The 8-Day Blind Spot That's Quietly Draining Your Working Capital
₹10 lakh collection missed this week will cost you ₹40 lakhs by month-end. Not in bad debt. In decisions you made without knowing. You deferred a vendor payment to protect liquidity - he quietly tightened your next credit limit. You delayed a procurement order by 10 days - production slipped, the delivery commitment broke. You drew on your OD to cover payroll - at 14% annualized, on money you were owed anyway. A junior manager approved a customer discount to accelerate a collection .... margin you'll never recover. None of these showed up as "the collection was missed." They showed up as friction. Cost. Relationship strain. Reduced optionality. And they were entirely invisible until the month closed. This is how working capital actually breaks in an Indian SME. Not in a single dramatic event but in eight days of silence betw...