Input and output points for cash management are crucial. Receivable management to ensure cash input cycle is to be managed to meet payable deadline specifically for promised and statutory payments. If an organization is dealing with forex, the treasury manager may need to incorporate other factors including exchange rate and compliances, use of hedging instruments and other matters including deadline for surrender forex to banks. Without these crucial points management, efforts are result-less lead to liquidity crunches.

Analytical skill not only about company's data such as financial statement, budgeting, operations, sales and costs but also macroeconomics. It's important to follow central banks or governments operation to understand the changes in market conditions.

Additional required data points include receivables collection, both timing and amount, particularly when they are sizeable and/or very delayed. On the other side of the ledger, cash managers need insight into timing of vendor payables. How much is due to whom and when. This is even more critical in today's rising rate environment where the interest income line in one's budget is relevant for the first time in more than fifteen years.

You also need intellectual curiosity and emotional intelligence. Learn in detail what drives your business, who your customers are, what corporate policies drive cash flow timing (account terms, customer retention, credit policies and performance) and the like. Build relations with all other functional areas and people other than typical financial departments (i.e. sales, marketing, operations, strategy). Best way to find out what's happening with the business that will impact future cash flows.

Cash management requires strong analytical skills, attention to detail, and the ability to research anomalies in data sets (forecasts, actuals, variances) to understand what the primary driver(s) is/are. Treasury teams also need the understanding of the projected GAAP and Adjusted financial statements/results, and the knowledge to create a "book to bank" cash flow reconciliation within a tolerable margin.

Communication skill are competences in public speaking but also in creating a good presentation that mix analytical data with soft information. You can give a value-added to your audicence with insights and advises not included in your data.

Treasury has to cultivate meaningful and value-added two-way relationships with effective and articulate communication skills: *CFO (strategy, direction, initiative, CAPEX) *FP&A (detailed P&L, CF, B/S budgets and forecasts) *Accounting (derivatives, cash, recons) *Tax (entity structure, repatriation) *Legal (debt, buyback, interco loan agmts, capital injections) *Internal Audit (SOX, controls testing) *Audit Committee (presentations) *Business unit finance leaders (forecast information) *Banks (banking, systems, debt advice/execution, derivatives) *Counsel (bond counsel, agmt interpretation) *Auditors (audits, testing, compliance) *Rating agencies (updates, modeling, forecasts) *BOD (questions, follow ups, presentations)

Numerous other talents can be combined to form organizational skills. Time management is one area in which you can demonstrate your ability to separate matters that are urgent and important from those that can be assigned or eliminated. Another element that comes to mind is the capacity to anticipate potential issues and then make appropriate plans and decisions.

Get very comfortable with your cash management technology infrastructure. Take the time to become a power-user of your TMS, Online Bank Platforms, relevant accounting software etc. I have trained a number of people over the years who were scared of the technology and just wanted to learn the "checklist" associated with whatever process they were working on without understanding the underlying structure of the technology setup. Any hiccup no matter how minor meant they were more or less dead in the water because they had no ability to analyze and troubleshoot. I have seen this fear of the technology paralyze operations in an emergency situation in analysts all the way up to VP's & Directors.

It is particularly important to understand the capabilities of your TMS and whether you are utilizing it to its full potential. Conversely, you may be paying for functionality that you do not need. The treasury team must understand how the TMS works and learn how to update the inputs (statements, fees, deals, rules) and outputs (cash position, reports, dashboards) to get to best use.

Agreed, keeping the team on the same page with liquidity goals and goals for a strong cash position with open communication on spend decisions, why they happen or don't happen and having an open door to discuss needs and find opportunities to learn from stakeholders.

Analysis, organization, and communication are skills needed as a Cash Manager. However, cash management is about cash and how it flows through the company. So know your numbers and get a feel for the company, and forecast, forecast, forecast.