Cash flow management tracks and controls how much cash enters and leaves a business's accounts.
It helps businesses maintain healthy amounts of working capital and liquidity.
Cash flow management also sets the foundation for growth and expansion.
Here are some typical tasks involved in cash flow management:
FP&A teams need to monitor, analyze, and optimize their company's cash to make accurate forecasts about the future.
Cash management ensures that a business always has the necessary cash to pay its expenses.
Expenses might include:
When a business cannot pay its expenses, it goes insolvent.
A multi-currency account is a bank account that allows consumers (or companies) to hold multiple currencies in one account.
Multi-currency accounts get complex because the exchange rates between currencies are always fluctuating.
So when you're managing cash in multi-currency accounts, the amount of cash you have isn't always stable.
Your accounting software will typically translate your cash from different currencies into a standardized format. You can then import that into Excel and build your reports.
Cash flow forecasting estimates a company's future cash flow. FP&A teams and CFOs forecast cash flow to ensure a business never runs out of cash and becomes insolvent.
In cash flow management, you're concerned with the present state of the business.
But with cash flow forecasting, you analyze historical data to estimate your future needs.
Cash flow management software helps you manage your business's past, present, and future cash flows.
These solutions automatically connect income statement and balance sheet information from your accounting software and organize it into cash flow statements and reports, making it easy to uncover real-time insights into the nuances of your cash flow.
Cash flow forecasting software is similar to cash management software.
The best cash flow management software will also have cash flow forecasting capabilities to help you manage cash in the future.
These solutions also allow you to forecast cash flow into the future across multiple what-if scenarios so that you can evaluate various potential outcomes simultaneously.
Not sold on the benefits of cash flow management software?
Here are some of the best benefits of using cash management tools:
Easy to see the impact of net income on your cash flow statement.
A tool like Cube gives you two quick options to set this up: you can import this data from the spreadsheet or set up logic in the back end to automatically propagate it.
For example, you buy a new piece of equipment and want to see how its depreciation affects your ending cash balance.
Based on the logic you've built into Cube, you can expect the status of current and future assets to populate directly on your cash flow statement.
The more accurate and up-to-date your cash flow data is, the better financial decisions you can make.
By using cash flow software, you can be sure you always see an accurate and up-to-date view of how much cash is flowing into and out of your business.
The better your cash flow management is, the better financial decisions you can make. Knowing exactly how much cash is available can make or break some businesses.
It also helps you make more profitable business decisions.
A cash management system is one of the best ways to stay on top of your company's bank accounts.
As a decision-maker within an organization, saving time and money are always two things high on your list of priorities.
Integrating cash flow management software is an easy way to score quick wins by saving employee time by automating the processes involved in managing your cash flow.
Convinced that you lack good cash flow management software in your organization? As you’ll see from the 6 tools below, these benefits just scraped the surface of what good finance software is capable of.
Here’s a closer look at some of the best cash flow management tools on the market:
Cash flow management requires a lot of communication between different tools. While Excel is a match made in heaven for finance teams, it's not without issues.
The biggest? A lack of communication between other tools. If your cash flow data lives in an ERP, your Excel models aren't updated unless the tools can communicate.
Enter the cash flow management solution.
These are the top N cash flow management platforms, with their key features, benefits, pricing, and more details.
Cube is a next-generation FP&A platform that provides dynamic financial planning solutions. From preparing cash flows to scenario analysis and everything in between—Cube provides a robust solution to all your cash management processes in one place.
This platform is the only software to automatically transfer data from any spreadsheet into a multi-dimensional database.
All you need to do is connect all of your essential data sources to Cube, then its intelligent mapping transforms your data into a single source of truth that you can analyze, share, and derive insights from.
Key features
Integrations
Don't see what you're looking for? View all Cube integrations.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Our pricing is entirely transparent. We have three packages:
Visit our pricing page for more details.
Vena Solutions is a cloud-based financial planning and cash management system that enables financial teams to handle all of their financial data better.
This software has many solutions and tools to help facilitate better financial planning, cash flow management, financial reporting, and more.
