Better Decisions through real-time Reporting: Business Intelligence about Cash Flows & Cash Positions

|17-5-2017 | Joerg Wiemer | TIS | Sponsored content |

How do strategic professionals decide on the best path to success for their company? The key is in transparency and real-time reporting. If it comes to the responsibility of the treasurer or financial professional this means deciding about company-wide cash flow and liquidity levels, bank, customer and supplier relations and working capital.

When cash flow visibility is the lifeblood of your company, you want full control and knowledge. Direct access to insights on profitability and potential business risks allow users to drive better decisions based on solid business intelligence, accessible anytime and anywhere.

 SCENARIO

Better decisions: Companies now have the power of the Business Discovery Manager – a business intelligence module within the TIS cloud platform. Supplier, salary and treasury payments can be easily analyzed along with cash flows, liquidity and working capital via easy-to-use dashboards and reports. The tool, enhanced through state-of-the-art BI technology, enables users to access all strategic insights in a single, flexible, web-based and multi-bank, multi-ERP capable platform available 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world.

 

Source: TIS Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH

Challenges

You can’t manage what you don’t measure

  • A lack of visibility over liquidity, working capital and cash flows at the C-level, in treasury, controlling, accounting, Sales and
    purchasing departments.
  • No transparency regarding bank relationships, liquidity positions and account turnover
  • No transparency regarding customer and supplier relationships, as well as incoming and outgoing cash flow

TIS Business Discovery Manager

Company-wide unified automated analysis of cash flow, liquidity and working capital in various departments of Corporate headquarters and in local subsidiaries

  • Multi-bank capable
  • SAP ERP integration via certified plug-in; connection to any ERP, HR and treasury system
  • State-of-the-art BI technology and functionality in a single SaaS solution
  • Support of customer-specific BI tools; support of self-service BI functionality
  • Business Intelligence as a Service: Ready for use throughout the company within seconds without any complex IT projects
  • No changes to bank or system landscape required; the solution is flexible and easily adaptable
  • ISO 27001 certified for data security

 Customer value

  • Better decisions based on complete visibility of liquidity, working capital and cash flows
  • Ability to quickly answer essential questions without the need for any extensive IT projects

Your benefits

C-Level executives:

  • Instant reports about cash flow performances (total of all inflows and payments) of the various local subsidiaries compared to one another over a specific time period
  • Identification of corporate risks and value-adding activities to drive future growth
  • Tangible insights to support internal and external audits
  • Power and data to provide strategic advice to sales and procurement departments

Treasury and controlling teams:

  • Answers to key questions, such as: How much liquidity is available at which bank? What is the net cash flow for a specific currency over a specific time period for a group of companies (natural hedge)? How much working capital does a local subsidiary require in a specific time period?
  • Increased compliance, transparency, and more efficient processes paired with reduced costs

Accounting teams:

  • Visibility of when a supplier was paid, or when a customer paid a local subsidiary over a certain time period
  • Insight into the value of inflows made by customers via various bank accounts and ERP systems over a specific time period

Sales teams:

  • Insight into the value of inflows made by customers and the overall payment behavior of the customer base

Purchasing teams:

  • Transparency across values of overall payments to a supplier via various bank accounts and ERP systems over a specific time period

Source: TIS Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH

Business Discovery Manager: never struggle to answer any of these business-critical questions again

 

joerg wiemer

Joerg Wiemer

CSO and Co-Founder of TIS

 

3 tips for a successful accounting- and ERP-system roll-out

| 23-3-2017 | Christian van Ledden | Sponsored content |

 

Cloud based accounting- and ERP-systems, i.e. SAP S4-HANA are receiving a lot of attention these days. The result? – Increasingly more companies are considering cloud solutions in their effort to consolidate IT processes and systems. According to a study by Panorama Consulting, in 2015 the share of such ERP-systems increased from 4% in 2014 to 33%.

Cloud is here to stay

From our point of view, this development is primarily driven by two factors: on the one hand, the amount of mature solutions in the marketplace is growing. At the same time, cloud ERP-systems are being positioned more aggressively by their respective vendors. On the other hand, there is a common acceptance of cloud ERP-systems. This is underlined by a study from RightScale, according to which 82% of companies are employing a multi-cloud strategy in 2015, up from 74% in 2014.

The former can also be observed in the cloud revenue figures of SAP and Oracle: SAP increased its revenue from cloud products and services between 2013 and 2015 by a staggering 229% while Oracle recorded similar growth in its cloud segment of 100% over the same period. Oracle’s strategic focus on cloud business is underlined by its recent acquisition of Netsuite.

This development has major advantages for their respective clients. According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, corporates can improve their operating profit margin by up to 21% through implementation of a modern cloud ERP-system. These improvements are achieved through optimized processes, higher standardization as well as a more streamlined IT environment.

Fast implementation and cost savings by using the TIS payment solution

The majority of finance and treasury departments are in one way or another affected by the roll-out of a new ERP-system. Generally, the aim is to standardize processes and systems. This brings its own set of IT-related challenges. These can be split into three major categories: processes, connectivity, and change management.

