Real-Time Treasury Tools No Longer Just for the Big Guys

Watch more: Mid-Market Firms Gain Enterprise-Grade Treasury Tech as Finance Goes Instant

Technology has pulled the world into a more efficient, digital future. That’s been great news for the treasury function.

In the not-so-distant past, the corporate treasury function was largely viewed as administrative — a necessary but isolated domain responsible for managing liquidity, executing payments and ensuring the financial machinery of the enterprise operated without friction. It was risk-averse by nature, reactive by design, and often left out of the strategic planning conversation.

But today, that paradigm is being rewritten.

“We are definitely seeing an increase in the velocity of both money movement and decision making,” Albert Acevedo, head of banking and treasury services at Priority, told PYMNTS. “Everything from DoorDash to Amazon has taught us that instant gratification is what we need. In the financial world, particularly in treasury, we’re being forced to match that speed.”

The primary catalyst for this ongoing back-office change is the convergence of real-time data analytics, embedded finance technologies and advanced automation. Together, these forces are driving treasury into a new era where financial visibility is instant, decisions are made with data at the core, and liquidity is no longer just a safety net but a lever for growth.

“Treasury is no longer a static reporting function,” Acevedo said. “It’s embedded in the operational DNA of the business. Cash forecasting used to be a weekly or monthly activity. Now it’s daily, often intraday. You need to know precisely where your cash is, how it’s moving, and whether the funding source and payment type align in the moment.”

Today’s treasury function is faster, smarter, more embedded and more strategic than ever before. The business landscape’s need for speed is driving deeper integration between treasury systems and operational platforms — through APIs, cloud-native enterprise resource planning (ERP) and artificial intelligence-driven analytics. Real-time dashboards provide treasury professionals with instant access to liquidity positions, transaction flows and risk exposures, enabling them to act with precision and foresight, Acevedo said.

Perhaps the most transformative development is the rise of embedded finance — the integration of payments, banking and treasury functions directly into business workflows and digital platforms.

“Increasingly, treasury is no longer a standalone function,” Acevedo said. “It’s woven into the user experience, into how a company engages customers, manages vendors and monetizes its products.”

He called this shift “solutioning,” noting that it’s a move away from point products like isolated banking or acquiring platforms.

Acevedo pointed to Prisma, a property management software company, as a case study in how embedded finance creates seamlessness. Tenants pay rent or request maintenance through the same portal. Beyond usability, embedded finance opens new monetization avenues. Subscription models can bundle transaction services into software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing, increasing customer stickiness and smoothing revenue.

“The finance is happening in the background,” he said. “But what they’re selling is that user experience… It becomes less of a commodity.”

Rather than building payment and banking infrastructure in-house, many businesses are now using platform providers like Priority to handle the complexity of global payments, compliance and currency conversion.

“In a market where agility is everything, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” Acevedo said. “You want to plug into infrastructure that allows you to move fast, stay compliant and deliver value to your customers.”

The elephant in the treasury room? Manual processes still plague many organizations, particularly those that have grown through acquisition or operate with decentralized systems.

“Manual workflows are dangerous in high-speed environments,” Acevedo said. “They create single points of failure and drag down operational agility.”

Modern treasury teams are responding with intelligent automation, and not just to streamline tasks but to enhance accuracy, control and scalability. Rather than relying on robotic process automation alone, organizations are integrating their treasury operations with enterprise data systems such as ERPs, customer relationship management and banking platforms to ensure consistency and traceability.

As treasury becomes digitized, the stakes around cybersecurity and compliance skyrocket.

“Know where your money is,” Acevedo said. “Understand counterparty risk. Know which banks you’re using and where the funds sit.”

To that end, Priority itself emphasizes reconciliation at the transaction level, he said. This kind of transparency is essential for detecting anomalies early and mitigating damage.

“At every given point in time, you can log in and say, ‘This is what’s going on,’” Acevedo said.

Security isn’t just about protecting funds, however; it’s also about safeguarding data.

“No one wants to be sending out that notification that, ‘We got breached,’” Acevedo said, adding that this is where certifications like SOC 1, SOC 2, PCI and HIPAA come into play. “It gives you assurance there was a process in place to protect both your data as well as any fraud risks.”

Historically, these capabilities were limited to Fortune 1000 companies with deep benches of finance professionals. Mid-sized businesses lacked the budget, technical resources or treasury talent to compete at that level. That, too, is changing, he said.

Cloud-native platforms and modular treasury solutions are making enterprise-grade capabilities accessible to the middle market through user-friendly interfaces, low-code configurations and consultative support.

“Technology is leveling the playing field,” Acevedo said. “We’re bringing treasury sophistication down to smaller merchants, helping them optimize cash, manage returns risk and accelerate receivables.”

For middle-market chief financial officers, treasury is no longer a function to outsource or ignore, he said. It is a core lever for improving margin, reducing working capital strain and enabling digital transformation.

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