How Does Better Cash Flow Visibility Reduce Market Liquidity Risks?

Cash flow and liquidity are tied together, and they can help you reduce market risks. When you have a pulse on your cash flow visibility, it’s easier for you to limit your liquidity risks because you have the option of adjusting to cash flow trends.

In a market where there’s a recession or other issues impacting cash, visibility allows you to plan for the future with better precision.

However, there are many reasons to consider focusing on cash flow visibility:

Visibility Improves Short-term Liquidity Plans

Short-term liquidity plans are often difficult to manage because cash can rapidly increase or decrease in a short amount of time. When you have a way to view cash flow, it helps you become an agile business that can adjust short-term liquidity plans rapidly.

When you have access to agile short-term liquidity plans, it will help you:

· Adjust to market changes

· Manage cash flow better

· Improve decision outcomes

If you do not have the reliable information provided by cash reporting platforms, you may make short-term liquidity plans using stale data that increases your risks of poor decision-making.

Visibility Eases Treasurer Stress

Treasurers have high-stress jobs, and in a financial crisis, they are largely responsible for helping businesses stay afloat. When you have cash flow visibility, treasurers will have better insight into your operations, allowing them to make:

· Smarter decisions

· Faster decisions

The access to real-time data reduces the risk of human error and will make the treasurer’s job less stressful in the process. In terms of employee burnout, cash flow visibility reduces stress, long hours and burnout, which can cause employees to leave their positions or experience a significant reduction in productivity.

Cash Reporting Platforms Give Better Visibility

Manual cash flow reporting and reports are time- and resource-intensive. Instead of relying on manual calculations, you can use cash reporting platforms. These platforms will allow you to run:

· Real-time cash flow reports

· Cash flow forecasts and projections

Platforms reduce the risk of error while also improving your cash flow visibility.

Real-time Cash Flow Visibility Improves Capital Planning

Capital planning is an important aspect of business, but many businesses neglect the planning process. When you have access to a cash flow forecast or real-time cash flow data, you can use this information to:

· Adjust your capital allocations.

· Create agile plans that better align with your business objectives.

· Continue to reallocate capital in ways that are more advantageous for your business.

· Realign priorities across multiple businesses.

· Improve decision-making and use data-backed decisions to improve success.

If you focus on ways to improve cash flow visibility, it also helps you overcome external funding hurdles.

Cash Flow Visibility Reduces Dependency on External Funding

Cash flow visibility further helps you stop relying on external funding to keep operations running smoothly. Unfortunately, when you rely on outside funding, it is expensive. Failing to monitor cash flow will leave your business in a position where you need to obtain loans that have:

· High interest rates

· Poor terms

Instead, when you have better cash flow visibility, you have the option to use times of high cash flow to your advantage. You can take these high cash flow periods to pay off external funding with poor rates and free up cash for the future.

External funding will always be a tool for businesses to use when their cash flow is drying up or they’re going through a slow period.

However, you can and should also try to use your cash flow influxes to pay off this debt to better help you manage operations. While funding can help you to overcome cash shortages in the short term, it will continue to impact cash flow monthly until it’s paid off.

In Conclusion

Cash flow reporting and creating better visibility are some of the most important things your business can do to improve operations. The big data that is available for your cash flow should be used as a way to better your business performance.

Through visibility of cash flow, you have the opportunity to:

· Make smarter business decisions

· Leverage cash flow to reduce future debt

· So much more

Utilizing tools to help you automate your cash flow reporting and visibility will make it faster and easier to have your cash work for you.

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