The hard part of this conversation is not a wrong fact; it is a hopeful one. A CEO who needs money by a certain week hears "a company may license your old records and be paid for them" and starts counting. Your job is to stop the counting before it starts, without closing a door the company may want to walk through later.
What a cash-pressed client hears, and what your role requires
You are the client's finance adviser: an outsourced controller, a fractional CFO, an accountant who knows the cash position better than anyone outside the company. Your value in this moment is timing truth. The client gains a plan that does not lean on an uncertain receipt, and an option it can still explore when the pressure has passed.
SourceX's own pages give you the words. Asked how long the process takes, its FAQ begins "It varies." and describes its stage durations as targets rather than a promise, adding that a deal can end without a purchase. Its how-it-works page says qualifying does not ensure an offer and that positive interest is not yet a purchase. None of that is a reason to discourage a client; all of it is a reason not to schedule one.
The timing uncertainty explanation sheet
Walk the client through it row by row. The columns answer the two questions a cash-pressed CEO actually has: when could money exist on paper, and when could it move.
| Step | What has to happen | Who moves it | Date you can plan on | Money at this point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Decide to explore | The CEO reads SourceX's published checks and chooses to apply | The CEO | None | None |
| 2. Apply and qualify | The company answers questions about its systems and history; no files are sent | The company, then SourceX | None | None; qualifying does not mean an offer |
| 3. Indicative offer | SourceX proposes a range and the company agrees or counters | SourceX and the CEO | None | None; the range is only indicative |
| 4. Master agreement | The CEO signs the Master Supplier Licensing Agreement, once | The CEO | None | None |
| 5. Deal Confirmation | The CEO signs a Dataset Deal Confirmation fixing the dataset, payout, rights and deadlines | The CEO and SourceX | Only that deal's own deadlines, once signed | An amount now exists in writing, still conditional |
| 6. Prepare and deliver | Records are extracted, transferred and de-identified through an approved route, with the company's staff helping on exports | SourceX and the company's team | None; published figures are targets | None |
| 7. Acceptance and Closing | SourceX accepts the data in writing and every condition is met, or a no-deal notice ends the deal | SourceX | Within the Confirmation's deadlines | The fee is earned at Closing |
| 8. Invoice and payment | The company invoices and SourceX pays | The company, then SourceX | Due within 60 calendar days after SourceX receives a valid invoice, unless different terms are signed | Cash moves |
How to read it aloud. Every row above step 5 is a no-money row, and none of them carries a date anyone can plan around. Step 5 is the first point where an amount exists in writing, and it still depends on Closing. Step 8 is the first point where money moves, and its 60 days is the outer limit of SourceX's standard term, not a promise of anything sooner; the company's own signed agreement governs. Rows 2 to 8 follow SourceX's how-it-works page, and the earned-at-Closing line follows Schedule A 5.5 of the sample partner agreement, which says the supplier's fee is earned at Closing under the supplier's signed terms.
Three questions a cash-pressed CEO will ask, answered without a date
"How soon could we see money?" "Not before Closing, and nobody can give you a Closing date today. Plan the next months as if this never pays; if it does, it arrives on top of a plan that already works."
"Can we count it in the cash plan?" "Not as money you expect. Before a Confirmation there is no amount, and after one, Closing still decides whether it is paid. Build the plan without it."
"Could SourceX pay part of it up front?" "SourceX's published pages describe payment after Closing and an invoice, and say data that never closes earns nothing. You can ask SourceX directly, but plan as though the answer is no."
If the CEO's next question is about financing, the referral conversation is over and your ordinary advisory work, or the client's lenders and other advisers, takes it from there.
When the cash pressure has become a formal process
Some clients asking for quick cash are already past the point of choosing alone. SourceX's who-qualifies page is explicit: "In an assignment for the benefit of creditors, a receivership or a bankruptcy case, the CEO alone may not be enough, because someone else may control the assets." For a company that is wound down or in a formal process, whoever controls the estate decides, and the page counts headcount at the company's peak rather than today.
Wound-down companies are not excluded; SourceX's FAQ says companies that are operating, acquired or wound down can all qualify. What changes is who you would speak to. Any conversation runs through the person controlling the estate and their counsel; you offer no view on the estate's choices.
