A guide for finance teams without a treasurer: what each system is for, the size and complexity at which each fits, and a five-question test to apply to your own business.
Does a £10m business with several bank accounts and entities need a treasury management system, or a cash forecasting tool?
For most businesses of that shape, the answer is a cash forecasting tool. A treasury management system runs payments, bank connections, funding, debt, investments and currency hedging from one system, for a treasury team. A cash forecasting tool answers one question every week: what cash will the business have, across every account and entity, over the next 13 weeks. A finance team with no treasurer nearly always needs the second, and rarely needs the first set of jobs run from a single system.
Treasury is a set of jobs, and the professional bodies say a business does treasury whether or not it employs a treasurer. So the useful question is not whether you need treasury. It is which treasury jobs you need a system for. Match the tool to the jobs, not to the size of the ambition. This guide is written for the finance director or CFO of a business with a finance team of three to eight, several entities and bank accounts, and no treasurer.
Why Does The Treasury Question Come Up At This Size?
The treasury question arrives with complexity, not with a revenue figure. When a business holds cash across several bank accounts and two or more entities, and takes a foreign-currency customer, the weekly questions change: where is the cash, which entity is short, what happens if the largest customer pays late. Those are treasury questions, and the vocabulary of treasury arrives with them.
The Association of Corporate Treasurers defines treasury as the management of money and financial risks in a business, and says the activities exist in every business even where there is no treasurer or treasury department. In a business without a treasurer, the finance team carries them out as part of its day-to-day work. The ACT's October 2019 guidance on treasury policies says that where no treasury function exists, the finance director or accountant is typically responsible, and the risks it lists are currency, interest rate, liquidity and funding. A £10m business owns those risks with or without a treasurer. What it does not usually have is the volume of transactions that needs a system built to execute them.
In conversations with finance teams at this size, we see the question go two ways. Some look at what larger companies use, find treasury management systems, and buy or nearly buy one sized for a business many times larger. Others decide treasury is not for them and stay in a spreadsheet that does not give them a view across the entities. Both have matched a tool to the ambition rather than to the jobs. Between accounting software and a treasury system sits a weekly job we call the operational cash layer: knowing what cash the group holds, expects and has to pay over the coming weeks. This page takes the treasury side of that boundary in depth.
What Is A Treasury Management System For?
A treasury management system is a single system for running a treasury function: collecting bank balances through direct connections, originating payments, managing bank accounts and signatories, recording debt and investments, managing foreign-exchange exposure and hedges, and reporting across all of it. It is run by a treasurer or a treasury team, and it is sized for the volume that team handles.
The Association for Financial Professionals describes it as "an enterprise-wide solution" and lists seven primary functions: cash management, payments, foreign exchange, debt and investment transactions, accounting and general-ledger interfaces, bank account management, and reporting. Cash forecasting sits inside the first of those. A treasury management system does forecast cash and position it across accounts. It does that as one function of seven, and the other six are the reason it exists. The AFP, writing for treasury professionals, calls such a system essential for efficient treasury management.
The joint guide from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the ACT, Treasury and Cash Management Essentials (January 2017), says that for large organisations all treasury transactions should be recorded and managed in a treasury management system, which provides workflow controls, segregation of duties and an audit trail. The same guide says many smaller organisations will not require one, because their treasury operations are "relatively simple and involve low volumes". It does not define smaller by revenue. No professional body publishes a revenue, headcount, entity or bank-account threshold at which a treasury management system becomes necessary, or at which a treasurer is appointed. The bodies describe the trigger in terms of size and complexity together, and leave the number to the business.
What Is A Cash Forecasting Tool For?
A cash forecasting tool answers the operational question: what cash will the business have each week over the coming quarter. It builds one cash position across accounts and entities, projects it forward on invoices, bills and budgets, lets the team move expected payment dates and test what-if scenarios, and produces the view the leadership team reads each week. It is run by the finance manager and the finance director.
The ACT describes operational cash forecasts as short term, which generally covers the next 13 weeks on a rolling basis, and says they are used for cash positioning while medium-term forecasts serve funding and investment decisions. The CIMA and ACT guide puts day-to-day forecasts at up to 30 days and medium-term forecasts at a rolling year. Thirteen weeks is a convention, not a rule: ICAEW's Nine Principles for finance professionals (November 2022) says weekly 13-week forecasts are "often used in turnarounds and may be required for loan applications", and the same guidance tells finance teams to assign expected, worst-case and best-case dates to receipts and payments, and to meet on cash weekly at minimum when there is concern.
A cash forecasting tool forecasts cash, not profit; Cash-Only By Design explains why that matters. It builds its starting position from accounting data, bank data or both, and our guide to what real-time cash visibility means sets out how those two routes differ. What it does not do is send payment instructions or manage banking relationships. Those are the treasury system's jobs.
Which System Does Each Job?
