Treasury Management: The Practitioner's Guide

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Treasury Department

The treasury department is responsible for a company’s liquidity. The treasurer must monitor current and projected cash flows and special funding needs, and use this information to correctly invest excess funds, as well as be prepared for additional borrowings or capital raises. The department must also safeguard existing assets, which calls for the prudent investment of funds, while guarding against excessive losses on interest rates and foreign exchange positions. The treasurer needs to monitor the internal processes and decisions that cause changes in working capital and profitability, while also maintaining key relationships with investors and lenders. This chapter explores these and other responsibilities of the treasury department, as well as such key issues as treasury centralization, bank relations, outsourcing, and performance metrics.

ROLE OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT

Ultimately, the treasury department ensures that a company has sufficient cash available at all times to meet the needs of its primary business operations. However, its responsibilities range well beyond that single goal. It also has significant responsibilities in the following areas:

• Cash forecasting. The accounting staff generally handles the receipt and disbursement of cash, but the treasury staff needs to compile this information from all subsidiaries into short-range and longrange cash forecasts. These forecasts are needed for investment purposes, so the treasury staff can ...