Blog

Automating Risk Management with Treasury Management Systems

Written by Kalei White
August 22, 2023

Treasury Management Systems (TMS) streamline financial operations, enhance liquidity, and automate risk management using machine learning for efficiency.

Ever wondered how businesses and financial institutions remain buoyant in the dynamic world of finance? How do they consistently make strategic decisions while ensuring liquidity and minimizing risk? Essentially, it comes down to effective management of cash. Welcome to the world of comprehensive treasury management systems (TMS).

At the crossroads of technology and finance, these dynamic systems unlock new levels of efficiency and strategic potential. TMS are designed to optimize cash flow, automate risk management, streamline workflow, and enhance liquidity – they’re an essential part of the CFO’s toolkit in any modern business aiming for financial prosperity.

But what makes treasury management systems so important in today’s competitive market? How can these financial instruments transform your treasury operations, and, more importantly, what does our unique perspective bring to the table?

Our answer is surprisingly simple. Unlike traditional treasury management systems, our cloud-based platform is not just user-friendly; it’s also affordable and designed to integrate seamlessly into your in-house systems. Equipped with machine learning capabilities, it provides accurate cash flow forecasts and real-time market data, offering peace of mind that your business is safeguarded against financial uncertainties.

So, whether you’re a seasoned treasurer looking for a fresh perspective or a business owner navigating the complex world of treasury management, you’ve arrived at the right destination.


Understanding the Scope of Treasury Management Systems

In its simplest form, a TMS is a specialized tool that helps businesses and financial institutions manage their financial transactions, cash flow, and other treasury operations, including receivables, payment processing, and regulatory compliance. Think of it as the central ‘source of a truth’ for your company’s finances. 

Treasury management systems play a pivotal role in business finance. They assist in tracking cash flow, handling debt management, managing investments, and monitoring financial risks. Essentially, a TMS takes the cumbersome process of financial management and simplifies it into an easy-to-use interface, ensuring cash visibility and efficient treasury operations.

It does this by aggregating data and information from multiple sources into a single interface. For example, consider an online retailer who sells t-shirts in multiple countries across the world.

The company is going to have multiple bank accounts with various different institutions, in different currencies, with accounts payable and accounts receivable spread in a similar way.

Without a TMS, keeping track of all this would mean endless updating of spreadsheets, logging into dozens of different bank portals and dealing with information that is perpetually out of date.

A modern TMS (like Trovata) connects all of these data sources, allowing for real time updates of your information and a central source of information for making projections and conducting scenario planning.With accurate data, planning for and measuring success becomes far more realistic. 

Speaking of which, measuring the success of your finance team and the performance of your TMS can be done using the most important finance team KPIs. These measures can ensure your team is hitting the mark, optimizing your treasury management solution, and managing your bank accounts effectively.


Operational Efficiency through Real-time Treasury Management Systems (TMS)

One of the game-changers in TMS is real-time data. Instant access to up-to-date financial information, including capital markets trends and liquidity risk, equips businesses with the ability to make quick and informed decisions.

The role of TMS in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, like SAP and Microsoft, and liquidity management cannot be overstated. By integrating TMS with ERP systems, businesses can ensure data consistency, streamline processes, improve overall operational efficiency, and manage cash positions. TMS also aids in liquidity management, offering a clear view of your cash positions and enabling the optimization of resources for healthy cash flow management.

With a TMS like Trovata, tasks are automated, data is synced across bank accounts, and cash management becomes straightforward. It’s like having a financial dashboard at your fingertips.


The Role of Treasurers in Optimizing Treasury Management Systems

It’s time to talk about optimization. Essentially, it’s about streamlining processes, improving decision-making, and maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of your treasury functions.

Treasurers’ role in optimizing treasury management systems is critical. With an advanced TMS like Trovata, they can harness powerful connectivity features to integrate various financial functions seamlessly, including supply chain finance and trade finance. 

From cash management to risk management, our solution empowers treasury teams to handle all aspects of treasury operations with finesse. And of course, it’s not just about connectivity, it’s also about how to utilize the data once it’s live.