The decision is easier by job than by category. The table below sets out the jobs a finance team of three to eight runs each week, and which system does each.
| Job | Accounting software | Cash forecasting tool | Treasury management system |
|---|---|---|---|
| See the cash position across accounts and entities | Each company's ledger shows its own reconciled balances | Yes: every account and entity combined into one group view (how consolidation works) | Yes, from direct bank connections |
| Forecast the next 13 weeks, week by week | Short-range planning for one company in some packages | Yes: the core job, rolled forward every week | Yes, as one function among seven |
| Model a late payer, a hire or a lost customer | No | Yes: scenarios laid over the base forecast | Yes |
| Execute and approve supplier payments | Records the bill; the payment is made at the bank | No | Yes: payment origination and approval workflows |
| Connect to banks to send payment instructions | No | No | Yes: balance collection and payment instruction |
| Hedge currency | No | No: converts foreign-currency items for display (multi-currency forecasting across UK, US, AU and NZ) | Yes: FX exposure, hedges and valuations |
| Manage debt and investments | Records the balances | No | Yes |
| Report cash to the leadership team | Standard financial reports | Weekly cash view, exports and scenarios | Treasury reporting across all functions |
| Who runs it | The finance team | The finance manager and finance director | A treasurer or treasury team |
The professional bodies place payments control and bank account management inside cash management, alongside forecasting. The split that matters is between forecasting what cash you will have and executing or protecting it, and both are cash management work. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority draws the same line between a service that provides consolidated account information and one that initiates a payment order on a user's instruction. A forecasting tool is on the first side of that line.
The Test: Five Questions For Your Own Business
Five questions settle it. Answer them against your own operation, and let the answers choose the category.
- Do we pay suppliers from a system, or from the bank? If payments are made and approved at the bank, with the accounting software recording them, a forecasting tool fits. If you need payment origination and approval workflows from one system across many banks, that is a treasury management system.
- Do we hold debt, investments or intercompany loans that need managing in a system? If a facility and a couple of intercompany balances are recorded in the ledger and reviewed monthly, a forecasting tool fits. If debt and investment transactions need their own module and accounting, that is a treasury system.
- Do we hedge currency, or do we need to see foreign-currency cash in one display currency? Conversion for display is a forecasting tool's job. Hedging exposure, holding derivatives and valuing them is a treasury system's job.
- Does anyone in the business hold treasury as their job? If the finance director or finance manager carries treasury alongside everything else, a forecasting tool matches the team. If a treasurer is in post, or about to be, a treasury system matches the role.
- Is the question we cannot answer today "what cash will the group have each week"? If yes, that is the operational job, and it is the first thing to fix whichever category you end up in.
Four answers on the left and a yes to the fifth describe the finance team this page is written for. Two or more answers on the right describe a business that has outgrown the operational tool, and the treasury system is the right call for it.
How Float Does This Today
Float is cash flow forecasting software for in-house finance teams that run cash across several entities, bank accounts and currencies. It is built to give a finance director two things: one 13-week cash view across every entity that the whole leadership team works from, and early sight of liquidity and payment risk while there is still time to act. Much of the upkeep that keeps that view current runs without anyone keying it. Float connects to Xero and QuickBooks Online today, with Sage Intacct coming soon; you can join the Sage Intacct waitlist.
Actuals arrive on their own. Float syncs with your accounting ledger every day at an hour you choose, and you can sync on demand before a meeting. As invoices are paid and bills settled, actual figures replace the budgets they were filling, so the forecast rolls forward without a rebuild. The sync reads from your accounting system and never writes back to it.
Late payers are priced in. Smart Expected Dates works out from payment history how many days late each customer and supplier typically pays, and applies that average to new invoices and bills as they arrive. Any date can be overridden. It runs on Xero-connected companies; on other connections, expected dates are moved by hand.
Costs follow the income they depend on. A linked budget, such as commission paid 60 days after a sale, is set as a percentage of the income it depends on and updates whenever that income budget changes. Auto budgets track last month, or a three- or six-month average, and update themselves as each new month starts.
One position across accounts and entities. The forecast starts from the reconciled balance of every bank account you include, combined into one figure, with transfers between included accounts netting to zero. Across a group, Float consolidates at company level into one view in a display currency you choose, with group or per-company balances. Accounts, invoices and bills in other currencies are converted, with the original currency and rate shown on each item. There is no intercompany elimination.
Decisions tested before they are made. A hire goes into People costs, where Float calculates the employment costs and lets you switch the hire on or off to see its effect on cash. Scenario layers sit over the base forecast for questions such as a lost customer or a delayed contract; a scenario changes budgets only.
One forecast the leadership team reads. Float shows on screen the date the balance is due to cross a threshold you set. Four user roles, including a read-only viewer, let the CEO read the same forecast the finance manager keeps, and PDF and CSV exports are there when the board pack needs them.
A Worked Example: Can The Group Afford A March Hire If Its Largest Customer Pays Late?
A finance team can answer that question in the meeting it is asked in, from one forecast read at group level and tested at company level. The figures below are invented to show the method.
A UK group with £8m revenue runs three companies, each with its own ledger: a trading company, a services company and a US subsidiary that bills in dollars. The finance team is four people. On Monday the CEO asks two questions. Can the trading company hire a second account manager from 1 March? And what happens if the largest customer, which owes £240,000, pays 30 days late?
