How API and ERP Integrations Are Transforming Corporate Treasury
This article is written by Kyriba While there are many benefits, businesses are yet to grasp the full potential of API connectivity, especially for ERP integration, and even more importantly, how non-technical teams such as treasury can take full advantage of API solutions. During KyribaLive 2023, Kyriba’s Félix Grévy, VP of Connectivity and Open API, and John Brandt, VP of Product Connectivity, explored the transformative potential of APIs. Providing updates on Kyriba’s Connectivity-as-a-Service solutions, Félix and John also shed light on how a technology partner like Kyriba assists treasurers on their API journey. APIs Empower Financial Professionals Simply put, an API is a program that allows multiple pieces of software to “talk” to each other. APIs are like “bridges,” enabling two separate applications to work together and share data. They allow developers to access certain features or functionalities of software applications without having to understand the underlying code or architecture. In the world of finance, APIs are enabling real-time treasury management and empowering finance professionals like never before. They connect internal and external systems, facilitating real-time data retrieval for use cases such as bank balance and transaction reporting, cash flow forecasting and FX exposure management, integration of trading portals, market data providers and AI tools. Building on this point, Félix and John elaborated on the three pillars of Kyriba’s API connectivity solution as an example to demonstrate how APIs can be used in finance and treasury: Looking towards the future of API adoption, John explored the untapped possibilities of APIs. John emphasized how Kyriba envisions exciting developments in how to integrate ERP with TMS, including expanding ERP integrations, incorporating third-party data sources, enabling event-driven orchestration through webhooks and even AI-generated integrations. Expanding on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), John and Félix remarked how AI presents real opportunities for ERP integrations. Although there is still a lot of maturing to do, developments such as Open AI ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot Artificial Intelligence show the potential for AI to assist treasurers with complex tasks. By leveraging these powerful AI tools, finance professionals can transform their daily work, ask questions on reports, uncover valuable insights and receive intelligent suggestions. APIs play a pivotal role in enabling these tools to interact seamlessly among the systems, allowing technology vendors to harness the growing power of external AI technologies and natively integrate them to their own solutions. How Kyriba Enables Embedded Treasury for Clients Recently there has been a growing interest in embedded finance and embedded treasury. John delved into Kyriba’s APIs for ERP integration, spotlighting how Kyriba already offers a set of packaged integrations that extend and embed the treasury core workflows into other business systems: Despite the high interest level for embedded treasury, clients are often lacking the expertise or IT resources to implement such integrations. Kyriba’s Connectivity-as-a-Service is designed exactly for such client needs. John overviewed the options Kyriba makes available to our clients, prospects and partners. With a versatile array of ERP integration scenarios, Kyriba guarantees the freedom and flexibility to accommodate enterprise IT complexity and sophisticated business needs. INTEGRATION SCENARIO DESCRIPTION SUITABLE FOR Bring Your Own Data (BYOD) Client handles data extraction, transformation and transmission to Kyriba. Customers with legacy applications or broad existing SFTP landscape Kyriba Packaged ERP Integrations End-to-end solution. Kyriba handles data extraction, mapping transformation and transmission via API to Kyriba. Clients with new integrations or with minimal workflow customizations À La Carte Hybrid custom integration. Allows use of individual Kyriba integration components. Clients can mix and match integration methods. Clients with complex landscapes, including middleware or legacy platforms Custom Direct API Connect Custom-built extract and mapping. Clients can use open APIs from the Kyriba Developer Portal to build workflows to meet their specific processes. Companies with complex workflows or those who desire full control of their API orchestration Transforming Treasury with API-Driven Connectivity Connectivity is key to successful treasury management and APIs are the catalysts for treasury transformation. With real-time data exchange contributing to a more connected and efficient financial ecosystem, API connectivity empowers treasurers with the latest financial information and the flexibility to meet evolving business needs. The benefits are many and the untapped potential of API connectivity, especially for ERP integration, remains a growth opportunity for treasury. With embedded ERP workflows to support core treasury needs, treasury can streamline processes and make more informed decisions. To stay ahead, it is time for treasurers to take advantage of exciting possibilities in API adoption, including AI integration opportunities. With its Connectivity-as-a-Service solutions, Kyriba offers flexible, game-changing solutions for the office of CFO to build a truly connected and comprehensive financial ecosystem. Also Read
Franklin15 Questions for Treasury to Ask Themselves & Their Vendors During Technology RFPs
