The job of a corporate treasurer isn’t easy.
Presiding over the financial decision-making processes of an entire company’s portfolio of investments and acquisitions is usually as high pressure as it sounds.
It’s a role that demands sound business knowledge, a solid appreciation of numbers, ruthless decisiveness, and a good amount of iron-stomached bottle. That’s before you’ve had to worry about reconciliation and new technologies such as SWIFT gpi…
It’s also a role which, historically, has been more difficult than is necessary.
Wondering why? Put simply, treasurers deliver their most profound results based on the opportunity and their ability to analyse data. Unfortunately, technological limitations have meant that, to produce value, they have been forced to rely on end-of-day batched statements and information collated across multiple banking portals.
Imagine trying to analyse data that is, at best, guess work. Treasurers often don’t have the latest figures from across their accounts; if it’s a multi-national corporation, this becomes even more complicated.
Those in a Group Finance Function typically don’t have access to their organisations banks and subsidiaries, meaning the only data they receive is at month-end via reports. Higher-ups, such as CFOs, become completely unable to determine where the best investment lies as your banking operations may well be running on a cash visibility forecast that is consistently outdated.
In other words, though the fruits of treasurers’ labour are harvested during the analysis of data, without fully fleshed out finance and treasury reporting across their entire banking estate, they are destined to spend majority of their time simply gathering information.
Not only is this clearly a poor use of time from a productivity point of view, but it also inevitably impacts on the results treasurers can achieve. When the bulk of the working day is spent merely gathering financial information instead of analysing it, funds can only be positioned towards the close of play when liquidity within many markets has dried up, consequently diminishing potential returns.
It’s a reality which has been in equal parts widespread and excruciating.
What Can Be Achieved With Real-Time Treasury Reporting and Cash Visibility?
Determined to remedy this imbalance between the gathering and analysing of data, AccessPay developed a highly innovative and eagerly-anticipated Cash Management service aimed at the beleaguered treasurers of global corporations.
Our multi-bank cash visibility and analytics tool provides treasurers with a single access point to the company’s complete portfolio of banking relationships. As such, they are bestowed with the ability to view their cash positions early in the day, deploy cash moves actively and accurately across multiple accounts, and consequently optimise the value of company capital.
Crucially, financial information is displayed in real-time and all data is aggregated automatically. This gives the treasurer a single view which can be configured to view balances by currency, bank provider, country, legal-entity or organisational business unit.
The Difference Automated Real-Time Reporting Can Make
Even before the technological revolution began rapping on the office door of corporate treasurers, one would assume that – within a large, cash rich multi-national commercial organisation with a decentralised treasury function – each treasury team would ensure balances were kept to a minimum and investment opportunities in their jurisdiction were maximised.
Assumptions, though, are dangerous.
Without critical, real-time information and up-to-date cash visibility readily available, not only are such assumptions dangerous, they are difficult for corporate treasurers to either prove or disprove.
It’s a quandary familiar to most treasurers. No more so than one particular Treasury Operations Manager who approached AccessPay having grown increasingly impatient with only receiving balance updates once a month due to the disjointed approach across the global teams.
The balances themselves were routinely higher than expected – enough for many treasurers to find other things to worry about. But this treasurer was troubled by the fact that she couldn’t prove that this was anything other than normal as she was, perhaps unsurprisingly, being told by the various teams.
After searching for a tool to help her achieve the required insights, she decided to use the AccessPay platform because of its ability to deliver accurate data, detailed analysis and up-to-date finance and treasury reporting. It allowed her to consolidate all of her balances across the group into a single, user-friendly, and configurable User Interface. This simple, real-time cash visibility soon exposed that the group and its subsidiaries were carrying excess cash throughout the month to the tune of around £50m, which was only being reduced over the month-end.
Freshly armed with this new information, she was able to challenge the corporate treasury teams, helps them reduce idle cash and liquidity risk and accelerate funding for strategic business initiatives. Funds were soon being invested daily, which across the year went onto generate income over £150k at current market rate – a perfect fairy-tale ending.
If Ever There Was a Case for Treasury Automation…
Business and commerce have been on a steady evolutionary journey since the first caveman offered to swap a hunk of bison carcass for his friend’s nifty looking sharpened lump of rock. The technological revolution has added a whole new dimension to this journey, forcing those who resist its offerings off the beaten track. In no role is this truer than that of corporate treasury.
Advancements such as multi-bank visibility and real time treasury reporting are transforming how these finance professionals are able to perform their duties. Hours of dead time each day – lost to almost mindlessly gathering data – are replaced with hours during which critical decisions can be made and bottom lines fortified.
We’re at a point in time where those corporate treasury departments who have deployed automation functionality are standing out for having made the leap. It won’t be long though, before the ones standing out are the corporate treasury departments that fail to make a move and opt to continue as they are.
Automating treasury with AccessPay’s Cash Management solution is a no-brainer. You’ll gain liquidity, find more time for crucial strategic decisions, and may even uncover hidden funds across your accounts.
Empower Your Treasury and Finance Teams With Us
A secure, scalable finance and treasury operation starts with connectivity.
A simple-to-use, single-point, real-time view of the full corporate banking portfolio is less a luxury and more a necessity. Unlock the potential of your treasury and finance teams to drive continued revenue growth and contribute toward key strategic decision-making.
How? Simple. By automating the time-consuming and risky process of cash and liquidity data gathering with increased cash visibility.
Find out more about AccessPay’s Cash Management solution and our ability to help you achieve real-time multi-bank cash visibility through seamless cloud-based bank connectivity and back-office integration.
