OpusCapita makes Liquidity Management free for all customers

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

| 26-3-2020 | treasuryXL | OpusCapita |

OpusCapita makes Liquidity Management in a basic version free for their SaaS customers

OpusCapita, treasuryXL partner and leading cash management solution provider announces today that they have chosen to make their Liquidity Management product free for all customers until the end of the year in order to help treasury and cash management professionals to meet the increased demand on accurate cash forecasts due to the spread of the coronavirus.

“We are living in unprecedented times and we want to help our customers. The demands on treasurers are immense right now and I feel if we can help by making our product for free it’s the right thing to do”, states Jukka Sallinen, Head of Cash Management, OpusCapita.

Liquidity Management will be available in a basic version to allow customers to start using it right away without any implementation or set-up needs.

“We are also looking for ways to enable companies who are not our customers to use this functionality at a heavily discounted price”, states Jukka Sallinen, Head of Cash Management, OpusCapita. 

“I am happy that we can help our customers in these tough times and that we as a company can do our part”, states Patrik Sallner, CEO OpusCapita.

What does Liquidity Management Basic enable you to do?

With the basic package, you will be able to enable your subsidiaries across the globe to manually input (or upload from Excel) their current cash balances and future cash flows (for example AR, AP, taxes etc) in OpusCapita. Once you have this data centralized, the basic package enables you to setup Reports and Dashboards which will automatically consolidate and display all entered balances and cash flows.

In short, this includes:

  • Manually entering cashflows (Liquidity Unit Entry)
  • Manually entering cash positions (Liquidity Balance Entry)
  • Liquidity grid and graph, best-practice Reports such as:
    • Cash Visibility
      • Cash balances per bank account, per bank or per company
      • Actual inflows and outflows on bank accounts (if statements are imported in OpusCapita)
    • Cash Forecasting
      • Total forecast
      • Forecast per bank account, per company or per currency
      • Actual vs Forecast
    • Dashboards for visualizations cash positions and forecast

Three steps to get started

1. Get in touch with us so we can enable Liquidity Basic for you.

2. Add cash flows with pre-built templates or import them from Excel.

3. Build reports with our straight-forward drag’n’ drop functionality.

 

Read more information here.

 

About OpusCapita

OpusCapita enables organizations to buy and pay quickly and securely, with a real-time view of their business. OpusCapita customers use their source-to-pay and cash management solutions to connect, transact and grow. OpusCapita processes over 100 million electronic transactions annually on its Business Network.

Visit OpusCapita

Visit Partner Page

Read Customer Success Stories

treasuryXL announces partnership with OpusCapita

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

| 19-3-2020 | treasuryXL | OpusCapita |

treasuryXL announces partnership with OpusCapita, a leading cash management provider.

VENLO, The Netherlands, MARCH 19, 2020 – treasuryXL, the community platform for everyone who is active in the world of treasury, today announced the premium partnership with a leading cash management provider, OpusCapita.

As a marketplace, treasuryXL will offer OpusCapita market commentary and insight to its audience. Offering a continuous flow of relevant treasury content, making treasury knowledge available, results in treasuryXL being the obvious go-to platform for its’ audience. OpusCapita will have a prominent role in the Treasury Topic environment with coverage in Cash Management, risk management, Treasury Software, Payments & Banking and Fraud & Cybersecurity. Together they will host virtual roundtables in the near future to connect with partners and experts around the world.

“We are excited to take part in the treasury community that TreasuryXL is building and look forward to join the network of treasury experts.” Marc Josefsson, Head of Strategic Sales, OpusCapita.

OpusCapita has over 800 customers across more than 100 countries. Their secure, cloud-based solution enables Treasury and Finance professionals to harmonize global processes and policies, centralize treasury and finance operations and reduce complexity.

treasuryXL and OpusCapita strive for a fruitful partnership where its’ audience are top of mind making sure that (potential) clients are always up to date with the latest cash management news and events benefit from a comprehensive range of services and products.

