As businesses navigate an increasingly uncertain economic landscape, managing cash flow, liquidity, and financial risks has never been more critical. Today, we’re excited to announce that Panax has secured $10 million in Series A funding, led by Team8 and TLV Partners, to further our mission of transforming treasury management for mid-market and large enterprises.

The Challenge Finance Teams Face

For finance teams operating in complex environments—managing multiple bank accounts, currencies, and entities—gaining real-time visibility and control over cash flows is a constant challenge. Traditional treasury management systems often fall short, requiring hours of manual data gathering and leaving teams vulnerable to errors and inefficiencies.

Our Solution: AI-Powered Cash Flow Management

Panax addresses these challenges head-on with our AI-driven platform that consolidates financial data from banks, ERPs, and other sources into a single, unified view. Our solution automates transaction categorization, surfaces critical insights, and provides real-time cash forecasts, empowering finance teams to optimize liquidity and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

Our customers have seen remarkable results. Many report saving over $100K annually on interest payments, while others have increased their cash invested in interest-bearing accounts by 15-20%. Perhaps most importantly, Panax has freed up 15-30 hours per week that were previously spent on manual data tasks, allowing finance teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.

The Road Ahead: Scaling with New Funding

With this new round of funding, Panax is poised for rapid growth. We plan to expand our U.S. presence with a new office in New York City, scale our sales and support teams to meet rising market demand, and accelerate product development to bring even more powerful features to our platform.

Our leadership team—CEO Noam Mills, CTO Sefi Itzkovich, and CBO Niv Yaar—brings deep expertise in both finance and technology, having experienced these pain points firsthand. It was this firsthand knowledge that inspired the creation of Panax, and it’s what drives our commitment to delivering value to our customers.

Investor Confidence and Vision

Our investors share our vision for the future of treasury management. Hadar Siterman Norris, a partner at Team8, emphasized, "The evolving role of the CFO requires strategic foresight and innovative tools. Panax is uniquely positioned to lead in this space, delivering tangible value to finance teams across industries."

Yonatan Mandelbaum, a partner at TLV Partners, added, "Panax is set to become the operating system for finance teams, orchestrating all aspects of financial operations. The combination of finance and tech expertise within the Panax team is what sets them apart."

Join Us on This Journey

As we embark on this next phase of growth, we’re excited to continue working with our customers to redefine what’s possible in cash flow management. If you’re ready to see how Panax can transform your treasury operations, book a demo today or visit our website to learn more.

Excel is the world’s most popular spreadsheet, among both individuals and companies. Finance teams in particular rely on Excel for a variety of tasks, many considering it a vital accounting and finance tool. This is primarily due to its flexibility, availability, and, let’s be honest, because it has been ingrained in finance work practices for decades.

However, Excel also presents challenges, like complexity, inability to collaborate and it being error-prone. This dual sentiment towards Excel has resulted in what has become known as the finance “Love/Hate Relationship”.

Let’s dive deeper into the reasons underscoring this relationship, what finance teams should look out for when working with Excel and when should they consider complementary solutions.

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Advantages of Using Excel

Finance teams love Excel. Here’s why:

• Versatility and flexibility - At its core, Excel is a versatile and flexible solution, and that’s the biggest benefit it offers to finance and treasury management. Excel's functionalities (see below) allow finance teams to perform any task they need, in a way that is customized to their liking. This includes financial modeling, budgeting, forecasting, data analysis and more.
• Built-in functionalities: Excel provides multiple functionalities that finance teams need for their roles, like formulas, pivot tables, charts and more. These can be created fairly simply, allowing for cash management and predictions.
• Robustness - Excel supports more than millions of lines of data. This means businesses, including global organizations, can easily manage all their needs inside.
• Direct accessibility to data - Excel allows finance teams to do what they love best - touching and feeling the data. They can slide and dice the numbers in multiple, versatile ways, to explore new possibilities and identify new solutions.
• Availability - Excel usage is so high simply because it’s included in every Microsoft Office license. This makes it accessible and available to finance teams everywhere, without having to look around for other solutions. In addition, its ubiquitous use means that finance professionals transitioning to new companies do not have to go through platform onboarding (though they will need training on the new team’s specific excel layout and formulas).
• Cost - For those already using Microsoft Office, there is no additional cost incurred. This, as we all know, makes it a finance-favorite