In a spreadsheet, both answers wait until someone has updated three entity tabs, keyed in last week's receipts and converted the dollar balance.
In Float, the finance manager opens the consolidated view, where the three companies already sit in pounds on last night's sync. In the trading company's forecast she moves the customer's expected date by 30 days, adds the hire in People costs and switches it on. The balance now crosses the £150,000 threshold the team set in the week of 9 March, and recovers when the delayed receipt lands in early April.
The meeting ends with a decision rather than an action to go away and model it: the hire starts on 1 April, or on 1 March if the customer confirms its payment date. The CEO reads the same forecast afterwards with read-only access. The following Monday nothing is rebuilt; the sync has brought in the week's receipts and the forecast has moved on. The finance team's part in the meeting has shifted from reporting last week's position to advising on next quarter's decisions.
Where This Is Going
The automation above is rule-based: averages from payment history, costs linked to the income they depend on, actuals replacing budgets as they land. Float's direction is to build on it. The aim is a cash system the finance team runs, one that keeps reconciling what was expected with what happened, reassesses what is likely to happen next, and points the team to where attention is needed. That depends on a richer record of how cash moves through a business: when customers pay, when suppliers are paid, and where forecasts and actuals part. One condition holds throughout: every number stays traceable to its source and under the finance team's control. For a business without a treasurer, that is the point. The operational jobs are done well by the people who already own them, without a treasury system bought to do them.
When Is A Treasury Management System The Right Call?
A treasury management system is the right call when the jobs on the right of the table are yours: you need to originate and approve payments from one system across several banking relationships, connect directly to those banks for balances and instructions, manage debt and investment transactions in their own module, hedge currency exposure, and you have a treasurer in post to run it. Float is not built for those jobs, and a forecasting tool should not be bought as though it will do them.
The businesses the professional bodies describe running such projects are large. The AFP published accounts in September 2024 of two implementations: a 5,700-person multinational with over forty banking relationships and a treasury team of four, which signed in June 2023 and was aiming to complete by March 2025; and a 16,000-person manufacturer with over forty-five banks, more than four hundred accounts and a treasury team of ten, which began its selection in 2021 and had half its modules live by July 2024. The work in both was bank connections, payment processes, debt and intercompany transactions, and interfaces to the accounting system.
Statutory reporting is a separate question. In the UK, a group qualifies as small, and a parent under the small companies regime is exempt from preparing group accounts, if it meets two of three conditions: aggregate turnover of not more than £15m net, balance sheet total of not more than £7.5m net, and not more than 50 employees, under thresholds in force for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025. Australia and New Zealand set their own thresholds on consolidated revenue and assets, and a subsidiary of an overseas parent can reach them sooner. None of these provisions asks for an operational cash position or a treasury system. They ask for annual accounts. The weekly cash view is a management decision.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need a treasury management system or a cash forecasting tool for a £10m business with several bank accounts and entities?
Most businesses of that shape need a cash forecasting tool. A treasury management system runs payments, bank connections, debt, investments and hedging from one system for a treasury team. A cash forecasting tool gives a finance team one cash position across its accounts and entities and a rolling 13-week forecast. Buy the treasury system for its other six functions, not for the forecast.
What is the best cash flow forecasting software for a multi-entity business with a small finance team and no treasury function?
Software that combines every entity's balances into one group position in a display currency, holds a rolling 13-week forecast with expected dates and scenarios, and keeps itself current from the accounting system you already run, so the finance manager owns it without a treasurer. Float does this for in-house finance teams, with consolidation at company level.
What sits between accounting software and a treasury management system for managing cash?
A cash forecasting tool. Accounting software records what has happened. A treasury management system executes payments, connects to banks and manages funding and risk for a treasury team. Between them is the weekly work of one cash position across accounts and entities, a 13-week forecast, expected dates and a report to the leadership team. We call that the operational cash layer.
What is the difference between cash management and treasury management?
The professional bodies treat cash management as a subset of treasury. Cash management covers day-to-day cash control, bank account structure, receipts, payments control and short-term borrowing and investment. Treasury adds funding and capital structure, financial risk including currency and interest rates, bank relationships, and treasury operations and controls. A business does all of this at some level, treasurer or not.
At what size does a business need a treasury management system?
No professional body publishes a size. The CIMA and ACT guide says many smaller organisations will not need one because their treasury operations are simple and low in volume, and the AFP describes the system as enterprise-wide. The measure is volume and complexity: how many payments, banks, facilities and hedges must run from one system, and whether a treasurer is in post to run it.
Can a cash forecasting tool make payments or connect to our banks?
A cash forecasting tool forecasts cash; it does not send payment instructions or move money between accounts. Payments are approved and made at the bank, or from a treasury system, and the forecast picks up the result. Float builds its position from the reconciled balances in your accounting ledger. If you need payment origination from one system, that is a treasury management system.
Float is built for in-house finance teams of three or more that run cash across several companies, bank accounts or currencies without a treasurer. If that is your team, the next step is a demo. Tell us how many entities and accounts you run and what you report each week, and the Float team will show you the group view and the 13-week forecast on your own data. Book a demo with the Float team.
