Working capital is the lifeblood of most organizations and, as such, it needs to be watched closely and managed in a comprehensive, real-time, and proactive manner.

All finance departments must manage working capital to keep their business operations running, while maintaining the agility to support the strategic goals and growth objectives of their business. Working capital management and optimization are key to assuring a business can maintain production, cover the cost of wages and supplies – and also have enough liquidity on hand to service their short-term credit obligations.

Any gaps are likely to be filled by external capital – usually at a higher cost than internally available funding. Being able to accurately measure and manage working capital, and avoid expensive external financing, can provide companies with an important competitive advantage.

Most CFOs use working capital as a key indicator of the operating health of the business. They focus on questions such as: Are we collecting our bills in a timely manner? Are we taking all the discounts that we are entitled to? Are we carrying too much inventory in our warehouses?

These basic metrics all have a direct impact on liquidity. However, the answers to these key working capital questions are inherently dynamic and constantly changing.

Treasury functions are not easily isolated from the rest of operational applications that are typically spread throughout an organization – nor should they be.  In fact, almost all treasury processes can benefit greatly from becoming more integrated with other business processes. 

However, all too often, companies are enticed by the promises of standalone treasury and risk management applications that claim to be inter-operable but fall short of providing true seamless integration with core ERP business and finance applications.

The strategic importance of treasury has been increasing steadily in recent years, thereby leading to a proliferation of new capabilities from both standalone application vendors and broad-based ERP/finance systems providers.

Companies are also coming under more pressure from shareholders and regulators to increase their transparency and improve financial performance. These expectations are leading to significant changes to the treasury functions as activities are increasingly being centralized. 

At the same time, most companies are experiencing more complexity with regard to changing compliance requirements, diverse global operations, regional and local regulatory mandates, international trade and foreign currency issues, geographically diverse banking relationships and escalating risk factors in the financial arena.

Two Fortune 500 companies recently reported saving between 5 and 10 percent on inventory carrying costs while others gained millions in cash flow from a focus collections and payables.

The latest Association for Financial Professionals^® (AFP) 2019 AFP Risk Survey - The Evolving Treasury Ecosystem, examines the challenges that companies are facing regarding their treasury operations, with an emphasis on how they are looking to leverage new technologies.

Imagine the power of an ERP based Treasury Solution combined with the scalability, flexibility and security of a cloud based solution. It is here! Join experts from SAP and Bramasol as we explore the latest features of the SAP Cloud for Treasury Solution.

A IFRS 9 Financial Instruments is the IASB’s replacement of IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. The Standard includes requirements for recognition and measurement, impairment, derecognition and general hedge accounting.

Gain insights from leading experts on the latest trends in Cash Management and what best in class companies are doing to more effectively manage their cash. With over 20 years of hands on experience and leadership in the area of Treasury, our team shares a framework for approaching your cash management transformation.

Companies operating in today’s diverse global environments face unprecedented challenges with regard to managing capital assets, especially cash accounts that are distributed throughout multiple operating entities in different countries.  These challenges are exacerbated within companies that have grown via merger and acquisition (M&A) strategies, which often results in trying to manage cash accounts across a variety of legacy financial systems.

CFOs and treasury departments need to optimize their companies’ cash agility amidst volatile foreign currency exchange (FX) environments while also complying with constantly changing regulatory environments and escalating global competitive pressures.

At the same time, many companies are realizing that leveraging new treasury-focused technologies and best practices in cash management can provide valuable benefits in terms of improving operating results, maximizing asset utilization and enhancing their ability to quickly respond to new opportunities.

Instituting strong enterprise-wide cash management is also saving valuable time and resources, thereby enabling finance staff to better contribute to high-value activities such as analysis, planning and decision support.

In the session we've shared insights on key trends and challenges driving Treasurers and finance organizations to look to and new Finance Innovation Platform. You will hear about cash and cash management, banking and risk management challenges and how SAP helps solve them.

We have shared insights from a recent banking consolidation project and provided recommendations on how you can save time and money and free up resources to provide analysis and insight by leveraging Machine Learning apps. We have also covered crucial impacts and interactions of key compliance standards such as IFRS 16 and IFRS 9 on the treasury community.