Information session Treasury Management & Corporate Finance

18-11-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers | Vrije Universiteit

The VU Amsterdam would like to invite you to the information Session of the Executive Education programmes at the VU Amsterdam on Thursday 28 November 2019. This evening gives an insight into the content and organisation of the programmes

 

The Information session of the postgraduate programme Treasury Management & Corporate Finance is from 18.30 hr. to 19:15 hr.

Anyone interested in the programme is welcome. We are looking forward to seeing you at the VU Amsterdam!

Register here

 

Take a dive into RT career stories from graduates

The VU has been delivering RT graduates successfully for a few decades. That means that there are hundreds of graduates working, most of them in corporate treasury. How do their careers look like after they graduated? treasuryXL asked some of the RT graduates about their career development and their thoughts about the RT programme. Check it out:

Cash Management in the Age of Digital Transformation

| 15-11-2019 | TIS |

Treasury Leaders Summit – London 2019

The Treasury Leaders Summit provides senior treasury and finance professionals with access to in-depth research, analysis and the opportunity to discuss key issues impacting the profession with senior level peers.

Our partner TIS will also be part of this Summit. Visit TIS at their stand and discuss your business case.

TIS Co-Founder, Jörg Wiemer, will hold a session about “Cash Management in the Age of Digital Transformation”. This will take place on Tuesday, 19th November at 4.30 PM GMT.

Also, do not miss our session on Day 2 with our customer HUGO BOSS. Get valuable insights on how they found the perfect-fit solution for their corporate payments processes.

This session will take place at 12.30PM GMT.

Request a meeting by filling out the form here.

Date:
19th – 20th November 2019

Location:
Leonardo Royal Hotel London City, 8-10 Coopers Row, London, EC3N 2BQ

 

Why You Don’t Need a Treasury Workstation

| 11-11-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Location dependence vs. universal collaboration and access

Often times, terms and definitions change over time; and sometimes terms remain the same but their meaning shifts. Take for example the word “bookkeeping:” accountants nowadays no longer put pen to paper and make manual entries in a book. Transferring this concept to treasury, we only need to look at the name of the department itself. Treasurers no longer watch over dungeons filled with treasure troves and other valuables (maybe with the exception of Fort Knox). But that’s not the only shift in meaning: we can also come across obsolete terms and definitions when it comes to the digitalization of treasury tasks and specifically with the term: treasury workstation.

Looking at search requests in Google, one of the most commonly searched terms in treasury is “treasury workstation” – a term that has been in use for treasury systems for many years. However, we need to ask ourselves if the term and the understanding of technology and processes associated with it are still appropriate today. Should they have long been replaced by other terms?

“Treasury Workstation” – is that what treasury is?

“Treasury workstation” contains the element of “station” that appears to have no place in today’s treasury world: mobile communication and the flexible use of systems are such obvious characteristics of our daily work that a “station” clearly no longer delivers. A workstation is literally stationary and therefore limited: it sits in one single place and is only available right there. Conversely, this is precisely where modern systems differ: they’re web-based and can be used from any mobile device without any limitations regarding security, user-friendliness, and functionality. Indeed, the very fact that modern systems are not stationary makes them so powerful. They’re mobile and any number of people can make use of them from anywhere.

Today, large departments and units need to be able to readily collaborate and exchange knowledge and data; a workstation seems inappropriate to meet these demands and stands for a status quo that IT has long left behind. No one wants to install software on a workstation anymore; no one wants to be tied to a desktop computer. The internet with all its enormous potential drives the optimization of business processes and data communication to the point where companies can no longer afford to back workstations, in particular in treasury.

Collaboration with a Treasury Management System

At BELLIN, their system, tm5, is not a physical workstation limited to a specific location. The system is a web-based and dynamically-integrated platform that excels in ensuring global visibility, maximized security and uncapped work-hours saved. The key ingredient in regard to this article is that the system is web-based, yet accessibly by anyone company wide. We call this our Load Balanced Treasury approach which means no per-user licenses, ensuring subsidiaries can share data seamlessly, profit from real-time transparency, and maximize global security.

