A small company working in shale country carries wages, trucks and insurance every week and waits on invoices that move on someone else's schedule.
Apply Now →The Eagle Ford Group, usually called the Eagle Ford Shale, is a Late Cretaceous formation that stretches across much of Texas and is associated with petroleum deposits. Wikipedia notes that it takes its name from Eagle Ford, Texas. For a small business owner, the geology matters less than what surrounds it: a working area where operators hire local companies for hauling, site work, repairs, supplies and field services.
This guide is about the cash flow of those businesses, not about oil. It describes patterns that apply to any small service company and does not predict what activity levels will be.
A service company's costs are steady and specific. Every week the owner pays something like this:
None of these wait for the customer to pay. The company is, in effect, lending the operator the cost of the work until the invoice clears.
| Step after the work is done | Who controls it | Typical drag on the money |
|---|---|---|
| Field ticket submitted | You | Missing or unsigned paperwork |
| Ticket reviewed and approved | The operator | Questions, rate disputes, staff turnover |
| Invoice entered and coded | The operator's accounting | Coding errors, missing purchase numbers |
| Scheduled payment run | The operator | Payment cycles you cannot change |
The first row is the only one the owner controls, which is why clean paperwork is the cheapest cash-flow improvement available.
Take a small hauling and site-services company with three trucks. Weekly payroll, fuel, truck payments and insurance come to a round $22,000. It is owed $120,000 across a handful of invoices, due in 45 to 75 days. Over two months it must find roughly $175,000 of outflow while most of that money is still on someone else's books. These figures are made up for illustration and are not terms we offer or typical outcomes.
Working capital sized to the stretch can keep crews paid and trucks fueled until the invoices arrive. Sized badly, or leaned on repeatedly to cover work that is not profitable, it only adds a payment to a business that already has too many.
None of this requires outside money, but it makes outside money safer when it is needed.
No. Each application is reviewed individually, and nothing here promises approval for any industry.
Payroll and fuel across a payment gap fit working capital. Trucks and trailers, which last years, are usually better compared against equipment financing.
Funding can arrive in as little as 24 hours after approval. You can start on the application, which takes about five minutes.
Sole proprietors can apply.
Three months of business bank statements and a 5-minute application. FICO 500+ considered. $25,000 to $5,000,000, funded in as little as 24 hours.
Apply Now →It takes about two minutes and it will not affect your credit score.
No obligation • No impact to your credit score
