Treasury management is an umbrella term which encompasses several functions involved in managing an enterprise’s holdings. The ultimate goal of treasury management is to optimise financial liquidity, minimise risk, and drive value creation.

In a nutshell, treasury management is there to ensure that the business always has access to the cash required to operate, and uses surplus cash efficiently.

For more information on the specific sub-functions of treasury management, see our information pages using the links above.

Treasury management and cash management are two terms which are sometimes used interchangeably – particularly by smaller enterprises – but do, in fact, perform separate functions.

Cash management is narrower in scope than treasury management and only deals with maximising the amount of available cash at any given time. Treasury management includes several other functions beyond this.

Centralised and decentralised treasury departments refer to the level of autonomy each regional branch of an enterprise has in handling its own treasury operations.

In a centralised model, all of the treasury operations of the different regional branches of a multinational company are controlled by a central location – usually the headquarters of the business.

In a decentralised model, each branch has its own treasury department and controls its own finances. Each model has comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. This article provides some more insight on these advantages and disadvantages.