While many treasurers still refer to modern platforms as workstations, the distinction is important. Modern, web-based systems are platforms for collaboration, for cooperation and for uniting internal and external parties and partners who all contribute to treasurers always having the information they need to do their job: make decisions that reduce business risk, optimize asset management, manage funding and hedging and give the company the overall stability to meet the company objectives.

This is by no means limited to treasury. Unlike a workstation that is only ever available to the people in one particular office, treasury management systems serve the entire company and people from any department can be involved where needed. This allows treasurers to share the workload, get information first hand and have a fully integrated and connected workflow that ultimately benefits everyone.

Conclusion

Treasury workstations are a thing of the past and platforms like the BELLIN tm5 have long become established as industry standards. Consequently,  it is time we reflect that fact in our terminology in order to find what businesses really need and stop searching for things that were modern years ago. “Station” ultimately suggests inflexibility, stagnation. As time goes by, both terminology and processes are subject to change and move forward – just as treasury does. Perhaps this is just a semantic error or term that has stuck over the years? Either way, as treasury enthusiasts and experts, we are keen to help the industry acclimate to the existing technological ecosystem.

Martin Bellin

CEO

BELLIN logo

Open banking and APIs: transforming the future of treasury

| 05-11-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Open banking is about much more than advanced technology. It has an impact on business models, processes and ways of thinking – and it will definitely have a huge impact on treasury.

The EU’s revised payment services directive (PSD2) has forced European banks to set up standardised interfaces, so-called APIs, to enable third parties’ technological access to bank accounts. This is an attempt to break up the banks’ monopoly and boost competition amongst payment service providers.

When it comes to payments, PSD2 APIs are currently limited to single Euro payments area (SEPA) single payments. Simply put, they are generally ill-suited for corporate payment processing. Nevertheless, open access to customer and transaction data for third parties represents a radical change that threatens traditional banking business models.

While in the past, banks reigned freely over their customers’ financial data – often keeping them in the dark about margins, fees and transaction routes – open banking makes banking fundamentally more democratic and gives companies much more freedom and flexibility.

How does a company want to handle its payment processing? With open banking, it will be of little relevance to corporates exactly how their payments are processed. As long as the payment goes from A to B, the back-end technology being used is up to the service provider. What will be more significant for corporate treasury departments when it comes to payments is how quickly this information becomes available to them.

Open banking’s impact on cash management

Today, treasurers are blind when it comes to intraday cash flow movements. Depending on the bank, they only receive balance information a few times a day at specific times. This has always been as real-time as it gets. Treasurers who would like to know their account balance at any time and in ‘real, real-time’ need to request this information. But how can you know when to best inquire about your account balance when you have no idea when money will be credited?

Some companies make use of automated requests, managed in their treasury management system (TMS). The system sends scheduled requests to the bank, for example every minute, to check if any new information is available. An analogy would be sending round a company postman to empty the letterbox every few minutes without knowing if anyone has actually posted a letter. This leads to enormous amounts of data and clogs up communication channels and systems, without really solving the issue.

A much more intelligent solution would be to not request the information until it is actually available. For that to work, there would need to be some kind of signal that data has come in – just like the signal flag on American letterboxes. New technologies, such as APIs and WebSockets, enable this kind of reversed order. The bank signals that a new balance is available as soon as money is credited to or debited from an account, and treasurers and other finance professionals can then take action. The same is true for payments, where status notifications for a transaction would be available straight away.

The future of APIs

What will the future look like for banking communication? Will APIs relegate existing technologies, such as electronic banking internet communication standard (EBICS) or SWIFT, to the sidelines? APIs’ greatest downfall is their lack of standardisation. Conversely, complete and powerful standardisation across the SEPA area is the biggest asset of these established communication channels.

In the context of PSD2, there have been various European initiatives to achieve standardisation, for example those of the Berlin Group. However, there is no comparable global initiative, and when BELLIN recently analysed the open banking offering of the ten most relevant banking groups, the discrepancies were staggering. What is needed are suitable enhancements of established technologies that could then be combined with new technologies, for example combining the EBICS protocol with API technology.

