Tag Archive for: treasury

4 questions for the Cash and Currency Manager at Boskalis

| 13-04-2021 | by treasuryXL | Kendra Keydeniers

Without a doubt you have seen the giant container ship ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez canal from March 23 till March 29, 2021. One week later we were very close to an unprecedented oil spill by a rudderless cargo ship, nevertheless this story got a happy ending. Boskalis, the leading global dredging and offshore contractor and maritime services provider, saved the world twice in nine days.

Back in 2019 we interviewed the Cash & Currency Manager at Boskalis, Steven de Klein. We took this momentum to look back and see when his career in treasury started and why he decided to start with the Register Treasurer program.

Steven de Klein decided to take a deeper dive into the world of treasury and started the Register Treasurer (RT) program in 2014. He graduated as RT  in 2017. Before moving into treasury, he studied Business Economics in Nijmegen.

His first experience in treasury was a good one, “The field of treasury is much greater than most people expect” said Steven.

With its roots in the Netherlands, Boskalis has over 100 years’ experience in hydraulic engineering, coastal protection and land reclamation. The head office is located in Papendrecht and they have an extensive network of branches around the world. They operate in 90 countries and across six continents, with a versatile fleet of more than 900 vessels and floating equipment. Shares in the company have been listed on Euronext Amsterdam since 1971.

We asked Steven 4 questions about the RT program:

  1. What for you was the main reason to start a career in treasury?

    During my final year at the Radboud University in Nijmegen where I studied Business Economics, I started at a small advisory firm specialized in (corporate) financing. That was my first experience in treasury and it suited me well. Soon afterwards I joined a development & construction company that showed me that treasury was more than just financing and before you know it, you are a ‘treasurer’.

  2. Why did you start with the RT program?

    After working within the same company for a few years I noticed that my learning curve was leveling out. I started to investigate what treasury courses and programs where available and found that the RT program is without any doubt the best and most comprehensive treasury course available in The Netherlands.

  3. How did the education help you in your career?

    Not only did I gain a lot of new knowledge about treasury, but also about related topics such as macro-economics, fiscal law and (hedge) accounting. This helps to connect the dots a lot better when you’re back at your daily job. It also brought me a new network of people, good memories and I even think my current job at Royal Boskalis Westminster NV.

  4. Are you still in touch with your peers?

    Absolutely, during the 2-year program you built a strong relationship with your peers, since you do spend almost a full day per week with them. This is also one of the bigger benefits of the RT program in comparison to at-home studies.

We have more RT stories to share with you, here are the stories of Bouke, Michel, Jarno, Mathieu and Richard.

The post-graduate Executive Treasury Management & Corporate Finance programme combines two finance disciplines: Treasury Management and Corporate Finance. These disciplines largely overlap and are inextricably connected.

After a successful completion of all required modules, the title of Registered Treasurer (RT) is conferred by the Registered Treasurer foundation.

Kendra Keydeniers

Director, Community & Partners treasuryXL

 

 

 

Webinar Recording: The importance of cash management during the crisis | the impact of the pandemic

| 31-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Cashforce |ACT

Rewatch ACT’s session ‘The importance of Cash management during the crisis: the impact of the Pandemic’ with David Shinkins (Barclays), James Marshall (Virgin Media), Hailey Laverty Hotels & Resorts) & Nicolas Christiaen from our Partner Cashforce.

 

 

 

Webinar recording: Cashforce & TIS are Partnering Up to Deliver Best-of-Breed Technology

| 17-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Cashforce | TIS

Cashforce & TIS are partnering up to deliver best-of-breed technology. Watch the webinar recording with Nicolas Christiaen and Joerg Wiemer and get to know more about this best-of-breed approach and how this partnership can help you tackle your challenges in cash flow forecasting and corporate payments.

 

 

 

5 concrete tips for preventing Payment Fraud

| 16-03-2021 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |

Payment fraud has become a real and permanent threat for companies of all sizes. No company can afford to close their eyes on the risks – fraudsters target all industries, and large and small businesses alike. It is the eleventh hour to start focusing on the safety of your payment process if you want to avoid financial damage.

