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Working capital is the lifeblood of any successful business, but optimizing it in today’s volatile environment requires more than just best practices. It demands innovation, collaboration, and real-time intelligence.
If you caught our first post, you know that amid economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, rising inflation, and shifting consumer demands, working capital has become a lifeline for resilient businesses. We explored why optimizing working capital is crucial in today’s unpredictable landscape and shared foundational strategies for getting started.
In this follow-up, we move from the “why” to the “how,” highlighting innovative approaches and smart moves companies are using right now to optimize working capital, overcome bottlenecks, and drive business growth.
Before you can fully optimize working capital, you need to uncover hidden bottlenecks that are slowing you down. Supply chain volatility, fluctuating shipping rates, and outdated processes can disrupt cash flow and limit flexibility.
Common bottlenecks include:
The Solution? High-performing businesses are leveraging automation and real-time tools to minimize these challenges. By automating payment workflows, digitizing invoice approvals, and using cash visibility platforms, these companies are freeing up trapped cash, reducing friction, and streamlining their cash conversion cycles.
In an era of rapid change, intuition is not enough, but neither are manual systems or siloed processes that often lead to disconnected, delayed decision-making. Many organizations still operate with limited visibility into their supply chains, leaving them vulnerable to costly disruptions and concentration risk.
A recent CFO Brew article on supply chain visibility highlights just how little awareness some companies have of their third-tier and indirect suppliers, and how this lack of insight can expose them to risks that may not surface until months after an event. Without robust, real-time data, businesses are forced to make “feel-good decisions” that simply don’t work in today’s fast moving, interconnected world.
Leading organizations are moving beyond intuition and manual processes by turning to advanced data analytics and technologies that provide deep, actionable visibility across their supply chains. By harnessing big data and predictive analytics, companies can:
But visibility alone isn’t enough. The real differentiator for leading organizations is the ability to rapidly and decisively move from insight to action. Forward-thinking finance teams aren’t just identifying cash positions or spotting inefficiencies; they’re empowered to act on those insights in real time. That means having the tools to seamlessly leverage idle cash through payables strategies, accelerate receivables when needed, or dynamically adjust working capital allocations as market conditions shift.
Platforms that combine full cash visibility with integrated action, such as enabling payables financing, receivables financing, and dynamic discounting unlock a new level of working capital agility.This holistic approach ensures that finance leaders aren’t just observers of data, but active participants in shaping outcomes. It’s this marriage of intelligence and execution that’s setting new benchmarks for resilience and growth in today’s market.
Optimizing working capital is no longer just a treasury responsibility. The most successful companies treat it as a cross-functional challenge, requiring close collaboration between treasury, supply chain, and procurement teams. For example, when tariffs and trade policies shift, procurement must work hand-in-hand with treasury to anticipate the impact on payables and inventory levels.
Here’s how collaboration can make a difference:
This integrated approach ensures that every dollar invested in inventory, payables, or receivables is working as hard as possible for the business.
True innovation in working capital optimization isn’t just about adopting the latest tools—it’s about fundamentally reimagining how people, processes, and platforms connect to unlock value. Today’s most successful organizations no longer treat treasury, procurement, and supply chain as separate, siloed functions. Instead, they are building integrated ecosystems where data flows freely, decisions are collaborative, and action can happen in real time.
From my experience, organizations leading the way are:
The real breakthrough comes when companies move beyond visibility alone and empower teams to act on insights, turning working capital from a static metric into a dynamic lever for resilience and growth. Innovative CFOs and treasurers are partnering with platforms that offer unified visibility across cash, payments, and working capital, creating real-time command centers for liquidity performance.
In summary, working capital optimization is about more than incremental improvements. It means rethinking how teams connect, how data is harnessed, and how technology is deployed to enable rapid, confident decision-making. By identifying bottlenecks, fostering collaboration, and embracing real-time analytics, organizations can unlock new cash flow and build lasting resilience.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
By Alexander von Schirmeister,
CEO at Nomentia
A bank portal still works. The ERP still produces data. A spreadsheet still calculates a forecast. A payment approval workflow still moves from one person to the next. Reports still reach the CFO, even if they arrive later than expected. From the outside, treasury appears to function. Inside the process, finance teams know exactly how much effort is required to keep that appearance of control intact.
Modern treasury cannot rely on disconnected systems because the questions it needs to answer are no longer isolated. Cash visibility depends on bank data, account structures, ERP information, payments in progress, forecast inputs, intercompany flows, financing activities, and exposures. Liquidity planning depends on operational data from the business, but also on treasury assumptions, market conditions, working capital movements, and funding plans. Risk management depends on reliable exposure data, but also on trade execution, hedge documentation, limits, reporting, and accounting. If each part of this picture sits in a different place, the treasury team becomes the integration layer.