About treasuryXL

treasuryXL started in 2016 as a community platform for everyone who is active in the world of treasury. Their extensive and highly qualified network consists out of experienced and aspiring treasurers. treasuryXL keeps their network updated with daily news, events and the latest treasury vacancies.

treasuryXL brings the treasury function to a higher level, both for the inner circle: corporate treasurers, bankers & consultants, as well as others that might benefit: CFO’s, business owners, other people from the CFO Team and educators.

treasuryXL offers:

  • professionals the chance to publish their expertise, opinions, success stories, distribute these and stimulate dialogue.
  • a labour market platform by creating an overview of vacancies, events and treasury education.
  • a variety of consultancy services in collaboration with qualified treasurers.
  • a broad network of highly valued partners and experts.

About OpusCapita

OpusCapita enables organizations to buy and pay quickly and securely, with a real-time view of their business. OpusCapita customers use their source-to-pay and cash management solutions to connect, transact and grow. OpusCapita processes over 100 million electronic transactions annually on its Business Network.

Visit OpusCapita

Visit Partner Page

Read Customer Success Stories

TIS is growth champion for the third time in a row and is carrying its success story forward

/0 Comments/in , , /by

| 03-12-2019 | TIS |

FOCUS BUSINESS and Statista rank the cloud-based payment expert among the fastest-growing and most promising companies in Germany. 

Walldorf, 28. November 2019. Above-average growth in turnover and staff as well as new and innovative ways of making corporate payment processes simpler and safer – with these qualities TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH) has now established itself on the list of the 500 FOCUS business growth champions for the third time in a row

Statista, the Hamburg-based statistics portal, had created a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing German companies for FOCUS BUSINESS, a well-known business magazine in Germany. 12,500 companies with particularly strong growth in sales or workforce were extracted from two million commercial register entries. The companies must have their principal place of business in Germany and have achieved organic growth. Based on these criteria, a shortlist of 1,654 firms was created and from this ultimately a top 500 ranking of champions who achieved average annual revenue growth of 52 % between 2015 and 2018. The list of 500 growth champions for 2020 was published in edition 3/2019 of the FOCUS BUSINESS magazine.

The fact that TIS is now listed in the ranking for the third time in a row is primarily thanks to the confidence which customers have placed in  its cloud-based payment  platform. The consistent upward trend of TIS also proves that rapid growth is essential in the big context of digitalization. Through features like ERP-integration, payment automation, process standardization, and a single login for all stakeholders to manage bank accounts and payments, TIS customers benefit from improved simplicity and security in handling all their payment transactions and gain greater insight into their cashflow data.

Jörg Wiemer, CEO and co-founder of TIS, proudly tells to the press: “We are delighted and very proud to be among the winners in the FOCUS growth ranking once again. We could only achieve the impressive business performance with the commitment of an outstandingly performing team in TIS, to whom I owe my special thanks. We are continuously working towards the acceleration of our further growth in Europe and in the USA with a solution that is highly appreciated by our customers.”

About TIS

TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH), founded in Walldorf, Germany in 2010, is a global leader in managing corporate payments. The Financial Times named TIS as one of “Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies” for 2019.

Offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), the TIS solution is a comprehensive, highly-scalable, cloud platform for company-wide payments and cash management. For businesses, TIS creates a community of trust and empowers customers to make better decisions with 100% real-time cashflow visibility. Key benefits are lower costs, risk prevention, a higher degree of transparency and fast worldwide roll-outs. For banks and partners, TIS generates growth and revenue opportunities through continuous innovation for better payment experience.

The TIS solution has been successfully used for many years in both large and medium-sized companies, including Adecco Group, Hugo Boss, Fresenius, Fugro, Lanxess, OSRAM and QIAGEN. More than 25% of DAX companies are already TIS customers.

The high level of security and deep integration of the platform with existing ERP systems is certified by ISO-27001, SAP, SOC 1, SOC 2, and TISAX.

Your World of Payments. One Login.

Visit TIS.biz

Why are you still paying too much banking costs? There is a simple solution to save money

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

2-12-2019 | treasuryXL | Vallstein |

Do you have full transparency in your banking cost? Do you fully trust your bank(s)? You can easily save a significant amount of money and create strong ties with your bank(s) for a better relationship.