And this future is not far off. Massive changes that will impact treasurers’ day-to-day work significantly are just around the corner. Large retailers have already implemented instant payment solutions using APIs that not only enable them to transfer money, but also to receive notifications when a payment has come in as soon as it does. This has enabled them to fully connect payment processing, real-time balance information and customer service.

Direct communication of data between companies and banks is likely to have other, far-reaching consequences for treasury, for example when it comes to FX and risk management. Real-time corporate-bank communication definitely brings challenges for cash management. Banks will have to solve how cash pooling is handled in the future whilst also determining the time on which interest calculations are based. However, with new standards for speed, efficiency and data quality, open banking will continue to revolutionise treasury far beyond 2020.

Karsten Kiefer, Product Manager Solution Management, BELLIN

Karsten Kiefer

Product Manager Solution Management

 

8 Driving Factors for a Lean and Agile Treasury

| 28-10-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Dynamic processes in today’s world need lean and agile organizations. We have compiled 8 driving factors how the treasury department can achieve this goal easily.

1 Agile treasury thanks to simplified global statement collection

For businesses, a daily, group-wide, global financial status can now be a reality. It neither requires tedious manual data entry in Excel nor collecting data from subsidiaries by email.

Corporates can share their very own SWIFT BIC with all the banks they have accounts with worldwide and request to receive their account statements to this address (ideally in an MT940 format). One by one, all their banks are going to adopt this way of communication, and everything else is a question of technological automation.

2 Agile treasury thanks to netting and its effect on FX and cash management

Anyone still processing subsidiary payments as if they were customers or third-party suppliers is missing out on a number of potential benefits. This goes for anything from the reconciliation of invoices, to payments, optimized forward cover and efficient cash management. With the right intercompany netting setup, uncertainty and unknown quantities in relation to the amount, date or contents of a payment quickly become a thing of the past.

3 Agile treasury thanks to integrated IC trade documentation

Almost all group companies make use of intercompany loans – agreed to in writing, by email or by phone. If you’re lucky, the subsidiary in question can still find the agreement or has created an Excel sheet reminding them of their interest payments. If you’re unlucky, the auditor has to go in search of the correct documents, and tax authorities are knocking on your door to establish whether or not everything is compliant with the arm’s length principle. This is exactly the kind of scenario the BELLIN treasury management system can help you prevent: it creates a platform that allows both parties to demonstrate that payment dates, conditions and permissions in connection with IC loans are met and complied with, and that everything is documented properly.

4 Agile treasury thanks to digital matching

Exchanging confirmations for FX and Money Market deals is nothing new: for years, banks have been sending confirmation documents to their customers who had to return a signed copy. Ever since EMIR, this is no longer feasible and no longer makes sense. BELLIN’s treasury management system tm5 offers integrated electronic matching and has automated and digitized deal confirmation – technology that is easily implemented, saves time and identifies any errors in real time, in turn reducing risks.

5 Agile treasury thanks to collaboration and spreading the workload

The principle of Load Balanced Treasury® allows you to organize processes in a way that best meets skills and capacities. Depending on your Treasury Policy, you could for example delegate responsibility for local payments to subsidiaries or share responsibility, based on the permissions defined in the system. You can set the system up so that central treasury is automatically notified whenever they need to intervene – so they have the overview and the control.

The platform-based collaboration simplifies complex tasks, such as liquidity planning, for the whole group. Simply use the chat function to organize intercompany reconciliation and set up regular “information cycles” for funding requirements and the use of funds. This way you can stay on top of cash flows and obtain a quick and efficient overview of liquidity developments and any deviations from the planning scenario – so you are alerted straight away and can always react quickly.

6 Agile treasury thanks to agile reporting

The business world over, reports are considered time-consuming and tedious – but they don’t have to be. With all relevant data already entered and available in the system, you have everything you need to create reports at the touch of a button – tailored to the needs of your businesses. This way, you can keep all stakeholders in the loop directly from your treasury management system without the need for an additional tool.