That integration work rarely surfaces. It lives in copy-and-paste routines, manual file checks, email reminders, reconciliation notes, spreadsheet tabs, and individual memory. It is also where most treasury management challenges quietly begin.
Disconnected systems create time loss because data has to be gathered before it can be analysed. They create duplicated work because teams maintain local trackers even when central tools exist. They weaken cash visibility because the latest view may depend on which bank file has arrived or which entity has responded. They weaken controls because exceptions are harder to identify when workflows are not connected.
The CFO does not usually see the process friction. The CFO sees the answer. If the answer is late, inconsistent, or hard to explain, confidence falls. Senior leadership needs reliable responses to simple but high-stakes questions: How much liquidity is available? Which cash flows are expected? Where is working capital tied up? Are internal payments efficient? Which exposures are material? Are guarantees, hedges, and commitments under control? These questions cannot be answered well when the data behind them has to be rebuilt every time.
The 2026 Nomentia Treasury and Cash Management report highlights that many treasury teams are in a transitional phase. They have moved beyond purely manual treasury, but still rely on multiple systems and partial automation. The pattern is familiar: the organisation has invested in technology, yet treasury still spends too much time reconciling information and validating reports. The issue is not that systems are missing. The issue is that they are not connected enough to support the pace of decision-making.
Disconnected systems are especially risky in three areas.
The first is visibility. If cash positions, transactions, forecasts, and payment statuses are not consolidated, treasury may see parts of the picture but miss the direction of movement. A balance report can show where cash is today, but it does not explain whether the position is temporary, restricted, exposed, or needed elsewhere in the group. Visibility without context can create false comfort.
The second is control. Treasury policies often look clear on paper, but control depends on how processes actually run. Who can approve a payment? Which entities have followed the forecast process? Which exposures have been validated? Which guarantee is close to expiry? Which hedge relationship needs attention? When workflows are disconnected, control becomes dependent on manual follow-up. That may work when volumes are low, but it becomes unreliable as banks, entities, instruments, and reporting expectations increase.
The third is decision speed. In volatile markets, delayed answers are not neutral. A late forecast can affect funding decisions. A delayed exposure view can affect hedge timing. A slow payment status check can affect supplier confidence. A late view of guarantees or credit line usage can affect working capital decisions. Treasury does not need real-time data for every decision, but it does need enough connected information to avoid making decisions with yesterday’s understanding.
A modern treasury management system should not be judged only by feature breadth. The more important question is how well it reduces the gaps between systems, data, workflow, and reporting. A strong setup connects bank information, ERP data, payment processes, cash forecasting, risk workflows, analytics, and audit trails into a reliable operating model. That does not mean every company needs every module at once. It means the architecture should support growth without forcing the team to rebuild its processes every time complexity increases.
Most people researching a TMS today will start with a web search or ask Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT. The answer they get back is usually a feature list. That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete. A good treasury management system helps finance teams centralise cash, payments, forecasting, risk, controls, and reporting so they can make better liquidity and financial risk decisions with trusted data. Features are how it gets there. That’s the distinction worth keeping in mind when evaluating whether your current setup is still fit for purpose.
The path away from disconnected systems does not always require a large replacement project. In many organisations, the better approach is to identify the most painful manual bridges first. Where does treasury re-enter data? Where does the team wait for local input? Where do reports need manual explanation? Where are approvals outside the system? Where is the same number calculated in different ways? These questions show where fragmentation is creating the most business risk.
Connected systems create reliable answers. They reduce the manual work behind cash visibility, improve the quality of cash flow forecasting, and support stronger controls and compliance. They help the CFO understand not only what the numbers are, but what they mean for liquidity, risk, and action. Disconnected systems may still function. But they make treasury work harder than it should, and confident decisions harder than they need to be.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
This article is written by TreasuryCube
In an increasingly complex financial environment, In-House Banks (IHBs) have emerged as a strategic imperative for corporations seeking enhanced cash visibility, optimized liquidity, and streamlined intercompany transactions. Drawing insights from a recent presentation by experts at Citi and seasoned treasurers, let’s explore what makes an IHB not just an option, but a cornerstone of modern treasury management.
An IHB is a centralized internal financial entity that manages cash, investments, foreign exchange exposures, and intercompany lending on behalf of corporate subsidiaries. Acting as a “virtual bank” for the organization, it reduces the volume of external banking transactions and provides critical advantages in cash management, governance, and compliance.
