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As companies grow, so do their cash management requirements. This leaves CFOs and treasury teams with new challenges to deal with. They need to manage multiple accounts across multiple currencies and geographies, ensure optimized use of financial instruments like credit lines and investments, gain control of their liquidity status, forecast cash flows, and more. The cost of an error is high, which is why many teams turn to cash management solutions at this stage.
Modern cash flow management solutions are automated platforms for optimizing cash flow. Some of them are also AI-driven. Instead of dealing with bulky, complex spreadsheets, they collect all your cash flow data into the platform. and present it with an additional layer of analysis. This streamlines the cash management and forecasting processes, ensures up-to-date visibility, and helps lean finance teams to manage cash risks, optimize liquidity and increase ROI on excess cash or debt.
While the benefits of adopting a cash flow management solution are obvious, choosing the right solution can be challenging. The following items should not be missed when evaluating your solution. Following this list ensures you are able to maximize your efforts and free yourself up for other responsibilities.
A robust cash flow management solution is essential for real-time financial tracking, ensuring that your business stays on top of its financial health with accurate and integrated data
1. Complete cash visibility
Obtain a comprehensive and complete daily view of your cash positioning, including all bank and payment accounts. Make accurate and relevant short-term and long-term decisions with confidence without errors and data integrity risks. Look for:
- A single and centralized dashboard
- Up-to-date liquidity snapshot of cash, investments, and restricted cash
- Ability to filter across accounts, institutions, currencies, and more
- Daily/monthly cash reports
- Trends analysis
- Customizable reports
2. Reliable and comprehensive data connectivity
Probably the most important item on the list - Ensure your cash management solution brings in all the data you need to manage your cash flow. This will ensure your data is reliable, regularly updated, comprehensive, and enables you to make decisions that support your financial needs. Look for:
- Data connectivity via APIs to all global financial institutions, including banks, ERPs, and cash platforms, and any other financial systems that you use so that your data is regularly updated.
- Reliable data connectivity when APIs are not available, or not supported. Make sure there are alternative methods of gathering data from all financial institutions, even those that don’t support API connection, so you can get full cash flow visibility across all your accounts.
- An overview and deep-dive of your cash flow and all activities including:
- Reconciliation of transactions
- Inflows and outflows
- Trends
- Historical balances
3. Reports and insights
Identify and prevent cash-related risks and identify and seize cash-related opportunities to optimize cash management and ensure errors are prevented. Look for:
- Actionable insights for effective cash management
- Alerts that allow immediate response
- Ability to set up account automatic buffers to improve capital efficiency and transfers
- FX hedging support
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4. Resource efficiency
Make sure using your cash management solution is easy and intuitive to use. This will be one of its main advantages over using Excel: replacing manual work, accessible from anywhere, and freeing up you and your team for other prioritized needs. Look for:
- Self-serve: No IT required
- Tagging capabilities
- Easy setup
- SaaS solution
- Collaboration capabilities
5. Smart categorization abilities
Manage your accounts, transactions, and cash positioning to accurately analyze your current and future cash flow. Look for:
- Ability to create customized categories and sub-categories
- AI-based categorization process to replace your manual labor
- Automated ERP matching
6. Forecasting abilities
The adoption of a new cash management solution is a great opportunity to automate your cash forecasting, increase its effectiveness, and improve forecast quality by reducing human errors.. Look for:
- Easy comparison of forecasts against actuals
- Easy data collection and categorization, including ERP data
- Customizable forecasting methods for your business
- AI-based forecasting for tailored insights
7. Security
Safeguard your organizational data to ensure your cash flow data is secure, comprehensive, reliable, and available for you to use. For data security look for:
- Compliance with leading regulations like SOC 2
- Application security through practices like third-party penetration testing and vulnerability scanning
- Data encryption in transmission and at rest
- Real-time monitoring of risks and policy compliance
- Access management- RBAC, least privilege, etc.
- Secure development practices
What’s Next?
Choosing the right cash management solution is a strategic choice, since it will directly impact your ability to streamline financial operations, manage liquidity, and optimize cash flow. Therefore, this decision should not be taken lightly. Use this checklist to evaluate and compare different solutions. Don’t be afraid to ask vendors the difficult questions it raises, from which data they connect to to how they support forecasting, and more. By comprehensively comparing solutions, you can ensure your treasury operations will be more robust and accurate than ever.