The good news is that the fraudsters prefer easy targets, so even raising awareness on the topic in your organization is a step in the right direction. With this blog, I want to share 5 concrete tips for preventing payment fraud and improving the safety of your organization’s payment process.

Get rid of risky task combinations

Do you know who has access to your payments at each stage of the process? Risky task combinations may have formed overtime without anyone noticing that a single person can, for instance, create a new payment in the system and approve it to be paid. Overly broad user rights leave unnecessary room for both malpractice and costly mistakes. Applying strong user rights management – the four-eye principle, for example – is a quick way to reduce the risks. You should require double approval also on the changes made in the vendor master data, as well as user rights.

Build your payment process on best practices

Design a secure payment process with best practices approach. Establishing a “no PO, no pay” principle where invoices are approved for payment only if they have a purchase order number or if they are paid to registered suppliers supports preventing payment fraud. You can improve the safety of manual payments when you utilize the ready-made templates of a payment system and demand multi-factor identification from the person who makes the spontaneous request for payment. Many CFO attacks could have been prevented if the origin of an email payment request had been confirmed via another channel.

Automate and focus on end-to-end safety

You would be surprised if you knew how many companies have gaps in their payment process, creating payment fraud risk. For example, if the payment file batches are waiting to be uploaded to bank in a folder or file share, it leaves the data open for tampering even if the process up to that point had been secure. Eliminating manual phases through automation is one of the best ways to increase safety as it reduces not only the risk of fraud but also the risk of mistakes.

Improve transparency

Standardized and harmonized practices build up transparency, which makes spotting and preventing payment fraud easier. Create a uniform, company-wide process for handling payments and make sure that there are no routes round it. By centralizing all your bank connections to a single system, you will take transparency to another level, and, in addition, you are able to better control the risk related to data transfer and system management.

Keep an eye on deviations

It is not rare that payment fraud is discovered only by accident. As a part of good risk management, you need to focus also on the measures that help you spot the fraudulent payments that manage to go through your defenses. Keep an eye on payments that are going to unknown bank accounts or that are made outside normal payment schedule. Your payment system should support you in risk management and filter out deviations from your payment flows before they are paid. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will soon create new possibilities for recognizing and managing deviations in accounts payable in a more real-time and automated fashion.

Preventing payment fraud in an ever-changing threat landscape requires that you take a comprehensive and proactive approach. I recommend that you download and read our e-book, where we take a look at this topic in detail, and provide you with all the different perspectives a corporate payment process should be examined from. In the e-book, you will find best practices and concrete advice you need to keep your organization from falling victim to payment fraud.

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!

Meet Jukka Sallinen

 

 

Blank Sheet Treasury

08-03-2021 | Jesper Nielsen-Terp | treasuryXL |

In uncertain times like the financial crisis in 2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the old phrase “Cash is King” always pops up. By the end of day the Treasurer and the Treasury Department once again sit in the middle of the fire. Although it is the Board of Directors who is overall responsible for the financial strategic target settings, which is influenced by the CEO or the CFO, tasks and responsibilities flow from the top management and end up at the Treasurer’s desk.

To be prepared for the fireplace, I believe that it is crucial for the Treasurer or the Finance Department employees carrying out treasury activities, that a clear strategy is implemented and outlined. Not only a strategy for how the policies and guidelines are carried out but a strong mandate from Top management and maybe all the way from the Board of Directors. A mandate carved in stone, so no one can be in doubt when something hits the fan.

“Do not ask what the company can do for you, but ask…”

There are a couple of questions that all back office functions need to ask themselves on a regular basis. The answer to the questions should dictate the activities that are undertaken on any given day. First, they should ask, “Is this activity going to increase the company’s revenue?”.  If the answer is no, they should move on to question number two, “Is this activity going to reduce the company’s cost base?”. Once again, if the answer is no, then they should move on to question number three, “Will this activity delight the customer?”.  If the answers to all three of these questions are no, then we need to examine the activity to understand why we are conducting it.

The Blank Sheet Treasury

In order to understand why the recommendations that follow are applicable, we must decide what it is that we as a Treasury Department are trying to accomplish and why.  There are certain practices in Treasury across the world that should drive our behavior. In examining these practices, one potential structure emerges; the Blank Sheet Treasury. This way we are starting with our objectives and future state in mind instead of our current state.

