AFP’s recent report on Navigating the Top Tasks in Treasury - Treasury in Practice Series, underwritten by GTreasury, reviews treasury’s role and gives practical examples of how to carryout basic key tasks in:

• Debt and capital markets
• Capital planning and allocation
• Cash management and forecasting
• FX trade verifications
• Payments
• Pulling/Retrieving bank files
• Setting the cash position
• Reviewing account activity.  

Key takeaways

Andrew Deichler and Tom Hunt, authors of the report, have 14 takeaways - all full of practical sense. Three CTMfile particularly liked are:

• Issuing debt often requires board and regulatory approval, as well as a lot of additional prep work. That process can take months, so treasury needs to start the process well in advance.
• Using a treasury management system (TMS) can automate a lot of a treasury department’s cash management needs, but not all information will be captured and transferred in an automated way. A cash positioner will have to go in and make sure that information is captured and communicated. 
• For FX trade verifications, treasury functions need to ensure that the individual generating the payment isn’t also approving the deal. 

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CTMfile take: Sanity checks of the numbers produced by any system, particularly a TMS, are vital to preserving your company's funds and liquidity.