Treasury management simplified: A CFO’s guide to cash, liquidity, and FX with finmo
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In most growing businesses, the finance function is evolving faster than the tools supporting it. What used to be a tactical role focused on reporting and compliance has become a strategic one: optimizing liquidity, managing cross-border complexity, and enabling growth through better financial control.
This is where corporate treasury steps in, and where platforms like Finmo are changing how CFOs and treasurers operate.
This article breaks down the fundamentals of modern treasury, the common challenges faced by finance teams, and how Finmo delivers an all-in-one, modular Treasury Operating System (TOS) that simplifies complexity, boosts visibility, and increases control.
What Is Corporate Treasury?
Think of treasury as the GPS for your company’s cash. It connects operational finance to strategic decision-making by answering questions like:
Where is our cash, and how much do we have?
- Can we fund upcoming obligations in multiple currencies?
- How do we protect our bottom line from FX risk?
- Are we maximizing liquidity and yield?
The Mission: To ensure the company has the right cash, in the right currency, at the right time, while reducing risk and improving efficiency.
The 7 Core Functions of Treasury
1. Cash Management
Every day starts with one key task: understanding your current cash position. Treasury teams track balances across accounts and geographies to fund operations and avoid shortfalls
Key Activities:
- Monitoring daily balances across bank portals
- Consolidating cash for payments or short-term investments
- Ensuring funds are available where needed
2. Liquidity Forecasting
Forecasting helps you look ahead, whether you’re planning for dividends, debt servicing, or unexpected expenses.
Key Activities:
- Projecting short- and long-term inflows and outflows
- Identifying gaps before they become liquidity crises
- Enabling better financing and investment decisions
3. Bank and Payment Management
Your bank setup defines how efficiently your business moves money. Poorly optimized structures lead to delays, higher fees, and operational friction.
Key Activities:
- Managing global banking relationships
- Opening and configuring pay-in/pay-out accounts
- Minimizing transaction costs and payment delays
- Implementing fraud controls
4. FX Risk Management
Currency volatility is a silent profit killer. Companies with foreign revenue or costs must manage FX exposure proactively.
Example:
A US company expecting €5 million in six months can lock in today’s EUR/USD rate of 1.10 using a forward contract, ensuring it receives $5.5M regardless of rate changes. Without hedging, if the rate falls to 1.05, it would only receive $5.25M - a $250,000 loss.
Key Activities:
- Mapping currency exposures
- Using forwards or options to hedge
- Protecting margins from FX swings
5. Working Capital Optimization
Your AR/AP cycles directly impact cash flow. Treasury ensures that capital isn’t trapped in receivables or excess inventory.
Key Activities:
- Managing AR/AP and improving collection cycles
- Reducing Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
- Freeing up trapped cash to reduce borrowing
6. Treasury Controls & Compliance
Treasury must operate under strict controls to prevent fraud, meet audit standards, and ensure regulatory compliance.
Key Activities:
- Enforcing SOX/internal control frameworks
- Managing user access and approval layers
- Ensuring audit readiness and fraud prevention
7. Investment of Idle Cash
Treasury focuses on security and liquidity over yield. The goal is not to beat the market - but to keep cash safe and accessible.
Key Activities:
- Parking surplus cash in low-risk instruments
- Managing liquidity buffers
- Aligning investments with policy and cash forecasts
While these seven functions form the backbone of any treasury organization, the way they’re executed has changed dramatically. Today’s finance teams are expected to deliver real-time insights, automate workflows, and stay ahead of global volatility, all with limited headcount. That’s where legacy treasury tools begin to fall short.
Treasury Tech: Why Legacy Tools Fall Short
Most treasury teams still rely on manual processes: spreadsheets, siloed bank portals, and basic dashboards. These systems don’t scale, and worse, they obscure risk.
How Finmo Maps to Treasury Needs
| Treasury Need | Challenge | Finmo’s Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Global Money Movement | Manual transfers, compliance delays, and fragmented payout flows | Real-time pay-ins and payouts in 180+ countries with built-in regulatory support |
| Cash & Liquidity Management | Poor visibility and idle cash | Real-time dashboards and AR/AP automation to free up working capital |
| FX Risk Exposure | SMEs struggle to hedge FX exposure effectively | FX modules provide exposure tracking and automated conversion workflows to reduce losses from currency volatility. |
| Automation & Reconciliation | Manual reconciliation between ERPs, bank portals, and spreadsheets | Unified APIs, native ERP integrations, and no-code workflows streamline treasury processes and reduce reconciliation time. |
| Compliance & Control | Demand for global controls, audit trails, and licensing | Fully licensed across key markets (PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, SG MPI, AU AFSL, UK EMI, US/CA MSB), with built-in controls and security protocols. |
A Treasury Operating System That Grows With You
Finmo isn’t an all-or-nothing solution. You can start with one module, like payments or FX, and add others as you scale.
The Finmo Value Ladder:
- Start: Cross-border payments
- Expand: Real-time cash dashboards
- Advance: FX exposure and hedging
- Scale: AR/AP automation and ERP integrations
- Optimize: Unified workflows across treasury
MO.AI: Conversational Finance Intelligence
One of Finmo’s most powerful features is MO AI, a conversational assistant that transforms everyday finance operations into simple, voice-based workflows. From querying multi-currency balances to initiating FX conversions, MO.AI empowers CFOs and finance teams to act faster, without toggling between dashboards or systems
Examples:
“What’s my available cash across USD and SGD accounts?”
“Do I have any upcoming liquidity shortfalls?”
“Can I initiate a hedge for our GBP receivables?”
It’s built to streamline daily tasks and reduce the complexity of global financial operations.
Built for the CFOs of Modern Business
The modern CFO is no longer just a gatekeeper. They are strategic operators, navigating volatility, unlocking liquidity, and enabling global scale. But their tools haven’t kept up.
That’s why we built Finmo, a modular, intelligent Treasury OS designed from the ground up to give finance teams the visibility, control, and automation they need to lead with confidence.
Book a walkthrough with our team and discover how Finmo can:
- Unify your money movement and FX
- Offer real-time visibility into cash and working capital
- Automate reconciliation and reduce operational overhead
- Bring security, compliance, and simplicity into every finance workflow