In my opinion, the future state should equal the Treasurer to be prepared and know how to handle future potential crises, whether it is a business-related financial crisis or a worldwide pandemic.

Coming back to the phrase “Cash is King”, when in the middle of a crisis, everything else than access to cash or cash visibility should be a next-day issue for the Treasurer. Stating this should give an idea of why I believe the Blank Sheet Treasury always should start within the area of Cash/Liquidity Management, which of course can come in many different flavours.

The initial process

Coming back to the statements about having a focus on the future state and the mandates to get there, the initial process visualized below is a tool that the Treasurer needs in his/her toolbox. Maybe not the most innovative tool, but most likely one of the most important tools, if not the most important, when shaping, re-shaping and driving treasury.

The process map works like a Lego building instruction, where there actually is a possibility to skip or change the order, but when doing it, the result will not be what we were aiming for, or even worse than what our surroundings (stakeholders) thought we were aiming for. So if the order somehow is changed or some parts are skipped, it will be similar to an “unfinished” Lego construction. It will in some cases be functional, but there will always be some spare and important “bricks” left on the table. In the Lego context, some left bricks might not make a difference or at least not a huge difference, but in a corporate context the repairment will have a critical impact on time, costs and loss confidence from stakeholders.

The foundation for everything else

Before moving to the discussion on the Leadership mandate and afterwards on daily-life guidelines for the Treasury Department, let’s first make sure that a part of the objectives and future state is the idea that everything is to be accomplished (now or in a few years). Not only will it be a guidance for the “how, when and why”, but also because top management, that give access to the budget, want visibility and take decisions based on valid information.

As the majority of Treasurers and their departments have Cash/Liquidity Management as one of their key deliveries and as the Cash/Liquidity Management highly impacts other workflows in the Treasury Department, it is somehow the foundation for everything else and therefore a good place to start.

This figure is of course not a golden rulebook, and for some Treasury Departments priorities can come in another order. But when talking to Treasurers about their priorities and building or re-shaping their setup, the figure outlines to a great extend how they see the structures and how they want to manage the process of reaching the end line.

Best Practise and Future Workflows

Each of the circles has some underlying characteristics and is decomposed into a number of workflows. Here, the objectives for the future state and best practise will come into play.

In this recommendation, Cash Management is identified as the foundation for other workflows. Next to that, when looking into job descriptions and talking to Treasurers about their key objectives,  FX Risk Management is identified to be high on the agenda. Therefore, the following graphs will assist the visualizing and guidance of Cash and FX Risk Management.

 

The Best Practise box has to be filled out by the company (the Treasury Department), based on their needs and very much linked to the Objective/Future State. The question asked here is; ‘’Does the Company actually know what is the best practise in each of the work flows or could there actually be multiple solutions for the Best Practise?’’

The answer for both questions will for the majority of companies be that the Treasury Department has some thoughts and ideas for what they see as Best Practise for their setup, but at the same time they will recognize that a solution for the future state and the Best Practise for this, can come in different varieties – it is not a One Size Fits All. When agreed on the Best Practise for the future state, it will then be time to start visualizing the future workflows, which will give some thoughts and ideas for what actually has to be build, changed and implemented.

 

One of the pitfalls to avoid here is to not look too much into what worked in the past and in addition avoid looking at single workflows (in this example Cash and FX Risk Management).
As a normal part of being a human being, there can be a significant probability to start applying what worked well in the past, because the Treasurer might have some experience or preferences from similar projects. Thus, there will be a tendency of implementing same workflows and systems used in the past, even though they do not fit into the entire puzzle.

 


The entire puzzle

Likewise in our own life, the CFO wants to see the full picture and understand the full picture, before opening up the purse and increasing capital expenditure. With this in mind and the objective of getting a budget, do not only look into the short term and easy reachable targets, but think big and lay out the entire puzzle. Still continue to grab the low hanging fruits though, because they are to be grabbed in order to keep momentum.

What is the entire puzzle and how can it be shown in a simple, but informative structure, so no one will be in doubt of the individual workflows on the journey of reaching the objectives and creating a best-in-class treasury setup.

