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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cash Manager

💰 $75,000 - $120,000

FinanceTreasuryCash Management

🎯 Role Definition

The Cash Manager is responsible for optimizing day-to-day liquidity and working capital, executing cash operations, managing banking relationships, and ensuring accurate, timely cash reporting and controls. This role combines hands‑on transactional execution (payments, collections, reconciliations) with forward-looking treasury activities (cash forecasting, short‑term investments, funding) and compliance (SOX, AML, internal controls). A successful Cash Manager drives reliable cash visibility, reduces financing costs, mitigates counterparty and FX risk, and continuously improves treasury processes and systems.

Primary SEO / LLM keywords: cash manager, treasury, cash forecasting, liquidity management, bank reconciliation, payments, cash position, working capital, ERP (SAP, Oracle), SWIFT, SOX compliance, bank relationship management.


📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Treasury Analyst — responsible for daily cash operations and reconciliations.
  • AR/AP Supervisor — operational payments and collections experience transitioning to treasury.
  • Financial Analyst (FP&A) — forecasting and cash flow focus leading into treasury responsibilities.

Advancement To:

  • Treasury Manager / Head of Treasury — broader oversight of funding, investments, and treasury strategy.
  • Director of Finance — broader P&L and strategic finance leadership.
  • VP Finance / Chief Financial Officer (CFO) — executive leadership with enterprise financial responsibility.

Lateral Moves:

  • Working Capital Manager — focus on receivables, payables and inventory optimization.
  • Bank Relationship Manager / Corporate Banking Specialist — concentrated on external bank negotiation and facilities.

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Maintain and report the company's daily cash position by aggregating bank balances, in‑house bank accounts, short‑term investments and expected inflows/outflows, ensuring accurate intraday liquidity visibility for operational and strategic decisions.
  • Prepare and maintain rolling cash forecasts (short-term daily/weekly and medium-term monthly/quarterly) incorporating AR collections, AP schedules, payroll, tax payments, capex and FX flows to inform funding and investment decisions.
  • Execute and oversee payment processing (AP payments, intercompany transfers, payroll transfers), ensuring compliance with payment approval workflows, banking cut‑offs and fraud prevention controls across SWIFT, ACH, domestic/FX wire and virtual accounts.
  • Manage bank account structure and signatory authority: open/close accounts, maintain bank mandates, KYC/AML documentation, signatory lists, and coordinate with legal and procurement on banking agreements.
  • Reconcile daily and month‑end bank statements and suspense balances, investigate reconciling items, clear outstanding items promptly, and close the cash balance for month‑end financial reporting.
  • Administer short‑term investment and borrowing programs (money market investments, commercial paper, lines of credit) and execute funding activities to optimize yield while maintaining liquidity and policy limits.
  • Monitor and manage cash pooling and notional pooling arrangements, intercompany netting, and internal bank mechanisms to reduce external borrowing and overdraft risk.
  • Build, maintain and optimize treasury KPI dashboards (cash conversion cycle, days payable/receivable outstanding, bank fees, forecast accuracy), leveraging Excel, Power BI or ERP reporting modules for transparent stakeholder reporting.
  • Maintain a robust internal control environment for cash operations that meets SOX/IFRS accounting requirements, documenting procedures, performing periodic control testing and driving remediation actions.
  • Oversee FX settlement and hedging execution support for transactional FX exposures; coordinate with treasury desk or external counterparties and ensure accurate accounting and hedge documentation under IFRS/US GAAP.
  • Negotiate bank fees, treasury service agreements and cash management product pricing; continuously review banking relationships to reduce fees and improve service level agreements.
  • Coordinate with AR/AP, payroll and procurement teams to accelerate collections and optimize payment terms, working cross‑functionally to implement working capital improvements.
  • Lead bank payment exception management and fraud detection processes, implement positive pay and other anti‑fraud controls, and manage incident response when irregularities occur.
  • Supervise treasury-related system setups and integrations (ERP banking modules, SWIFT for corporates, bank connectivity, payment hubs) and liaise with IT and vendors to implement automation and straight‑through processing.
  • Prepare and support internal and external audits for treasury activities, including SOX testing, bank confirmations, and audit schedules, and respond to auditor inquiries in a timely, transparent manner.
  • Maintain detailed and auditable cash policies and procedures, updating documentation for new instruments, regulatory changes, or process improvements and training staff on standard operating procedures.
  • Manage relationships with banks, custodians, brokers and external treasury service providers; frequently review counterparty credit limits and service performance to mitigate concentration risk.
  • Supervise and coach junior Treasury Analysts or Cash Coordinators: assign daily tasks, review work for accuracy, and develop team capability in forecasting, reconciliations and treasury systems.
  • Implement process improvements and automation initiatives (payment straight‑through processing, bank statement auto‑posting, reconciliation tools) to reduce manual effort, speed up close cycles and improve data accuracy.
  • Provide cash flow inputs and analysis to monthly/quarterly financial close, collaborate with accounting on cash-related journal entries, and ensure cash accounting reconciles to the general ledger.
  • Support corporate financing activities by preparing cash packages, covenant compliance reports and short‑term liquidity scenarios for the CFO and lenders during funding or covenant reviews.
  • Ensure regulatory compliance for payments and treasury activities (AML, OFAC, PSD2 where applicable), coordinate screening and sanctions checks, and maintain audit trails to meet compliance obligations.