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Disadvantages of Using Excel

However, Excel also poses challenges for finance teams. For example:

• Error-prone - One of the most significant issues in Excel is the error-prone nature of manual data entry and formula setting. A simple mistake, like a misplaced decimal or an incorrect range in a formula, can result in monumental errors, affecting financial statements and strategic decisions. 
• Cost of a mistake - A solution that is error-prone should be considered in light of the cost of being misleading or misinformed about the cash position. The likelihood of errors when copying data manually is higher, which may result in poor decisions when managing cash. Being unable to pay salaries or make vendor payments, losing funds or "parking" them in low-return channels for too long are all caused by bad-decision making that come with a high price. In every company, the cost of error is different, but without full visibility, these errors are not only more likely to occur but also take longer to discover. 
• Complexity - Financial models in Excel are becoming more complex, with data being collected across tabs and formulas. This information maze makes the Excel difficult to navigate, audit, update, validate, track and version. Such uncertainty can lead to a lack of trust in the data, especially when significant decisions rely on these models.
• Time-consuming - Manually entering data in excel takes time. This could include adding bank statements from multiple bank accounts and often multiple banks, inputting information from suppliers, gathering information from multiple global entities in different currencies and more. The more complex the spreadsheet, the longer it takes. 
• Collaboration obstacles - Excel’s cannot be worked on together in real-time, making collaboration and version control a significant challenge. When decisions need to be made quickly, based on the most current data and from a variety of data sources, Excel's traditionally single-user focus can be a bottleneck.

For example, if you have 10 different departments, all with their own versions, CFOs are required to wade through the various versions to compile a total financial picture. Multiple versions of the same file make it difficult to track and explain the changes between the different versions.

• No real-time picture of data - Collaboration obstacles also make it challenging to obtain a real-time, reliable picture of the data and cash flow. Having to manually data from different Excel versions and accounts means that the data is only as updated as the last manual entry. This makes it difficult to make real-time decisions and slows down strategic decision-making as well.
• Takes time to master: New users can easily create basic spreadsheets and produce new charts and graphs. But if you need to use macros, pivot tables or complicated formulas, expect a very steep learning curve.
• No integrations or automations - Excel cannot be integrated with data from other departments or with external platforms to get insights and make decisions. This makes the work repetitive, error-prone and inconsistent

While Excel offers versatility in financial tasks, its limitations in handling complex data and collaboration can lead to inefficiencies and increased risk of errors

Excel Alternatives

Excel can be used by finance teams until the finance operation becomes complicated at a certain point in a company's lifecycle. At that point, automated treasury solutions either can help address Excel’s shortcomings or replace it: the potential errors, complexities, the need to collaborate among global local teams, the unnecessary time spent manually entering data, lack of real-time visibility, the complex onboarding to existing formulas and lack of integrations and automation.

An automated treasury or cash flow management tool provides visibility, increases capital efficiency and gives finance teams full control. With automated treasury management solutions, finance teams can automatically:

• Manage liquidity, invest excess cash, minimize debt, and eliminate unnecessary costs.
• Foresee cash needs, identify trends and anomalies, and be prepared for different scenarios.
• Get Al-driven cash insights and trends and eliminate the need for unnecessary, error- prone spreadsheets.

Automated tools are capable of covering their cost and more, by increasing ROI on existing cash, optimizing debt management, reducing errors and frauds and maximizing productivity. Learn more here.‍

A Cash Flow Statement (CFS) is an important financial document for any business. It summarizes how money moves in and out over a specific accounting period. Unlike other financial statements, it doesn’t just track profits or losses but provides a real-time snapshot of liquidity—the funds a company has available. By highlighting the sources and cash usages, this statement is indispensable when understanding a company's operational efficiency and financial solvency.

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Why a Cash Flow Statement is Important

Tracking a company's inflows and outflows of cash is crucial for several reasons:

1. It provides spending details: A CFS allows businesses to understand their actual financial position by categorizing where the money is coming from (eg operating activities, investing activities, or financing activities) and where it’s going. 

2. It helps with short-term planning: By following the trail of cash, businesses can better forecast future cash flows and create more suitable strategies for debt repayment, capital investments, or dividend distributions. 

