Why Bigger Construction Fleets Have Bigger Cash Flow Problems

Fleets with more than 201 vehicles must deal with delayed payments from 46.9% of the jobs they complete, according to new Expert Market survey data commissioned by Ford. In contrast, we found that fleets with between 6 and 15 vehicles report payment delays from just 29.1% of their jobs.

In other words, large fleets have a noteworthy increase in payment delays compared to small fleets. They’re forced to run on more limited operating capital to pay for the labor and materials they need to stay in business.

How can larger fleets respond to this concerning cash flow constraint? Our survey polled professionals in the construction, utilities, and services industries to reveal several potential solutions.

What’s the Payment Gap? Construction’s Cash Flow Problems

Construction businesses face an average of 83 days between finishing a job and receiving payment for that same job, according to industry benchmarks. While they wait, they’re in the red for the cost of labor, materials, and fuel for their vehicle fleets.

It’s a big problem across the entire industry – new Expert Market survey data has verified that a whopping 92.1% of operators small and large are impacted by these payment gaps, with a mere 8.9% saying they don’t have any payment delays.

Over a third of all jobs drag out payment across more than just the construction industry: We found 34.4% of construction jobs face payment delays, which rises to 37.8% for those in the utilities industry, and 41.1% for those in the services industry.

What’s the downside to cash flow issues in construction? Increased anxiety. Our survey data reveals that 65% of respondents cited the payment gap as the source of either moderate or significant levels of stress in their daily operations.

Certain tactics can help. 45.6% of survey respondents cited cutting down on multi-trip material runs as a way to improve efficiency. Ensuring a vehicle can handle high payloads could help pack in more materials per trip – top vehicles like the Ford Super Duty can haul up to 8,000 lbs, with up to 22,000 lb conventional towing.

However, our most surprising finding has to do with the differences between large and small operations when it comes to payment gaps: Bigger companies have more delays.

Bigger Fleets Have More Frequent Payment Delays

As fleets grow in size, the amount of jobs that delay their payments grows, too.

Smaller fleets saw about 30% of their jobs experience payment gaps. Fleets with between 31 and 50 vehicles saw a clear increase, to just over 35%. But it doesn’t stop there – the number of slow payers continues to rise with every increase in fleet size we polled after that.

Fleets with between 51 and 100 vehicles saw the largest increase from the previous group size, jumping to 41.5% of jobs delaying payments, up from the 35.1% of jobs that did the same among fleets of 31 to 50 vehicles.

Companies with 101 to 150 vehicles saw 42.2% of their jobs delay paying the bill, while those with between 151 and 200 vehicles faced this issue with 45.4% of their jobs. The largest companies – those with more than 201 vehicles – deal with the largest amount of bill-delaying jobs, with nearly half (46.9%) of their clients kicking their payments down the road.

All this data reveals a somewhat counterintuitive truth: Large fleets in construction, utilities, or services have a slower cash flow than small companies. Larger operations have more resources, but they’re operating more simultaneous contracts with more crews, too, and payment delays are stretching even thinner than their smaller counterparts.

Addressing the Gap: Top Tactics

Large fleets are far from powerless, however. In many cases, their bigger size helps them weather payment gaps for longer periods: They’re often more established, with a greater ability to find financing opportunities or deals that offer economies of scale.

If you manage a large fleet with 50, 100, or 200 vehicles, the data shows that some tactics for mitigating the dangers of payment gaps will be better than others. These four tactics for tackling delayed receivables should be the first ones a large company considers.

Spec your vehicles for the demands of your job, and not for upfront savings

Under-speccing new vehicle purchases may seem like a way to cut costs. However, your upfront savings will be undermined by the extra costs and downtime challenges of attempting to complete your work with vehicles that can’t perform.

You shouldn’t stretch out your vehicle replacement timeline to save money, either. 48.6% of fleet professionals say that an unexpected breakdown has postponed their ability to issue an invoice or collect payment.

Low-quality vehicles aren’t cheap. Unplanned repairs cost a benchmarked average of $2,371 per vehicle annually and, according to 34.5% of surveyed professionals, represent the biggest drain on daily operating cash.

When buying to ensure spec consistency fleet-wide, the Ford Super Duty series is a natural pick, given that their F-450 is one of just four pickups over twice as likely to reach 250,000 miles compared to the average vehicle. There’s a reason Ford was recently named the top mainstream brand in the JD Power 2026 US Initial Quality Study.

Maintain and protect a dedicated cash reserve

Building a dedicated cash reserve is among the most effective buffers against cash flow problems in construction.

Fleets that claim a cash reserve as their most effective strategy report the lowest stress levels, with only 49.4% experiencing moderate or significant stress compared to an average of 65% across all survey respondents.

With a large enough amount of cash on hand, your fleet will be able to pay its bills and take on new jobs even while waiting out the 83-day average before previous jobs come through with their payment. And, since your fleet is larger than the competition, building and maintaining that cash reserve won’t present as much of a challenge – at least, in theory.​

Finance capital assets to preserve cash reserves

Outright purchasing new vehicles might deplete your cash reserves too much to handle daily operations while waiting for all those delayed payments to clear. If so, commercial leasing structures might be the best course of action.

The right line of credit can replace hefty upfront expenditures with manageable monthly installments. Ford’s CommerciaLease program is a great example of this, as it offers open-ended leases with no mileage limits.

In addition, financing programs like Ford FinSimple only require one application to cover multiple vehicles for up to a 12-month period: A perfect fit for large fleets that need to buy fleets in volume. The cumulative benefits of their connected telematics, maintenance management, and service coordination all make buying Ford a natural choice for large fleets in particular.

Structure contracts with upfront deposits

Finally, larger fleets can take advantage of their greater capacity by negotiating a better deal: Managers can restructure their typical contract to require a higher upfront deposit, ensuring that they’ll have more working capital while they wait for the client to pay the full bill.

34.5% of respondents said they negotiate these types of upfront payments or deposits. Granted, that leaves nearly two-thirds of businesses that haven’t negotiated or haven’t been able to make these negotiations work for them – but this can work to the benefit of a larger company, since it can compete for jobs that require the largest crews and the most resources.

Methodology: How We Researched Fleet Cashflows

Unless otherwise noted, all the statistics in this article are from a September 2026 survey covering 734 respondents, all of whom hold fleet management roles within US organizations of 10 or more employees. 662 of these professionals work in construction, 38 work in utilities, and 34 work in services.

In addition, we relied on third-party industry benchmarks when citing the average length of payment gaps within the construction industry.

Next Steps: Keeping Your Fleet Safe

As our data indicates, your own fleet’s growing pains will correlate with even more jobs that delay payments. However, you can take steps now to proactively address this problem.

Negotiate better contract terms, build your cash reserve, seek lines of credit that make sense, and ensure your fleet has the most durable assets, to limit breakdowns across many trucks. In all cases, a larger fleet will likely have greater resources and a better position to negotiate from – which they’ll need, because they face even bigger payment gaps than small fleets.

Protect your cash reserve while expanding your fleet: Spec Ford Super Duty trucks today to maximize uptime while minimizing the impact on daily working capital.