Treasury Management: The Practitioner's Guide

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Treasury Systems

The treasurer requires information that is not normally available through a company’s standard accounting systems, or even from its enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems. Even though an ERP system is designed to aggregate all of the information used in a modern corporation, the treasurer also requires information from a variety of external sources regarding investments, foreign exchange positions, interest rates, and so forth. Consequently, treasury systems are needed that integrate information from a variety of sources, yielding real-time information that the treasury staff can use to efficiently perform their tasks. This chapter describes the treasurer’s technology needs, and whether to install a treasury management system.

TREASURER’S TECHNOLOGY NEEDS

The treasurer is in the difficult position of requiring information from many sources, most of which are not required by any other company manager. Since treasury is a relatively small department that may not command the resources of larger departments, it can be difficult to collect all of the required information. Consequently, the treasurer must frequently prioritize information needs. While priorities may vary by company, the following list establishes a reasonable set of priorities, in declining order:

1. Cash position. The treasurer’s overriding obligation is to ensure that the company has adequate cash to fund its operations. Thus, the following technology needs are critical:

• Cash book balance ...