Tag Archive for: payment

The Role of APIs in Strategic Cash Forecasting

19-05-2022 | treasuryXL | Kyriba | LinkedIn |

 

By Andrew Deichler, Content Manager and Strategic Marketing

Source

Cash forecasting has undergone some substantial changes over the past couple of years. While forecasting has always been important, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted just how critical it is, and why CFOs are prioritizing it more than ever.

In a recent webinar, Bob Stark, global head of marketing for Kyriba, and Lisa Husken, value engineer at Kyriba, discussed the current and future state of strategic cash forecasting. When exploring the data, one key point became clear—APIs are the key to more accurate cash forecasts.

How Forecasting Has Changed

Prior to the pandemic, many organizations with high idle cash balances might not have prioritized forecasting, Husken noted. However, once the pandemic hit, as well as other issues that followed like supply chain disruptions, even cash-flush companies quickly saw the important role forecasting played in their liquidity strength.

Risk management has also become more of a focus in the pandemic era as macroeconomic factors impacted FX, interest rates, the supply chain, and inflation. This prompted a shift from organizations generally producing one cash forecast to looking at multiple scenarios for cash and liquidity. “The ‘what-if’ scenarios became increasingly important,” Stark said. “It’s not like they didn’t happen before… but everyone became intrigued by [scenario planning] come 2020.”

Data-Driven Decision-Making

Given the focus on risk and the necessity to explore multiple potential scenarios, today’s treasury functions are focusing heavily on data-driven decision-making. Organizations have more data than ever before, and they need real-time access to it in order to make strategic decisions. And the only way to facilitate that is through APIs; “You can’t become more data-driven without actually having integrated platforms with APIs,” Stark said.

While many organizations view APIs as connectors that allow companies to access their banks and real-time payments, they have much greater potential. They have the ability to unify data, bringing information together into one, composable system, Stark explained. They can take a company’s system of record (the ERP), merge it with a treasury management system, and also bring in data sets from other internal and external sources, such as purchase requisitions, purchase orders, invoices, sales forecasts, etc.

With such expansive capabilities, it’s plain to see why APIs are the perfect tools for forecasting. A survey of over 800 finance executives by IDC and commissioned by Kyriba revealed that 88% of them are prioritizing APIs this year. That’s because CFOs understand that APIs can unify forecast data across their organizations so that they can make better decisions. They are demanding more precise cash forecasting and liquidity planning.

And they are right to demand it, because at the moment, they don’t have the insights they need. The survey also revealed that currently only 15% of finance leaders leverage real-time data to drive insights, and only 25% of finance teams reliably forecast cash and liquidity beyond one month.

Husken noted that those two data points go hand in hand. Reflecting on her previous role as a treasury practitioner, she noted that once forecasts go beyond 4 weeks, their accuracy tends to be 50% at best. “If you don’t have access to that real-time data, then you’re not utilizing the most up-to-date information,” she said. “Then how could you be as accurate as you could be going out further than four weeks.”

Better Forecasting Rewards

Improving the forecast would provide treasury and finance teams with more confidence to capture higher yield, which is desirable in a rising interest rate environment. With the insight strong forecasting provides, some Kyriba clients have been able to decrease the amount of cash they commit to working capital on a both short-term and a long-term basis and divert it to higher-yielding activities.

For example, through improved forecasting with Kyriba, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) was able to reduce working capital holdings by nearly $4 billion. The health insurance company was then able to make more strategic investment decisions earlier in the day, resulting in a 5% increase in investment returns. Short-term returns grew by $40 million, while long-term returns have seen an increase of $140 million.

Looking ahead, treasury teams may reap even higher rewards as interest rates increase. The culmination of data that APIs facilitate will create better forecasts, enabling organizations to put cash on the balance sheet to the best possible use. Borrowing will get more expensive as interest rates increase, but APIs can vastly enhance the decision-making process.

Listen to the full webinar here. And for even further insights, download the AFP Treasury in Practice Guide, Treasury Opportunities in Strategic Cash Forecasting.

Click here to view all blogs by Kyriba

REMINDER | Webinar | How successful master data management can help you secure financial processes? May 18th

10-05-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

 

Find out how to manage your Master Data in a safe way including how to prevent fraud in this upcoming webinar next week on May 18 together with Nomentia, featuring Mark Roelands, Kendra Keydeniers and Huub Wevers!