3. It maintains optimum cash balance: It is important for the company toknow if too much cash is underutilized or if there’s a shortage of funds. If the business has excess cash they can use it to invest in shares or buy inventory. If there is a funds shortage, the company can look for areas to borrow funds to keep the business operating.

4. Companies can focus on generating cash: There are several ways to generate cash aside from profit. For example, when a company finds a way to save on equipment, it generates cash. Every time it collects receivables from its customers ahead of schedule, it is gaining cash.

Ultimately, a cash flow statement is both a historical and predictive tool that enhances financial planning and ensures the company has enough liquidity to meet its obligations and continue on the path of sustainable growth.

Breaking Down the Components: Operating, Investing, and Financing Activities

Let's dive deeper into the cash flow statement’s three core parts: operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities.

Operating Activities

This section shows the cash earned from the company’s daily business operations, showing the firm’s profitability. You’ll likely see cash receipts from sales of goods and services, cash payments to suppliers, and cash paid to employees. In essence, operating activities show how efficiently the company can turn its goods and services into cash.
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Investing Activities

Investing activities outline the cash used related to the company’s investments. This typically includes transactions related to the purchase or sale of long-term assets and other business investments. For example, if a company buys real estate, equipment, or patents, these transactions are reflected here.

Proceeds from sales also fall under investing activities. This section shows how a company allocates funds towards its growth and expansion efforts, focused on capital expenditures.
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Financing Activities

Financing activities on a cash flow statement detail how the company funds its operations and growth through various external sources, such as transactions with the company's owners and creditors, cash inflows from raising capital (issuing stocks or taking out loans), and cash outflows for repaying borrowed funds or distributing dividends. 

The financing activities section helps you understand the financial strategies a business employs to sustain and expand its operations.

How to Read A Cash Flow Statement 

 One of the biggest benefits of preparing a cash flow statement is that it allows you to understand current amount of cash and/or the increase or decrease in cash over a certain time period. Here’s what this can look like:

1. Cash at beginning of period: The amount of cash your company has at the start of the fiscal period. This equals the ending cash balance from the previous fiscal period.
2. Cash at end of period: The amount of cash your company has at the end of the current fiscal period.
3. Change in cash: The amount your company's cash balance increases or decreases during an accounting period. To determine this, calculate the difference in cash from your previous period to the current one.

What Can A Cash Flow Statement Tell You?

A cash flow statement can answer the following questions regarding your cash movements:

• When is there a cash flow surplus?
• What do you do with excess cash when you have it?
• When do you have a cash flow shortfall?
• What happens during a shortfall?
• How are current growth plans performing?
• What happens if another pandemic or disaster were to occur? 
• Would your business be able to handle that? For how long? How much of a drop in revenue can you handle? 

How to Prepare a Cash Flow Statement: A Step-by-Step Guide

Creating a cash flow statement may seem daunting at first, but breaking it down into manageable steps can simplify the process. Here's a step-by-step guide to preparing an effective cash flow statement for your business:

1. Gather Financial Statements

To create a cash flow statement you'll need the current and previous periods’ balance sheets, income statements, and retained earnings reports. These documents provide you with a historical snapshot of your financial activities.

Once you've gathered these financial statements look for trends such as regular expenses, steady income, and investments that will influence your cash flow statement. These documents serve as the foundation of your analysis, capturing the financial movements that ultimately flow into your CFS.

2. Determine Reporting Period

Establish whether the cash flow statement will cover a month, a quarter, or a year. These dates will depend on regulatory requirements.

Ensure you remain consistent in reporting periods across all financial statements to maintain accuracy and comparability with previous periods.

3. Choose a Method (Direct vs Indirect)

Decide whether to use the direct or indirect method to prepare the CFS
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Direct Method vs Indirect Method

The direct method is straightforward. It involves listing all cash collections and disbursements during the period, giving you a clear view of actual cash inflow and outflow from operations. This also makes it easy for stakeholders to understand inflow and outflow. The direct method can be quite time-consuming because it requires detailed records of all cash transactions.

Pros of the Direct Method:

• Provides a clear picture of cash flow from operations
• Helps improve cash management and planning

Cons of the Direct Method:

• Time-consuming to prepare due to detailed data requirements
• Less commonly used, may not align with standard internal reporting

The indirect method starts with the net income and makes adjustments for non-cash transactions, changes in working capital, and other items. This method is more popular because it's less complex to prepare; companies often have the data readily available through their financial statements. Yet, it may be less intuitive for someone trying to track exact cash movements.

