Financing the city

It's the 3rd of the month. Three people in finance clear their calendars. For the next two weeks they will pull case notes, timesheets and ledgers from four systems and build the proof that last month's work happened. Nobody will deliver a service. Nobody will raise a dollar.

Picture a human services organization running a dozen city and state contracts. The services ran on time. The money didn't. Invoices went out three weeks after month end, and half came back for missing backup. Cash took 120 days to arrive. The organization drew on its credit line eight months a year to make payroll, paying interest on money the government owed it.

What SBK rebuilt

SBK mapped the path from service delivered to cash received. Every step that waited on a person got a name and a price. The rebuild connected the case, payroll and accounting systems. Records are checked as they land, so gaps get fixed the same week. The backup assembles itself, and invoices go out in three days. The same data feeds the funder reports, so nobody rebuilds them at year end.

What moved

Nine in ten invoices were accepted the first time, up from one in two. Cash arrived in 45 days instead of 120. Finance went from 30 staff days a month on backup to six. The credit line went from a monthly habit to a once-a-year backstop.