Cloud treasury management solutions on the rise

Treasury teams use technology to control the financial operations across their ever-changing organizations. A treasury management solution (TMS) helps them automate cash management, cash forecasting, financial risk management, commodities management, hedge accounting, and compliance reporting.

As companies grow, they enter new markets, sell new products, open new entities, or buy other companies. They need to review their structures, processes, and technology. Often financial professionals often find it challenging to adapt their systems to their new needs. Certainly, cloud treasury management technology can help here. In this blog post, you will learn about the benefits of the cloud and what cloud options ION Treasury offers.

Why choose a cloud treasury management solution?

Overall, cloud solutions are gaining popularity. According to Gartner forecasts, end-user spending on public cloud services reached $396 billion in 2021 and will grow 21.7% in 2022. Also, by 2026, Gartner predicts public cloud spending will exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spending, up from less than 17% in 2021.

In general, there are several cloud options, including private, public, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). ION supports solutions and clients for all three types of cloud across its leading commodity and treasury management solutions. Most of our customers choose the public cloud, our ION Cloud offering, when migrating their existing on-premises software or buying a new TMS.

Evidently, the public cloud is the most efficient IT environment, when you look at factors like cost, maintenance, and security. Here are the key benefits of the ION Cloud:

1. Tight security: Security in the ION Cloud is controlled and monitored in accordance with an audited SSAE18/ISAE3402 framework. We encrypt all your stored data and communication to and from the ION Cloud. So, your data is safe with ION.
2. Continuous support: ION takes care of operations and management 24/7/365. We monitor the infrastructure and the main cyclical activities in the production environment, including automated import and export processes, all in real time.
3. Lower cost, higher performance: On average, the ION Cloud cuts the total cost of ownership (TCO) by 10–30% and boosts performance by 50–200%. If you run your commodity or treasury management solution in the ION Cloud, you need little IT resources. So, you can allocate your resources better and grow at scale.

What makes SaaS a great choice?

With SaaS, all users are on the same, single version of their treasury management solution. Because of this one-to-many delivery model, ION rolls the software out to the entire user community at once. A SaaS TMS is easy to buy, implement, use, and update. Here are the key benefits:

1. High scalability: Because of the multi-tenant design of SaaS, ION hosts a community of users and can pass the economies of scale directly on to you. You pay one, predictable annual subscription fee with no hidden costs. Your subscription already includes upgrades, data, integrated services, security, and more. In addition, you pay as you go, so you control your subscription as your business needs grow.
2. Smooth updates: With SaaS, updates come with standard service and are rolled out across your global environment at pre-defined periods. Because everyone is on the same version of the application, you don’t need to invest time or money to keep in sync with market demands. ION invests resources in research and development and is responsible for quality assurance and testing. This leaves you time to focus on what’s important.
3. Easy connectivity: SaaS solutions are designed from inception to be open. They are easy to integrate with other services and solutions. They are flexible and highly configurable to meet your individual needs. As SaaS provider, ION integrates and maintains all interfaces for you. Thus, you can meet your treasury needs without the cost and hassle of maintaining disparate systems, relationships, and contracts.

ION Treasury offers two SaaS solutions: Treasura is a cash and liquidity management SaaS solution. It helps North American companies move off spreadsheets. Reval is a highly scalable, comprehensive, and integrated treasury and risk management SaaS solution. It’s ideal for global finance teams that need to adapt rapidly to changing business environments.

How to move to the cloud?

Cloud solutions provide an environment optimized for continuous innovation, scalability, and flexibility. Above all, they can help you enhance your business performance and respond to market pressures with greater agility.

If you are considering buying a cloud TMS, ION Treasury will help you navigate the differences between the different cloud offerings. We’ll explore your needs for managing hardware, software, system integration, upgrades, security, data, disaster recovery, and more.

If you are already using a treasury system from ION Treasury, our team will also assist you in your migration journey. We follow a proven cloud migration process that has ensured a smooth transition for more than 1,100 ION Commodities and Treasury users.

To summarize, cloud technology makes it easy for treasuries to keep up with the pace of change. With a cloud TMS, teams can quickly take control of enterprise-wide cash flows and risk positions. That’s why more and more treasury teams are migrating to the cloud.