It’s only been a few decades since most treasuries were reliant on paper bank statements and a calculator to get to a global cash position. Days and weeks could be spent getting hold of the correct data and consolidating it into a manual report. Want to look at the data a different way? It was back to the drawing board and a whole new report.
The arrival of the spreadsheet transformed everything. Now it was possible to look at data any way you wanted. Yet that data still had to be manually entered from bank statements, a slow process that brings with it the possibility for error and delays.
If your treasury is still bogged down with manual processes, you are not alone. Many treasuries, even now, are still stuck at this stage. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that if your organization can analyze, report on, and forecast cash faster and more accurately than your rivals, you will have a significant competitive advantage and will be more equipped to take advantage of growth opportunities, enjoy lower cost of capital, and cope better with economic downturns.
Why Digitize Your Treasury?
In the 1980s, SWIFT’s MT940 message format allowed treasuries, for the first time, to download bank statement data. No more manual entry. Even better, at around the same time, the first treasury management systems (TMSs) were appearing, starting with International Treasury (later IT/2) from Swallow Business Systems in 1985.
Today, however, the MT940 file format is at the limits of its effectiveness – and so are many legacy TMSs. Automatic reconciliation (Straight Through Processing, or STP) rates can be very low, and manual intervention is often required. Getting data out of the system in anything other than the default format can be a laborious process.
Not only is manual processing a staple of a traditional TMS, its legacy architecture hinders data exploration due to the inflexible nature of its reporting and forecasting tools. Any custom reporting requires significant IT overhead, likely takes weeks, and in the end leverages old data. Additionally, these custom reports can only be utilized for specific use cases.
Your treasury tech stack should encourage you to explore and personalize your reporting in order to find new cash insights and opportunities that provide value to your organization, and if it isn’t, your current tech stack is holding you back. Check out our Cash Imperative Guide to discover how digitizing your treasury can help you gain real-time cash visibility and discover new cash insights that could help your business grow.
Gain Real-Time Cash Visibility with Automated Cash Management
Incredible technological advances have occurred within the treasury space in the last few years and it has empowered treasurers, who see the benefits of digitally transforming their operations, to better automate their cash reporting, analysis, and forecasting by establishing a single source of truth for their data. That single source of bank data truth alongside robust cash reporting and forecasting automation tools has enabled these treasurers to eliminate tedious, manual processes.
Many have trusted Trovata, our automated cash management platform, to be their single source of truth for all transaction and cash data. Trovata is at the forefront of helping treasuries gain the real-time cash visibility necessary to perform rapid, data-driven decision making that drives their businesses forward.
In the same way, Trovata can empower you to digitally transform your treasury with the following technological advancements and automation technologies:
- Banking APIs. Trovata’s Banking APIs establish a big data pipeline for your many bank accounts. These APIs automate the consolidation and normalization of all your transactions and cash details up-to-the-hour, all in one place, empowering you with true, real-time cash visibility.
- Natural Language Search for Transactions. Visibility doesn’t just mean a line of sight – it means access. Trovata’s Natural Language Search enables you to find and reference historical data within a few words. Whether you are searching for vendor, institutional, or other transactions, Trovata searches your transactions across all your banks and provides you your desired results instantly.
- AutoTag™. With Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Trovata is always processing your data, discovering patterns and creating datasets known as tags. These tags can be leveraged for any future cash reporting, analysis, and forecasting, amplifying your ability to find and discover new cash insights.
- A comprehensive suite of automated cash reports and forecasts. Trovata’s reporting and forecasting is truly dynamic and customizable in ways legacy TMS’s aren’t. You are empowered to generate new reports and forecasts with your desired tags and date, and Trovata creates them in milliseconds. Creating a new vendor transaction report based on the last three months is as simple as performing a couple of searches, saving that as a report, and sharing those insights with your CFO via an email through Trovata.
Gain Deep, Real-Time Cash Insights with Trovata, our Automated Cash Management Platform
You do not have to take on cash management by yourself as Trovata, our automated multi-bank cash management platform is here to help! By aggregating your cash and banking information into a single dashboard using Banking APIs, you can easily eliminate tedious, manual workflows required to bypass traditional TMS limitations and begin to better monitor, analyze and automate your cash reporting, forecasting, and workflows.
Take hold of Trovata’s no penalty environment for exploring, organizing and personalizing your data to achieve real-time cash visibility and insights.
Download the Cash Imperative Guide to discover how you can feel empowered to make faster, data-driven decisions with Trovata’s comprehensive suite of automated, real-time cash reporting and analysis functionality.
