Retail residential is the clean world: deposit at signing, balance at completion. Cash converts fast; the financing need is mostly materials float and crew payroll inside each job’s two-to-four-week cycle. A modest line of credit covers it.
Insurance restoration is where the float lives. The homeowner’s deductible and first check start the job, but recoverable depreciation is released only after completion documentation, and supplements — the legitimate extras discovered during tear-off — get approved and paid on the carrier’s timeline. A restoration contractor’s receivables aging is a portfolio of carrier processes, each moving at its own pace. That book supports receivables financing, and companies heavy in claims work should size their working capital to the depreciation-and-supplement float, because it is the slowest-moving cash in the business.
Commercial roofing bills like construction: progress payments on larger re-roofs and new construction, net-30 to net-60 through GCs or property managers, retainage on contract work, and payroll running weekly against monthly billing cycles. The commercial book is what typically justifies a standing receivables facility rather than job-by-job improvisation.
And then it hails. Storm response is the trade’s defining cash event: the pipeline triples, every job needs materials and crews now, and the money arrives on insurance timelines months behind the work. Contractors with a facility in place before the storm capture the surge; contractors who start looking for capital after it are financing the opportunity at emergency prices — or watching out-of-town stormers take it.