Maintaining a business’ robust cash flow and understanding the inner workings of cash-in and cash-out, is the lifeblood of an organization.
But as businesses grow, so does the number of banking relationships, which in turn can make cash flow management increasingly complex. While acquiring banking data is vital for finance professionals of an organization, this essential information can often be trapped within banking partners' systems and become difficult to retrieve, and most importantly, manage in the long-term.
Many enterprises today use a combination of spreadsheets, online banking tools and antiquated enterprise systems to manage their cash flow. While these solutions may have been deemed “good enough," leaders are spending their time and energy on manual workflows, instead of making strategic, real-time decisions based on actionable intelligence.
With the introduction of open banking, various department managers have access to modern tools. Such access will further boost the role treasury can play in the organization. In fact, a report from
Within the open banking trend, there’s significant opportunity for companies to utilize automated cash management platforms, layered with AI and machine learning, to understand and manage cash flow more efficiently and effectively. These emerging open banking platforms enable businesses to understand how much cash they have in real time so they can prepare faster and more accurate forecasts.
Using an open banking platform changes the data ownership dynamic. Most companies' data repositories are in the bank, but with connected APIs, the company gains control of their own destiny. And during pandemic times, with added uncertainty and an acceleration of business trends, there’s a pressing need for proactive instead of reactive actions. Gaining access to automated cash flow data helps companies manage transformative change, by providing visibility of current conditions, and allowing projections about where the company can go. This can foster confidence in the management team and company stakeholders acting as a financial roadmap. CFOs and other managers can paint a clearer picture of a company’s goals and see how their cash will flow relative to all those changes, so they’re guiding the ship instead of steering blind.
With expanded access to banking information through fintech innovation, executive leaders can act with confidence. Automated cash management means that visibility into cash flows is no longer considered a luxury or a time-consuming process, but instead it provides metrics that are accessible and easy to maintain. CFOs and treasury departments can use open banking and automated cash management platforms to handle liquidity more strategically. It enables automation of cumbersome tasks including multi-bank reporting, cash flow analysis, daily cash reconciliation, cash forecasting and more.
