Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Finance Crash Course · Book 2
Cash Flow Management for Small Businesses: A 90-Minute Crash Course
38,000 in sales. 1,900 in the account. Payroll is Friday.
Fast Frankie the fox runs Fire-Baked Pizza and two food trucks. He just had the best month of his life. He also cannot make payroll. Nothing was stolen. His money is scattered across the calendar, and nobody ever taught him to see it there. This book does, in one sitting.
Last Updated: 10/27/2026 · Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
The Problem
Rich on Paper, Broke on Friday
Cash flow is the timing of money moving in and out, on the days it really moves. Two words carry it: timing and actual. An invoice is a promise. A promise does not make payroll.
Frankie is profitable. He is also nearly out of cash. Those two things are not opposites. In a normal month his trucks sell about 34,000 coins and earn roughly 4,000 in profit. But about 14,000 of those sales are catering and one huge warehouse account that pays 30 to 60 days later. The profit is real. The cash is stuck downstream.
If that sounds familiar, start with what cash flow is and why profit is not cash. The book takes you the rest of the way.
| Sales | 34,000 |
| Ingredients (about 30%) | −10,200 |
| Payroll (paid every two weeks) | −11,300 |
| Rent, fuel, loan | −5,200 |
| Insurance, utilities, and other | −3,300 |
| Monthly profit | about +4,000 |
Rent 2,500, fuel 1,500, and loan 1,200 are grouped on one line here. Profit says Frankie is fine. The calendar says otherwise.
Where It Leaks
The Three Things Quietly Draining Cash
None of them shows up on the day it happens. Doctor Owl names all three, then closes them one at a time.
01
The gap between the sale and the coin
You pay for flour, crew, and fuel today. The customer pays you 30 or 45 days from now. You are early on the paying and late on the collecting.
02
The one enormous customer
Wendell the whale orders lunch for his whole crew every week. The best account Frankie has, and the most dangerous one.
03
No cushion when the wave rolls out
Hustle is not a reserve. When a big customer pays late, there is nothing set aside to dip into.
Slow payers are their own lesson: how to get customers to pay on time.
Read Before You Buy
Read the Opening: Where the Money Walked
Doctor Owl follows Frankie back to the den behind the kitchen and watches the coins leave.
Introduction
A Record Month, and an Empty Drawer
“I sold a mountain, and I have got no dough.”
“So where is the money?” Doctor Owl asked. “That,” said Frankie, “is the part that makes no sense. I sold a mountain, and I have got no dough.”
Doctor Owl did not answer right away. He picked up three of the pepperoni-doodle napkins, turned them over, and set them down in a row, the way a doctor lays out symptoms before naming the illness. “You keep asking where the money is,” he said, “as though it were stolen. It was not stolen. It is scattered across time. Some of it left this morning, some of it has not arrived yet, and some of it was never really yours to begin with. Your trouble is not that the coins are gone. It is that no one ever taught you to see them by the calendar instead of by the pile.”
Where did 38,000 coins go, and can Frankie make Friday’s payroll? Doctor Owl lets the trolley leave without him to find out.
Keep Reading on Amazon →Frankie’s Cash Habit
A One-Page Checklist You Tape Where You Count the Money
The book walks Frankie through five steps: find the starting point, build a cash calendar, make one change and one control, measure the result, adjust and repeat. Then it hands you the habit.
Tonight
Thirty minutes, once
Write down your true cash balance and every bill due in the next two weeks. Open a separate reserve account, even with a small first deposit.
This Week
A few small moves
Build one four-week cash calendar. Add a deposit policy to your next quote. Put one control on your cash.
Every Sunday
Twenty minutes, forever
Roll the calendar forward a week. Find the leanest week ahead. Make one change. Feed the reserve.
How big should that reserve be? See how much cash reserve a small business needs.
Go Deeper
From a Four-Week Calendar to a 13-Week Forecast
The longer view, built one week at a time.
Book 1Budgeting for Small BusinessesPlan whether the month makes money before it starts.
The Full PlaybookSmall Business Finance for BeginnersCash, pricing, paying yourself, and growth in one guide.
Learn the StatementsHow to Read Financial StatementsSee a real cash flow statement, line by line.
Beyond the Book
Put These Numbers to Work on Your Own Business
The book teaches you to read the numbers. These three take you from reading them to using them.
Business Plan Templates
Start with a proven plan. A Word business plan and an Excel financial model built for your industry.
See the Templates →Business Plan Writing
Need a plan a lender will read? Dr. Paul writes it, financials included.
See Plan Writing →Business Consulting
You can read the numbers. Now fix them, one-on-one with Dr. Paul.
See Consulting Options →FAQ
Questions About the Cash Flow Book
Is Cash Flow Management for Small Businesses a children’s book?
What is cash flow management for a small business?
How is this different from the budgeting book?
Which edition of Cash Flow Management for Small Businesses should I read?
Is Cash Flow Management for Small Businesses available in paperback?
Stop guessing where the money went. Start seeing it by the calendar.
About the Author: Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Business Consultant, Fractional CFO & Author | 14+ Years
Dr. Paul Borosky has built budgets, cash forecasts, and financial projections for more than 1,000 small business clients across the United States and Canada, with more than $100M in funded projects. He holds a DBA and an MBA focused in finance, has taught finance at the college level, and has published over 1,000 business videos on YouTube.
This page is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal, financial, tax, accounting, or lending advice. Tax rules change by place and by year. Fast Frankie, Fire-Baked Pizza, Wendell, and Doctor Owl are fictional composites from the book, and their figures are illustrations, not projections for your business.