7 Agile treasury thanks to automated processes

Repetitive user actions and recurring tasks can be done by a technological solution. The automation service schedules and automates recurring treasury tasks, such as market data import, account statement import and export, entering bulk payments or importing deals traded via a trading platform. The system automatically takes over tasks that would normally have to be done by a user. While process automation is not suitable for every task, it is also not necessary to do everything manually, again eating up resources; some tasks can easily be performed by the system.

8 Agile treasury thanks to mobile connectivity and payments authorization

Frequently, your financial challenges no longer play out behind a desk but in transit between business meetings or on your way to and from work. Or you are simply the one in charge of making that final decision based on the data gathered by your trusted team. On top of your agenda: mobile access to clearly presented information, the ability to focus on specific processes, and most importantly the knowledge that all your data and all your processes are secure!

The BELLIN Connect app allows users to access certain tm5 functions to facilitate remote working and to boost security. A straightforward interface presents data clearly, selection and configuration options are streamlined and processes are targeted and accessible.

7 New Register Treasurers

| 15-10-2019 | by treasuryXL | Kendra Keydeniers

Each year a new class starts with the two year RT program at the Vrije Universiteit (VU). That means that every year we can welcome new Register Treasurer (RT) graduates into the World of Treasury.
On October 3, 2019, the VU was proud to announce that they honored 7 new Register Treasurer graduates.

The post-graduate Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance programme at the VU has now been running for more than 20 years. The graduated RT’s of 2019 were part of the 21st class.

The RT programme and its benefits

The programme consists of 6 modules. Treasury (Financial) Risk Management and International Cash Management are traditional treasury disciplines. Corporate Finance is part of the Corporate Financial Management and Capital Markets and Funding module. The embedding of the treasury and corporate finance function in corporate organizations is discussed in the Treasury Organization module. An overview of relevant aspects in financial law and fiscal law is given in the Financial and Fiscal Law and Regulations module.

Each module is concluded with an exam. All modules are organized in such a way to allow for sufficient preparation time for assignments and exams.

5 key main benefits of the programme:

  1. Broad perspective on the corporate treasury and finance disciplines
  2. Master level and state of the art
  3. Interactive sessions
  4. Useful career development opportunities in a different setting
  5. Get connected to the treasury community
A career boost for the RT graduates

The main objective of the programme is to teach high-level courses that boost participants’ professional skills, knowledge and expertise in Treasury Management and Corporate Finance. Graduates of the RT programme recognize opportunities for exciting developments, are able to think out of the box and contribute to in-depth discussions with senior management and board members, which will lead to new career development opportunities and boosts job satisfaction.

Take a dive into RT career stories from graduates

The VU has been delivering RT graduates successfully for a few decades. That means that there are hundreds of graduates working, most of them in corporate treasury. How do their careers look like after they graduated? treasuryXL asked some of the RT graduates about their career development and their thoughts about the RT programme. Check it out:

Graduated as a RT and ready for a new treasury challenge?

Being a RT opens doors to new challenges more easily. Are you looking for an interim or a permanent position? Do you want to work in a small business or rather prefer a big corporation? If you want to make a switch in your career and you are open for a new adventure than I would highly recommend to contact our partner Treasurer Search. Treasurer Search is a successful treasury recruitment company, founded 10 years ago with consultants that have experience in treasury recruitment up to 20 years.

Do you have any questions about the RT programme? Are you a RT who want to share your career development via an interview? Or do you have any other related questions or remarks about the RT topic? You can contact me directly via:

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

 

 

 

 

 

 

How will Open Banking impact Treasury?

| 20-9-2019 | treasuryXL | BELLIN

Interview with Karsten Kiefer on open banking, APIs and the future of bank connectivity

With financial data increasingly digitized and moved to the cloud, disruptive approaches have become available to fintechs and corporates have gained access to new and revolutionary opportunities. One such opportunity is open banking, also known as API banking. In this article, we take a closer look at open banking and the potential benefits of current trends for treasurers. Karsten Kiefer, Product Manager and Solutions Manager at BELLIN, introduces us to the latest developments and assesses their impact on corporate treasury.

