Web-based tools aid businesses: automated treasury solution simplifies cash management.

• Author: Everhart, Joseph C.

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Corporate treasury professionals are being charged with ever-growing strategic responsibilities in an increasingly international business environment. That's especially true for treasurers in Alaska, where exports grew more than 12 percent and topped $4 billion for the first time in 2006.

Treasury departments now serve as internal consultants to improve working capital management, forecast cash to anticipate business issues that could impact earnings, and meet new audit and compliance requirements. Yet many companies have managed the expansion of treasury responsibilities without adding staff or other resources while continuing to use time-consuming manual processes to manage treasury operations.

According to a 2006 Association for Treasury Professionals survey, 91 percent of senior treasury professionals report their department is playing a greater strategic role in their organization than it did five years ago. Yet nearly half of the organizations surveyed maintained the same level of treasury staffing, and 15 percent have decreased staffing over the past three years.

Added to their traditional responsibilities, treasury professionals are now expected to:

[] Strategically improve the bottom line.

[] Identify solutions to daily cash management challenges in an increasingly complex and global environment.

[] Work with limited staff to minimize expenses.

[] Improve internal data control and meet increased compliance expectations.

Another huge challenge treasury professionals face is a lack of systems integration, often a result of acquisitions and disparate tracking systems. In a "Global Treasury News" report, a majority of companies cited the complications posed by multiple financial systems as their greatest obstacle to developing an accurate cash-management picture.

All these factors have created a compelling business case for treasury automation. However, a "Treasury & Risk Magazine" survey shows less than 25 percent of its respondents use a treasury workstation.

To fill the need for affordable and easy-to-use automation, Wells Fargo Bank developed CEO WorkstationSM, an online solution for commercial banking customers that instantly provides a global view of cash positioning, forecasting and trending information--all in one place. Released in October, CEO Workstation is delivered through Wells Fargo's award-winning Commercial Electronic Office[R] (CEO[R]) portal.

A critical step in development of the CEO...