Geopolitical fragmentation, the rise of digital commerce, the proliferation of regulatory mandates and the emergence of artificial intelligence as an operational tool are all reshaping the role of corporate treasurers. The best treasurers today are not thinking about cash in isolation, instead, they are using autonomous finance to minimize transactional work to free up talent, time and creativity to devote to strategic endeavors, such as churning out real-time liquidity forecasts and rethinking capital structure strategy.
Getting B2B payments as buttoned down as possible will help create more space for these strategic contributions while simultaneously helping the organization enter new geographies, onboard new customers and trading partners, forge new banking relationships and manage growing credit risks with maximal agility and efficacy. While the B2B payment process is not the only capability that treasury teams should optimize, recent advancements in this area offer valuable opportunities.
What Treasurers Lose Sleep Over
Working Capital: The Perennial Priority
If there is one metric that every Treasurer watches more closely than any other, it is working capital. Improving DSO by even a few days can release millions from the balance sheet without a single new sale. This is why treasury leaders are so acutely interested in anything that accelerates cash collection, reduces payment uncertainty, or alleviates risk.
Credit Risk: The Invisible Tax on Growth
Operating a net terms program is table stakes for B2B programs, but most sellers lack robust underwriting expertise, opening them up to losses from bad debt and expensive, manual collections processes.
Treasurers who manage this risk well create genuine competitive advantage.
The Technology Imperative
Perhaps the most significant shift in treasury over the past five years has been the arrival of artificial intelligence as a practical tool rather than a theoretical promise. AI-driven cash flow forecasting, automated receivables management, real-time fraud detection and credit decisioning powered by machine learning are more accessible than ever.
Yet technology adoption in treasury remains uneven. The gap between what is possible and what is practiced represents one of the most significant untapped opportunities in corporate finance today.
Determining if Payments Pass Muster
Payments mark just one of many processes that treasury functions rely on or oversee as part of their cash management and forecasting responsibilities. Given the innovations in B2B payments should assess their current order-to-cash processes to identify improvement opportunities.
By asking targeted questions, treasury groups can make better decisions about improvements and investments.
- Customer on-boarding: How can we improve the speed and experience of customer on-boarding? Lengthy credit application processes and suboptimal decision-making about credit lines can prolong onboarding and contribute to negative customer experiences.
- Fraud prevention: Do we have the expertise, processes and technologies required to detect and prevent payments fraud? In most cases the answer is “no.”
- A/R: How can we increase efficiency and efficacy? Chronic invoice and billing inaccuracies increase DSO and trap capital. Manual invoice data entry processes and unique billing requirements create a recipe for invoicing mistakes and further payment delays.
- Working capital management: What working capital management benefits can we generate by outsourcing A/R? Enlisting an external partner to provide working capital for A/R can increase cash on the balance sheet.
The priorities, pressures and structural shifts described above point toward a single conclusion: the treasury function is no longer a support service; it is commercial infrastructure.
Organizations that treat their treasury function as a source of commercial advantage rather than cost center are the ones that will grow fastest.
Four Principles for Today’s Treasurer
Align credit policy with commercial strategy
Credit limits and payment terms should reflect growth ambitions, not just risk aversion. Seek to understand which buyer segments are strategic and structure credit accordingly.
Embrace autonomous finance
Credit limits and payment terms should reflect growth ambitions, not just risk aversion. Seek to understand which buyer segments are strategic and structure credit accordingly.
Treat working capital as a growth lever, not a constraint
Improving DSO creates capital that can fund further growth.
Embrace technology as a strategic differentiator
AI-driven forecasting, automated credit
