Cash acceleration strategy

Identify opportunities to increase profitability or reduce costs

Sessions: 4
Steps: 15
Last edited: Apr 3, 2026
Created by: Nova

About this process

4 Step framework that will help you find smarter ways to make more money or spend less

Sessions at a glance

#SessionSteps

01Cash acceleration discussion4 0290 day plan0 03Annual impact3 04Cash acceleration proposals8

The process in detail

4 sessions · 15 steps

Cash acceleration discussion

4 steps

1
Sales Cycle
2
Production & Inventory Cycle
3
Delivery & Billing Cycle
4
Key Strategic Areas & Considerations

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1. Sales Cycle

Key questions and considerations before sharing and discussing ideas:

Pipeline & velocity

•Where are deals stalling — and why?

•What's the average time from first contact to closed deal?

•Are we targeting the right buyer profile (ICP), or wasting cycles on poor-fit leads?

•What's our lead-to-opportunity conversion rate? Opportunity-to-close rate?

Pricing & terms

•Are our payment terms accelerating or slowing cash in? (Net 30 vs. Net 15 vs. upfront)

•Can we incentivize early payment with discounts without hurting margin?

•Are we leaving cash on the table by not offering annual/prepaid options?

Conversion

•What's killing conversion at each stage of the funnel?

•Is the problem awareness, trust, urgency, or friction in the buying process?

•How long does it take a lead to make a decision — and what drives that timeline?

•Are we losing deals to competitors, to "do nothing," or to internal blockers?

Traction

•Which channels bring in the fastest-converting leads?

•What's the cost per acquired customer by channel, and how does that affect cash timing?

•Are we investing in channels that take 6 months to produce vs. channels that produce in 2 weeks?

•Is our brand strong enough to reduce the sales cycle length over time?

Other sales cycle questions to add to yours:

•What's our average contract value, and are we trending up or down?

•Do we have a referral or expansion motion that converts faster than new business?

•Are we collecting deposits, retainers, or partial upfront payments?

•What's our win rate by deal size — are large deals dragging the cycle down?

2. Production & Inventory Cycle

Inventory management

•How many days of inventory are we holding on average (DIO)?

•Are we over-ordering to feel safe, and what is that costing us in locked cash?

•Which SKUs or inputs move fast vs. sit still — do we know our dead stock?

•Are we ordering based on real demand signals or gut feel?

Supplier & procurement

•What are our current payment terms with suppliers — can we negotiate longer?

•Are we paying suppliers faster than we're collecting from customers? (This is a cash drain)

•Do we have single-source dependencies that force us into unfavorable terms?

•Can we shift to consignment or just-in-time models to reduce inventory cash lock-up?

Production efficiency

•What's the time between raw material purchase and finished product?

•Where are the bottlenecks in production that extend the cash cycle?

•Are we producing to forecast or to order — and which is more appropriate for our model?

•What's our rework/waste rate, and how does that affect both cost and timing?

Demand forecasting

•How accurate is our demand forecasting — and what's the cost of being wrong?

•Are we seasonally aware in how we plan inventory investment?

•Do we have a SKU rationalization strategy to reduce complexity and cash lock-up?

3. Delivery & Billing Cycle

Billing speed

•How quickly do we invoice after delivery or completion of service?

•Is invoicing manual or automated — where are the delays?

•Are there internal approval steps before invoicing that slow us down?

•Do we invoice in batches (monthly) when we could invoice immediately?

Collections & DSO

•What's our Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and how does it benchmark against industry?

•What percentage of invoices are paid on time vs. late?

•Do we have a structured follow-up process for overdue invoices?

•Are we writing off bad debt regularly — and could better credit checks prevent this?

Customer-side friction

•How easy is it for customers to actually pay us? (payment methods, portals, clarity of invoice)

•Are our invoices clear and dispute-free — or do errors cause delays?

•Do customers have the approvals and budgets in place before we deliver?

•Are we getting purchase order numbers upfront to avoid billing disputes?

•Contractual & milestone structure

•Are contracts structured with milestone payments tied to delivery stages?

•Can we shift from "pay on completion" to "pay on start + pay on completion"?

•Are there performance clauses or delays that give customers reasons not to pay on time?