The European Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) sets rules for access to payment accounts but it has also caused great uncertainty. Is this the beginning of open banking for everyone in Europe? And what does the directive mean for treasury?

One of the provisions of PSD2 forces European banks to provide a standardized access interface, known as API, to third parties, which enables technical access to the bank’s customers’ accounts. This is an attempt by the regulator to break up the banks’ monopoly on account information and to boost competition amongst payment service providers.

The directive clearly stipulates the type of information banks have to give access to and the scope of services associated with it. For example, when it comes to payments PSD2 API access is restricted to SEPA single payments. Few banks, if any, will support bulk payments, FX payments etc. as additional services. This is why for the time being this technology is only of limited use to corporate treasury. It is definitely in no way comparable to established channels such as EBICS, H2H or SWIFT.

Where do you see the main advantages of open banking for treasury? When will corporate financial departments adopt open banking?

Changes have been flooding the international payments sector, and open banking is only one of the waves to ride. Demand is driven by developments in the consumer goods sector, where mobile, real-time payments are rapidly gaining ground, with providers springing up all over the place. 24/7/365 availability of payments services is highly relevant for treasurers. This has also been the driving force behind developments in connection with established channels, such as SWIFT or EBICS, including the SWIFT g4C technology that enables real-time information on payment transactions. For corporates who use a treasury management system with an integrated payments platform, open banking has already become a reality.

How does open banking with a treasury management system work?

A treasury management system with an integrated payments platform, such as tm5 by BELLIN, enables multi-channel access to banks. There are standardized channels for specific regions, such as EBICS, or the BELLIN SWIFT Service that provides access to the global SWIFT Network. Another connectivity option is direct host-to-host connections to specific banks and their networks. APIs represent an additional technology to connect banks and corporates, and in the future, this will become more and more relevant. Today, the BELLIN Payment Gateway enables access to real-time payment transaction information and a company’s global financial status.

Are there any challenges associated with API interfaces?

Many of the banks today that can connect via two or even three channels are working on APIs. So this will become an additional bank connectivity option. However, we need to bear in mind that such an API must bring added value and additional benefits. Otherwise, you are better off using one of the more established channels. Looking at the API specifications of several major banks in more detail, you will realize that there are minor standardization options at the moment. Everyone is talking about APIs but in fact, every bank has their own! Ultimately, it is irrelevant for the customer or the user which technological options we have available to connect a financial institution.

What new aspects does API connectivity bring and what makes it special?

The main difference is the way in which information is made accessible. Intraday account statements are a perfect example. Many banks provide this information at least once or twice a day, some more often. The times vary according to bank, which makes it difficult to gain a complete overview of your financial status at any one time. For EBICS and H2H connections, BELLIN has to actively retrieve this information for clients, while the banks send the data to a company’s BIC in the case of SWIFT Service customers. Corporates have little or no insight into any fluctuations outside these times.
API technology enables two systems to communicate directly. In theory, any API request to a bank requesting intraday account information or the current financial status could be processed and responded to in real time. This would be a huge leap towards the concept of an “instant treasury:” It would enable treasurers to trigger information directly and to receive the latest data at the touch of a button. Unfortunately, few banks are able to offer such a service, as it would require not just an interface but also powerful and modern banking systems.

So the flood of information triggered by APIs very quickly hits a wall, reined in by banking systems. Do you see any solutions to this problem?

So-called WebSocket interfaces are a step up from APIs. This technology would see a bank notify a client as soon as any relevant data has become available. Corporates could retrieve this information promptly and would always have the latest information. This is a very intelligent reversal of the logic described earlier and would get rid of any redundant data communication. Customers or their service providers would only ever communicate with a bank when the bank has notified them of available data. You could compare a notification that money has been credited to your account to notifications sent by LinkedIn or YouTube: As soon as something new happens, it’s shown to you and you’re notified.

Will these new technologies mean the end for existing solutions such as EBICS?