We interviewed Huub Wevers, Head of Business Development at Vallstein, he will take a deeper dive into the advantages of using WalletSizing® , give you a better insight and even shares a success story.

Can you tell something about WalletSizing® ?

WalletSizing® is a SaaS platform with a number of modules that gives Corporates full transparency on how much they spent on their banks and how profitable they are for their banks. A CFO would like to be able to drive the meetings with the bank supported by independent data showing exactly what a corporate is doing with the bank AND how profitable the corporate is for the bank. This is exactly what WalletSizing® delivers. WalletSizing® drives the focus and strategy of the meeting by showing how much a corporate is spending on their banks and how profitable they are for their banks. It ensures that a corporate gets value for money from their relationships with their banks.

An additional module of WalletSizing®, the bank fee edition is able to upload all bank invoices for cash management and comparing them with the original price agreements. Am I paying the price as agreed during the RFP phase?

WalletSizing® the Bankfee edition, can be used together with the other WalletSizing® modules or stand alone.

This module uploads all bank invoices (any format) for cash management and audits them with the original price agreements: Am I paying the price as agreed during the RFP phase? Are there unforeseen billing charges? I was not aware of these unusual situations like:

  1. a) manual payments,
  2. b) investigations,
  3. c) volumes… leading into continuous internal processes improvements.

WalletSizing® Bankfee edition is all about Automation, Control and Transparency, down to account level and including tailor made reporting for Auditors and Control teams. WalletSizing® Bankfee edition it is not a daily reconciliation system. It is an audit process that can be ran in different frequencies as those fits’ client requirements.

What is, in your perception, the biggest benefit of using WalletSizing® ?

Let me explain the following questions that WalletSizing® answers:

  • How much am I spending on my bank products & services?
  • How profitable am I for my banks?
  • Is the above fair?

The last question is the most important one and can be answered through the benchmarking capabilities of WalletSizing® and the underlying methodology. WalletSizing® is calculating the exact profitability on the basis of the relevant credit ratings, bank fees and the latest Basel III/IV regulations.

Another benefit is during the RFP or price revision process where the proposed prices from the Banks are also uploaded in the system and amongst other criteria, compared with the Vallstein Benchmark. This benchmark is a Vallstein property owned database with hundreds of thousands of data points collected over the last 20 years.

How does the customer project phase look like from start till actual use?

A typical WalletSizing® project takes 6 weeks where Vallstein will handle most of the work, typically 90%. We will gather all necessary data and integrate, translate and upload into the system. Through a number of workshops we ensure the client domain is 100% accurate and the client is versed in making the analysis and acting on it. “Having learned how to fish instead of just been given a fish” as the saying goes. During the project we will also set-up and agree how to continue maintenance of the system, ensuring an up to date system.

How fast can customers experience the impact of WalletSizing® after implementation?

Already during the implementation clients will be able to get benefits from the system by detecting missing bills. After an implementation, clients can immediately review their bank relationships and typically will reach very significant savings in their banking costs through that. And on the long run, clients will have more transparent and better relationships with their banks. When you have clarity on how much you are really paying, you have time to talk about more strategic topics with your banks.

What was your biggest challenge with WalletSizing® ?

The biggest challenge with WalletSizing® we had over the last 20 years is the data quality of the banks and the speed at which they deliver the data to our clients.  Fortunately this is improving due to invoice standards like CAMT.086 and a more shared belief in transparency in the market place. Things have changed for the better and we hope that we have and are contributing to that.

Can you share a great WalletSizing® success story?

A client of ours implemented WalletSizing® Bank Fee Edition. We Started with 9 Banks, 12 countries and 170 different accounts. We have now made the bank process completely automatic. Banks are sending the required and detailed fees data on a quarterly basis and this data is being uploaded into the system.

We found no unique and individual product codes across the banks. Product descriptions are not clear and fees are not consistent across the same billing items and accounts. This has been resolved completely by the system which is now automatically mapping all billing items into unified product names and codes. It is more easy now to compare different banking terms and conditions and market benchmark. Needless to say significant savings and 100% transparency has been achieved.

