Turnaround & Restructuring: Stabilizing Cash Flow Before It's Too Late

Distress rarely arrives as a single event. It accumulates — a missed covenant, a stretched payable cycle, a customer default, a margin that quietly eroded over several quarters. By the time most owners recognize the severity, the cash runway is measured in weeks. Our turnaround work focuses on buying time first, then restructuring the business so that time is used productively rather than simply extending the inevitable.

The first 30 days: establish a credible 13-week cash flow

Nothing else matters until you can see the cash clearly. The first step in any engagement is a rolling 13-week cash flow forecast built from the ground up — receipts, disbursements, debt service, and covenant triggers. This becomes the single source of truth for every decision in the early weeks and the document that lets you have an honest conversation with lenders before a default forces the conversation on you.

Stop the bleeding

With the cash picture in hand, we move quickly to protect liquidity. Common early actions include tightening credit and collections, renegotiating supplier terms, prioritizing critical payables, and pausing discretionary spend. The goal is not indiscriminate cost-cutting — it is preserving the cash that keeps the core business operating while we diagnose what is actually broken.

Diagnose and restructure

Once the business is stable, we dig into the root causes. That work typically spans several areas:

• Margin analysis by product, customer, and channel to identify where value is actually created.
• Right-sizing the cost structure to current revenue reality, not historical run-rate.
• Restructuring debt and working with lenders to align covenants with the recovery plan.
• Rebuilding financial reporting so management can see the business in real time.
• Realigning the organization around the customers and segments that drive sustainable cash flow.

The discipline that prevents relapse

A successful turnaround is not just surviving the crisis — it is building the financial discipline that prevents the next one. That means weekly cash meetings, monthly closes that actually close on time, and a forecast the leadership team trusts. Companies that institutionalize those habits emerge from distress stronger than they were before, and far better positioned for whatever comes next.

If liquidity is tightening, the single most expensive thing you can do is wait. Early intervention preserves options; delay eliminates them.