4. Key Strategic Areas & Considerations

1. The CCC formula itself

Track: CCC = DSO + DIO − DPO. The goal is to minimize this number — ideally get it negative (you collect before you pay, like Amazon or subscription businesses).

2. Pricing model as a cash lever

Subscription, retainer, or milestone billing models fundamentally change your cash position. If you're still billing entirely on completion, that's a structural cash risk worth redesigning.

3. Customer segmentation by cash behavior

Some customers are chronically late, dispute invoices, or demand long terms. Know which customer profiles drain cash and factor that into acquisition decisions.

4. Working capital as a growth constraint

Fast growth can actually destroy cash if your cycle is long — you're funding more and more work before you get paid. Know your working capital requirement per unit of revenue growth.

5. Credit policy

Who do you extend credit to, for how long, and under what conditions? Many businesses have no formal credit policy — they just agree to whatever the customer asks.

6. Financing options as a bridge

Invoice factoring, revenue-based financing, supplier credit lines, and business credit cards can all be used tactically to bridge cycle gaps — but they have a cost that needs to be weighed.

7. Technology & automation

Manual billing, manual follow-ups, and manual reconciliation all slow cash. Evaluate where automation (ERP, billing software, AR automation) can compress the cycle structurally.

8. Cash flow forecasting

Do you have a rolling 13-week cash forecast? Most businesses that hit cash crises didn't lack revenue — they lacked visibility. Forecasting lets you act before the problem arrives.

The biggest lever in most businesses isn't finding more revenue — it's compressing the time between doing the work and holding the cash. Even shaving 10 days off your cycle can dramatically change your working capital position.

New Board

Cash conversion cycle
12345678
DIO+ DSO - DPO = (Avg.inventory/ (COGS/Period)) + ((Account receivable / Total credit sales) x Number of Days the period) - (( Account payable/COGS)x Number of Days)
Sales cycle
SHORTEN CYCLE TIMES
IMPROVE BUSINESS MODEL
ELIMINATE MISTAKES
How can we improve your sales cycle?
VOTES
Idea
Idea
Production & Inventory cycle
How can we improve your production or inventory cycle? How can we improve our client onboarding cycle or our training?
VOTES
SHORTEN CYCLE TIMES
ELIMINATE MISTAKES
IMPROVE BUSINESS MODEL
Idea
Idea
Delivery/Billing & Payment Cycle
IMPROVE BUSINESS MODEL
How can we improve our delivery cycle? How can we improve our billing or payment cycle?
VOTES
SHORTEN CYCLE TIMES
ELIMINATE MISTAKES

90 day plan

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New Board

90 days - Action Plan
30 days 4 weeks
60 days 8 weeks
90 days 12 weeks
Sales cycle
Action
Action
Production & Inventory cycle
Action
Action
Delivery/Billing & Payment Cycle
Action
Action

Annual impact

3 steps

1
Net Cash Flow & EBIT
2
How can changing one factor impact your cash flow or EBIT?
3
Overall Notes

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1. Net Cash Flow & EBIT

Use the cash conversion template to support the plan and track progress. The template is provided in the hub and process section. Once you've filled it in, add a link to the Drive folder where you saved the template or dashboard so the team can access it and track progress on a regular basis.

Upload files or add links

2. How can changing one factor impact your cash flow or EBIT?

Add tasks

3. Overall Notes

Add notes

New Board

NET CASH FLOW
EBIT
$1234
$1234
Current situation
CHANGE YOU WOULD MAKE
IMPACT ON EBIT
ANNUAL IMPACT ON CASH FLOW
Price Increase %
$1234
$1234
Text
Volume Increase %
Text
Text
Text
Overhead Reduction %
Text
Text
Text
Text
Reduction in Stock Days
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
TOTAL
$1234
$1234

Cash acceleration proposals

8 steps

1
What's next?
2
Sales Cycle: Share a proposal.
3
Production & Inventory Cycle: Share a proposal.
4
Delivery & Billing Cycle: Share your proposal.
5
Please acknowledge that you have shared at least one proposal.
6
Now review other people's proposals.
7
We're almost done — and this is great progress! 🥳🥳
8
Any other notes?

Read the full text

1. What's next?

Hi everyone,

In our previous meeting, we discussed ideas across different areas to improve the cash conversion cycle. During that session, ideas were shared, voted on, and key questions were explored to better understand the constraints within the company and the areas with the most potential for improvement.