After this implementation the client agreed that they now had done the difficult part of Bank Relationship Management (Cash Management Fees) and were interested to pursue the analysis of the full banking wallet across all their banks. An exercise to understand the current situation, reduce the number of banks, but with full visibility across all banks on how much business and how profitable they were right now. In the end the client reduced their number of banks from 17 towards 9 and have an even spread of their business (Wallet) across all their banks.

visit Vallstein.com

You are only one step away from saving a lot of money

Huub is thrilled to help you. Fill out the contact form and we arrange a call for you.

Ready for automated payment transactions? Fully integrated in a few days

/0 Comments/in , , /by

| 26-11-2019 | TIS |

Treasury Intelligence Solutions GmbH (TIS) 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 is web-based. That means you don’t have to install any software locally. Save yourself high IT and ERP maintenance costs and connect TIS to your ERP system in a secure, simple and straightforward manner.

Cloud-based: This is how TIS is integrated.

Simple implementation and intuitive operation.

Many companies have to fight against non-transparent and decentralized payment processes due to the accumulation of organizational and IT structures. TIS understand this problem and can provide a solution to both issues. The TIS platform is web-based and is available productively across the whole company in just a few days. It can be integrated seamlessly into your ERP system via a plug-in. Every user, all over the world, can log in to the platform straightforwardly and manage the business processes for the areas for which they are responsible.

TIS Agent: Support for all ERP versions.

No changes to your ERP systems are needed.

Integration of the TIS Corporate Payment solution is independent of your ERP system. Interfaces for ERP systems other than SAP are either already available or they can be easily deployed by using the TIS Agents. Furthermore, interfaces to banks are already available and additional interfaces are continuously being integrated. Connection to your ERP systems can therefore be achieved straightforwardly.

Cost-efficient.

Fast ERP rollouts and lower maintenance requirements.

Reduce your costs by deciding for the introduction of a SaaS solution.  Systems that are located on your own servers will have considerably larger implementation expenses, risks and will involve major IT projects.

There are also expensive maintenance requirements. Every time the payment and bank statement processes between the ERP or accounting systems and the banks are standardized, your IT system will have to be involved. TIS enables fast and cost-effective ERP rollouts, without large IT costs, via the web-based solution. You will therefore save money and simplify your bank communications in the long term.

Particularly easy SAP integration.

TIS Bank Transaction Manager has been officially approved and certified by SAP.

As a certified partner of SAP SE, we guarantee that our SaaS solution is completely compatible with the SAP Business Suite. This means that TIS can integrated seamlessly via an SAP certified plug-in with

SAP ERP

SAP Business ByDesign

SAP S/4HANA

Once TIS has been incorporated into an ERP system, the user no longer has to save the bank files locally and transmit them to the bank. Payments are now triggered in the SAP environment and transmitted directly to the TIS cloud platform. Inversely, bank statements go from the bank to TIS and are collected there by the ERP system. As a SaaS solution, the platform is connected seamlessly to your ERPs, and you can design your national and international payment transaction process efficiently and in a future-oriented manner.

TIS Bank Transaction Manager

Integration of the TIS solutions is thus quick and easy. As soon as the TIS Bank Transaction Manager has been integrated into your business processes, you can centralize your payment process and increase your processing speed and data quality. Reduce errors from manual input and gain valuable time via standardized automation. Depending on what type of support in payment management you require, you can manage your payment processes entirely in accordance with your needs using additional TIS modules.

Visit TIS.biz

Why You Don’t Need a Treasury Workstation

/0 Comments/in , , /by

| 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

What is the cloud based system WalletSizing?

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

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.

CASHFORCE AND FIDES WIN GLOBAL FINANCE 2019 TREASURY AND CASH MANAGEMENT AWARD

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

| 11-04-2019 | treasuryXL | Cashforce |

Cashforce, the global leader in cash forecasting and working capital optimization, and Fides Treasury Services Ltd., the global leader in multi-bank connectivity and communications, have won the Global Finance 2019 Treasury and Cash Management Award for Best Use of Artificial Intelligence in Treasury Management.