Used by some of the largest global brands like Nando’s, Nike, and Neovia, Vena provides a powerful suite of FP&A tools.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Vena doesn’t provide any set monthly pricing information. They offer a 7-day preview and will give you a demo of their software to help you decide if you contact them.
Cube embraces your existing models. You can customize your cash reporting in Cube with an ease that's impossible within Vena.
Modifying your templates or models is easier with Cube. We'll never charge you for support, whereas Vena makes money on their fee-based consultative business structure.
Scenario modeling is more intuitive in Cube because we integrate with Excel and Google without heavy coding language baked into our templates.
Anaplan is a cloud-native cash management app that helps orchestrate better business performance.
It’s designed to help businesses of all sizes solve financial-related challenges. Using the suite of tools in the Anaplan platform, users can streamline financial processes and better understand everything from day-to-day cash flow to complex financial solutions.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Anaplan has four different pricing plans, although they do not have any set pricing plans. You’ll need to talk with a member of their team to work out a custom plan that meets your needs.
Named by Gartner as a Leader in the Cloud FP&A Magic Quadrant Report, Adaptive Planning by Workday is an enterprise-level budgeting and financial planning software.
This software facilitates financial planning and collaboration across an entire organization without needing spreadsheets and other manual processes.
You can easily create budgets and forecasts, run scenarios, and track expenses and sales. You can As well as create custom cash flow schedules and sheets.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Workday Adaptive Planning does not make any pricing plans public. They offer free trials and demos of their software and will work out a custom quote if you reach out to their team.
Planful is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis platform. Used by some large organizations like the Boston Red Sox and TGI Fridays, Planful is a robust solution for cash flow analysis and continuous planning.
The platform is split into structured planning, dynamic planning, consolidation, and reporting.
These elements take you through all the FP&A stages you need to get visibility into your financials and make informed decisions.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Planful doesn’t make any pricing plan public. You’ll need to reach out to their sales team for a quote.
Planful's back-end interface is difficult to manage, so you may not have as much flexibility in changing your model structures or pre-built account hierarchies.
But Cube keeps your existing models and back-end logic because you're still working in Excel, so you can make changes like usual.
Centage is a cloud-based intelligent planning, budgeting, and forecasting platform. This software delivers a sophisticated financial intelligence tool that helps organizations of any size better manage their financial data.
With clear visibility of financial health and intelligent insights, Centage helps organizations make faster decisions.
This software has a robust suite of financial tools, an intuitive UI, a long list of integrations with other tools, and much more.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Centage does not provide any set pricing plans. You can get a quote and see a demo of the software by reaching out to their sales team.
Abacum is an FP&A tool that helps finance teams at mid-market companies create faster revenue forecasts and OPEX breakdowns.
They're a cloud-based tool that gets you out of Excel and into their planning platform.
Abacum maintains office locations in New York City and Barcelona. We were unable to determine if they offer multilingual support.
Image source: Abacum website (retrieved June 2023)
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Abacum does not have transparent pricing. You'll need to contact their Sales team to get more information.
As a web-based solution, Abacum requires ripping and replacing your existing Excel models and comes with a learning curve.
But Cube facilitates everything you need to do in the spreadsheet and lets you keep your existing account hierarchies and custom-built reports.
Causal lets you build and share financial models with interactive, visual dashboards. It's mostly a modeling and reporting platform geared toward small businesses.
It uses plan-English formulae to build models out of variables, making them easier for non-finance folks to understand.
Causal integrates with Excel and Google Sheets but you won't be working in spreadsheets with Causal. Instead, you'll use their UI.
Image source: Causal website (retrieved June 2023)
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Causal has three pricing tiers.
As of December 2022, we could not validate that Casual has transactional drill-down capabilities, which is essential when analyzing your cash flow. Likewise, as a web-based solution, Causal comes pre-built with some rigid templates that, while helpful, some organizations might outgrow more quickly than anticipated.
But Cube keeps you where you're comfortable, has transactional drill-down in Excel and Google Sheets, and gives you extreme power over your reporting.
Tesorio is an "A/R Cash Flow Performance Platform" designed to replace cash flow forecasting and collections processes.
