This week David Blair, consultant at Acarate Consulting, shares his thoughts on a treasurer’s digitisation project as he answers some key questions.
What are the most important considerations when embarking on a corporate treasury digitisation project?
- Start with the business need, not the technology.
- Identify the low hanging fruit.
- Make sure the solution will bring added value with less work.
With so many treasury solutions and systems available, how should a corporate decide which is the best option for their business?
Select a solution that achieves your goals above with minimum fuss and maximum plausibility. Make sure you get sufficient support with implementation and on-going usage.
How much (if any) of the corporate treasury function should be hosted on-premises rather than in the cloud?
None – go SaaS!
Is there a point at which integrating legacy systems becomes more expensive and time consuming than building a treasury infrastructure from scratch?
- Legacy tends to be installed rather than cloud which is more expensive.
- Legacy tends not to have APIs though reports output in csv to SFTP and reverse can be fine on more open systems.
- Legacy may struggle to keep up with new regulation and accounting standards etcetera.
- Often SaaS will be cheaper than legacy maintenance payments, though this can be negotiated.
David Blair is consultant at Acarate Consulting.
