How to build the business case to the CFO for a TMS

Client story: From spreadsheet-driven treasury to CFO-grade control

They didn’t set out to “buy a system”. They just wanted Monday mornings to stop feeling like a fire drill.

This client was managing treasury across five entities, with USD/EUR exposure, approximately 50 bank accounts, and relationships with four major South African banks. Every day started the same way: multiple portals, multiple spreadsheets, and a race to produce a consolidated cash position that was good enough to make decisions.

The problem wasn’t effort. The problem was fragility.

The pressure point

As the business grew, requests got sharper:

• “What’s our total cash position right now?”
• “How sure are we that approvals happened correctly?”
• “Are we hedged appropriately, or are we guessing?”

Treasury could answer, but it took time. Their consolidated cash position took hours a day and was often effectively “as at yesterday”. The team relied on multiple portals and spreadsheets to cover all accounts, and there wasn’t a single version of the truth across entities.

On controls, it was even more uncomfortable. Approvals and changes were difficult to evidence cleanly, segregation of duties depended on people following the process, and a single spreadsheet owner had become a single point of failure.

And exposures? USD/EUR exposures were tracked manually, often incomplete or delayed, which meant hedging decisions leaned on stale data and limited oversight.

They knew they were paying an “Excel tax”. It just wasn’t visible on the income statement.

A different kind of CFO conversation

They’d raised the idea of a TMS before, and it kept stalling for the same reasons: it sounded expensive, complex, and too “IT”.

So, this time, they didn’t pitch a TMS.

They brought a decision written in CFO language:

Request: approve a TMS + bank connectivity + implementation for Phase 1.

Then they anchored it in the CFO’s world:

With 50 accounts and manual Excel processes, the business was carrying operational risk, a weak audit trail, and delayed decision-making.

They also made the payback logic practical, not heroic: time saved, reduced bank fee leakage, fewer errors, lower fraud risk, and reduced idle cash buffers.

They made the current pain undeniable

Instead of general statements, they quantified the current state:

• Cash visibility: hours of consolidation, reliance on portals + spreadsheets, no single version of truth
• Controls and audit: limited audit trail, process-dependent segregation of duties, key-person risk
• Exposure management: manual USD/EUR exposure tracking, delayed or incomplete data

And they backed it with evidence: screenshots, process maps, file counts, manual steps, and known errors or audit findings.

At that point, the CFO wasn’t evaluating software. They were evaluating whether the business could continue to accept that level of operational risk.

Phase 1 was designed to feel safe. They kept it deliberately simple and outcome-driven.

Daily cash visibility by 9 am

• Automated bank statement pulls for the four major banks
• One dashboard showing cash by entity, bank, and currency (ZAR, USD, EUR)

Cash movements with control

• Standardised workflows
• Maker-checker approvals, limits, role-based access
• Full audit trail: who did what, and when

Exposure reporting that leadership can act on

• Central exposure capture (USD/EUR) by entity
• Policy-based reporting (thresholds, tenor buckets)
• Weekly exposure pack for CFO/EXCO

They also de-risked delivery with a phased plan: Phase 1 in 8–12 weeks (connectivity, cash reporting, roles/controls/audit trails, exposure reporting), and Phase 2 only if needed (forecasting workflow, variance reporting, and payments/cash pooling as optional).

The benefits were framed in the way CFOs approve

They didn’t try to force everything into a single ROI metric. They used four conservative buckets:

• Hard savings: bank fee reduction through account rationalisation, fewer exception fees, reduced audit/compliance effort
• Productivity: time saved on daily cash positioning, month-end reporting, exposure reporting, portal admin (converted conservatively)
• Working capital and liquidity: lower idle cash buffers, fewer emergency transfers, modelled as scenarios
• Risk reduction: fraud prevention via approvals/limits/audit trails, reduced spreadsheet error risk, improved segregation of duties and audit readiness

Then they removed procurement friction with a straightforward Total Cost of Ownership view: Year 1 costs (subscription + implementation + connectivity), run-rate, internal effort, ongoing support, and a comparison to the cost of doing nothing.

The outcome: approval with clarity

What ultimately got approved wasn’t “a TMS”.

It was a control layer for a treasury operation that had outgrown spreadsheets. The CFO could see exactly what Phase 1 would deliver, how success would be measured, and why the current risk wasn’t worth carrying.

In environments with multiple banks and high account volumes, that’s the real shift: treasury becomes governed and decision-ready, not spreadsheet-dependent.

How TreasuryONE helps

If this story feels familiar, TreasuryONE can help you build a CFO-ready business case that’s grounded in your reality, not generic promises.

We typically support clients by:

• Mapping the current “Excel tax” with evidence (time, process steps, controls, risks)
• Defining a tight Phase 1 scope that’s safe to approve and quick to deliver
• Building a conservative benefits model (savings, productivity, liquidity, risk reduction)
• Packaging it into an executive-ready approval pack with clear KPIs and Total Cost of Ownership

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