Processes: In most companies, processes grow historically through (international) expansion and M&A activities. The result is a lack of transparency and control of worldwide processes for central finance departments, contributing to a company’s vulnerability to payment fraud. What can you do? If you are evaluating the roll-out of a global ERP-system which includes your finance department, one should think about the current and desired state of (authorization) processes and goals – especially for the finance and treasury department.

Connectivity: Connecting the ERP-system to third party systems is an important factor to consider in terms of payments. Insufficiently secured interfaces with banks, a high number of manual processes as well as the lack of straight-through-processing of payment files increases your risks and have a negative impact on compliance. Moreover, in this context one should not forget the connection with your respective banks. They can be connected through communication channels such as i.e. EBICS, Host2Host, SWIFT, or CAMT. In addition, one has to develop individual formats for each country and bank. Working with our clients around the world, TIS GmbH has achieved savings of between 200.000€ and 1 million € p.a. by implementing its flexible and scalable cloud solution to connect its customers’ banks. This is possible, as TIS owns the most comprehensive library of formats and bank connectors worldwide. This library is accessible to all its clients free of charge, so that you can focus on scaling your worldwide operations.

Change management: In order to ensure a smooth roll-out of your i.e. SAP S4-HANA ERP-system, you should embark on the journey together with your employees. Inform all involved stakeholders early and frequently about the progress of the project. Additionally, you might want to evaluate during the business blueprint phase whether it is advisable to include a specialized consultant. This will increase your chances of success dramatically and support the team spirit.

What are your experiences with IT-projects? I am looking forward to reading your comments.

Christian van Ledden

Sales Executive at Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH (TIS)

 

 

 

For additional information please visit the TIS company page on treasuryXL.

 

3 easy ways to protect your organization from cybercrime in payments

| 3-2-2017 | Christian van Ledden | sponsored content |

Leoni, a well-known German manufacturer of cables and harnessing has recently made the news through a new type of fraudulent behavior. The CEO-fraud is a technique, whereby scammers act as ‘member’ of the organization and convince the controlling department to transfer funds under the pretense the company was in a financial emergency. USD 2 billion in losses due to CEO-fraud since January 2015.

Leoni is not the first company falling victim to the scam. According to a recent FBI report, CEO fraud has been reported by 17,642 victims amounting up to losses as high as €2 billion (around $2.3billion) in the United States alone. The FBI further reports about an astounding 270% increase in identified victims and exposed losses since January 2015.

CEO-fraud can jeopardize the existence of an organization altogether, as the example of the Austrian lightweight components manufacturer FACC shows. After experiencing losses amounting up to €50million, they were forced to increase their equity in order to continue running.

Rising number of cyberattacks in Europe

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the number of cyberattacks in 2015 on finance divisions has increased by a staggering 38%. Root cause for this upsurge lies in the heterogeneous treasury system-landscape, oftentimes including a variety of different ERP systems, eBanking- and accounting tools as well as manual solutions, for instance spreadsheets. Amongst each other, they may communicate via EBICS, HostToHost, SWIFT, ACH or other, even more risky data interfaces. As all these systems operate in silos, the lack of an overarching security process is easily taken advantage of by many criminals.

An additional challenge for finance departments lies in decentralized organizational structures and lacking transparency on bank accounts, daily cash flows and blurred ownerships of workflows and approval processes. The introduction of the four- or six-eye principle will significantly lower the risk of becoming victim to the CEO-fraud as release ownership of financial transactions can be controlled and monitored.

The European Union tightens legislations to protect personal rights

A new legislations released by the European Union will include stricter punishment on organizations for violations on personal rights. The proposed changes include punishments amounting up to €20million, or 4% of global revenue in case of theft of personal data, often found on e.g. bank statements. This change will require organizations to establish more secure mechanisms to protect personal and other sensitive information of their employees.

TIS – Your audit-proof payment transaction platform

3 core topics are crucial for shielding your enterprise from any of these risks: transparency/visibility, workflows and straight-through processing.

Transparency/visibility:

Create global transparency on your banking landscape, including the incoming and outgoing payments as well as the signatory rights of all employees worldwide. Establishing a central overview will enable you to guard your organization against any attacks.

Workflows:

Restructure your workflows and approval processes and include a four-, six-, or eight-eye principle. As no single employee can process a transaction, you actively safeguard your enterprise from cybercrime.

Straight-through processing:

Encryption of your financial data, e.g. from your accounting/ERP-system to your banks and back into your ERP or TMS will minimize your cyber-attack risks and make it harder for criminals.

Together all these methods will help to secure your enterprise from fraudulent behavior and fight the new challenges. These functionalities are a small exert of what the TIS payment platform can offer you.

How do you tackle the challenges of cybercrime and minimize fraudulent behavior? Curious for your thoughts & happy to read them in the comments! Please also visit our website for additional information.

Christian van Ledden

Sales Executive at Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH (TIS)