Do You Know the Language of Bank Billing?

There are over 50,000 bank fee service descriptions used across banks to describe cash management charges. Compare that to the English language which has a little over 170,000 words and you have almost one-third of a new language that you must learn to monitor bank fees! These fees can add up quickly especially if you use multiple banks with hundreds of accounts in multiple countries. The monthly monitoring of bank fees will typically save 5%-10% in errors alone, according to Greenwich Associates.  However, it is hard to do this when you receive files in non-standard formats or you are told by your international banks that information on the fees you were charged is simply not available. Even when you do receive the information from your banks, you then have to decipher the information into a standardized format in order to gain visibility into what is happening. After deciphering each bank’s fee system you then have to analyze all the data. No wonder this is a dreaded task of finance and treasury departments around the world.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be automatically notified when something is incorrect in a statement? HawkeyeBSB does just that. It scrutinizes each line item to validate every service, price, volume, charge, and rate to an established baseline, which speeds up the recovery of incorrect fees. HawkeyeBSB gives you accessibility into the billing statements from each of your banks, granting you visibility into many aspects of your entire cash management operation.   The system also gives you accountability with your banks by automatically identifying more than twenty categories of common statement errors. Finally, the powerful tools in HawkeyeBSB give you the power of predictability, by forecasting and modeling what the future of your fees will be.  HawkeyeBSB gives you all of these abilities that are missing from your treasury today.

HawkeyeBSB was designed with the needs of corporate finance and treasury departments in mind. With this solution, there is no need for additional IT professionals since the software is hosted in a secure SaaS environment and can be accessed from a variety of devices. HawkeyeBSB knows the bank billing language because it is an innovative solution developed by Redbridge Analytics’ team of experts with more than 50 years of experience working with Fortune 1000 and Eurostoxx 50 companies.

According to a Greenwich Associates article, the top 3 priorities for finance and treasury departments are

• Automation- standardizing data, automating data to improve processes.
• Reduction- reducing the number of open accounts reduces the number of fees.
• Future Needs- predicting cash flow and liquidity needs.

A recent Treasury Today article cited “data has the power to transform the role of the modern treasurer.”  The article continues to describe the new role of treasury teams as responsible for “pinpointing problems across the organization, quantify the value of solving these, and then use these insights to become a center of innovation within the organization.” HawkeyeBSB was developed with these needs in mind. With this solution, treasurers can model and predict future bank fees, manage business expansion plans, improve budgeting accuracy, and enhance the negotiation position.

The importance of bank billing data is showcased in Redbridge Analytics’ case study of Air Liquide’s engagement regarding their need for a global view of cash management. Air Liquide had recently acquired a business in the United States and wanted to analyze the cash management activities while automating the bank fee monitoring process. HawkeyeBSB gave Air Liquide a fine-tuned view of 80% of their bank fees worldwide which spanned over 40 countries, the ability to identify bank billing anomalies increased, and streamlined the monitoring process. “The rich data provided by HawkeyeBSB on bank billing statements gives us a sharp focus on the performance of our bank relationships and the treasury operations of all our entities” Jacques Molgo VP, Corporate Finance & Treasury. To read the full case study click here.

Interpreting data visually makes it easy to understand, draw insights from, and share with others. HawkeyeBSB has the unique ability to visualize bank fees graphically, drilling into the information on macro and micro levels. There are a myriad of custom filtering options including by bank, branch, account, subsidiary, country, and currency to meet your company’s needs. These options allow treasurers to pinpoint opportunities for improving business operations.

To learn how HawkeyeBSB can monitor your bank billing statements request a demo here.