Now it's time to take the ideas that gained the most traction and develop them further — not just as rough concepts, but as real, considered proposals the team can read, evaluate, and decide on.

This session is divided into several activities:

1. Write your proposal. Your role is to take one of the ideas previously discussed, improve it, define the details, and develop it into something more complete. Each proposal must be at least one page long. Every person invited here must submit at least one proposal — covering one of the following areas: sales cycle, production and inventory cycle, or delivery and billing cycle. You don't need to cover all three — one minimum per person.

2. Read and digest. Once proposals are uploaded, take the time to read each one carefully and genuinely understand what's being proposed before reacting.

3. Vote for your top 2. React with a ❤️ or 👍 to the two proposals you believe would make the most impact. This step requires strategic thinking — it's not about what sounds exciting, it's about where your team's effort and resources will deliver the greatest return.

4. Meet, discuss, and align. Come together to discuss the results and agree on which proposals to prioritize. The ones selected will move forward and be transformed into a 90-day action plan.

Please indicate that you understand the process by reacting.

Choose one

Option 1
Option 2

2. Sales Cycle: Share a proposal.

Share your proposal below. 👈

Key questions and considerations before sharing your proposal:

•Where are deals stalling — and why?

•Are we targeting the right buyer profile (ICP), or wasting cycles on poor-fit leads?

•Are we leaving cash on the table by not offering annual/prepaid options?

•Is the problem awareness, trust, urgency, or friction in the buying process?

•How long does it take a lead to make a decision — and what drives that timeline?

•Are we losing deals to competitors, to "do nothing," or to internal blockers?

•Which channels bring in the fastest-converting leads?

•What's the cost per acquired customer by channel, and how does that affect cash timing?

•Are we investing in channels that take 6 months to produce vs. channels that produce in 2 weeks?

•What's our average contract value, and are we trending up or down?

Upload files or add links

3. Production & Inventory Cycle: Share a proposal.

Please share your proposal below.

Some additional questions to think about:

•Are we ordering based on real demand signals or gut feel?

•What are our current payment terms with suppliers — can we negotiate longer?

•Where are the bottlenecks in production that extend the cash cycle?

•How accurate is our demand forecasting — and what's the cost of being wrong?

•Are we seasonally aware in how we plan inventory investment?

Upload files or add links

4. Delivery & Billing Cycle: Share your proposal.

Please share your proposal below.

•How quickly do we invoice after delivery or completion of service?

•Is invoicing manual or automated — where are the delays?

•What percentage of invoices are paid on time vs. late?

•Do we have a structured follow-up process for overdue invoices?

•How easy is it for customers to actually pay us? (payment methods, portals, clarity of invoice)

•Are our invoices clear and dispute-free — or do errors cause delays?

•Are there performance clauses or delays that give customers reasons not to pay on time?

Upload files or add links

5. Please acknowledge that you have shared at least one proposal.

Choose one

✅ "I have shared at least one proposal of 1 page"
❌ "I haven't shared a proposal"

6. Now review other people's proposals.

If they haven't been submitted yet, please add this session to your calendar so you remember to check back tomorrow for 30 minutes to review everyone's proposals.

Please don't complete this step until you have read all proposals and voted for the top 2 you think will make the most impact and that you would prioritize. To vote, go to the documents and files added and click on the reaction/emoji 👍❤️button, then select the heart or thumbs up.

Choose one

Yes, I have read all proposals and voted for my top 2 👍❤️
❌ "No, I haven't read or voted for my top 2 proposals"

7. We're almost done — and this is great progress! 🥳🥳

⏳By now you've probably noticed that some proposals have more votes than others. It's time to meet, discuss the details, ask questions, and decide which ones to prioritize. Take notes during the meeting on the proposals selected for prioritization, and define who is responsible for building the 90-day plan for each one.

The goal of this session is:

"Define a more structured strategy and proposals, prioritize which proposals to move forward with, define what has to be true for each one, and establish who owns each of them."

If that is completed and reflected in the meeting notes or conclusion, the goal of this session has been achieved. ✅

Add notes

8. Any other notes?

Add notes

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Capabilities

Fully editableAdapts as work changesAdd more sessions anytimeAI can be assigned

Created byNova·Official process

Last edited Apr 3, 2026·4 sessions · 15 steps