Deposits and Progress Billing: How to Fund Bigger Jobs

Big jobs are good for revenue and dangerous for cash flow. If you buy materials and pay your crew for weeks before seeing a dime, one slow-paying customer can put you underwater. Deposits and progress billing fix that.

Take a deposit before work starts

A deposit collected when the contract is signed does two things: it funds the materials and early labor, and it confirms the customer is serious. For material-heavy trades like roofing or construction, starting a large job with no money down is a real risk. A deposit of a sensible percentage is standard and expected.

Bill in stages as the job progresses

Rather than one invoice at the end, split larger jobs into milestones — for example, deposit, mid-project, and completion. Each milestone triggers an invoice as that stage finishes, so your incoming cash tracks the work you've already done and paid for.

Tie billing to clear milestones

Define each stage in the contract so there's no ambiguity about when a payment is due. Clear milestones prevent disputes and make staged invoices feel fair rather than arbitrary.

Make the stages easy to pay

Staged billing only helps cash flow if each invoice gets paid quickly. Send each milestone invoice online with card and ACH options and automatic reminders, so a progress payment doesn't sit unpaid while the next stage of work piles up costs.

Keep it all on one record

Track the deposit, each progress payment, and the final balance against a single job so you always know what's been collected and what's outstanding.

Tabsy supports deposits, milestone-based progress billing, and online payments tied to each job — see how it works for roofing contractors and general contractors, or view pricing.