Nowadays, that means utilizing cutting edge technology like AI to supercharge your treasury capabilities. Check out this informative piece that unravels the benefits of integrating AI in treasury management and gives a detailed overview of what implementing such a solution looks like. It’s a powerful tool for building a persuasive case for AI-powered treasury management!


Impact of SaaS on Treasury Management and Financial Risk

Ever wondered how Software as a Service (SaaS) impacts treasury management and financial risk? In the modern era of digital transformation, SaaS has emerged as a powerful tool to streamline treasury operations and manage financial risks.

The correlation between SaaS and financial risk management is quite eye-opening. With SaaS-based TMS, businesses can leverage cloud technology to obtain real-time visibility into their cash positions, manage interest rates, and effectively handle working capital. This, in turn, allows corporate treasury departments to make informed financial decisions and mitigate risks.

Imagine that you have a number of invoices coming due in a currency or account that you have low cash reserves in. This represents a risk that a check will bounce or an invoice will go unpaid, resulting in potential bank charges and a loss of goodwill.

Through the use of a cloud-based TMS like Trovata, you can stay ahead of these potential pitfalls and fix them before they become a problem. That’s a real, tangible risk management benefit.

Let’s take a closer look at this.


Modern Risk Management

Business is all about managing risk. We can’t avoid risk completely. It’s an inherent part of the world we live in, and for businesses, the profits they generate are compensation for the risks they’ve taken.

After all, if there was no risk involved in business, everyone would do it. When it comes to financial risk, getting it right is arguably more important than any other form of risk management.

The challenge here is that financial risk management is very difficult. Especially as a company grows, keeping track of all of the money owed, owing and on the balance sheet becomes a bigger and bigger task.

Historically, keeping tabs on cash involved logging into banking and accounting portals, noting down the current figures in a spreadsheet and then circulating this to the Treasury executives and CFO.

The problem is that by the time all of this data has been collated, it is almost sure to be out of date. New transactions come in and out of most businesses many times a day, meaning any manual data aggregation results in out of date information.

This is where the use of open banking data via APIs have become a game changer for corporate treasury. Now it’s possible to have all of this financial information automatically populated into a single dashboard, allowing for real-time reporting and overview.

Sure, this makes life easier for the finance team, but it’s about more than just that. Any good risk manager knows that greater accuracy means lower risk. Less chance of a data entry error, less chance of a missed line item and less chance of mistakes as a result of incorrect or incomplete data.


AI Treasury Automation

Lastly, the capabilities of Trovata go further than simply providing you with current data. Through the use of our AI integration, you can turn your TMS into a fully fledged assistant, to help with planning and forecasting.

Say that there’s been a backlog in some of the raw materials used for your products, which means your output is going to be lower. Or imagine that you’re considering giving a one-off cost of living payment to your employees. 

Working out how these changes are going to impact your company bottom line could take many hours of number crunching for your highly trained employees. By using the power of AI, you can create this type of analysis in minutes.

This allows you not only to look at many different scenarios in a fraction of the time, but it frees up your employees time to work on higher value tasks than data analysis. 


Streamlining Treasury Operations for Effective Decision-Making

As we wrap up this discussion, let’s circle back to where we began – the crucial role of Treasury Management Systems (TMS) in business operations and financial decision-making. A well-optimized TMS, like our user-friendly, cloud-based platform, provides real-time insights, boosts operational efficiency, and plays a significant part in managing financial risks.

When we talk about streamlining operations in financial management, we also explore aspects like pricing. A proficient TMS assists in forecasting, helps align pricing strategies with market trends, and thus has a direct impact on your financial stability and growth. Exciting, isn’t it?

Now, what if we told you there’s a tool out there that’s similar to a ChatGPT for finance, designed to revolutionize the way your team works? It’s all about enhancing efficiency and accuracy and making your team’s job a lot easier.

And remember, managing your treasury operations doesn’t have to be daunting or complex. With the right system in place, you can transform your approach, streamline your processes, and make informed decisions that drive your business forward.

Ready to witness the revolution in treasury management?

Take the plunge and discover how easy managing cash can be with Trovata. Your journey toward efficient and cost-effective treasury management starts here! Request a demo today.

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