The buried function: Why treasury needs a modern makeover

As a business grows, so does the complexity of its finances. Indeed, in The CFO’s Playbook for 2025, 70% of organisations say that as their business grows and finances become more complicated, the role of treasury becomes increasingly important 

Luckily, the vast majority of businesses say their treasury function is effective. This means business finances are running smoothly and there’s no need for improvement – right?

If only it were that simple.

In today’s changeable environment, agility is key. That goes for financial agility, too: future forecasting is more crucial than ever – and yet our research shows that when it comes to their finances, a lot of these companies are in the dark.

They’re not confident they have the information they need to make smart choices and act fast when financial troubles arise, nor that they can effectively avoid human error when making manual payments.

These numbers highlight a problem: the financial landscape is changing, but the treasury function hasn’t caught up. If businesses want to develop greater financial strategy and agility, they must evolve the treasury function.

So how do you do that? That’s what we’re here to explore.

Traditional treasury is falling short – so what now?

The traditional treasury function relies on manual processes, spreadsheets and siloed data. After all, they’ve worked for years – why switch things up now?

Unfortunately, in today’s fast-changing financial landscape, these methods are falling short. Instead of just getting the job done, they now present a number of key challenges that limit efficiency and real-time decision-making for modern businesses:

• Inefficiency: There’s no way around it – manual processes are time consuming. They leave treasury spending excessive time on data entry, reconciliation and reporting – time they could be spending on strategic financial planning.
• Human error: What’s more, relying on spreadsheets for cash flow forecasting, risk management and reconciliation increases the chances of human error. It only takes one miscalculation, and before you know it you’re spending even more time sorting out incorrect liquidity planning or dealing with compliance issues.
• Siloed data: On top of that, traditional treasury functions often struggle with fragmented data spread across different bank accounts, ERP systems and financial platforms. This makes it tricky to get a clear overall picture of liquidity and risk.

With 70% of organisations saying that the role of treasury becomes increasingly important as their business grows (The CFO’s Playbook for 2025; Sapio Research, 2024-2025 survey), ensuring that the treasury function remains effective is a top priority.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of businesses say their treasury function is effective. On paper, that sounds great. But if we dig a little deeper into these findings, confidence levels tell a very different story.

For instance, our research shows that:

• 42% of businesses aren’t confident they have enough visibility to make informed decisions and remain reactive to key financial events
• 42% of businesses aren’t confident they have all the necessary information to make informed decisions and maintain a strong level of control over cash flow and finances
• 46% of businesses aren’t confident about avoiding human error when making manual payments

This confidence gap paints a clear picture of a function that’s due a revamp. There are change-makers in treasury whose potential is locked behind manual processes and a lack of visibility – and the time is ripe to do something about it.

The case for modernising the treasury function

In today’s fast-moving business landscape, every business function has the potential to create value – but if they’re stuck in the past, you’re unlikely to see it. The treasury function is no exception.

Treasury has a lot to offer, particularly in improving cash flow visibility, forecasting and decision-making. But for too long, that potential has been locked behind a wall of outdated processes.

‘If businesses want to develop greater financial strategy and agility, they must evolve the treasury function. Change-makers don’t spend their time on manual tasks; they spend their time identifying spend patterns and making their excess cash work harder. The sooner businesses equip them with the tools to make this possible, the quicker they’ll experience the results.’
—Amit Kahana, Head of Credit, Treasury and Cash Management

We’re here to make a case for modernising the treasury function.

We mentioned above that a major challenge for treasury teams is fragmented data. Without a centralised view of cash flow, businesses struggle with everything from delayed insights into liquidity to making suboptimal borrowing or investment decisions. Fragmented data also makes accurate reporting more difficult – in short, it’s a hindrance all around.

This is a prime example of a challenge the modernised treasury function takes on:

• Real-time dashboards provide a single source of truth for all cash positions, accounts and transactions – no more worrying that information is lost between accounts and platforms.
• Automated reconciliation consolidates cash flow data from multiple sources – and that means less time wasted on manual efforts.
• Improved risk management – instead of scrambling to keep up with financial events, treasury teams are able to anticipate liquidity gaps and proactively adjust strategies.

These benefits are brought to you by technology – and there are plenty more where they came from.

Technology in treasury

The treasury function has much to gain from the introduction of technology and automation. Here’s a look at three areas where technology makes a difference for the modern treasury function:

1. Improved forecasting

Accurate forecasting is critical for effective liquidity and risk management. But traditional forecasting relies on spreadsheets and historical data, which are often outdated or inaccurate.

Here’s how technology helps:

• AI and machine learning analyse large datasets to provide more accurate cash flow projections.
• Scenario planning tools allow treasury teams to model different market conditions and assess their impact.
• Automated data integration ensures forecasts are based on real-time financial data, making them more reliable.

2. Reduced human error

The more manual processes, the more likely you are to be dealing with costly mistakes, from miscalculations in cash flow reports to errors in payments and reconciliations.

Technology helps via:

• Automation, which reduces reliance on manual data entry and minimises the risk of errors.
• Built-in validation tools and controls, which catch anomalies before they lead to financial misstatements.
• Audit trails and compliance monitoring, which help ensure regulatory accuracy and transparency.

3. Faster decision-making

In a volatile economic environment, treasury teams need to respond quickly to everything from changing cash positions to market fluctuations – but that’s not easy to do when they’re stuck relying on outdated processes.

With technology on the team, treasury gets:

• Real-time analytics that provide instant visibility into financial data, enabling faster responses.
• AI-driven insights to help identify trends and optimise working capital strategies.
• Automated workflows that streamline approvals and payment processing, reducing delays.

