business. Another asks for a million. A third finances it himself and asks for nothing. The difference usually comes down to three habits: letting customers pay late, stocking inventory nobody buys, and paying vendors the day the bill lands.<\/p>\n

    This month we walk through working capital versus operating capital, what a buyer can finance through an SBA 7(a) loan, and why those habits get expensive once your deal price climbs past the SBA range.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Two Main Street businesses with identical revenue can face very different demands at closing. The difference is usually how the owner has been handling receivables, inventory and payables. Two owners sit down with a broker in the same month. Both run about $3 million in revenue, both have a good crew, and both are ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":12318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-general"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYour Cash Habits Are Setting the Buyer\u2019s Working Capital Ask | Sunbelt Business Brokers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two identical $3M businesses, three different buyer demands for working capital. 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