Updated: October 2026 · Author: QLM · Reading time: 8 minutes
Nine in the morning. Someone in the finance team logs into the first bank’s online portal, downloads the statement and repeats the process with every bank the company works with. Then they match the transactions against the accounting records in a spreadsheet. By the time they finally have the day’s cash position, it is mid-morning and the information is already starting to go out of date.
This scene plays out every day in thousands of companies. It is not a problem of talent or effort, but of manual processes. In this article we look at which treasury tasks take up the most time, how to estimate their real cost and which processes can be automated with treasury management software.
The manual treasury tasks that take up the most time
Manual treasury tasks are the repetitive activities the finance team carries out by hand to know, control and plan the company’s liquidity. The most common are:
- Downloading bank statements from each online banking portal, one by one and in different formats.
- Matching bank transactions against accounting entries, customer invoices and supplier payments.
- Posting recurring transactions: fees, interest, card collections, direct debits and transfers.
- Updating the cash flow forecast in spreadsheets with data from the ERP and the banks.
- Controlling financing: loan maturities, credit line limits, reverse factoring (confirming), factoring, guarantees or leasing, and interest calculation.
- Preparing bank position reports for the finance department or the board of directors.
On its own, each task seems minor. The problem is that they are repeated every day, multiplied by the number of banks and companies, and depend on a specific person being available to carry them out.
How much manual treasury costs your company
To size the problem, here is an illustrative example: a mid-sized company that works with five banks and manages its treasury manually. The times are indicative; replace them with your team’s to get your own estimate.
| Manual task | Estimated time | Hours per month* |
|---|---|---|
| Downloading statements from 5 banks | 5 min per bank per day | 8.75 h |
| Reconciling bank transactions | 30 min per day | 10.5 h |
| Posting recurring transactions | 1 h per day | 21 h |
| Preparing the daily bank position | 30 min per day | 10.5 h |
| Updating the cash flow forecast | 3 h per week | 13 h |
| Monitoring loans, credit lines and interest | 4 h per month | 4 h |
| Total | ≈ 68 h/month |
* Based on 21 working days per month. Illustrative example: actual times depend on transaction volume, the number of banks and the number of companies managed.
In this example, manual treasury takes up around 68 hours a month, more than 40% of one full-time employee’s working time, spent on tasks that add no value.
The costs that don’t show up in the table
On top of the hours spent, there are indirect costs with an equal or greater impact:
- Human errors when copying data or matching items, which then take extra hours to track down.
- Decisions based on outdated information, because the cash position arrives late.
- Dependence on key people: if the person who reconciles is unavailable, the process stops.
- Security risks from sharing online banking credentials among several people.
- Slower month-end closes due to items pending reconciliation.
Seven signs your treasury needs to be automated
Before evaluating a solution, it is worth checking how much these problems affect your organisation:
- You work with three or more banks or with several companies.
- Knowing the day’s cash position takes you more than 30 minutes.
- Bank reconciliation piles up and delays the month-end close.
- The cash flow forecast depends on a spreadsheet that only one person understands.
- Several people share online banking credentials.
- You have been caught out by a maturity date or a credit line limit.
- Preparing the liquidity reports requested by management takes hours.
If you recognise two or more, your team is spending time on manual tasks that could go into analysis, negotiating with banks and planning.
Five processes you can automate with KAT Treasury
KAT Treasury is the treasury management software developed by QLM. It is designed to eliminate the finance department’s repetitive tasks and provide reliable information for decision-making. These are the five processes it automates:
1. Automatic retrieval of bank information
KAT Treasury receives the balances and transactions of all accounts at all banks every day, with no manual intervention. To do so, it uses EDItran, the communication system accepted by 100% of Spanish banks, as well as banking APIs, SWIFT and standard formats such as Norma 43, MT940, MT950 and intraday balances.
Tasks it eliminates: logging into each online banking portal, downloading files and sharing passwords. Find out more in our guide to bank aggregation.
2. Reconciliation and posting of transactions
Using configurable rules and multi-bank reconciliation algorithms, KAT Treasury automatically matches more than 90% of bank transactions and posts them to the ERP (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, Business Central or Sage). It also automatically clears customer and supplier invoices against their collections and payments, and keeps a complete audit trail.