The two companies were jointly honored for their efforts to deliver an end-to-end solution that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to provide better outcomes for corporate treasury and finance departments.

“We are excited to be recognized for the work we have done concerning AI-powered cash forecasting,” said Nicolas Christiaen, CEO of Cashforce. “We will continue to invest in innovation to deliver comprehensive tools that help treasury and financial professionals be more efficient and more effective.”

Partnering together, Fides and Cashforce are pioneering new ways for corporate treasurers to connect to their cash-impacting data and leverage bank and ERP data for success. Fides’ multi-bank connectivity solutions in conjunction with Cashforce’s AI-powered cash forecasting module delivers best-in-class cash flow analytics, helping treasury and finance departments quickly obtain and present a single and accurate version of the truth.

“We are proud to receive this honor from Global Finance,” said Simon Kaufmann, Head, Client Relations and Marketing at Fides. “This award highlights the value of coupling trusted technology with cutting edge innovation, and the value customers can receive through strategic supplier partnerships like that of Fides and Cashforce.”

The Best Use of Artificial Intelligence in Treasury Management was a new award category this year. It was open to submissions from providers of treasury and cash management systems, services and technology that demonstrated innovative problem solving and treasury and cash management best practices.

ABOUT FIDES

Fides is the global leader in multi-bank connectivity and transaction communications. With the industry’s largest bank connectivity network, Fides helps over 3,000 active clients communicate with more than 10,000 banks globally. Our geographic reach spans 170 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions.

Committed to helping corporations optimally connect and interact with their banks for over a century, Fides’ solutions deliver critical multi-bank account statement, payment workflow and reporting capabilities that allow treasury and finance teams to easily, accurately and securely communicate with their banks through any possible channel such as SWIFT, EBICS, SFTP or any alternative network.

ABOUT CASHFORCE

Cashforce is the global leader in cash forecasting and working capital optimization, with offices in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, London and New York. We provide cash visibility to multinational corporates across various industries in over 120 countries worldwide.

The Cashforce platform is a ‘next-generation’ cash forecasting and treasury platform, focused on analytics, automation and integration. Cashforce connects the treasury department with other finance/business departments by offering full transparency into its cash flow drivers, accurate and automated cash flow forecasting and treasury reporting. The platform is unique in its category because of the seamless integration with numerous ERPs and banking systems, the ability to drill down to transaction level details, and the intelligent A.I.-based simulation engine that enables multiple cash flow scenarios, forecasts and impact analysis.

 

Nicolas Christiaen

Managing Partner at Cashforce

 

Cash forecasting 2.0

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

| 8-3-2017 | Nicolas Christiaen | Cashforce | sponsored content |



Cash forecasting has been a hot topic in 2016 and it looks like it will keep this status in the years to come.  As Cash Specialist, I’m frequently asked about my vision on this subject. About a month ago, I presented my thoughts to an audience of Group Treasurers & CFOs at the ACT Smart Cash conference in London. During the Q&A, I was asked an intriguing question: “How does a cash management platform, such as Cashforce, differentiate itself from old school Treasury Management Systems in terms of cash forecasting?”

TMS vs. Cash Management/Forecasting platform

Classic Treasury Management Systems (TMS) are focused on inputting, maintaining & managing complicated financial instruments and managing bank connectivity. In other words, they focus on cash optimization from the treasury side.
Cash management & forecasting platforms, on the other hand, focus on cash optimization from the business side. Hence, they typically connect to a company’s ERP systems, in which you’ll find 90% of the company’s cash flows.
And guess what, it’s this refreshing vision on cash optimization that is now attracting the attention by more and more Corporate Treasurers worldwide: they call it “connecting treasury with the business”.

Difference No 1: Transparent cash forecasting

With a classic TMS, a Corporate Treasurer will typically consolidate cash forecasts from the different OpCo’s,  which are already consolidated from the underlying business transactions. So, there is no drill-down available into the business drivers, no assurance on the quality of the data/input/manipulations. This blurs a treasurer’s view on what’s actually happening on the business side, taking away the cash visibility into the company’s different OpCo’s.  Full drill down isn’t offered by a classic TMS due to two main reasons:

  • It is simply not designed for carrying millions of transactions on a daily basis, while cash management/forecasting solutions use a ‘big data’ approach and have built-in engines to process millions of transactions daily.
  • Connecting to each single ERP requires deep knowledge of each of these systems (to avoid long implementation times) and traditionally, Treasury Management Systems didn’t have a need to develop these connectors.