Date & time: May 18, 2022 at 14:00-14:45 PM CET | Duration 45 minutes

In this webinar, we’ll discuss how you can manage your Master data in a safe way, how you can prevent fraud and sanction risks through the management of this data, and the subsequent processes that make use of your master data. This ranges from the creation of counterparties in your ERP to the safeguard checks in your payment process and system. 

More specifically, we will discuss the following topics:

  • Introduction to Master Data management
  • Managing the counterparty Master Data in your ERP
  • Trends that companies face related to Master Data
  • High-risk processes using your master data
  • Steps to create a safe and secure culture within your company
  • Setting up appropriate processes and systems to enable security

 

Throughout the webinar, you get a chance to ask any questions that arise.

Click here to register now!

Webinar Nomentia & TreasuryXL

Meet the speakers

Mark Roelands
Risk and Compliance Specialist
GRC Consulting

Kendra Keydeniers
Director Community & Partners
TreasuryXL

Huub Wevers
Head of Sales
Nomentia







 

 

 

Webinar | How successful master data management can help you secure financial processes? May 18th

02-05-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

 

We’re excited to announce our upcoming webinar together with Nomentia on May 18th, featuring Mark Roelands, Kendra Keydeniers, and Huub Wevers!

Date & time: May 18, 2022 at 14:00-14:45 PM CET | Duration 45 minutes

In this webinar, we’ll discuss how you can manage your Master data in a safe way, how you can prevent fraud and sanction risks through the management of this data, and the subsequent processes that make use of your master data. This ranges from the creation of counterparties in your ERP to the safeguard checks in your payment process and system. 

More specifically, we will discuss the following topics:

  • Introduction to Master Data management
  • Managing the counterparty Master Data in your ERP
  • Trends that companies face related to Master Data
  • High-risk processes using your master data
  • Steps to create a safe and secure culture within your company
  • Setting up appropriate processes and systems to enable security

 

Throughout the webinar, you get a chance to ask any questions that arise.

Click here to register now!

Webinar Nomentia & TreasuryXL

Meet the speakers

Mark Roelands
Risk and Compliance Specialist
GRC Consulting

Kendra Keydeniers
Director Community & Partners
TreasuryXL

Huub Wevers
Head of Sales
Nomentia







 

 

 

Effective API Strategies Go Beyond Banks & Payments

21-04-2022 | treasuryXL | Kyriba | LinkedIn |

 

By Brian Blihovde, Senior Director, Product Marketing

Source

Bank Connectivity is Only the Beginning of the Transformation Journey

CFOs looking to optimize their processes and systems view APIs as a gateway to enterprise-wide liquidity and the organization’s financial capabilities and health. Finance transformation starts with bank connectivity, leading to real-time decision-making, but the opportunities do not stop there. Bank connectivity and payments help finance deliver more complete, real-time information to all parts of the business. This is the benefit from composable financial systems and design. CFOs, treasurers, and their IT counterparts must all collaborate, consider and plan how transformations continue to drive impacts beyond bank connectivity for all of finance and business units as well.

Finance and the business units to include manufacturing, warehousing, inventory, sales, and distribution all comprise enterprise-level functions contributing important strategic decision-making information. APIs should be used to drive transformation, resilience of data, efficiency, and real-time reporting. Strategic liquidity decision-making will improve once IT and finance can collaborate.

Legacy Systems Don’t Exist with New Data Unification Strategies

CEOs and CFOs are finding it harder to justify an entire re-do of their systems landscapes. CFOs should not look at their systems as “legacy” as API integration can take data and transform it into information and expanded decision-making capabilities. This API-driven unification of data from systems available and stored within various databases and systems across the organization. Legacy is an outdated concept when leading-edge, comprehensive APIs are introduced as technology enablers.

Information, today, is compiled, rationalized, and optimized with APIs regardless of the source system or application; definitions of “legacy” are not relevant any longer. CFOs and finance leaders make decisions with aggregated data transformed into business intelligence repositories from the information they have today and at reduced timelines with leading APIs.

