BCR Publishing
We are the leading provider of news, market intelligence, events and training for the global receivables finance industry.
Working with industry leading organisations, experts, governments and universities, BCR Publications delivers expertise in factoring, receivables and supply chain finance to a global audience.
BCR has long been a beacon of innovation and excellence in the realm of receivables finance, playing an instrumental role in shaping the industry’s international landscape. Through its comprehensive conferences, insightful publications, and thought leadership, BCR has facilitated crucial dialogues and connections among industry professionals, driving forward the development of receivables finance globally.
New generation treasurer studies at the Vrije Universiteit
| 13-06-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |
Research in our candidate files, filled with treasury experts and managers, shows that only a small fraction of the population completed a job specific education. Over time I see the level of impact and complexity of corporate treasury rising and an increase in treasury students. As a member of the so-called Curatorium (management board) of the post graduate program “Treasury Management & Corporate Finance”, I consider it my task to let you know about this education. A task I am of course happy to pick up.
You can get a first overview on the partner page of the Vrije Universiteit on our site and their own Treasury Management and Corporate Finance program page. In the next months we will post blogs with profiles of Register Treasurer (RT) graduates with their motives, experiences and career paths. This will give you better insight in the type of treasurers that are “RT material”. Furthermore we will invite graduates to share thesis and other research summaries that will give you a sample of the level of what you can expect.
Originally the program was in Dutch and aimed at a relatively narrow candidates working in a corporate environment. An important change is that the program now is in English. The student population is a mixture of consultants, bankers, interim managers and experts working in corporate and non-profit environments. As the value of the student peer group has huge impact on the program, this diversity brings a lot extra.
Our continued information flow will hopefully help aspiring students and their managers making a sound decision. The program is not for everybody, we hope to see you soon and find out if you have what it takes.
PS The next information session is at June 26, 2019.
Read stories from graduates who participated the Register Treasurer (RT) program. How does their treasury career look like now?
Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search
The (Im)possibility of Liquidity Planning
| 07-06-2019 | BELLIN |
Liquidity planning is extremely essential. Companies can survive a certain amount of time without making a profit. However, they will go down within just a few days if they lack the necessary liquidity. Therefore, liquidity planning is high on any treasury’s agenda.
Suddenly, cash was in short supply. Everything ground to a halt. Indeed, the crisis of 2008 has shown how important it is for companies of all sizes and industries to plan with liquid assets. They have to ensure that liquidity fluctuations will be hedged adequately and that times of tight liquidity can be overcome easily. Even long-term profitability cannot always serve as a guarantee that financial markets will be able to provide sufficient liquidity in times of crisis – unless waterproof strategic agreements for financing liquidity shortages were concluded long before the crisis. Liquidity planning is not the same as planning a company’s cash balance. Instead, it forms a basis for strategic hedging decisions in interest, currency and commodity management.
When you begin dealing with liquidity planning in your business, you may be disappointed at first. You will not be able to transfer experience from a balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) calculation. As a first step, you will need to define liquidity planning and set your treasury’s liquidity planning goals.
Liquidity Planning Versus Cash Management
Liquidity planning serves to illustrate cash flows from all organizational units over time. lt distinguishes between different cash flows, e.g. customer payments and HR payments. The timeline – the underlying planning horizon – usually includes the next six to twelve months. However, certain business models may require planning several years in advance. Never confuse liquidity planning with daily cash management, which focuses only on future balances of individual bank accounts and on creating daily cash forecasts.
The quality of balance sheet and P&L planning is determined by its accuracy. The better the planning, the more accurate the predictions. In the relationship of balance sheet and P&L to liquidity planning, the most important factor is the end result: both plans should result in the same balance at the end of a period. To ascertain this figure alone, a treasury department would not need to create its own liquidity plan. Yet from a treasury perspective, the projected balance is only a means of checking plausibility at the end of the planning horizon. Even the smallest change in an underlying transaction or payment can lead to significant changes in the final result, without affecting overall corporate success or reducing the quality or even sense of liquidity planning as a whole.
