A data engineering firm in Canterbury: wages while a big client’s terms run

Paid on the client’s terms

The firm is a team of data engineers in Canterbury. It builds data products for large organisations and analyses their data for them, project by project.

Payment terms vary from contract to contract. On a big organisation’s contract, they can run a long way past the end of the month the invoice goes out in.

Delivered, then the long wait

Then came a large piece of work. It was finished and invoiced, and under the contract’s terms the money was a long way off.

Data engineers are paid whether the client’s terms have run or not, and so is everything else it takes to keep the firm running.

When they signed up in September 2023, the owner told the FundTap team they had just finished a big job for a client on long terms. The owner explained the cashflow was needed for wages and the day-to-day running costs while they waited.

Funding the contract invoice

They signed up in September 2023, with the big job’s invoice out and its terms spelled out to the FundTap team by email.

Nothing was funded until May 2024, when they put their first invoice through. The firm picks which invoice to fund and sees the fee before it commits. The client still pays the firm, on the contract’s own terms.

“The terms are 60 days from the end of the month...”

From an email to the FundTap team, September 2023

The team paid before the client pays

Funding an invoice means the wages and the running costs come out of the contract itself, not out of the wait for its terms to run. That’s what kept the team paid through the long terms a big organisation sets.

They funded five invoices in 2024 and seven in 2025, 12 in all, with February 2025 the busiest month at two. Nothing has been funded since October 2025, and there have been no ongoing fees in the meantime.

The timeline

1. September 2023 Signed up with a big piece of work delivered and invoiced on extended terms.
2. September 2023 Connected Xero, and set out the big contract’s terms to the FundTap team by email.
3. May 2024 Funded their first invoice.
4. February 2025 The busiest month so far, with two invoices funded.
5. October 2025 Funded two invoices, the most recent in the records.

In numbers

• 60 days from the end of the month: the terms on the big contract
• 12 invoices funded since May 2024
• 7 invoices funded in 2025, up from five in 2024

Sound like your business?

The work’s delivered, and the big client’s terms run from the end of the month and well beyond. Fund that invoice when the wages land first, and pay nothing when they don’t.

Fund a specific invoice when the timing doesn’t work. Pay nothing when it does.

Invoice finance for professional services  •  All case studies