Doing More with Less: APIs Beyond the Bank

Treasury and finance can do more when they use a vendor with integrative API capabilities beyond payments and banking alone. Integrating procurement, ERPs, GLs, and other third-party systems delivers the data unification needed for a comprehensive decision-making platform. Today, APIs go beyond banking and payments for integration across:

  • Investment Portals
  • FX Trading Platforms & Hedge Management
  • Market Data Providers
  • Supplier Services (for Working Capital Programs)
  • Security Profile and Governance Management

Taking Next Steps

To obtain better, and more accurate access to finance information, APIs link the systems used to compile and compose this data into an automated and real-time systemic process. When synchronous ERP, ancillary and core treasury systems collectively feed into the strategic cash flow forecasting process and BI dashboards, the result is a comprehensive view of mid and longer-term flows equaling less effort, more insight and better decision-making.

Enterprise views of cash and liquidity begin with bank connectivity as it provides the needed access to payments, cash and liquidity availability and should always be real-time. However, it is not the end of the story; today’s organizations require more prescriptive, forward-looking capabilities only delivered with information flows like procure to pay and order to cash cycles from the entire unified financial landscape. These holistic, API-integrative systems can generate the business information and intelligence needed to quickly make better decisions and speed the success of today’s organization.

To learn more on how new leading APIs are becoming the standard for how finance and treasury become more than information stewards, but rather catalysts and centers of excellence for better strategic decision-making for their greater organizations – www.kyriba.com.

Click here to view all blogs by Kyriba

The 6 main benefits of adopting an in-house bank

30-03-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

An in-house bank is a group or a legal entity that provides banking services to different business units within the organization. The in-house bank replicates the services that are typically provided by banks. The in-house bank offers solutions for payments, liquidity management and cash visibility, payments on behalf (POBO), collections on behalf (COBO), FX requests, funding, and working capital to business units.

Source

When organizations are looking for a way to improve cash flow processes, cash visibility, and reduce bank fees, the in-house bank can be a great alternative compared to working with countless banks internationally.

While the in-house bank is not an option in every country due to regulations, when it’s possible to use it, it will decrease the company’s vulnerability to regulatory changes as these could negatively impact business operations. Organizations are not only protecting themselves against regulatory changes of countries, but also against changes on the bank’s side for example when it comes to updating new payment file format standards.

What are the top 6 benefits of an in-house bank?

 

Among the many benefits of implementing an in-house bank, centralized control, improved liquidity management, reduced banking fees, automated bookkeeping, globally harmonized payment processes and full visibility into subsidiary balances are perhaps the most important ones that organizations can realize.

 

1. Centralized control

 

Centralized control by the group is by far the biggest benefit of adopting an in-house bank to help with topics such as global payment processes, financing, investments, corporate-wide FX risk exposures, and hedging.

An in-house bank is especially favorable for companies with large amounts of cash or when there’s a constant need to move money between subsidiaries and the group. While the group gains a bigger control, business units and subsidiaries will have their own sub-accounts within the in-house banks. The balance limits are set and reviewed centrally based on the organization’s treasury policy by the group.

The group will be able to minimize global payments that include foreign exchange or cross-border payment fees as all the transactions can be conducted centrally instead of going through local payment processing third parties. With an in-house bank, there’s clearer visibility into the overall net positions per currency to manage and it’s possible to hedge FX risk at the group level for currency protection and fewer hedging transactions.

Also, subsidiaries do not necessarily need to go to banks for loans, but instead, the loan can be funded by the organization. Lending money to the subsidiaries can be significantly cheaper than paying high-interest rates to a third party like a bank or a creditor. Centralizing the internal financing to the in-house bank provides an easy way to document the processes for compliance as well as the process becomes more simple as all the applications will go through the group.

With a centralized in-house bank, treasury will have greater control over all the treasury processes, and this could significantly improve the liquidity position of the company.

 

2. Improved liquidity management 

 

Through the in-house bank, liquidity can be centrally managed and the group can decide whether external funding is required based on the cash position. With centralized reporting, the group does not only have better real-time visibility into the available cash, but decision-making becomes faster as the result of the available information. This is also beneficial for subsidiaries and business units as they will be able to receive funds a lot faster as a result of the automated cash pooling. This also ensures that there is adequate liquidity when and where it is needed instead of having excess amounts of cash on the accounts of subsidiaries that do not necessarily need the money at that point.

Of course, from time to time, organizations still need external funding for investments, but then it’s also easier to qualify for funding with better terms as a group than as a stand-alone subsidiary.

 

3. Reduced banking costs & fewer banking partners

 

Getting started with an in-house bank will mean that the external banking cost will be reduced to the minimum so it’s a lot more cost-effective than using external banks globally. It’s also possible to save on bank transaction fees since the internal transactions do not need to go through external banking partners.