To assist on laying out the entire puzzle, all workflows will be identified and structured by its “Value” and “Importance”. Therefore, the below chart can be the guidance for where to start as well as be used in the dialogue with the CFO and other stakeholders. Once again it is important to state that the chart is not a golden rule book, but an inspiration for how to make progress on the journey.

 

The red box will obviously be the initial most wins and the focus areas. Even though most wins have been identified, the entire puzzle is still unfinished, because it is actually laying like a puzzle.

The box has been unpacked and the puzzle pieces has been sorted.  The next step for the Treasury Department will be to make the final move and bring their game plan. A game plan divided into a number of streams showing the how, when and why.

*Policies/Procedures are in the initial phase not a part of the Blank Sheet Treasury, but is stated above in each of the streams as it is something which need to be in place when start implementing.

 

Using streams and a given timeline for each of the streams as well as combining the different areas and the workflow process identified, the Treasurer now has made a construction manual for how to implement a best practise setup for the future state.

When utilizing some or maybe all of the recommendations and figures in this article, it will be possible for the Treasury Department to start taking the dialogue with the CFO and potential other stakeholders, who need to be involved in the process. Because when being able to identify the how, when and why, and showing the entire process and the needs, the CFO can see the entire picture. A picture which can be used when moving into the next section, where mandates will be given to the Treasurer and a budget needs to be allocated.

Additional considerations

When using a Blank Sheet Treasury setup, the probability of succeeding is higher if no planning has been made. Moreover, the Treasurer needs to consider whether or not the right resources are in place when moving into the building, crafting or re-shaping the phases. When talking about resources, it will both be human resources and resources in terms of systems.

In terms of human resources it can be internal resources, such as treasury and/or IT people, or external resources, such as treasury consultants. Speaking about consultants, it might be worth considering. Even though it comes with a cost, advantages are gained in times and knowledge.

On the system side, the Treasurer will have to decide whether or not he/she can bring his/her plan to live with the existing system landscape, and if not, the process will have to be added with a suggestion to make changes to the current system landscape.

Thank you for reading and looking forward to your thoughts.

 

 

Jesper Nielsen-Terp

Treasury & Risk Management Expert

 

 

Nomentia Webinar: Payment Templates

| 15-02-2021 | treasuryXL | OpusCapita |

Live Demo: Unleash your payments with payment templates

Maybe not quite unleash but the better word might be superpower. Because payment templates are truly what will take your set-up to the next level. We are continuing our popular live demo webinar set-up where our solution managers will provide a quick deep dive into one topic and how this is working in our solution.


Payment templates allow you to publish templates for manual payment that you can use to process payments.

In this webinar we will show you how you can:

  • Lock and hide fields, and mark the desired fields required. You can also define whether a section is automatically expanded or not when a payment template is selected.
  • What type of security settings you can and possibly should set up for payment templates.

And on top of that we will provide a practical application to how those templates can make your daily life easier.

When?

  • February 18th, 2021
  • 13:00 CET / 14:00 EET

Who should attend?

Cash Managers, Treasurers, and anyone looking to optimize their payment processes.

Meet the speaker

Jouni Round

Jouni Kirjola

Jouni is Solution Manager at Nomentia and has over 10 years of experience in corporate cash management and has deep expertise in cash forecasting, payment factories and in-house banking, and process development. Previously Jouni has worked in product management, consulting and R&D.

Register Here

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!

Nomentia – Treasury Trends 2021

| 10-02-2021 | treasuryXL | Nomentia |

Recently, Nomentia held a webinar about the key Trends in Treasury and Cash Management. The recording of this webinar “Treasury Trends 2021” is now available for you on demand. Feel free to rewatch it as much as you like!

Watch The Webinar

About Nomentia

Nomentia is a Nordic powerhouse for global cash management. We believe in a world in which businesses can make the right decisions no matter how unpredictable the times are. Our SaaS-based platform offers solutions for cash forecasting and visibility, global payments with bank connectivity, reconciliation, in-house banking, guarantees, and FX dealing. We serve 2,300+ clients in over 100 countries processing more than 200 billion euros annually. Cash is king!

