How can SME’s benefit from (Interim) Treasury Services?

SME’s principally without exception will benefit, though some more than others, from the expertise of treasury professionals:

Think of optimizing not just your company’s capital structure (equity versus debt) to be prepared for growth or, as the case may be, for periods of financial stress, but also, as a sub-set of this, of improving your working capital position through alternative financing or other solutions.
Think of matching the risks in your assets with the risks in your liabilities.
Think of identifying the sources of various “day-to-day” risks and challenges in your business, such as mismatches between payment terms to your customers or from your suppliers, or of periodically fixed price lists in foreign currencies, or of the ability to absorb or impose price increases on either or both the purchasing and sales side of your business.
Think of liquidity, currency, or credit risks, and providing various options of mitigating and/or, as the case may be, of managing these (more) opportunistically.
Think of obtaining a better and true understanding of how a financial counterparty (e.g., a bank, lease and/or factoring company, rating agency, (private equity) investor, etc.) may look at your financials and/or your business.

Examples of my (Interim) Treasury Services

I, or my interim treasurer colleagues can, for example, support you with:

Executing all common, 'daily' treasury management responsibilities, such as cash management, cash flow forecasting, liquidity/investment management, currency exposure management, bank account management (e.g., KYC process), payment processing, various financial analyses, bank fees review & negotiations, etc. on an interim or project basis;
Analyzing your company’s financials and determining the optimal (current and future) capital structure, followed by identifying the different options for (capital and debt) funding, including pointing out the pro’s & con’s of each, timing, benchmarks, etc. This may, depending on your business, sector, and desire, also include supporting you in identifying sustainability-linked funding options;
Supporting you with the analytics and thus the identification of the most viable options to allocate your capital, e.g., to capital expenditure, to debt repayment, to shareholders (dividends and buy-backs), and/or to mergers & acquisitions, as applicable;
Supporting you with building and maintaining (more) reliable free cash flow forecasts, based on tested forecasting models, including what-if scenario planning;
Guiding you in the choice of financial service providers (think: banks, lease and factoring companies, financial services and systems providers, etc.) and their solutions/proposals, including benchmarking as available, as well as supporting you in or leading the negotiations with such providers (think: specific documentation clauses you may want to re-negotiate or need to be aware of), or even with specific suppliers or customers (think: invoicing currency alternatives/natural hedging opportunities);
Advising you with rendering the procure-to-pay and invoice-to-collect processes more efficient/seamless, more secure (think: fraud, error), and more cost-effective by means of automated (systems/interfacing) solutions;
Analyzing the various types of currency risks your company may be exposed to at the ‘root’ and operational levels, including advising you on the different ways to mitigate and/or manage these exposures from a risk and opportunity perspective (think: natural hedging, hedging with spot, forward contracts, or options (including the tools available to execute these most effectively), or including specific FX clauses in, e.g., purchasing contracts or distribution agreements);
Analyzing and advising how to structure your company’s investments abroad, as applicable, and how to capitalize/fund these most attractively (think: funding cost, currency, geo-political, and/or tax-related risks, cash repatriation limitations), working together with your tax manager or outside tax advisors, as applicable, including the design, implementation, and documentation of proper, tax-compliant inter-company loan structures (think: thin capitalization rules and interest expense deductibility, permanently invested inter-company loans, transfer pricing, etc.);
Guiding your company in its export or import business in dealing with trade compliance and finance-related issues (think: geo-political, credit, and collection risks, different types of documentary credit, most appropriate banking partners to use, systems solutions reducing time & effort, etc.);
Providing basic to more advanced (treasury-related) training courses to you and your team members covering the areas and issues that are relevant or specific to you and your business;
Etc., etc.

Consulting & Interim Treasury Management Services

My services can range from a project-based, focused assignment in one of the treasury management areas indicated further herein, to highly operational interim treasury management appointments. Such assignments/appointments can be agreed for a specific number of days or hours with a (project-related) delivery deadline to full-, or part-time work weeks for (typically) a few months in a row. As such, we can agree upon a lumpsum commission for project-based assignments or hourly or daily rates for interim appointments, as you desire and require. We could also agree upon different compensation models, such as commission (on savings) schemes.

Can I help you in resolving every (treasury-related) issue or project?

No, most likely not. Examples given, I have little practical experience with e-commerce challenges, or am not the best resource if you are looking into API solutions. Moreover, if you are looking to resolve a highly specific structured trade finance issue, I will be happy to direct you to interim treasury professionals in my network that can support you much better in this area than I can. Or, I have no issue with getting you in contact with former colleagues of mine, also having moved into the consulting business, who will be able to help you in case of more specific commodity business-related issues. Just to name a few examples. I hope you have understood from this website there is quite a bit of specific expertise going into professional treasury management that, even with, or maybe because of my 35 years of experience, I have not kept up to date with myself or for which areas I can propose you the best resources.

In any case, I will support you in looking for and finding the solution and professional that fits your company best, not necessarily the one that could benefit me most (in the short term only).