Centralizing the banking relationship management to group treasury can also increase negotiating power, so the enterprise can get better prices and improved services.

 

4. Automated reconciliation and improved month-end process activities

 

In-house bank users can auto-reconcile incoming payments and collections for higher efficiency. In a similar manner, inter-company cash flows can be also executed and posted. Balance reconciliation and reporting can be automated by fetching all account statements from the banks and allocating the transactions to the subsidiary’s in-house bank accounts. The rules of allocation can be set on a bank, company, or even an account level.

 

5.    Harmonized payment processes for all internal, external, and on-behalf-of payments

 

Using an in-house bank can remove the need for a separate netting solution. Instead, with an in-house bank, you can create the exact same process both for internal and external payments. When the internal payments remain internal and they do not require receivable-driven netting, you gain benefits such as always up-to-date bank account statements and fully automated reconciliation of internal transactions.

Subsidiaries also benefit from the harmonized payment processes. They won’t lose value dates and the month-end closing can be automated.

Payments-on-behalf-of (POBO) minimize the reliance on external bank accounts by subsidiaries. With POBO, subsidiaries continue to process payments in the same way as before while using the debtor’s in-house bank account number.

With Collections-on-behalf-of (COBO), it’s possible to define allocation rules based on transaction details to allocate cash to in-house bank accounts. With virtual bank accounts offered by external banks, it is easy to set up an automated COBO process.

 

6. Full visibility on subsidiary balances

 

Without a centralized control that an in-house bank offers, the group treasury has often had the challenge of the lack of visibility into the cash balances of the subsidiaries. With an in-house bank, it’s possible to manage multiple cash pools to gain full visibility on subsidiary balances.

It is more beneficial to pool all cash and credit balances instead of having cash lying idle on the accounts of the subsidiaries. Business units may run net credit or debit balances in the subaccounts and either earn or pay interest on the net debit/credit balances.

When the group needs to borrow money to the business units, they can set their own interest rates that can even vary based on the subsidiary’s size and profile.

 

Should you implement an in-house bank?

 

There’s no simple answer to this question. It should be a strategic decision and should be aligned with your organization’s roadmap.

To identify whether the in-house bank is the right solution for you, carefully evaluate your current processes: what is working and what could be improved? Could some of the above-mentioned benefits make your operations more profitable by controlling the organization’s cash centrally?

Of course, you may already have a good solution for example for liquidity or bank fee management, but if you have business units and subsidiaries globally and you are going to invest heavily in development, you deal with local taxation, transfer pricing, you may want to consider the option of implementing an in-house bank in the near future.

Before you make a decision, you should also be aware of the regulations of all the countries you are operating in, whether POBO & COBO are allowed in those countries, and what paperwork you need to move forward with an in-house bank.

Implementing an in-house bank is a significant undertaking as it will require buy-in from many departments, however, in the long-term, you will be able to build better processes, improve visibility, and save money.

 

 

When Is the Right Time to Move to APIs?

23-03-2022 | treasuryXL | Kyriba | LinkedIn |

By Andrew Deichler, Content Manager, Strategic Marketing

Application programming interfaces (APIs) have the potential to revolutionize the treasury and finance function. But when is the time to move to APIs, and when is file transfer protocol (FTP) still sufficient?

Let’s explore the use cases for APIs and when it is appropriate to begin using them. We’ll also look at areas where FTP is still sufficient.

Source

API Use Cases

Largely viewed as conduits for faster bank connections, APIs allow systems to exchange data faster. Unlike FTP, APIs do not require any kind of file download to transmit information; users have instant access to the data they need.

Major ERP providers are working with API developers to embed APIs into their workflows so users don’t need to take any action outside the ERP. For example, Kyriba is working with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and others on API connectors. And Kyriba users can also integrate APIs into their ERPs on their own with our plug-and-play solutions.

APIs have nearly limitless potential. They can facilitate an open ecosystem that enables third-party developers to build applications on top of the API provider’s platform. Through such a platform, corporate treasury and finance departments can expedite the flow of data. Kyriba’s Open API hub, launched in 2021, is an online marketplace of real-time connections to apps, data, and new products and services that inject data-driven decision-making into every financial operation.

APIs offer treasury and finance many capabilities that they haven’t had before, such as the power to “un-batch” payments. Rather than relying on batch processes that transmit at several pre-determined times each day, APIs allow payments to be initiated from treasury management systems and ERP systems as needed—even in real time. In fact, real-time payments require the use of an API because payments can’t be transmitted instantly if a file needs to be downloaded.

