A Guide to Treasury Best Practices in Cash Flow Forecasting

What Does an Industry-Leading Approach to Cash Forecasting Consist of in 2023?

For as long as corporate treasury has existed, cash and liquidity management have been two of the primary responsibilities entrusted to practitioners. Today, the cash management function often includes forecasting and working capital analysis tasks as well, and in recent years, the emphasis placed by organizations on improving these functions has skyrocketed in importance.

Why is this? By accurately predicting their company’s future cash flows, treasury departments can make informed decisions regarding investments, borrowing, and overall liquidity management. It also provides visibility into short-term and long-term cash requirements, enabling proactive measures to be taken to avoid cash deficits or excessive cash holdings. Moreover, cash forecasting serves as a fundamental tool for risk management, allowing treasury professionals to identify potential liquidity gaps, currency exposures, and interest rate risks.

In 2023, industry data has clearly highlighted the extent to which cash forecasting is being prioritized by corporate practitioners. In fact, a recent panel survey of over 250 practitioners recently highlighted that cash forecasting remains a critical priority not only for treasury, but for the CFO as well. In addition, this survey evaluated the investment plans of treasury groups over the next year and found that cash forecasting technology is top of the agenda for new spend over other areas such as payments and security. While there are many reasons for this, a pronounced spike in volatility that has been impacting the corporate environment since 2019-20 is one major factor.

Learn more about how treasury teams at many of the world's leading companies are handling the cash flow forecasting process today by downloading the full whitepaper using the form-fill!

“With TIS, we found a flexible and scalable solution that addresses our global enterprise payments, bank connectivity, and cash management needs perfectly. Not only has TIS established seamless connectivity between all our existing banks, accounts, and back-office systems, but they’ve also introduced an easy integration approach for managing future M&A activity across new systems and banks. We are very satisfied with the result.” Sabine Kießling, Director of Controlling & Treasury, TeamViewer

“The business case for implementing TIS has become clear. Time spent on compiling cash forecasts and reports has easily decreased by 70%, human intervention is reduced, and subsequently operational errors have all but disappeared. The streamlined processes also mean no more delays to our forecasting or reporting. Overall, we are delighted by the forecasting experience with TIS.” Riana van der Merwe, Head of Treasury at TomTom

“The In-house Bank we built based on SAP APM and with the help of TIS has set a new benchmark in terms of automation and visibility of cashflows and payments. It allowed us to close down approximately 800 bank accounts. This whole project would not have been successful without the innovation skills and flexibility of TIS.” Michael Faschang, Head of Treasury Systems at Siemens Gamesa