A cash flow forecasting system is a tool used to estimate future cash inflows and outflows, helping businesses anticipate and prepare for future financial needs and fluctuations.
Cashflow forecasting is important for mid-market companies because it gives the necessary vision into the future to detect liquidity shortages. For example, an accurate 13-week cash forecast provides complete visibility into an organization’s cash balances until the following quarter’s completion.
According to a survey of Global Treasurers, 89% of treasurers stated cash forecasting as their top concern, and 83% stated cash forecasting inaccuracy as their most significant concern.
Mid-markets usually focus on forecasting future cash positions, proactively planning for any cash shortages, releasing trapped working capital, and making borrowing decisions. Hence, they require accurate cash flow forecasts to improve their long-term decision-making. However, their forecasts aren’t often accurate to make prudent decisions because of manual or non-scalable systems.
The following are some of the issues that mid-market companies face that affect cashflow forecasting accuracy:
Seasonality is often hard to factor in because each business has peak and low sales times. If seasonality is not incorporated into the cash flow forecasting tool, mid-market companies will be unable to maximize profit margins or benefit from cost savings.
There are complex cash flow categories like A/R, A/P, and CAPEX at regional and company levels. But spreadsheets do not allow tracking individual cash movements for each type, which makes it difficult to make confident decisions.
Businesses have data stored in different formats in disparate sources (ERPs, bank portals, FP&A systems, TMS). Aggregating this data manually is tedious while using manual systems such as spreadsheets or legacy systems such as TMS.
Most times, due to the unavailability of robust systems, treasury analysts themselves gather the data on variances manually at the last moment, and usually only when treasurers require immediate feedback. As a result, variance analysis is done for short periods and is mostly error-prone.
The above bottlenecks emphasize the need for an advanced cash flow forecasting tool. The additional factors that influence cash flow forecasting technology are:
Overall, an advanced cash flow forecasting system plays a vital role in keeping corporate finances on track by enhancing agility and control to maximize the efficiency and accuracy of all cash reporting.
According to the Work Market 2020 Insight Report by ADP, 78% of business leaders believe that they could save up to approximately 7.5 hours a week by automating tasks, and 85% of business leaders believe that automating some of their tasks will give them and their employees more time to focus on company goals.
Advanced cash flow forecasting enables treasury to perform end-to-end forecasts with utmost accuracy. Additionally, the SaaS software provides analytical insights into a firm’s liquidity and foresight to its future monetary position and provides confidence to treasurers ensuring business continuity and development.
For instance, a leading construction company with 900+ projects faced less scope for cashflow forecasting improvement. HighRadius cash flow forecasting system provided them with root case variance analysis at multiple levels to understand the areas causing variance.
Check out HighRadius’ cash forecasting system with self-service models with an intuitive Spreadsheet UI.
Automate manual processes, generate accurate forecasts, reduce errors, and gain real-time visibility into your cash position with our AI-powered Autonomous Treasury Software and maximize your cash flow.
Talk to our expertsThe HighRadius™ Treasury Management Applications consist of AI-powered Cash Forecasting Cloud and Cash Management Cloud designed to support treasury teams from companies of all sizes and industries. Delivered as SaaS, our solutions seamlessly integrate with multiple systems including ERPs, TMS, accounting systems, and banks using sFTP or API. They help treasuries around the world achieve end-to-end automation in their forecasting and cash management processes to deliver accurate and insightful results with lesser manual effort.