Futureproof Your Financial Health

This guide provides a model for getting ahead and best practices to help you take stock of your company’s financial health. It also aims to demonstrate how visibility, control, and financial performance affect financial health, and it introduces a way to maximize business value through harmonizing a broad range of spend and liquidity-related processes.

First, they create flexibility by bringing their balance sheets in order. Second, they prepare sooner, respond faster, and commit to cutting costs with greater precision. And third, they prioritize growth-especially in countercyclical sectors-even if the initial price tag is higher.

The first stage, Stage 0, is the Reactive Stage, during which a company depends on manual processes to manage finances. During Stage 1, the Operationalized Stage, the company begins to digitize operations and implement online payments and touchless payments. In Stage 2, the Orchestrated State, the company has progressed to AI-driven screening for fraud, payments optimized for working capital, and strong cybersecurity. Finally, in the Optimized Stage, Stage 3, companies are employing intelligent, proactive financial forecasting, can view cash flows in real-time, focus AP and Treasury on strategic projects, and have the agility to withstand disruptions.