 Difference No 2: Collecting the data in a smart way

One of the pain points often linked to Cash Forecasting, is the lacking ability to merge all relevant data and apply smart logics to it. Indeed, it might be a challenge to connect to all data sources and, at the same time, to do this in a smart way. At Cashforce, our reaction to this issue is twofold: A smart logics engine takes care of the forecasting algorithms, while easy connections to ERPs and other systems (like HRM, CRM..) ensure the continuous supply of rich data.

Defining and applying smart logics are often a challenge to overcome and have an enormous impact on the accuracy of the cash forecast. For example, well-defined smart logics help you to better estimate actual payment times and hence improve the accuracy of a forecast. A TMS system often lacks this powerful ability and has no built-in smart engine for forecasting rules.

Difference No 3: Cash saving from the business instead of treasury optimizations

Finally, driving action from forecasts should be the main objective. Intelligent simulation engines enable companies to consider multiple scenarios and measure their impact. This gives users the power to report on cash saving opportunities and compare options to ultimately pick the better one. As a result, finance departments can be turned into business catalysts for cash generation opportunities throughout the company. In contrast, Treasury Management Systems are not designed to perform complicated business-driven cash simulations.

Complementary or Competitors?

New, often innovative cash management platforms, like Cashforce, are complementary to a TMS and tend to bring a lot of value in working capital intensive businesses. They are complementary, as they have a different focus: Treasury Management Systems look at the entire treasury spectrum in order to improve treasury processes. Cash Management/Forecasting platforms start from the business and want to enable finance departments to become a strategic partner on one of the key growth indicators, cash. On the other hand, for smaller companies, these platforms might be a good alternative for an often expensive TMS, when only limited financial instrument management functionality is required.

Nicolas Christiaen

Managing Partner at Cashforce

 

TMS Buyer’s Guide from AFP: a short summary

/0 Comments/in , , /by

| 1-3-2017 | treasuryXL |

The latest TMS Buyer’s guide of the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) has been published in 2016, but contains enough interesting information to look at it and make a short summary. With the buyer’s guide AFP wants to offer its members a closer look at treasury technology today. Some of the top TMS vendors in the (global) marketplace were asked to share their view on what treasury departments were looking for in a system—or how such a system should look like. It is a growing market and there are many options to choose from. The questions is, how a treasury professional can judge if the TMS he is considering or currently uses is the one best suited to his needs? According to AFP the TMS Guide will help practitioners to answer that question by giving a list of TMS suppliers and describe the latest technologies and trends. As a treasury professional who also is responsible for a smooth treasury proces within your company you want to be sure that you are getting the most for your money.

The content of the Guide is divided in two parts: a list of TMS suppliers where they describe shortly their products and services and a TMS functionality matrix, which lines out specific TMS functionalities and which company from the list supplies which services or products for the different functionalities.

The list in the guide is one of worldwide suppliers.  Most likely AFP has not the intention to offer a complete list and it is obvious that you will find local suppliers in the different markets.

These are the companies in the guide:

  • ION
  • Orbit
  • Axletree
  • Bellin
  • Bloomberg
  • Chatham Financial
  • Expertus
  • Financial Sciences Corporation
  • GTreasury
  • Hanse Orga Group
  • Kyriba
  • OpenLink
  • Reval
  • Strategic Treasurer
  • Treasury Xpress

For our readers we will focus on some companies that operate in the European/Benelux market.

