How do I know whether I can afford to fill a purchase order?

Compare the cash going out against the cash coming back, on dates rather than in totals. You pay for goods, freight, and duty on the supplier’s terms; the retailer pays you on theirs, often 30 to 90 days after delivery. A profitable order can still be unfundable if the gap between those two dates is wider than your runway.

This is the arithmetic that catches growing brands. A large first order from a national retailer is a cash outflow months before it is revenue, and the margin on it does nothing for solvency in between.

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