Furthermore, APIs can also un-batch reporting, allowing organizations to manage cash continuously and in real-time. Just like batch payments, batch reporting is constrained to set times each day. APIs allow treasury and finance teams to receive intraday liquidity updates as needed, improving the ability to position, reconcile and invest cash. And immediate visibility into cash also allows companies to vastly improve forecasting.

FTP Isn’t Going Anywhere Just Yet

All that said, FTP isn’t dying out just yet. Banks and technology solutions providers that are managing open platforms are not replacing legacy formats with APIs; rather, they are offering them as a complement to these formats.

Furthermore, the rollout has been slow; most banks are not using APIs in live production yet. And the ones that do mostly offer them for certain real-time services—meaning that multiple connectivity options are needed to fully support a treasury and finance team.

But even if you have full API capabilities, they may not be appropriate for every type of data transfer yet. Generally speaking, FTP is better for large bulk transfers of data, while APIs are preferable for smaller, more specific transfer needs. And even though APIs can virtually eliminate the need for batching, some organizations may not see a need to end the practice—and they’ll need FTP to do that.

Lastly, FTP has been around for many years, making it compatible with legacy systems. Unlike API connections, which require that systems on both ends support the technology, FTP only requires that the appropriate file format be used. So, FTP won’t require any major conversions for your software. In other words, if the status quo is working for your organization, you may not see the need to make any changes right now.

API and SFTP Capabilities

In many ways, APIs bring key advantages over a file-based approach, such as an immediate response from banks and the ability to receive new data and notifications in real-time. But for the time being, flat-file technology is still very much in use.

Fortunately, Kyriba users don’t have to choose one or the other. Kyriba connects to 600 global banks on behalf of our nearly 2,500 clients using a variety of connection protocols, including APIs and FTP. So regardless of whether your bank and ERP are set up for APIs or not, Kyriba can ensure that you’ll have the right connectivity for your organization.

For more information on APIs, view our API Whitepaper, Fact Sheet and Infographic.

Live Webinar on March 10: A to Z of Secure Corporate Treasury Payments

03-03-2022 | treasuryXL | Aico | LinkedIn |

 

Ensuring manual payments are secure is a common concern for treasury, internal controls teams, and accounts payable process owners. While for some companies, manual payments cases are few and far between, others perform regularly and in large amounts and thus are at high risk of mishandling funds. In this webinar we will present:

  • Some of the most common use cases for manual payments.
  • Fraud risks associated with manual payments.
  • End-to-end software solution to safeguard manual payment process.

What are manual payments?

Manual payments are often required for one-time vendors, where they are not set up in your ERP system, but a payment needs to be made. Whilst these tend to be infrequent in nature, the process still needs to be carefully managed to ensure internal controls are applied, and the risk of errors or even fraud is minimised.

The Aico solution provides a Manual Payments module to fully support this process, and in this Webinar, we will show you:

  • A configurable template to raise the request with defined workflows to be followed.
  • The ability to validate and approve the payment request, and add all relevant supporting evidence.
  • The ability to automatically create the appropriate PAIN file which can be sent to the bank for processing.
  • Automation to create and post the appropriate journal entries to your ERP system following successful payment.

Webinar presenters:

Sarah Bellerby, Solutions Consultant at Aico

As a qualified accountant with a background in Audit, Sarah started her career working in organisations with extremely manual and fragmented processes. For the past 10 years, Sarah has been driven by her passion for identifying and implementing intelligent solutions to streamline financial processes, mitigate risk and increase compliance. For the past 2 years, Sarah has been working specifically in the Record to Report arena, supporting customers in their Finance Transformation projects to implement intelligent financial close automation solutions.

Aico leadership team

Shivam Dosa, Head of Service Delivery at Aico

An ACCA qualified accountant with a passion for RPA and improving productivity in the workplace by utilising technology. Shiv has a broad background, spanning from working in Corporate Finance to Financial Control to Project Implementations, This experience has given him a solid foundation for Financial Close Automation within Aico.

 

About Aico

We help enterprises simplify financial close and record-to-report (R2R) accounting processes. The result is less manual work and faster period-end financial reporting with the assurance of compliance and data accuracy.

Our software platform includes solutions for the key R2R processes – Account Reconciliation, Closing Task Management, Journal Entries, Intercompany Invoicing and Manual Payments.

