Kyriba Live 2020 wrapped up February 26 in sunny Las Vegas. As a Kyriba Platinum Plus partner, MorganFranklin also was honored to be a Silver Sponsor of the event. For those not able to attend, it was informative, interesting and worth the trip.
There were three big takeaways we took from Kyriba Live 2020:
- Kyriba Essentials has been launched to a previously underserved market.
- Payment fraud is alive and well, and companies need to protect against it.
- Foreign Exchange (FX) volatility is becoming more relevant, especially with the amount of cash companies are keeping on hand and increasing, cross-country risks (e.g., the coronavirus).
What is Kyriba Essentials?
Kyriba saw a need in the market to help companies that have only a few banks and bank accounts, but still struggle with cash management, cash forecasting, reporting, and accounting. To meet their needs, Kyriba came up with Kyriba Essentials Cash & Liquidity Management, which provides the core banking, cash forecasting, in-house banking, bank reporting, and cash-accounting features for a fixed monthly price as long as there are no more than three banks that need to be connected to the system. Because there would be fewer banks to connect with, implementation time would be significantly reduced from three to six months to one to three months, depending on complexity and bank responsiveness.
For companies as described above that also have a large volume of payments and are looking to minimize payment costs, Kyriba offers a slimmed-down payments module that also can be added to the above package an additional fee. This payment hub provides a payment factory, fraud detection, and payment connections to one bank.
Kyriba Essential Cash & Liquidity Management and Payments can be purchased together for less than a quarter of what an average treasury FTE would cost. For those logging into multiple bank portals and struggling with reporting and spreadsheets, this solution can add significant efficiencies, free up more time to analyze cash inflows and outflows, and allow treasury departments to provide insight and guidance as they move closer to a strategic advisor. Using Kyriba Essentials also allows treasury departments to potentially produce hard-dollar savings through better cash forecasting and lower cash-cushion requirements in bank accounts. This cash can then be invested in higher-returning liquid investments that are paid out as dividends and interest or invested in new projects and businesses.
Nobody Likes Fraud
For CFOs charged with safeguarding corporate coffers, getting hit with fraud can seem personal. Most CFOs know that you can’t stop fraudsters from trying to misappropriate assets from your company, but you can take measures to help stop or at least mitigate such efforts.
At the top of the list of protection strategies is a strong technology platform that provides dedicated fraud detection and monitoring. Many companies, however, already have a functioning Treasury Management System (TMS) or payment process and don’t have an immediate need for all the benefits offered by a system like Kyriba.
This year, Kyriba is focusing on helping these companies by offering its payments module on a stand-alone basis. This includes real-time fraud detection and standardized controls for all payments (especially manual, emergency, and exception payments) that can be installed on top of any system currently in use. In addition to the fraud-prevention benefits, having a system like Kyriba’s payment module reduces costs and implementation time when moving payments to the cloud, and can reduce costs and fees by making a company’s payments more agile, scalable, and innovative.
Foreign-Exchange Risk
So far this year, the U.S. dollar (USD) has strengthened as a mix of continued good economic data and panic elsewhere over trade and disease (e.g., coronavirus) have boosted the safety of holding USD positions over all else. The more a company’s revenue comes from outside the U.S., the larger the risk. For publicly traded companies, the markets are aware of the effects foreign-currency exchange rates have on earnings and can penalize their stock price for not mitigating it effectively.
Your company’s foreign-exchange risk can be managed. The first step is to understand the impact of currency volatility on your company’s EPS and develop your risk profile (tolerance to EPS volatility). This can be accomplished by asking the following questions:
- Does your company currently manage FX exposure and the associated risks? Why or why not?
- Does your company know its FX exposure by country and currency?
- Is it comfortable with how foreign currency fluctuations have impacted its past earnings and is it ready to report that to outside stakeholders (bankers and investors)?
Based on the size of your FX exposure and your risk profile, you can organically reduce net currency exposure (or hedge it) for the balance sheet and cash flow using Kyriba’s FireApps. As an added benefit, depending on whom you choose as your bank partner, you may be able to get FireApps at no cost.
Conclusion
There were so many great takeaways from this conference that it’s hard to talk about just three. Kyriba Live 2020 was definitely an event worth attending, but for those who did not have had a chance to go, visit Kyriba Live 2020 and select Agenda to watch some of its great presentations.
We look forward to seeing you all at Kyriba Live 2021!