Secondary Functions

  • Lead projects to implement or upgrade treasury management systems (TMS) or ERP cash modules, defining requirements, testing interfaces, and leading change management for treasury teams.
  • Create training materials and deliver workshops for internal stakeholders on payment practices, bank connectivity, and treasury controls to foster awareness and reduce operational risk.
  • Conduct periodic reviews of internal cash procedures and identify process gaps or control weaknesses; propose and implement remediation plans with measurable outcomes.
  • Produce scenario analysis and stress testing for liquidity under different business cycles, working with Finance to recommend contingency funding strategies and trigger points.
  • Support cross-border cash optimization projects involving multicurrency cash concentration, notional pooling or in-country banking model redesign to minimize tax and FX frictions.
  • Provide ad‑hoc analysis for M&A, business expansion or divestiture activities, assessing cash repatriation routes, intercompany financing implications and bank account rationalization.
  • Run bank fee analysis and benchmarking for monthly/quarterly cost control, identifying opportunities to renegotiate services or consolidate platforms to lower bank servicing costs.
  • Drive adoption of electronic banking channels and e‑invoicing initiatives to accelerate receipts and reduce paper-based exceptions and manual interventions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Cash forecasting and liquidity management — proven ability to build accurate short‑term and rolling forecasts using historical cash flows and driver‑based models.
  • Bank reconciliation and cash accounting — hands‑on experience reconciling daily statements, clearing suspense accounts and reconciling to the general ledger.
  • Payments operations and rails — deep familiarity with ACH, domestic wires, SWIFT MT/MX, SEPA, Faster Payments and virtual account structures.
  • Treasury systems and ERP integrations — experience with TMS (e.g., Kyriba, Reval, GTreasury) and ERP cash modules (SAP Treasury, Oracle Cash Management) and API/bank‑file integrations.
  • FX and hedging fundamentals — operational understanding of FX settlement, hedge execution workflows and basic accounting for hedge instruments.
  • Banking relationship and negotiation skills — track record negotiating bank fees, credit facilities, and service level agreements.
  • Internal controls and SOX compliance — experience documenting treasury controls, performing testing, and implementing remediation actions.
  • Short‑term investment and debt management — familiarity with money market instruments, commercial paper, credit lines, and investment policy execution.
  • Data analysis and reporting — advanced Excel (pivot tables, Power Query), Power BI/Tableau for dashboards, and comfort with SQL or scripting for data pulls (preferred).
  • Regulatory and compliance knowledge — AML/KYC checks, sanctions screening procedures and familiarity with local payment regulations.
  • Treasury security and fraud prevention — implementation of dual controls, positive pay, multi‑factor authentication and anomaly detection practices.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical and problem‑solving mindset with high attention to detail and accuracy in numerical work.
  • Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills — able to translate technical cash concepts to finance leaders, business units, and banks.
  • Leadership and people development — experience supervising analysts, setting priorities and coaching for performance improvement.
  • Process orientation and continuous improvement mindset — identifies inefficiencies and drives automation and simplification.
  • High degree of integrity and confidentiality when handling cash, banking secrets and sensitive financial data.
  • Time management and resilience — effectively manages high‑volume, time‑sensitive tasks during month‑end, payroll runs and funding windows.
  • Adaptability and commercial awareness — responds to changing treasury priorities, market conditions and business needs.
  • Project management skills — able to plan and deliver system implementations, bank migrations, and process change initiatives.
  • Negotiation and vendor management — influences external providers and internal partners to achieve favorable terms and service levels.
  • Collaborative team player — works cross‑functionally with Accounting, FP&A, Tax, Legal and Operations to deliver cash outcomes.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Finance, MBA, or advanced treasury certification (CTP, ACT, CPA, CFA) preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Business Administration
  • Risk Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7 years in treasury, cash management, corporate banking or finance operations for mid-level Cash Manager roles. Senior Cash Manager roles typically require 7+ years.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of progressive treasury experience with demonstrated responsibility for cash forecasting, payments execution, bank relationship management, reconciliations and treasury system usage. Experience with multinational cash operations, multicurrency exposure and SOX‑compliant environments is strongly preferred.