Bellin

Bellin (in the Benelux represented by Enigma) has successfully launched over 15,000 companies on their tm5 Treasury Management system, leading the industry in project success rates. This has given a certain perspective on some of the less thought about aspects of TMS implementation, especially when it comes to cash management. They focus on three factors they think people do not pay enough attention to when implementing their TMS, and how these factors can improve the cash positioning, forecasting and risk management:

  • Don’t automate, do streamline
  • Get your subsidiaries involved in cash forecasting early, so you can use their data.
  • When it comes to risk management, start with real data, and use specific analysis to establish where you have weaknesses

Bellin states that implementing the TMS system is only  the beginning and that more challenges come along while you are on the way. Read more.

Kyriba

Kyriba is the global leader in cloud treasury solutions. Kyriba delivers award-winning, secure, modular and scalable SaaS treasury solutions with integrated bank connectivity, payments, and risk management. They developed a cloud treasury management solution that is delivered on a single platform. Kyriba’s Treasury Cloud is used by more than 1,300 clients globally to protect against payments fraud and cybercrime, while proactively managing market volatility, onerous compliance requirements, and creating opportunities to fund new growth. Kyriba’s Cash and Liquidity capabilities include Cash Positioning, Cash Forecasting, Advanced Forecasting, Variance Analysis, Liquidity Forecasting, In-House Banking, and Multi-Lateral Netting. Clients also benefit from full accounting, GL posting, and Bank-tobook reconciliation workflows. The Cash and Liquidity modules are supported by the Kyriba Connectivity Hub and Data Exchange. With Kyriba’s Payment Management suite, clients can initiate, approve and release payments to any of their banks globally. Kyriba also supports payment factories, including multiple routing options to integrate all corporate payment workflows in a centralized payment hub. Read more

Hanse Orga

Hanse Orga is a global provider of specialized financial software for CFOs, treasurers and financial professionals seeking the perfect solution for their individual requirements. Their FS² software family is fully embedded within the SAP landscape so that companies capitalize on existing technology investments and profit from seamless finance processes. Over 1,000 customers in more than 50 countries worldwide have already profited from their systems and consulting.
With their SAP-embedded software family FS² and specialized consulting they help customers worldwide to achieve best results for their finance processes. FS² works with SAP S/4HANA Finance as well as previous SAP systems such as HANA and ECC! Corporates benefit from future-proof functions, a modern user experience and flexible report settings – on any device, anytime and anywhere! Whether the software is installed on premise, in the cloud or as a hybrid solution, the software supports fully audit-proof processes.
FS² is available for these areas: Cash, Liquidity and Treasury Management, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Bank Account Management and Working Capital Management. Read more

Reval

Reval is a global provider of a scalable cloud platform for Treasury and Risk Management (TRM). Their cloud-based offerings enable enterprises to better manage cash, liquidity and financial risk, and to account for and report on complex financial instruments and hedging activities. The scope and timeliness of the data and analytics they provide allow chief financial officers, treasurers and finance managers to operate more confidently in an increasingly complex and volatile global business environment. With offerings built on the Reval CONTACT Cloud Platform companies can optimize treasury and risk management activities across the enterprise for greater operational efficiency, security, control and compliance. They offer Reval Core ™ for mid-market treasuries and Reval Choice™ for  organizations faced with
complex treasury and risk challenges. Read more

Treasury matrix in the TMS buyer’s guide

The TMS functionality matrix lists (all) the companies in the guide for the following functionalities:

  • Foreign Exchange
  • Debit Interest rate products
  • Derivatives
  • Electronic Dealing
  • Balance & transaction management
  • Bank account management
  • Reconciliation
  • Forecasting
  • Confirmation
  • Accounting
  • Reporting
  • Security
  • Target company size
  • Implementation

For more information on the details of the functionality matrix follow this link.

Source: TMS Buyer’s Guide 2016, AFP

We believe that the functionality matrix offers very valuable information for treasurers and finance professionals who have to make choices for the implementation of a system.

Some other TMS suppliers in Europe/The Benelux not mentioned in the Guide

It goes without saying that in the Benelux/Europe you will find other suppliers, let me mention just a few – Aaron, Integrity, IT2, Trinity (Wieltec), Global$ WallStreet and Treasury Services.

As an example Treasury Services BV creates a competitive advantage for their clients through the implementation of innovative solutions. They offer a complete treasury management software, treasury training and education, financial engineering solutions and consultancy.