Importantly, an IHB is not a regional treasury center, shared service center, re-invoicing hub, or physical licensed bank. It’s a bespoke solution that integrates deeply with corporate finance operations.
An IHB addresses several core challenges that treasurers face:
Real-world IHB implementations, like those led by Brook Ballard at Oceaneering, showcase the tangible benefits:
Intercompany netting further reduces payment transactions, bank fees, and FX costs by consolidating cross-border intercompany settlements.
While beneficial for many, IHBs are particularly advantageous for:
At TreasuryCube, we recognize that the modern treasury is not just about managing cash, it’s about unlocking strategic value. An effective IHB is a critical tool to help achieve that vision, especially when supported by integrated technology, skilled people, and proactive governance.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
This article is written by our partner, FIS
The reality of payment fraud has shifted from a question of whether an attack will occur to a growing likelihood of when and how it will occur.
For finance and treasury leaders, the strategies that provided a sense of security a few years ago may be insufficient against a new breed of sophisticated and relentless criminals. A 2024 survey from the Association for Financial Professionals underscored this reality, revealing that a staggering 79% of organizations were victims of payment fraud attacks or attempts.
This is not a distant risk: It’s an active, daily threat that demands a fundamental change in an institution’s defensive posture. The traditional, reactive approach – detecting and responding to fraud after it occurs – is, in many cases, no longer a viable strategy. The time has come to build a proactive defense.
Today’s fraudsters are often not lone actors but organized, well-funded operations that use advanced technology and psychological tactics. They study organizational structures, identify process gaps and exploit the path of least resistance.
Business email compromise remains a dominant method, where criminals impersonate executives or vendors with alarming authenticity to redirect funds. We’re also seeing the rise of AI-powered deep fakes, where a trusted voice on a conference call can be convincingly spoofed to authorize a fraudulent transfer.
These criminals understand that the entire payment lifecycle, from the initial onboarding of a vendor to the final reconciliation, presents a landscape of opportunity. They target the seams in your processes, exploiting the very human desire for efficiency and speed. This “disharmony,” a term coined by a FIS® and Oxford Economics study, captures the friction between the drive for growth and the drag of persistent security threats.
According to the study, 75% of C-suite executives identify fraud as a critical challenge.
How can organizations overcome the evolving threat of fraud? The answer lies in shifting from a fragmented, manual and reactive stance to an integrated, automated and proactive one.
A truly effective defense begins by fortifying the most common entry points. The vendor master file, for instance, is the heart of the payables process and a prime target. A single fraudulent change to a supplier’s bank details can lead to catastrophic losses before anyone realizes an error has occurred.
Overcoming this type of threat typically requires more than just diligence: It often demands a standardized, technology-enforced process. It includes implementing out-of-band verification, such as a phone call to a preverified contact, for any change to payment instructions. It means moving beyond trust and implementing strict, automated validation protocols.
As transaction volumes grow, manual reviews can become an impossible bottleneck, creating the very noise that criminals use to hide their illicit activities. This is where modern solutions like AI-assisted anomaly detection become increasingly indispensable.
Unlike static, rule-based systems that can only catch what they are programmed to look for, AI and machine learning establish a baseline of “normal” payment behavior for each vendor and transaction type. These systems operate in real time, analyzing payments for subtle deviations in amount, frequency or timing that would be difficult for the human eye to detect. When an anomaly is detected, the payment is automatically flagged for investigation before it leaves the organization. This preemptive capability is a game changer.
Organizations can achieve a greater level of control by consolidating their payment flows through a centralized payment hub. Instead of managing disparate security protocols across multiple ERPs and bank portals, a payment hub provides a more unified point of visibility and control.
A payment hub enables the consistent application of security policies, approval workflows and fraud detection analytics across the entire enterprise. It standardizes an institution’s defense, creating a fortress rather than a series of disconnected fences. A payment hub integrated with a third-party account validation service provides another critical layer, confirming that a beneficiary’s name matches their account information before a payment is ever initiated.
Reduce fraud risk and strengthen controls with FIS Payment Hub – Enterprise Edition
The path forward for finance and treasury leaders requires a strategic pivot. It means recognizing that fraud prevention is not merely a compliance checkbox but a strategic enabler of business resilience and growth.
Building a proactive defense involves a holistic approach that integrates advanced technology, standardized processes and a culture of vigilant verification. By embracing AI-driven monitoring, centralizing payment operations and empowering employees with specialized training, you can transform your security posture from reactive to preemptive.
This shift does not just mitigate risk: It builds the confidence and operational integrity necessary to thrive in a complex financial world.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