Its key value is allowing teams to collect cash faster. Tesorio synchronizes with ERP systems so that nothing slips through the cracks.
Tesorio isn't a complete FP&A platform and gets your cash flow management out of spreadsheets, so that's a consideration for scaling teams.
Image source: G2
Pros
Cons
Pricing
We couldn't find any pricing for Tesorio, so you'll have to talk to their Sales team.
Cube vs. Tesorio
Tesorio is more of an accounting system, so it's not for planning. Tesorio is for actual cash management; it won't help you with cash forecasting or using those insights to plan or budget.
Tesorio and Cube are fundamentally different use cases, but Cube is more extensive and powerful while facilitating and extending much of what you get with Tesorio. There's certainly a world where you could use both tools to complement each other.
Prophix is a cloud-based financial performance platform that helps companies budget, consolidate data, plan, and report.
Like many other tools on this list, Prophix is designed to rip and replace the spreadsheet with new software.
They're based in Ontario, Canada.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
We were unable to find Prophix pricing on their website. Instead, interested parties must request a demo to get a quote.
HighRadius is a fintech enterprise SaaS company that sells AI-based technology to help companies automate their cash management processes.
They offer solutions for autonomous receivables and autonomous treasury.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
We could not find HighRadius pricing on their website, so interested parties should request a demo with their sales team.
Jirav is a driver-based planning tool that replaces your Excel model. Jirav has cash flow analysis and forecasting capabilities, so it's an option for teams who want a different approach to their cash management.
Jirav is best for small-to-medium-sized businesses that aren't reliant on their Excel models.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Jirav has three pricing tiers: Starter, Pro, and Enterprise. Additional fees may apply.
It's super easy to dynamically compare scenarios in Cube, whereas Jirav can feel more limiting. As a bonus, Cube has unlimited scenarios, but with Jirav you'll need to pay extra.
Unfortunately, Jirav doesn't integrate with Excel, so you're stuck in their web portal. This contributes to higher implementation costs and longer timelines; you'll need to rebuild your back-end logic in Jirav.
SAP Cash Management is part of the larger SAP ecosystem.
It's a powerful cash management platform, but teams not already using SAP might find that the cost outweighs the benefits.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Kolleno is a "smart credit control platform" and automated accounts receivable solution for businesses looking to streamline their financial operations.
It helps finance teams with payment processing, improved credit control, and accuracy in their accounts.
Image source: Kolleno
Pros
Cons
Pricing
Kolleno has 4 pricing tiers but doesn't list any prices on its website. You'll need to request a quote if you're interested in their Standard, Advanced, or Custom plans.
There is a free tier called Free.
PlanGuru is a planning tool for budgeting, forecasting, and performance review for small and mid-sized companies.
It integrates with Quickbooks and Excel, making it easy to use and use for cash management.
Pros
Cons
Pricing
PlanGuru offers two pricing tiers:
In the realm of financial planning and analysis, choosing the right cash flow software stands as a critical decision with profound implications for a company's efficiency and decision-making processes.
A user-friendly interface tops the list, enhancing adoption and productivity by reducing the learning curve. Seamless integration with existing systems is equally crucial, preventing data silos and ensuring a unified financial ecosystem.
Accurate forecasting capabilities are paramount, and the software's ability to provide real-time data access is a game-changer, allowing for agile cash management strategies.
Customization options are key to tailoring the software to unique business needs, while robust security measures, scalability, and automation features contribute to a comprehensive solution that evolves with the company's growth.
Lastly, cost-effectiveness is a fundamental consideration, encompassing licensing fees, implementation costs, and additional expenses.
By meticulously evaluating these aspects, businesses can make an informed choice, aligning their cash flow software with both current requirements and future financial success.
As you can see from the above tools, cash flow management doesn’t need to be a challenge or a chore.
With Cube, you can seamlessly align your financial planning and analysis with real-time cash flow insights, transforming a potentially challenging task into a smooth and efficient experience.
Its user-friendly interface, comprehensive integration capabilities, and advanced forecasting features make Cube a standout choice for businesses seeking not just a software solution but a strategic ally in optimizing their financial operations.
Book a demo today to see how Cube can transform your approach to cash flow management.