By Artem Korsakov ·
A contractor's cash gap can arise even on a project with a positive planned margin. Materials and the crew's work have to be paid for before the client transfers the money. A prepared completion certificate is still being reviewed, part of the amount is withheld under the contract, and the expected receipt in the spreadsheet is already set for this coming Friday. Automation helps detect the mismatch in dates and assign actions before money runs short.
In short: link each receipt to a specific basis and a confirmation stage. Build the calendar on the available balance, expected receipts and upcoming payments. Revenue, certification of work, retention and bank payment reflect different events.
Why a profitable project may need financing
Margin answers the question of the difference between revenue and the chosen cost composition. The cash balance answers the question of whether payments can be made on a specific day. These metrics are related but do not replace each other.
For an industrial contractor, it is useful to see project cash flow and the availability of money at the legal-entity level separately. A positive balance on one project does not mean it can be freely redirected to another: restrictions and the designated purpose of funds are checked by the finance department. A consolidated report must not hide a negative balance on a specific account if a transfer is not available.
The first version of the forecast does not have to model the entire group of companies. You can start with one legal entity, selected accounts and a few weeks. The period and level of detail are chosen according to the real payment rhythm.
How to link completed work and expected money
For each planned receipt, the contract, stage, amount, payment condition, calculated date and source are stored. Document preparation, submission for review, confirmation and actual receipt are shown separately. These stages are needed so that an incomplete document set is not counted as an equally reliable basis as a document accepted for payment.
The conditions for when the payment term starts are taken from the verified contract: they may depend on signing, receipt of the document set or another event. The specific procedure is determined by a company specialist. The system stores the confirmed rule and applies it to the actual date; it does not infer obligations from the single word “certificate”.
If a package has been returned for correction, the expected date is revised with the reason and the person responsible stated. The old expectation is kept in the history. The manager sees which delay arose in preparation and which relates to external review.
Advances and retentions: money must not be counted twice
An advance received earlier is already in the history of cash movements. Offsetting it when calculating the next payment does not count as a new receipt. Similarly, an advance paid to a supplier reduces the future payment amount for the same obligation, if this is confirmed by the accounting records and payment terms.
In a hypothetical example, the amount of a submitted and confirmed stage is RUB 5 million. Under the agreed terms, RUB 1 million of a previously received advance is offset against it and RUB 0.5 million is retained. The expected payment for this stage is then RUB 3.5 million. The example is illustrative; the composition of amounts and the tax basis are the same, and there are no other adjustments.
The retained RUB 0.5 million is shown on a separate line with the release condition and a confirmed or as yet unknown date. It does not disappear from the calculations and is not included in the next receipt by default. The previously received advance must not be added again either.
A simple weekly gap calculation
Suppose RUB 2 million is available at the start of the week. Mandatory payments by Friday amount to RUB 3 million, and the receipt of RUB 3.5 million is expected only next week. The forecast balance for the first week is minus RUB 1 million. Even if the second week ends positive, the first requires a decision on financing or an agreed change to payments.
This is a hypothetical illustrative calculation. In a working calendar with dense payments, a daily breakdown is needed: an inflow on Friday does not cover a payment on Tuesday without a separate decision. The opening balance is taken at a specific moment, and transactions already processed are excluded from future payments.
A loan or internal transfer is shown as a separate cash flow. It can cover a liquidity shortfall but does not improve the operating margin. Interest and fees are included in the corresponding expenses and payments according to the accepted model.
The chart shows the timing of cash movements; the project's profit is not visible on it. The balance of RUB 2.5 million in the second week results only if there are no other flows. AI helps update an expectation based on a client's email, the finance department confirms the date, and the responsible manager chooses the financing method. Illustrative scenario in millions of RUB: in the first week the balance goes down to minus 1, and the receipt of 3.5 arrives only in the second week. There are no other flows in the example.
What existing systems can already do
1C:Integrated Automation describes a payment calendar (1C is a widely used Russian business accounting platform) with available balances, planned receipts and payments. In it, payment requests and confirmed bank transactions are different process objects. 1C:ERP for Construction Companies (USO) provides for linking financing schedules with contracts and certification of work.
That is why a construction company's payment calendar does not always need to be developed from scratch. First check why the existing calendar does not reflect reality: there are no current certification dates, retentions are entered manually, the client's forecast stayed in personal correspondence, or no one has been assigned to update it.
A small product can collect this missing information and pass verified data into the existing process. For a pilot, an export with control totals is possible. Setting up a regular exchange depends on the configuration, permissions and the agreed data structure.
Where AI reduces manual work
The assistant parses permitted emails about document review, expected payment and comments found. It identifies the site, the document set number, the new date, the condition and the degree of certainty. The phrase “we plan to review it on Thursday” must not turn into “we will pay on Thursday”.
The result looks like a proposal to change the card, with a quote and a link to the original email. The employee checks which stage the message relates to and confirms the update. Based on verified cards, the calculation logic updates the cash flow forecast. AI prepares an explanation of which postponements changed the minimum balance.
Extracting fields from documents is a separate technological task; an example is described in Microsoft AI Builder. On real emails, you need to check negations, conditional promises, multiple dates and references to past payments. A recognised sentence does not become an instruction to the bank.
How to handle uncertain receipts
Instead of an arbitrary probability percentage, it is useful to store the basis of the expectation: a confirmed schedule, a message from the person responsible, a date calculated from a condition, or an unconfirmed assumption. The system shows different scenarios, and the finance director chooses which to include.
For example, the base case uses the current expected date, and the stress case moves a specific receipt by a week. Such a scenario makes sense when it is clear which payment has been moved and why. It does not predict an inevitable crisis. If a contractual condition has not yet been met, the date is better shown as uncertain, with a task to clarify it.
Automating the payment calendar helps assign an action: complete the document set, find out the review status, reconcile the amount or discuss the terms. It does not promise to speed up payment with a single notification and does not decide which mandatory payment can be skipped.
How to check the calendar before use
Reconcile the start of the period with bank data, then check the chain “basis, plan, partial payment, balance”. One payment must not remain both in completed and in expected. A date change replaces the old expectation; no second amount appears.
Take specific cases: an advance with an offset, a retention with no known date, returned documents, a partial payment and a transfer between the company's own accounts. The last changes account balances but must not artificially increase the company's receipts from clients.
The pilot is assessed by update time, the share of receipts with a verified basis and the number of gaps spotted before the payment date. Using an anonymised calendar and one document set, we can build a prototype that links work stages with expected money and explains every change.
Related reading: Construction cost forecasting: how much a project will earn by completion; Accounts receivable control with AI: from debt to action.
Частые вопросы ### Can a calendar be built on completion certificates alone?
That is not enough. You need available balances, payment terms, advances, retentions, other receipts and all payments selected for the forecast. The date and amount are confirmed by the responsible employee.
Will AI automatically reschedule payments?
In the first version, it suggests changes with sources. The finance department confirms them and makes decisions. Such an assistant does not need access to execute bank transactions.