Modernising treasury isn’t just about efficiency – it’s about strategic transformation. With real-time cash visibility, advanced forecasting and automation, treasury teams can shift from reactive cash management to proactive financial decision-making, becoming the change-makers the modern business needs.

4 steps to evolving your treasury function

Now that we’ve made our case for revamping treasury, let’s take a closer look at the steps you can take to evolve your treasury function and ensure its potential isn’t lost in the spreadsheets.

1. Adopt consolidated tools

We’ve said it before – we’ll say it again: fragmented financial data spread across multiple banks, ERP systems and spreadsheets is one of the biggest roadblocks for treasury teams. To combat this, consolidating tools into a single, integrated system is key.

You can do this through:

• Treasury management systems (TMS)
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrations
• Cloud-based financial analytics tools

Consolidation gives you a single dashboard showing all global accounts, transactions and forecasts in one place. This gives you the visibility you need to make better financial decisions and keep your reports both accurate and compliant.

2. Automate manual processes

Traditional treasury functions rely heavily on spreadsheets and manual reconciliation – the root of many inefficiencies and errors. This is where automation comes in. It won’t just improve accuracy: it’ll free up time for more strategic activities.

Consider automating:

• Cash reconciliation: Automated matching of transactions across multiple accounts reduces errors and fraud risks.
• Payment processing: Straight-through processing (STP) reduces delays and improves control over outgoing payments.
• Forecasting and reporting: AI-powered tools can generate real-time insights – no more relying on static reports.

These benefits speed up your processes and give your treasury team the freedom to focus on strategic initiatives instead of administrative tasks – and they help reduce errors and fraud risks, too.

3. Focus on financial agility

In today’s business landscape, financial agility is key. The modern treasury function must be able to adapt to economic volatility, interest rate changes and currency fluctuations – and financial agility is what allows treasury to pivot quickly based on real-time data and market conditions.

Here’s what you can do to achieve it:

• Use data-driven models to simulate different financial outcomes and plan for disruptions
• Ensure liquidity is optimised across multiple accounts and currencies
• Leverage automated tools to manage currency and rate risks effectively

Through these measures, treasury becomes a proactive function that anticipates risks and capitalises on opportunities rather than just reacting to challenges.

Read more: Finance in the fast lane: Mastering agility in an uncertain economy

4. Measure effectiveness differently

Many treasury teams still focus on outdated KPIs that don’t fully capture the impact of modernisation. Instead of just tracking cash balances and cost savings, treasury performance should be evaluated in more strategic ways.

Consider using new metrics such as:

• Cash conversation cycle (CCC) – how efficiently cash moves through the business
• Return on liquidity (ROL) – the effectiveness of short-term cash investments
• Treasury cost-to-value ratio – measuring the cost of treasury operations against its contribution to business growth
• Real-time decision speed – how quickly treasury can act on new data

By shifting the focus from cost-cutting to value creation, modern treasury teams can demonstrate their strategic role in driving business success.

Revamping treasury – mistakes to avoid

Modernising treasury is one thing. Avoiding the pitfalls along the way is another – and there are more of them than you might think.

Here are some common mistakes to look out for:

• Skipping customisation (and relying on one-size-fits-all tools):
  Many businesses implement a TMS or other financial tools without tailoring them to their specific needs. Whilst off-the-shelf solutions offer broad functionality, they often fail to address unique business structures, industry-specific risks or regional compliance requirements.
  
  Solution: Choose flexible, configurable treasury tools that allow for API integrations, modular add-ons and customisation to fit your business, location and industry.
  
  
• Underestimating the need for forecasting: Treasury teams often focus on daily cash management but fail to build robust forecasting models – and without accurate forecasting, you risk everything from liquidity shortages to missed investment opportunities.
  
  Solution: Use AI-driven forecasting tools that analyse historical data, real-time transactions, and external market conditions to provide dynamic, scenario-based projections.
  
  
• Ignoring the talent gap: Modernising treasury isn’t just about technology – it also takes a skilled team that can interpret data, manage financial risks and drive strategic initiatives. If you don’t upskill your people or hire talent with the right expertise your teams won’t be able to keep up, and you risk falling behind your competitors.
  
  Solution: Invest in training for your existing staff, recruit treasury people with digital expertise and foster a culture of continuous learning in areas like data analytics, automation and risk management.
  
  
• Poor stakeholder communication: Treasury doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It affects finance, procurement, operations and executive leadership – and it’s affected by them in turn. In other words, there are several key stakeholders at play. However, many treasury transformation efforts fail due to poor communication with those stakeholders.
  
  Solution: Set up clear communication channels, involve stakeholders early in the process and keep them in the loop about the impact of treasury changes – this will help ensure the transformation is aligned with broader business goals.
  
  
• Underestimating liquidity risk: Many businesses focus on cash flow visibility but overlook deeper liquidity risks, such as market disruptions or sudden credit shortages. Relying too much on short-term cash reserves without a solid liquidity strategy can leave your business financially vulnerable.
  
  Solution: Implement a robust liquidity management strategy that includes stress testing, diversified funding sources and contingency plans for different economic scenarios.

Revamping treasury isn’t just about adopting new tools. It takes careful planning and leadership, as well as a thorough understanding of financial risks and opportunities.

With the four steps above and an eye on the common pitfalls, you’re well on your way to ensuring a smooth modernisation of your treasury function, unlocking its potential and driving strategic change for your business.