The Government Pays in 60 Days. Here's How Contractors Get Paid in 2.

The mechanism is older than most people realize. Federal law has provided a standard lane for financing government receivables for decades — the Assignment of Claims Act dates to 1940 — and New York's agencies process assignments routinely. It isn't exotic and it isn't distress finance. It's a pipe fix.

Here's how it works in plain English. You invoice the government as usual. A funding institution purchases the invoice and advances you most of its value within about two business days. When the government pays — on its own schedule — the funder collects, and you receive the remainder minus a fee that typically runs one to three cents on the dollar per month, only on what you use. The credit decision rides on your payer, not on your balance sheet. No new debt appears on your books. No daily payments. You choose which invoices to fund, invoice by invoice, and let it sit when you're liquid.

What changes: payroll stops depending on an agency's payment office. Mobilization for the next award runs on the last award's billing. Retainage recovery gets planned instead of hoped for. And a company that spent years financing the government's slowness out of its own pocket gets to grow on its actual capacity.