Unique real-time integration to multiple ERP systems brings increased automation levels and reduces IT system complexity to our customers.

With teams and a network of partners across EMEA, we deliver high-complexity projects for enterprises with a global footprint.

Visit aico.ai for more information about Aico.

Visit Aico resource library for eBooks and webinars on R2R and financial close best practices.

Join us on LinkedIn.

7 Cash Management Trends for 2022

16-02-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

While the show must go on and treasury and finance teams had a busy life at the start of the year, it’s time to take a look at the ever rapidly changing cash management trends of 2022.

While PWC has predicted that the top priorities for CFOs in 2022 will be advanced cash and liquidity management, technology and digital innovation, fraud and cybersecurity, and business partnering, we also internally discussed what trends we see emerging during the new year.

 

1. Digitalization of the processes continues

A year ago, this time, we commissioned a Forrester study, ‘Successful Businesses Excel At Cash Management’, to discover how top decision-makers see the state of cash management. We were ready for some interesting findings but what we found was even more interesting than what we expected.

Clearly, during the past years, a lot has changed as finance and treasury teams had to adjust to the new reality that the global pandemic has brought on all of us. While digitalization has been on the agenda of everybody for some time, it’s been time to speed up the transformation.

While the digital transformation has started in many enterprises already years ago, the work continues to reap the benefits of cloud-based cash and treasury management technology to improve organizational flexibility, cash management processes, and security.

Better digitalized processes do not only make the life of employees easier, but companies can also untap hidden cash, inject accurate forecasting into decision making while improving their day-to-day treasury and finance operations with automation.

While last year enabling home working and ensuring business continuity was a significant driver, for sure, we are moving towards a world where the next items on the cash management wish list will climb up the priority ladder.

 

2. Payment solution for cash flow efficiency

Payments are the core of every business process, but compliance is often the main driver for many to improve existing processes. It’s often the same when companies adopt a payment tool for their global payments to improve the efficiency of their global B2B payments. Having a single tool allows more control over how payments are processed, approved, and released to the banks.

Payment efficiency is also the first step for many other cash management priorities, such as better liquidity management and cash visibility

In the process of setting up a payment solution, the hardest part of working with ERPs, existing TMS, and multiple banks is also tackled and can be utilized for implementing new solutions along the way.

Adapting a tool for payment tool can also make centralized user rights management easier.

 

3. Security is an unavoidable topic

When we are talking about payments, we must discuss security. During last year, financial fraud cases have been making headlines globally. For compliance, organizations must have the basic security measures in place, but finance and treasury are departments that need more advanced risk mitigation capabilities to tackle financial crime and fraudulent attempts to safeguard the company’s funds and financial stability. To tackle security concerns, partnering up with the information security team and finding the right vendors can provide you with the necessary precautions.

Companies are starting to utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning for catching suspicious fraudulent activity or to spot manual errors.

As all companies could be subject to financial crime, investing in fraud prevention should be a no-brainer. It’s almost like insurance for minimizing the risk of an actual incident.

 

4. Outsourcing bank connectivity

You will rarely meet someone that would say that bank connectivity is not a challenge. Yet, it’s something that everybody must have in place. In the Forrester study, 76% of the respondents believed that bank connectivity for fetching statements and intraday material is valuable for their treasury and cash management activities.

Connecting to banks is a challenge due to the different communication protocols and file formats. When banks make changes on their end, the existing connectivity should reflect on that too.

This is only part of the challenge. On the other end, there should be a connection to ERP systems (like SAP or other) or to a TMS to fetch all the accounts payable data instantly. This requires working with another communication protocol and another data format.

Between the two different data formats, there must be a data mapping to make sure that the communication between the bank and the organization works flawlessly.

It is challenging enough to set up a bank connection with a single bank. Imagine doing this process with multiple banks

That’s why most organizations are opting for bank connectivity as a service where companies like Nomentia have already over 10 800 bank connections established and expertise to take care of the rest.

Ps.: We have also created a cool video on how easy it can be to outsource the management of your bank connections:

 

5. We are saying goodbye to spreadsheets

Let’s be honest, cash forecasting with excel is challenging:

  • It’s easy to make an error
  • It’s undocumented – if the owner of the spreadsheet leaves the company, it may take some time to understand the logic behind it
  • There is no audit trail for compliance

Two of the main reasons that are holding back companies from purchasing a solution for liquidity management is the cost and the perception that it’s easy to create cash flow forecasts with spreadsheets and that is how it’s been always done. However, the trend is shifting and more companies start to realize that an actual liquidity management tool would have more benefits.