Learn more about Panax’s cash flow management solution that supports lean finance teams with complex treasury management needs.
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As finance teams face increasing pressure to do more with less, automation has become a critical tool for improving efficiency and accuracy. However, implementing new systems and processes can be a significant challenge, especially for lean teams that are already stretched thin.
In a recent webinar, treasury experts Tracey Knight, Eugene Spevakov and Niv Yaar discussed the key considerations for lean finance teams looking to automate their treasury operations. Here are the top takeaways:
When is the right time to automate cash management processes?
The experts agreed that companies should look to automate as soon as their treasury operations start to become more complex, such as adding more bank accounts, entities, or currencies. Tracy Knight of Real Treasury noted that the ideal time is before teams become overwhelmed, so they can focus on strategic priorities rather than repetitive daily tasks.
Eugene Spevakov, formerly a treasurer at companies like AT&T and Finjan, identified three key factors that determine the right timing: the complexity of treasury operations, the specific requirements of the business, and the overall maturity of the finance tech stack. He emphasized the importance of being proactive rather than waiting until processes start to break down.
Niv from Panax added that lean teams often realize they need to automate when they start losing visibility and control over cash - for example, struggling to have the right currency available at the right time or being surprised by cash shortages or surpluses. Automating processes can help regain that control and visibility.
Automation empowers lean finance teams to manage complex treasury operations efficiently, minimizing errors and freeing up resources for strategic initiatives
Overcoming implementation challenges
One of the biggest obstacles that lean teams face is simply finding the time to properly plan and execute an automation project. Tracy recommended backfilling regular job responsibilities so that team members can dedicate the necessary time and attention.
Eugene stressed the importance of having an internal champion at the executive level, as well as buy-in from the IT team. Defining the right scope for the project is also critical - teams should focus on addressing their most pressing needs rather than trying to automate everything at once.
Niv highlighted the technical challenges around data connectivity and categorization, noting that this is a key area where lean teams often struggle. Automating the categorization of transactions can provide a strong foundation for building other treasury workflows.
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Where should lean teams start with automating cash management?
When it comes to prioritizing which processes to automate first, the experts pointed to a few key areas:
- Cash visibility and positioning: Aggregating balances from multiple bank accounts into a single system is a common first step, as it eliminates the need for manual data entry and provides real-time visibility.
- Cash forecasting: Even a basic, short-term cash flow forecast can make a big difference, helping teams identify potential shortfalls or surpluses and make more informed decisions.
- Reporting and dashboards: Automating the generation of standard treasury reports and dashboards can save significant time, especially if the finance leadership requires frequent updates.
- Debt and FX management: Tracking debt balances, interest payments, and foreign exchange exposures are other areas where automation can provide value.
The experts emphasized that lean teams should focus on quick wins that provide immediate benefits, rather than trying to tackle everything at once. Niv noted that the key is to automate processes in a way that reduces reliance on spreadsheets and manual work.
Essential TMS or Cash Management features for lean teams
When evaluating treasury management systems or other automation tools, the experts said lean teams should prioritize ease of use and ease of implementation above all else. Tracy noted that the system needs to be intuitive enough for the entire team to use effectively, not just a small group of power users.
Eugene added that the implementation process itself needs to be straightforward, so that teams can start realizing benefits quickly rather than getting bogged down. He also stressed the importance of aligning the system's capabilities with the team's specific requirements.
Niv highlighted the need for automation tools to not just streamline data and processes, but also provide proactive insights and alerts. Things like excess cash notifications, liquidity policy violations, and collections anomalies can help lean teams stay on top of critical issues.
Overall, the experts agreed that automation is essential for lean finance teams dealing with complex treasury needs. By focusing on the right priorities and selecting the appropriate tools, these teams can regain control, improve visibility, and free up time to focus on more strategic initiatives. The key is to start small, prove the value, and then expand the automation footprint over time.
Want more tips from the experts? Sign up here to listen to the recording, and get all the tips for more effective cash management in 2025.
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Transform Cash Management, Unlock Growth
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