The gap between done and paid
An oilfield service company gets paid on a signed field ticket. The work is real the moment it is finished, and it is worth nothing to the office until that ticket is back, legible, matched to a PO or AFE, and turned into an invoice. Then the operator's terms begin.
Every day the ticket spends in a truck is a day added to terms that were already long. Most owners know roughly how many days that is. Few have had the time to fix it, because the people who could are the same people keeping the trucks moving.