This article is written by TIS In 2023, data shows that treasury teams are expected to continue investing significantly in new technology solutions. These plans include the adoption of new ERP and TMS solutions. As well as more “disruptive” technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). As practitioners and business leaders prepare their budgets and move forward with their selections, the following questions can be used as a guide for determining the key ingredients of a successful project. Our hope is that these tips for treasury management will help treasury refine their strategy for securing project approval, collaborating with other internal stakeholders, preparing an RFP or RFI, measuring the ROI of their project, and planning for onboarding to avoid hurdles and common sources of delay. Context: Treasury’s Technology Spend Remains Elevated in 2023 Despite the economic headwinds that have impacted much of the global business environment throughout 2022 and early 2023, data from recent months has shown that treasury groups are still planning to invest significantly in both additional headcount and new technology. As evidence, a recent TIS survey found that at least 40% of practitioners were expecting to bolster their technology stack across numerous functions in 2023, with a focus on areas like cash management, forecasting, working capital, payments, and security. Additional research from prominent industry bodies like AFP and Strategic Treasurer have yielded similar results. However, in order for these technology projects to have the desired effect and yield positive results, treasury teams must be very strategic and intentional with their approach. Because there are a variety of internal and external challenges that can obstruct an onboarding timeline, it’s critical for organizations to perform as much due diligence as possible before the project kicks off. It’s also important to collaborate with other internal stakeholders ahead of time to ensure adequate buy-in, approval, and planning. To help Treasury walk through all the potential factors that could impact their project, the following questions can serve as a point of reference: 15 Questions for Treasurers to Ask Themselves & Their Vendors During Technology RFPs & Implementations 1. What is typically included in a request for proposal (RFP) or request for information (RFI) as treasury groups begin the technology selection process? How is this process managed? How many vendors should be considered? RFIs and RFPs delivered by treasury to potential vendors often request information related to the scope of capabilities offered by each vendor, as well as info related to their size, location(s), staff count, client base / composition, revenue, and ownership structure. Additional questions related to the hosting setup, pricing schema, customer support structure, and onboarding approach are also common. Although the number of vendors included in an RFP or RFI varies, what’s important is that practitioners include enough options to establish an adequate understanding of what’s available in the market, without overwhelming themselves with an excessive number of applicants. In most cases, practitioners may reach out to 10-15 vendors before creating a shortlist of 3-5 and taking a more comprehensive look into these select few before making a final selection. 2. What other internal stakeholders should be involved in a treasury technology implementation or onboarding project? Commonly, treasury will need to work with their CFO as well as peers in accounting, IT, AP, AR, Legal, and HR to ensure a successful project. For the most part, collaborating with other financial departments will center on ensuring adequate buy-in and approval, with ample consideration of how it will benefit all of these stakeholders, and not just treasury. At the same time, treasury must plan to work with accounting and AP to determine how the new solution will integrate with existing processes and systems to streamline communication, reporting, and payment workflows. Regarding IT, treasury must pay careful attention to ensure that any required in-house configuration or support is properly planned for and documented, especially in cases where internal bandwidth is already constrained. And finally, Legal assistance will be needed to review contracts and ensure compliance, while HR teams may support by managing user permissions and admin roles as the new solution goes live. 3. How can treasury most effectively ensure buy-in from other stakeholders for their projects, including the CFO, AP, and Accounting? Showcasing the benefits that a treasury new solution will provide to other stakeholders in terms of improved reporting, more accurate data, faster insights, cost-savings, or greater control and security will all go a long way in winning approval. It is recommended that treasury approach their peers, particularly in accounting, AP, and IT, long before an RFP or RFI is launched to learn more about the needs of other departments and determine how any new solution they implement could also work to address their requirements. For instance, identifying ways that the adoption of a treasury solution that offers real-time financial reporting and payments workflows will help accounting, AP, and the CFO all better perform their own responsibilities can make a huge impact in winning their support. And if a CFO also sees widespread support for a project internally and understands that the benefits are multifaceted, there will be much greater impetus to push forward. Similarly, if IT understands up-front what their responsibilities are and has time to plan, there will be much less confusion and delay after the project begins. 4. How should treasury balance collaboration with their IT teams, banks, and vendors when handling onboarding and other configuration tasks? Given the predominantly cloud-based era of treasury software that exists today, practitioners may find that a growing proportion of onboarding and implementation tasks can be handled by the vendor’s team, rather than their own. However, there will almost certainly be tasks that are assigned to themselves and internal IT, and there’s also the potential for banking partners and other external sources to be involved as well. If treasury plans to connect their new solution with various banks and back-office platforms – including those at other entities – then the effort required by all associated teams will become more significant. For this reason, treasury should…