How AI is Reshaping the Role of the Treasurer

Treasurer makes reactive decisions due to ground-level assumptions instead of taking proactive decisions to plan for the future. A newer approach can be taken with proper and scalable technology to improve accuracy and planning.

To not fall behind, the first thing that treasurers should focus on is:

Digital adoption: Initially, technologies used to be adopted by larger companies due to high upfront costs. But, with new technologies emerging, even the small and mid-sized companies have started adopting them to automate the tasks that don’t necessarily require human involvement or are very labor-intensive, so that their staffs can emphasize more on high priority tasks.

With treasurers working from home, the cyber risks have prevailed significantly, so treasurers must take preventive measures to control cyber frauds and data breaches and mitigate them with stringent actions. Being a techie has become crucial at times like these for treasurers to stay on top of the curve.

• Forecast Accuracy: Automation builds more accurate forecasts and allows you to update your forecasts frequently.

• Decision Making: Real-time data helps in taking confident decisions around borrowing, investing, quarter-ending cash, M&A, and working capital. CFOs take data-driven decisions and long-term decisions smoothly.

• Variance Analysis: Variance analysis can be performed frequently over multiple horizons and variance drivers can be tracked.
• Scenario Analysis: Accurate and up-to-date forecasts are relied on to understand the impact of certain scenarios. Running scenario analysis is easier by changing multiple parameters and checking how they impact cash flows to get early warning signals and to take precautionary/ recovery steps in cases of distress.

How technology adds value to the role of a treasurer

• Generates highly accurate long-term and short-term forecasts, which helps in identifying the implications of multiple scenarios proactively and taking corrective measures.
• Makes it possible to report real-time data to the CFOs periodically, hence building more trust.
• Helps in identifying opportunities for borrowing at low-interest rates, investing at the right time, and taking decisions for expansions and FP&A.

With technology, the treasurer makes decisions based on an accurate and aerial view and becomes a high-value employee.

The modern treasurer needs to have the following skills in the age of AI:

• Strategic and innovative mindset
• Business acumen
• Relationship management
• Data savviness
• Agility in adapting to changes