Not at all. EBICS is a great example. The EBICS standard is long established and thousands of corporate clients use it. Banks have invested a lot of money in these systems. Intelligent updates to these standards will be the key. The German Banking Industry Committee, the industry association of the German banking industry, is planning specifications for 2020 and working on introducing technology that will enable banks to notify corporate clients as soon as relevant data is available to be retrieved from the EBICS bank server. From a technological point of view, this will be a combination of the established EBICS protocol and the latest API technology. I think this is the perfect combination of old and new standards and brings enormous advantages to customers with little or no adjustments required.

What would you recommend treasurers do right now?

My advice would be to remain calm and wait it out. At the moment, APIs and the opportunities associated with them are being hyped up. But in reality, very few banks have actually developed new services.

At BELLIN, we develop and integrate APIs every day, whether it is to communicate with transaction repositories, to integrate SAP systems or to connect our BELLIN Connect app. We have decades of experience when it comes to banking communication and have just launched API projects with three major international banks. Our aim is to create viable use cases that add value to our treasury clients.

Authors:

Author picture ofKarsten Kiefer

Karsten Kiefer
As a Product Manager and Payments Specialist, Karsten Kiefer is responsible for any payments topics at BELLIN. The main focus of his work is on enhancing software functionality, supported payment formats and communications channels. Karsten has a background in IT and has over 20 years’ experience in the payments sector.



 

 

Author picture ofAnja BiehlerAnja Biehler
Anja has a PhD in German Philology and trained in a business communications agency before gaining valuable creative and marketing experience in a number of advertising agencies. For five years, she was in charge of the communications department of a renowned, private financial service provider. Her last position before joining BELLIN’s Global Marketing & Communications team in November 2014 was with Freiburg University where Anja was responsible for the marketing efforts of the EXIST business start-up program.

What is the cloud based system WalletSizing?

13-9-2019 | Vallstein |

What is WalletSizing?

WalletSizing® is a system in the cloud focused on giving full transparency to corporates on their spending and profitability for banks. All their banks globally, regardless of the number of banks and the type of products, varying from Fx, Cash Management, bonds, lending or asset management. Vallstein takes in all data a corporate has available on the products and invoices from the bank in an innovative easy way for the corporate where they do not need to do much with the data. Vallstein translates, maps and upload it into the system after which the corporate has all insight in their banking landscape and can do easy analysis with all the features the system offers.

What distinguishes WalletSizing® from its competitors?

Firstly, WalletSizing® looks at the entire bank relationship, across all product areas, not just transaction services or credit, but everything that is being used from all banks that maintain a relationship with the client concerned. Secondly, Vallstein takes an explicit view through the eyes of the bank on the relationship, taking all relevant Basel III /IV regulation into account. This kind of transparency is absolutely essential to identify the real room to negotiate and ensure terms and conditions that are truly fair for both sides of the table. Thirdly: technology. Vallstein provides analysis for clients maintaining multiple bank relationships across a multitude of countries with many different banking products, which is impossible to build and let alone maintain in spreadsheets.

ROS Calculation 2

 

Who will benefit from using this system?

CFO’s and Treasurers will benefit by having full transparency in the bank relationships and as a result they will have more meaningful bank reviews, RFP’s and Negotiations. Depending on the objectives a corporate has, it will allow them to be fair in their distribution of business towards banks, limit the number of banks used globally or keep banks costs in line with market practice as will be indicated by the system’s benchmarking capabilities. Where cost saving was an objective, corporates saved 26% on their bank costs on average, across the entire relationship, all products.

About Vallstein
Vallstein is the leading provider of Bank Relationship Management (BRM) solutions with a simple mission: no more black box but instead provide the full transparency that enables development of long term sustainable banking relationships.
Founded in 2000, Vallstein has a multinational team of experts dedicated to developing and implementing cutting edge financial technology solutions to help corporations constantly improve their BRM.
Having calculated and analyzed thousands of Wallets over 18 years, Vallstein brings together a unique combination of big data, innovation, analytical capabilities and banking knowledge. This provides the best practice in the optimization of bank relationships.