Your reward runs on its own, later clock
Even after the company is paid, any reward to you follows section 5 of the program terms: "The payment deadline is 60 calendar days after the later of (a) the Acquisition Partner's final written acceptance of the complete, validated dataset for the qualifying transaction and (b) completed handoff of that complete, validated and approved dataset to that Acquisition Partner." Payment also needs that acceptance, SourceX's receipt of the Acquisition Partner's payment in cleared funds, payment of the company's compensation, SourceX finance approval and your own payment and tax details. A condition still open at the deadline is paid promptly once met, and no new 60-day period begins. Section 8 keeps the two clocks apart: "a supplier's payment timetable, including any Net 60 clause, never determines when referral rewards are paid."
In symbols only: if the company's first qualifying transaction pays it P (at least USD 100,000, the Minimum Transaction, unless SourceX agrees otherwise in writing), the reward is the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap: the greater of USD 50,000 plus 5% of P and 15% of P. A further qualifying transaction with the same company, first agreed within 12 months of that first Closing, pays 15% of its own payout, with no floor. If P is later lawfully reduced by a cancellation, refund or chargeback, the reward is recalculated on the reduced total, with any excess already paid adjusted. None of this belongs in your own forecast either, as the referral economics worksheet explains.
A cash-pressed client may ask you to give up the reward "so we get more." It cannot work that way: section 4 has SourceX pay any reward separately, never from the compensation the company agreed, so the company is paid the same with or without a partner. The published terms do not settle how SourceX records a partner who declines a reward; SourceX decides that.
Participation and pay rules when the client is under strain
Settle your own position before the cash conversation, not during it, and remember that a strained client is more likely to feel obliged to agree with you.
- The AICPA's summary, in paraphrase, says members must disclose conflicts of interest and any referral or commission fees to clients and obtain consent where a conflict exists, and that most state boards have adopted its Code or written their own.
- California's Accountancy Act, section 5061, does not permit a licensee to accept a fee solely for referring a client to a third party, and the commissions it does permit need a written, signed disclosure (paraphrase of the statute).
- A fractional CFO inside the client has a role conflict to put to the CEO and to their own counsel, separate from any professional body.
- Being paid on a distressed client's transaction may look different to a client, a lender or a court than it does to you. Raise it with your ethics adviser or counsel before mentioning SourceX.
This page does not say whether you may accept a reward. Your state board, professional body, employer and your own counsel do; outside the U.S., your own body's rules apply. The ten-line rules review helps structure that question.
Paid or unpaid, the cash plan comes first
The client-approved path has the same five steps on either route, in this order.
- The cash plan is finished without any licensing receipt in it.
- The CEO says, unprompted by the cash gap, that they want to explore licensing anyway.
- You state your position in one sentence. Paid: "SourceX may pay me a reward if this completes; it never reduces what your company is paid, and you can say no." Unpaid: "I take nothing for this; you can also apply to SourceX directly."
- The CEO applies, or you register, sign the Channel Partner Agreement and submit one introduction the CEO approved.
- You stay out of the deal itself. If the CEO wants advice first, the guide for when a client wants to talk to a lawyer first fits, and the unpaid introduction path covers step 3 in more detail.
Two cash-pressed clients (Illustrative)
Illustrative: generic companies and invented facts; no outcome is implied.
The payroll gap. A 140-person specialty contractor needs to cover payroll through a slow quarter that starts in eight weeks. Its fractional CFO walks the sheet with the CEO: seven rows without a plannable date before any cash. The CEO concludes licensing cannot help this quarter, takes the gap to the company's lender and advisers, and asks to revisit licensing in the spring. The CFO notes the date and does nothing more until then.
The assignment. A 300-person distributor has made an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and its former CEO asks the company's outside accountant whether the records could be licensed to pay creditors. The accountant replies that SourceX's own page says the CEO alone may not be enough in a formal process, that the assignee controls the assets, and that any conversation runs through the assignee and counsel. The accountant offers no view on the estate.
Where the sheet can still mislead
- Targets sound like dates. If you quote any published stage figure, a cash-pressed CEO will add them up. The sheet shows none for that reason.
- "Due within 60 days" is heard as "paid soon". It is a latest date under the standard term, after Closing and a valid invoice.
- Signed terms can differ. The company's own agreement governs, not the published standard.
- Deals can end without a purchase. A no-deal notice ends the path at step 7, and the company is paid nothing for that data.
- Your own optimism. Once you have introduced a client you want it to work. Read the sheet back to yourself before you read it to the CEO.
Other situations a finance adviser meets with clients are covered in the guides hub.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When the cash plan stands on its own and the CEO still wants to explore licensing, register for a partner link, have the CEO read who qualifies, and keep the current program terms beside the timing sheet.