A Basis for Hedging
Determining a precise cash balance at the end of a particular planning horizon is not the goal of liquidity planning. Its focus lies on analyzing the differences between an original plan and a rolling plan. The treasury department bases hedging decisions on the original plan. Then, it examines the reliability of these risk management measures. If the treasury finds significant inconsistencies, it can swap or create new foreign exchange deals, negotiate new credit lines or revise the maturities of interest bearing transactions.
Liquidity planning is possible. However, it is impossible to plan liquidity in terms of cash on hand at a particular date. With this different goal in mind, liquidity planning becomes the basis for strategic hedging decisions. Only a liquidity plan that is kept up to date can provide information on when to expect cash flows in foreign currency, when group companies need more liquidity within the planning period and when excess liquidity will be returned.
Interest and Currency Risk
Liquidity planning is not just about liquid assets, however. Flawed planning can have negative side effects, particularly with regard to financing and related interest. High interest rates can reduce income and reserve assets of companies that are notoriously short, i.e. always in a position of net debt. At the opposite end of the spectrum, companies in a «long» position, i.e. those who have sufficient liquidity to finance their ongoing business, miss out on interest earnings. They rarely consider such opportunity interest.
Interest topics aside, liquidity planning also deals with the somewhat more complex issue of foreign exchange risk. Currency exposure can also affect cash on hand. The media frequently circulate striking examples, although they often wrongly blame derivatives for lack of liquidity or financial losses. In any case, it is important to note that a shift in exchange rates may have a decisive influence on the liquidity development of companies active in countries with foreign currencies.
Liquidity planning made easy in tm5
With tm5’s cash and liquidity management solution, users benefit from real-time liquidity management across your entire corporate group.
Our technology lets you make short-term or long-term liquidity forecasts across all subsidiaries in the corporate group. Be prepared for all eventualities.
Product: Cash & Liquidity Management
Room to Breathe
No company can exist without liquidity planning: it would be incapacitated within just a few days. Primary liquidity risk factors take a company’s liquidity – its room to breathe. Cash management is essential for short-term planning horizons. In the medium and long term, companies require a liquidity plan, a prerequisite for meaningful risk management, which is cleanly separated from corporate financial planning. These two topic areas deal with interest and currency management from different perspectives. Companies need to ensure a basic liquidity supply, consider supply costs and take into account possible fluctuations caused by currency exchange factors.
Martin Bellin
Founder & CEO at BELLIN
For what audience is the Treasurer Test developed?
| 06-06-2019 | by treasuryXL |
The Treasurer Test has been developed with three different audiences in mind:
Their goals might overlap but there are differences. In this blog we will elaborate.
Actual Treasurer
Taking the test, already being a treasurer, can be useful in many situations. First, wanting to show your hiring manager you are fully capable and have the right personality for the position you want to step into. This is an obvious one. Second, planning your career. The result report will show the candidates treasury knowledge gaps and personality, helping in education and coaching plans. Third and last, as a treasury team you want to be ready for the future of your organisation and prepare. In order to achieve this, you want to know your current status in order to build a development plan with a focus both on skills as well as on personalities.
Pre Treasurer
Aspiring treasurers might have the aforementioned goals and some extra. They might not have done the job, but know a lot and want to prove this. Automatically, the Test will show where development might be started best and if the potential is enough to pick up the position. Taking the Test will also lead to insight what the job is about. It is not intended, but might lead to a candidate treasurer steering his career in another direction. Finally, we are talking with educators to deploy the test at the start and at the end of a program in order to objectively measure progress of students.
Non Treasurer
In finding staff or helping them in development, HR, recruiters and educators will play an important role. It is not to be expected that these specialist benefit from taking the Test. They should know about the Big5 typology and understand how the Test measurers skills.
On the other hand, CFOs, CFO team members, auditors, bankers and other financial specialist and their organisations will benefit from them taking the Test. Many of them consider themselves (unjust) knowledgeable in corporate treasury. Insight in their actual knowledge level is a good starting point. If the non-treasurer knows a lot and can prove this with the Test results, treasury specialists will better accept input. If not, the non-treasurer will better appreciate the expertise of the specialist and put treasury higher on the priority list.
Are you interested how the Treasurer Test can help you? Contact Kendra Keydeniers, Community & Partner Manager.
You can find more relevant information here.