Tasks it eliminates: manual matching in spreadsheets and entering repetitive journal entries. The team only reviews exceptions. See also: automated treasury management with KAT Treasury.
3. Cash flow forecasting
Forecasts are fed automatically with the receivables and payables portfolio from the ERP, financing maturities and other external sources. You can work with multiple scenarios and analyse the variances between forecast and actual figures to progressively improve the accuracy of your projections.
Tasks it eliminates: rebuilding the forecast every week in complex spreadsheets that are hard to maintain.
4. Financing and investment management
KAT Treasury centralises all financial products: loans, credit lines, reverse factoring (confirming), factoring, guarantees, leasing, renting, deposits and foreign exchange transactions. It automatically generates amortisation schedules, calculates interest and alerts you to upcoming maturities.
Tasks it eliminates: scattered contract tracking and manual calculation of interest and available limits.
5. Global bank position monitoring
All bank information is consolidated into an up-to-date global bank position: balances by bank, account, company and currency, along with how they evolve over time. With the Power BI dashboard, the finance department has its key indicators at hand without waiting for anyone to prepare a report.
Tasks it eliminates: preparing the position report by hand every morning. See how it works in global bank position with KAT Treasury.
Manual treasury vs. automated treasury
The following table summarises the change that automating each process brings:
| Process | Manual treasury | With KAT Treasury |
|---|---|---|
| Bank information | Daily download from each online banking portal | Automatic receipt via EDItran, API or SWIFT |
| Reconciliation | Matching in spreadsheets, item by item | More than 90% automatic; only exceptions are reviewed |
| Accounting | Manual entry of journal entries | Automatic rule-based posting to the ERP |
| Forecasting | Spreadsheet rebuilt every week | ERP-fed scenarios and variance analysis |
| Financing | Scattered contracts and manual calculations | Automatic amortisation schedules and interest |
| Bank position | Manual report available mid-morning | Up-to-date global position and dashboard |
| Traceability | Hard to audit | Complete record of every transaction |
How to start automating your treasury in four steps
- Measure your starting point. Use the example table to estimate how many hours your team spends on manual tasks each month.
- Prioritise processes. The usual approach is to start with bank information and reconciliation, which are the most time-consuming processes.
- Connect banks and ERP. KAT Treasury integrates with financial institutions (EDItran, API, SWIFT) and with the ERP through native connectors.
- Define rules and improve continuously. Set up the reconciliation and posting rules and review exceptions regularly to increase the level of automation.
Weighing up your options? Read our guide on how to choose treasury management software.
Frequently asked questions
Which treasury tasks can be automated?
Downloading bank information, bank reconciliation, posting transactions, clearing invoices, updating forecasts, monitoring loans and credit lines, and preparing bank position reports.
How much time can you save by automating treasury?
It depends on the number of banks, companies and transactions. In a mid-sized company with five banks, manual tasks can amount to around 70 hours a month. With KAT Treasury, bank information is received automatically and more than 90% of reconciliation is carried out without manual intervention, so the team spends most of that time reviewing exceptions and analysing.
Does automating treasury replace the finance team?
No. Automation eliminates repetitive tasks, but the team’s judgement remains essential for reviewing exceptions, negotiating with banks, deciding on financing and planning liquidity. The team moves from entering data to analysing it.
Is it safe to connect your banks to treasury software?
Yes, as long as secure banking protocols are used. With EDItran or banking APIs, information is received directly from the bank’s servers, without sharing online banking passwords, and every transaction is logged for auditing.
Does KAT Treasury integrate with my ERP?
Yes. KAT Treasury has connectors for SAP (including SAP Business One), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, Dynamics 365 Business Central and Sage, among others. The integration is bidirectional: it receives data from the ERP and returns the generated journal entries.
Conclusion: fewer manual processes, more information to make decisions
Manual treasury has a hidden cost: hours of repetitive work, errors and decisions made with yesterday’s data. Automating bank information retrieval, reconciliation, forecasting, financing management and position monitoring lets the team spend its time on what really adds value: optimising liquidity and planning the company’s financial future.
KAT Treasury is a flexible and robust platform already used by more than 500 organisations, from mid-sized companies to multinational groups.