Using a tool for liquidity makes collecting forecasts and actuals automated and the data can be collected from multiple source systems to help to understand the organization’s current, past, and future liquidity positions to optimize cash flows and FX positions to optimize internal and external funding.

Liquidity management software today is extremely user-friendly and intuitive to use so that users can create reports easily to create accurate reports.

 

6. Reconciliation for all

Comparing bank statements against your accounting to make sure the amounts match each other is not too difficult for small firms where their clients and cash flows come from fewer sources and banks. In enterprises, reconciliation may not be so straightforward. In our Forrester survey, 61% of decision-makers say it’s challenging or very challenging to reconcile payments.

Thus, we expect that automation of the reconciliation process will be the star of 2022 so that organizations can streamline the process for faster month-end closing.

 

7. Alignment between treasury, finance, and IT

According to finance executives, the lack of alignment is the top barrier to better cash management. This is something that at Nomentia we’ve been experiencing firsthand. In a recent interview with TMI, Jukka Sallinen, Nomentia’s CEO said the following:

“Lack of collaboration between different functions within the organization is one of the significant hurdles. There should be more roadmapping and alignment between treasury, finance, and IT. Many solutions provided by software vendors have grown into do-it-all monolithic systems. That, unfortunately, often leads them to be mediocre at best and none of the three departments is entirely happy to work with them. In addition, while there has been lots of talk about open banking and standardization to improve the efficiency of cash management processes, most of these promises have remained unfulfilled.

I believe treasurers want more flexible and fast solutions that can solve their specific challenges and integrate well with their core treasury management system (TMS) and other systems. While it is obviously everyone’s responsibility to look at the big picture, maintaining the growing number of systems and surveying the providers’ landscape is often left to IT. Greater collaboration would be preferable.”

Setting up new solutions, bank connections, or improving security requires cooperation between the different stakeholders and in 2022 they will need to strengthen their alliance for actualizing the strategic benefits of cash management.

 

Cash Management tools are becoming more democratic

Cash management solutions becoming more accessible for businesses of all sizes. As it’s time to digitalize treasury and finance, there are affordable options available for anybody for all the solutions mentioned above. A payment factory, liquidity management, or reconciliation can be easily implemented for a fair price tag in almost any business. The trend has been moving from one-size-fits-all solutions to a hyper-modular approach: you take the solution that you need and integrate it into your existing solution stack so that you can pick the best solutions from different vendors.

Of course, implementation of new cash management solutions will require cooperation and alignment between different departments, prioritization, as well as finding the right strategic vendor that can support the organization’s finance and treasury roadmap.

 

 

Corporate Treasury: 3 ways to prevent fraud risk in one-time vendor payments

09-02-2022 | treasuryXL | Aico | LinkedIn |

Manual payments are somewhat of an outlier among corporate treasury payments. These one-time vendor transactions to companies or private individuals whose details are not in your ERP system pose a significant risk of fraud. They are challenging to track and easy to manipulate in an enterprise environment. This makes them a target for auditors, who want to clearly see you have monitored all points in the payment process where data can be altered. Changing the payment details or falsifying invoices are just a couple of mishandling examples, leading to massive fraud cases like these.

There is, however, a transparent and secure way to handle these payments as quickly and efficiently as the typical accounts payable invoice automation process.

Let’s look at three preventative solutions to reduce the fraud risk.

1. Enforce approval workflows: The four-eye principle.

Much of payment fraud originates in transferring small sums to non-existing vendors, rather than large payments. It makes such transactions much harder to identify and match over a long period.

The so-called four-eye principle is one of the cornerstones of a preventative approach to fraud management and internal controls in general. Having no means to enforce payment approval workflows across the group’s companies with little to no visibility into initiated payments is a challenge many enterprises struggle with.

A software solution to enforce systemic payment approvals is essential. And so is the ability to easily customise these workflows and apply them to the whole company group in line with your internal and external compliance guidelines.

You may want to enforce one or two-step payment approvals based on value or frequently recurring IBAN details. A mandatory requirement to add an attachment of supporting evidence is another possibility. These are just some examples of how a modern software solution like Aico can help you minimise fraud risk effectively.

