Your accounts show a profit. Your bank balance says otherwise. If that sounds familiar, you are not running a failing business, you are running a normal one. Plenty of profitable Irish companies spend the month chasing money they have technically already earned. Profit and cash are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where a lot of good businesses get caught.

Profit Is on Paper. Cash Is in the Bank.

Profit is what is left after costs on the day you raise the invoice. Cash is what has actually landed. Under the standard invoice basis of accounting, you record a sale, and the VAT on it, the moment you issue the invoice, not when the customer pays. Irish VAT returns then fall due every two months, by the 19th of the following month. So you can owe tax on money that is still sitting in someone else's account. A month that looks profitable on paper can still leave you short on the day the bill lands.

Why the Gap Hits Irish Businesses Hard

The main culprit is slow payment. According to Bibby Financial Services Ireland's 2024 SME Confidence Tracker, 68% of Irish SMEs say customers are taking longer to pay their invoices than they were a year ago. When you trade on 30, 60 or 90-day terms, every large order widens the gap between doing the work and getting paid for it. Wages, suppliers, rent and tax do not wait for your customers. Growth can make this worse, not better: the more you sell, the more cash you tie up before it comes back.

Why the Bank Is Not Always the Fix

Reach for a term loan and you may wait weeks for a decision, then commit to a fixed monthly repayment whether or not it was a good month. For seasonal and card-led businesses, that rigidity is the problem, not the solution. It is telling that of the Irish SMEs who sought finance in 2024, 37% did so for working capital or cash flow rather than expansion, according to the Department of Finance SME Credit Demand Survey. Most funding demand is about bridging the timing gap, not chasing something new. We set out the full menu in our guide to business funding in Ireland beyond bank loans.

How a Merchant Cash Advance Bridges the Gap

A merchant cash advance works with the grain of the timing problem instead of against it. You take an agreed lump sum upfront, then repay it as a small fixed percentage of your daily card takings. Busy day, you repay a little more. Quiet day, you repay less. There is no fixed monthly figure to find and no traditional interest rate, just one agreed upfront cost you know from day one. For a business with steady card turnover, it turns tomorrow's sales into today's working capital.

Through SK Advisory, funding runs up to €1M depending on your monthly card sales, with money in the account in as little as 48 hours once you are approved. It is one of several ways to unlock growth with business funding. And because slow payment and high card fees quietly compound each other, it is worth checking whether you are overpaying on card fees while you are at it.

The Point Is Not More Profit

Most profitable businesses that feel the squeeze do not have a profit problem. They have a timing problem. Fix the timing and the profit you already earn stops being trapped in next month. If cash flow is the thing keeping you up at night, talk to us about which funding option fits the way your business actually trades.

FAQ

Is a merchant cash advance a loan?

No. It is an advance on your future card sales rather than a traditional loan, so there are no fixed monthly repayments. You repay automatically as a percentage of what you take.

How quickly can I get the funds?

For existing SK Advisory clients, funds can be in your account within 24 to 48 hours once everything is in order. For new clients, it is usually 3 to 5 days.

Is there an interest rate?

No. Instead of interest, there is a single fixed cost agreed upfront. It depends on the amount you need and the daily repayment percentage you agree to, which sets how long repayment takes.