How do you find your Interim Treasurer?

| 09-09-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Treasury recruitment organisations and treasury consultants are both involved in interim treasury assignments. They often approach the same candidates but work with a different cost structure. Expertise of the service provider and interim manager are always important. If capacity is most important in your assignment, a recruiter might be best. If the project result dominates, a consultant.

Between the times of life-time-employment and the current flexible employment contracts some decades have passed. The Dutch have been among the trailblazers in making the labour market more flexible. These developments are being applauded by some and regretted by others. In our niche, corporate treasury, employers and employees are mainly positive. In this article I want to focus on two channels through which you can find your interim treasurer.

In my opinion the underlying agreement for labour, contractor or consultancy is secondary to what the company is looking for. If they are looking for a long term (a year or more) solution with a predictable set of tasks, an interim solution is not appropriate. Interim will not offer the stability and will cost too much.

Obvious reason for choosing an interim solution is the temporary need for capacity and/or expertise. This can be because you are looking for the permanent solution or the regular employee has taken a time-out. Also when you are shutting down your organisation, capacity is the dominating factor. In a build-up, implementation or crisis transition skills are important. In all described situations specific expertise, measured in experience and education, is a must. How does this help you choosing between a recruitment or consultancy firm?

When to use a treasury recruiter to find an interim treasurer

As treasury recruiters we find candidates for interim positions in various ponds. First there is a group of independent contractors with a track record in interim management, with a legal entity that can hit the ground running. Next to this group there is a group of candidates that are between jobs or just before retirement. Knowledgeable and motivated. Some of them can work from their own company, others will work through payrolling solutions we can provide. This second group is not always best in hitting the ground running but does have the knowledge level. Some of them can make the transfer from temporary to permanent employment. Most of the times the second group comes at a lower rate but sometimes need more time to bring the same results.

When to use a treasury consultancy to find an interim treasurer

Most professional consultancies work with the idea that they will solve the problems of their clients. In fee structure it is even possible to define a project and agree upon the cost in advance. A recruiter will not be able to do this. An interim manager working through a consultancy can do so with shadow management: he can call colleagues if he lacks knowledge. Furthermore the infrastructure and support is more substantial. All these benefits come at a price: the average hourly rate of a consultant is often 50% higher than an independent interim manager with a similar profile would charge.

Where recruiters and consultants overlap

In competition with consultants we often notice that we (recruiters) approach the same candidates and ask a lower price. Also it happens that an independent senior interim manager is compared with a medior consultant who is on the payroll of the consultancy. In that situation the client has to decide if he prefers apples over oranges.

Final remark and what to do?

Often all parties pretend recruitment (and other) processes are 100% rational. They are not and that is not a bad thing. You should choose for the interim manager and service provider that makes you feel good and who solve your problem. Sometimes a high hourly fee and few hours is better than a low hourly fee and many hours.

It is not rocket science but do think before you act. If you want to only steer upon results and high expertise, a consultancy is best, in other scenarios a recruiter might offer a better solution. What is your experience?

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Do you want to make better decisions through real-time reporting?

| 05-09-2019 | TIS |

BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH REAL-TIME REPORTING:
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ABOUT CASH FLOWS & CASH POSITIONS

How do strategic professionals decide on the best path to success for their company? The key is in transparency and real-time reporting across company-wide cashflow and liquidity levels, bank, customer and supplier relations and working capital. When cashflow 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.

 

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE FACTSHEET HERE

 

About TIS
TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH) is the leading cloud platform for managing corporate payments, liquidity and bank relationships worldwide. The company delivers SMART PAYMENTS to help customers make BETTER DECISIONS.

TIS enables companies to make more efficient, more secure and more cost-effective payment transactions. In addition, TIS enables customers to make better decisions when analysing financial and operational performance based on real-time payment flows. All mission-critical processes related to payment transactions are integrated into a multibank-capable, audit-proof cloud platform. This is a single point of contact for enterprise customers when managing and analysing their payment flows across the organisation. TIS take care of managing various payment formats, communication channels with banks, and ERP-agnostic integration. Offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), the ISO certified TIS solutions are quickly up and running without the complexity and cost of a long IT project.