Case study · A Paid Right NZ engagement
Growth had moved the bottleneck. It had not removed it.
A heavy diesel and mechanical workshop, growing well.
By Mel Curwood. More than 25 years working across New Zealand business, and nearly a decade helping trades, contractors and blue-collar businesses get paid in full, on time, every time. Over 350 of them.
By every visible measure it had worked. The owner had stepped back from the tools to grow the business. What nobody had accounted for was that every invoice, every approval, every dispute and every conversation that needed his authority still ran through him.
Outstanding and overdue, three days before the first session
$425,000
By the date of that first session it was roughly $140,000 to $150,000. A swing of nearly $280,000 in three days is what a payment cycle looks like when everything lands at once and nothing is spread.
~30 days
From job completion to invoice going out.
~30 days
From invoice to payment, with some at 60, 90 and beyond.
~$40,000
One unpaid job. A previously reliable payer. The vehicle still in the driveway.
The business was financing its own completed work. Labour, parts, stock and supplier accounts were all being funded before a single customer dollar arrived, across a wide mix of work, with labour that often could not be estimated until the job was already open.
And the delay started earlier than anyone thought. Supplier invoices arrived late, so the workshop could not price the job, so the invoice could not go out. Then the customer’s own terms began. Thirty days to invoice, plus the 20th of the month following, adds up to a wait of sixty days, ninety, or more.
Three things the first session made visible
A strong relationship is not a payment control.
The largest single exposure came from a customer who had always been a good payer. Goodwill had never been tested, so it had never been priced.
The problem was timing.
From the moment costs were incurred, through invoicing, to final payment. Chasing harder at the end would not have touched it.
The business was not starting from scratch.
Terms of trade, credit applications, personal guarantees, purchase orders, sign-off and a 50/50 structure on fit-outs were already there. They were just not operating as one system.
And it was costing sleep. The contrast came up in the very first session: a service business paid on the day, against his, which waits weeks, sometimes months, carrying the cost of work already delivered. The mental load of that gap is a cost in its own right.
What the work actually did
The owner came in through the Paid Right Accelerator, and the work was delivered one-to-one, which is how the Capability Intensive runs. Six blocks of structural decisions, made against this workshop, its jobs, its customers and its people.
01 The real measure, not the felt one
An honest picture of what was outstanding, how long invoicing took, and what the business was funding before payment. The $425,000 was known. The surprise was what it cost, and where it started.
02 Risk enters before the invoice
Diagnostic work priced and positioned properly. Who is paying, who will be invoiced and who has authority to approve, confirmed before anything starts, not after a fleet manager has authorised work the account holder never saw.
03 Documents that actually get used
Updated terms of trade and a client information form, put into the onboarding process rather than the filing cabinet. Company register checks on the legal entity. Credit reporting set up as an input to judgement, not a yes or no answer.
04 Getting it out of one person’s head
The transaction journey mapped like a production line: a trigger, the information needed, an owner, an action, a handover, a completion standard, an escalation when something is missing. An authority matrix so the team could decide without the interruption.
05 Timing as the lever
Deposits discussed at enquiry rather than hoped for later. Invoicing faster, without waiting on every supplier detail. Follow-up moved before the due date instead of a week after it, and a specific date set so payment does not roll into the next month’s cycle.
06 The new normal
Overdue notices described as “straightforward now.” Variations documented immediately. Changes in writing. Signed terms obtained. The default payment date no longer automatic.
Where it stands now
Under $50,000
$425,000 outstanding, down to under $50,000 by September 2026, with one complex account still being resolved.
Asked what had changed, the number is not what he named first. He had been “giving away agency without realising it.”
What the owner recorded himself
In his own words by the fifth block, he was leading rather than reacting: able to see and direct how money moves through his own business instead of finding out where he stood after the fact.
Cash flow better, with a real buffer. Continual expansion still puts pressure on it, and past cash-flow difficulty is something he does not intend to experience again.
Invoicing faster than before. Days outstanding reducing. Customers still paying after the 20th more often than he wants, but improving.
And what was still open at the end
- What level of lateness the business is actually prepared to accept. No limit or trigger had been set. The question was written down and left open.
- Whether early follow-up and faster escalation were operating, or still planned. Security considered, but registration not confirmed.
- Whether the insurance policies match how the business actually trades and what its terms of trade now say. A conversation with the broker still to have.
That list is on the page deliberately. Infrastructure is built, not bought. Six blocks changes what a business can see and decide. What it does with that is the next year, and it belongs to the owner.
This owner came in through the Paid Right Accelerator: six weeks working through how money moves into and through the business.