Pros of the Indirect Method:

• Easier to prepare and widely used
• Less detailed data requirements
• Compatible with other financial statements, as it starts with net income

Cons of the Indirect Method:

• Doesn't show actual cash flows from operating activities as clearly
• Can be more complicated for readers to comprehend cash inflows and outflows

Cash Flow Statement Example

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Excel Resources for Cash Flow Statement Preparation

• Template.net - Cash Flow Statement Templates
• ‍Vertex42 - Cash Flow Statement
• Xero - Cash Flow Statement Template

Advanced Issues with Cash Flow Statement Preparation

Interest Payments

‍When preparing a cash flow statement, knowing how to classify interest payments or expenses is vital. These can be categorized under operating activities or financing activities, depending on the accounting standards or policies the business adopts.

Under operating activities: In many systems, like the US GAAP, interest paid is included in the operating activities section of the cash flow statement. This categorization is based on the notion that interest payments are a regular business expense.

Under financing activities: Alternatively, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) give entities the choice to classify interest payments as either operating or financing activities. When classified under financing activities, interest payments reflect the cost of obtaining financial resources.

Ultimately, the classification of interest payments can have a significant impact on the company’s cash flow analysis, influencing perceived liquidity and financial strategies. It is essential to be consistent with the classification to ensure clarity and comparability in financial reporting.

Depreciation:

‍Depreciation may appear as a non-cash expense in _the cash flow statement, particularly when using the indirect method. Located in the operating activities section, depreciation adjustments help reconcile net income to net cash flow from operating activities.

Within the cash flow statement, depreciation appears as an addition to net income when using the indirect method. This occurs because depreciation expenses reduce net income but do not involve actual outflows of cash.

How it affects the cash flow statement: Depreciation increases the net cash from operating activities. Since depreciation is a non-cash item, it's added back to the net income to reflect the true cash flow, counteracting the reduction in net income caused by depreciation.
This adjustment ensures users of the statement see a clear picture of cash generated from operations, separate from book expenses like depreciation.

Dividends

Dividends are a form of profit distribution to shareholders that appear under the financing activities section of the CFS. This classification is essential as it reflects a company's strategy in returning value to its investors.

Dividends impact the overall cash position of the business. By including dividends in the financing section, the CFS provides insights into how a company manages its financial obligations and shareholder relations.

• Cash Outflows: Dividends represent a business’s cash outflows . When a company decides to pay dividends, this amount reduces the available cash within the company, impacting its financing activities.
• Financial health indicator: Regular dividend payments indicate financial stability and a company's confidence in its ongoing cash flow generation. A halt or reduction in dividend payments might raise concerns about the company's cash reserves or profitability.
• Regulatory differences: It's also important to note that under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), paid dividends are included under financing activities. However, under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), dividends may sometimes be reported within operating activities, depending on the company's accounting policies and practices.

Understanding the placement and impact of dividends on the cash flow statement is crucial because it provides valuable insights into a company's financial strategies and priorities concerning shareholder distributions.

Cash Flow Statement vs Income Statement vs Balance Statement

Understanding the distinctions between the cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet is important for comprehensive financial analysis. Though distinct, they all contribute to  a company's financial health portrayal.

Cash flow statement: This statement highlights the inflow and outflow of cash within a business, demonstrating its ability to manage cash efficiently for operations, investments, and financing. By focusing exclusively on cash movements, it helps assess liquidity and cash management practices.

Income statement: Also known as the profit and loss statement, this provides a summary of revenue, expenses, and profits over a specific period. It operates on an accrual basis, depicting the profitability and operational performance. Income  statements may not always reflect current cash conditions.

Balance sheet: This offers a snapshot of a company’s financial position at a particular point in time. It displays assets, liabilities, and shareholders' equity, illustrating what the company owns and owes, along with the invested capital. This allows businesses to analyze the company's net worth and financial structure.

These statements complement each other by providing a full view of the company's financial picture. The income statement shows profitability, which impacts the cash flow statement as it affects cash from operations. The balance sheet, however, records assets and liabilities directly connected to cash flow activities, such as changes in inventory or receivables.

Together, they paint a detailed picture of performance, financial position, and liquidity analysis. This triangulated approach is essential for assessing profitability, financial stability, and growth potential.