Corporate Liquidity Forum: The Resilient Digital Treasury

| 04-02-2021 | Cashforce

Next week, our Partner Cashforce is speaking at Citi’s 2021 Corporate #Liquidity Forum: The Resilient Digital #Treasury Global Conference together with their client Kiera Agnew, assistant treasurer at Kellogg Company. During this event, Treasury Trends & Priorities, Cash & Liquidity Management, and more interesting Treasury Topics will be discussed. Don’t miss it!

? February 10th, 10am – 12pm EST (4pm – 6pm CET)

Key Topics include:

  • Economic Outlook
  • 2021 Treasury Trends & Priorities
  • Global Outlook for Liquidity Management
  • New Business Models and the Evolution of Treasury
  • Cash Flow and Real-Time Liquidity Innovation

 

For More Information and How to Register click HERE ?

 

 

 

Search Frustrations of Treasury Managers

01-02-2021 | Treasurer Search |

Sometimes it’s good to check if your assumptions are right. We think we know what the bottlenecks are in finding treasury employees. But what do treasury hiring managers experience in their search? We created a survey and this is to inform you about the results. This survey is not so much about our services but about recruitment processes in general. Of course we use the results to check if we do a proper job.

We identified four important client employee groups that are included in treasury recruitment. The first is the hiring manager, for instance the group treasurer. She might include treasury staff members, the direct colleagues who will work with the new employee. This is the second group. The third group consists of HR specialists and internal recruiters, the fourth and last are group finance leaders like a CFO. The first two groups responded well so we will focus on their input.

The following statements summarize what treasurers tell us about recruitment for their team:

  1. “I have a good understanding of my organisation, the tasks and what candidates should bring”
  2. “Screening CVs and doing interviews I can do well but I would appreciate some support”
  3. “Both quality as well as quantity of the candidates presented is often not sufficient”
  4. “In most cases the recruitment process takes too long”

This is input we can work with. It emphasizes the importance of us doing thorough and continuous market research: who are the treasury experts, where do they work, what are their contact details, what is their search status? So as soon as the search starts, we are prepared. This is the biggest taks of half of our team. Building a presentation is often a matter of days or a week. But also, where are the bottlenecks in an average search process and what can we do about these? My personal observation is that this often is caused by hurdles in the coordination between groups. And to conclude, of course we will also create content that will help our clients in cv screening and interviews.

We will continue the survey and ask non-treasurers for their input. We expect they will need different support. What might be interesting and cannot be put in a short survey is the opinion of treasurers about the treasury expertise of their HR counterpart. Or what HR experts think about the interview skills of treasurers. A quick self-assessment only goes so far…

Informing each other about processes and frustrations remains important. As external recruiters we notice that each of the four groups mentioned needs different input. And the groups need to communicate among each other, as one can notice with input like “HR often confuses treasury with general finance” and “job titles do not tell the full story, look at the tasks”.

Let me conclude with what can frustrate us as recruiters. In the text box there were requests like “high quality treasurers with some experience” or “extrovert treasurers”. This reminds me of my time working in Germany. My recruitment colleagues would sigh and say their client instructed them to find a “eierlegende Wollmilchsau”: a pig that lays eggs, brings wool and milk. We can only do so much and luckily we can help most.

What does frustrate you in finding treasurers?

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Cashforce & TIS – Partnering Up to Deliver Best-of-Breed Technology

| 29-01-2021 | treasuryXL |

In July 2020, Cashforce, the “next generation” cash forecasting & working capital analytics company and TIS, well known as a leading bank connectivity & payments provider formed a strategic alliance. This collaboration provides a unique solution for corporates looking for a rich cash forecasting and payment experience with seamless integration to their banks and enterprise systems (ERP, TMS etc.).

Join the webinar with Nicolas Christiaen, CEO & Co-founder at Cashforce and Jörg Wiemer, CSO and Co-founder at TIS and get to know more about this best-of-breed approach and how this partnership can help you tackle your challenges in cash forecasting and corporate payments.

Register Here

 

Date and Time
  • Tuesday, March 2nd 2021
  • 16:00-17:00