2. Secure PAIN file creation and bank transfers.

A holistic approach is essential for effectively implementing internal controls against payment fraud. Eliminating 90% of a leak in your boat still leaves you at high risk. So, payment approvals alone will make it harder to start a fraudulent payment, but they won’t secure you from trickery further down the process.

Once one or more people have approved the payment, it will be sent to the bank in a PAIN (payment initiation) file format. The data in the approved payment request should be identical to the one in the PAIN file. Eliminating any possibility to create or alter the PAIN file manually is the single most effective protection in this part of the process. So ideally, PAIN file creation and transfer to the bank should be fully automated.

In the case of the Aico Manual Payments software solution, the system will create the PAIN file automatically in the background using the master data of the approved payment request. Once approved, the PAIN file goes automatically to the bank for the payment without any further human interaction.

3. Automate journal postings.

Verifying the execution of the payment and accounting for it in a compliant way is the last, but not least, important part of the safe payment process. Just as we want to ensure the bank receives the approved payment document, it is equally important to match the returning bank statement with the original payment order.

And once again, an automated process is the safest solution. In fact, at this point, we can also securely manage the accounting by automatically creating and posting a journal entry into the ERP system. Automation here saves us time and ensures that subsequent journals are posted to the correct accounts with the right value matching the master data of the initially approved payment request.

Is it possible to take one more step to safeguard this process?

In addition to the smart workflows and powerful automation, the Aico Manual Payments solution will also archive the entire activity log and documents related to the specific payment. This extra mile of effort will significantly simplify the audit process and help to identify any irregularities.

About Aico

We help enterprises simplify financial close and record-to-report (R2R) accounting processes. The result is less manual work and faster period-end financial reporting with the assurance of compliance and data accuracy.

Our software platform includes solutions for the key R2R processes – Account Reconciliation, Closing Task Management, Journal Entries, Intercompany Invoicing and Manual Payments.

Unique real-time integration to multiple ERP systems brings increased automation levels and reduces IT system complexity to our customers.

With teams and a network of partners across EMEA, we deliver high-complexity projects for enterprises with a global footprint.

Visit aico.ai for more information about Aico.

Visit Aico resource library for eBooks and webinars on R2R and financial close best practices.

Join us on LinkedIn.

Nomentia Now Available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

01-02-2022 | treasuryXL | Nomentia | LinkedIn |

Microsoft Azure customers worldwide now gain access to Nomentia to take advantage of the scalability, reliability and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies.

HELSINKI, Finland — February 1, 2022 — Nomentia, a leading European provider of cash and treasury management solutions, today announced the availability of Nomentia Bank Connectivity as a Service in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure. Nomentia customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform, with streamlined deployment and management.

 

“Adding Nomentia to Microsoft Azure Marketplace will help IT departments achieve desired connectivity between banks and internal systems, faster than ever before” Anna-Lisa Natchev, Chief Growth Officer of Nomentia

 

“Nomentia is addressing some of the major challenges treasury, finance and IT teams are facing during the digitalization and transformation of treasury and finance processes. We not only take care of ERP integrations, but also offer unrivaled bank connectivity-as-a-service across the market. Adding Nomentia to Microsoft Azure Marketplace will help IT departments achieve desired connectivity between banks and internal systems, faster than ever before. Using Nomentia’s bank connectivity-as-a-service can significantly reduce IT burden and ensure treasury and finance departments can start building better processes to improve operations, data output quality, security and compliance assurance,” says Anna-Lisa Natchev, Chief Growth Officer of Nomentia.

“Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure,” said Jake Zborowski, General Manager, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. “We’re happy to welcome Nomentia’s solution to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem.”
The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a category leader within European treasury and cash management solutions. Nomentia’s mission is to provide unparalleled cloud treasury and cash management solutions for and with our customers. Today, Nomentia is solving the challenges of modern treasurers and cash managers across 2,000+ businesses in over 80 countries, processing more than 800 billion euros annually. Nomentia solutions specialize in global payments, bank connectivity-as-service, cash-forecasting and visibility, bank account management, financial process automation, treasury workflows, FX risk, in-house banking, and trade finance. For more information, visit www.nomentia.com.

 

For more information, press only:

Anna-Lisa Natchev, Nomentia, Chief Growth Officer, +358 50 413 0704, [email protected]

Barbara Babati, Nomentia, Head of Marketing, +358 40 762 3356, [email protected]