Making your money work for you: The power of treasury optimisation

At a time when every penny counts, businesses shouldn’t be letting their cash lay idle. In our latest report, Buried Treasury: Unearthing the Secret to Financial Stability, we found that 66% of businesses want to put their excess cash to better use. But how many are actually taking action?

Cash in the bank shouldn’t just be a safety net to fall back on, can be a strategic asset that can help fund growth, optimise liquidity, and even save you money. So, let’s talk about how you can turn that idle cash into something more useful.

Why leaving cash idle is costing you

The thing about surplus cash is that it’s often treated as just something you’ve got ‘in case’. While holding onto cash for liquidity is essential, leaving it stagnant in low-interest accounts is like giving it a nap when it should be out there earning its keep.

Keeping cash liquid feels safe, especially when markets are volatile. But while you’re playing it safe, your money’s potential is sitting there untapped. Instead of letting your cash stagnate, you could be earning returns, reducing borrowing costs, and even improving overall financial efficiency. Let’s take a deeper dive into how to do this.

The magic of high-yield accounts

One simple way to make your money work for you is by moving it into a high-yield account. High-yield savings accounts and money market accounts offer better returns than traditional business accounts, making your cash work harder without a huge amount of risk.

In fact, businesses are realising that putting idle funds into a high-yield account can help them earn interest on their surplus funds. These accounts typically provide a higher interest rate compared to standard business checking accounts.

While it won’t make you rich overnight, the extra interest can add up over time and help improve your cash flow without needing to make complex investments or take on too much risk.

Cash pooling is the smart way to manage surplus funds

If your company operates across multiple entities or accounts, managing cash flow can be tricky business. You might have money in different places, some of it earning little to no interest, others just waiting for the next big opportunity. That’s where cash pooling comes in.

Cash pooling is a strategy that lets you consolidate funds from multiple accounts into a single account or a set of accounts, often under a structure that reduces borrowing costs and maximises returns. For example, instead of keeping funds scattered across your business accounts, you can centralise your funds into one place, ensuring that your excess cash is working harder.

This doesn’t just optimise your interest earnings, it also helps reduce your reliance on external financing. With more cash in one place, you’re less likely to need to borrow at high interest rates, and you can take advantage of economies of scale when it comes to managing funds across different geographies or departments.

Automating your treasury functions

Automating your treasury processes can save you time and allow your team to focus on higher-value tasks, all while improving your cash management.

Using automated systems to track cash positions in real time allows you to make more informed decisions quickly. No more waiting around for someone to manually update spreadsheets or reconcile accounts.

Automated systems like Pleo’s cash management solution make it easy to streamline processes like fund transfers, cash flow management, and reporting. With this, you’re reducing manual labour and ensuring your excess cash is always working efficiently for you.

Ready to start optimising your treasury?

Want to learn more about how you can make the most of your business’s surplus cash? Check out our Buried Treasury: Unearthing the Secret to Financial Stability report, where we dive deeper into the key trends and strategies for optimising your treasury function in 2025.

Ready to start transforming your cash management? Get in touch with Pleo today to see how our tools can help you streamline, optimise, and put your funds to work.