Are you a banker or business leader looking for basic definitions of common treasury management services? We’ve got the treasury management services master listing for you. This listing are services typically offered by community banks and credit unions (smaller institutions generally less than 4B in size), so there may be several missing which are offered by larger institutions.

Fraud Prevention and Management

Positive Pay helps prevent check fraud by matching a list of checks issued each day to the checks presented for payment. If a check is not listed, it will be reported as an exception and the customer can decide whether to pay or return it.

ACH Positive Pay helps detect and prevent fraudulent electronic payments by setting up a list of approved vendors, along with expiration dates and payment caps. Any transaction outside of these parameters will generate a notification, so you can decide whether to approve or deny the transaction.

ACH Block is used to prevent all ACH transactions in an account. This is useful for account that are not transactional in nature, such as holding or sweep accounts.

ACH Filter blocks most transactions via ACH, but allows the customer to designate certain “approved” transactions in advance based on payee, date ranges and/or amounts. Many ACH filters include message triggering so the customer is alerted via e-mail or text messaging when an ACH transaction is initiated.

Receivables Management

Lockbox Services let companies manage their accounts receivable and deposits—including payments received and paid—in one place. This reduces the time and money spent processing payments in-house, so customers can focus on other business-critical functions.

• Retail Lockbox is designed for payments made by retail consumers to businesses (such as utility bills). Institutions typically use imaging technology to speed processing for large volume retail clients.
• Wholesale Lockbox services are designed for business-to-business (B2B) payments and tend to be higher dollar amounts with less frequency.
• Remote Lockbox is offered by some larger institutions to larger customers. It uses the same basic technology of Retail Lockbox but adds the flexibility to have a scanner at the customer location(s) providing convenience of accepting payments on-site, but processing them as part of the Retail Lockbox product.
• eLockbox is offered by larger institutions and is designed to help commercial customers streamline consumer payments made through their banks’ online banking and bill pay services. Instead of generating a paper check, the system is configured to transfer funds electronically streamlining the process of matching payments to customer accounts.
• EIPP can also be considered to be in the Lockbox family of products (see below for details).

Remote Deposit Capture allows customers to deposit checks from their offices making deposits easy and convenient. These services generally show up in three sizes:

• Remote Deposit Mobile allows smaller customers to deposit checks from their smartphones. This is typically a retail product modified to be used by a business customer. The difference is usually the per-item maximum deposit.
• Remote Deposit Capture is the service for commercial customer and consists of a desktop check scanner and an online service. It requires a laptop or desktop computer at the customer location and is typically used in the finance department.
• Image Cash Letter is a service typically offered to larger customers by larger institutions providing the flexibility to adapt to a customer’s electronic check handling workflows. If your customers have automated the check handling process and want to scan everything the second it arrives at their location, Image Cash Letter might be the right solution.

Vault Services and Virtual Vault Services help your business customers manage cash through a combination of armored car services and detailed record keeping. The biggest benefit of these services is reducing or eliminating the theft risk of trusting a customer’s employee to drive to a location to make a deposit.

e-Invoice Presentation and Payment (EIPP) is a service larger institutions offer to larger customers. The service sends electronic invoices and bills and electronically receives payment. After a data connection is configured between the customer and the institution, electronic invoices are transferred to the institutions systems, and then the bills and invoices are electronically sent out to the customer’s customers. Payment is received directly by the institution and then the customer is electronically notified of the payment.

Other Receivables Management. We’ve also seen many industry-specific products tailored to help those businesses collect payment faster. There are solutions out for healthcare, construction, and other industries that have long receivables cycles and desire faster payment options.

Payables Management

Integrated Payables is an advanced service typically offered by larger intuitions. This service allows the business to “outsource” the printing and mailing of checks to the institution, or alternately, process payments via ACH. It relieves the business customer from the burden of printing the checks, inserting them into envelopes and getting them in the mail.

ACH (Automated Clearing House) is an electronic payment system routing payments through the ACH network. There are many facets to ACH services for business customers and each institution’s offerings are unique. A common thread is that in general, ACH payments are less expensive for customers than checks or other electronic payment systems. The service offering of allowing customers to originate ACH payments online is one of the basic Treasury Management services any institution should offer.

Wire Transfer Payments are still relevant and meet the needs for speed and international payments. Many institutions use Fedwire, a real time settlement system designed to quickly settle time-critical payments.

Invoice To Pay is a service designed to speed up accounts payable. Vendors directly invoice (via mail or electronic means) the institution’s system and the system controls the payable from that point on. Typically, we see business customers with a dashboard where they can approve invoices for payment, then the banking institution pays via ACH, physical check or to a virtual card.

Commercial Cards and Corporate Credit Card Programs are simple ways to streamline your customer’s expense management systems and they generally fall into two categories.

• Prepaid Purchasing Cards allows the customer to handle expense management and per diems to designated employees. Easy access to card balances and transaction history are two of the features customers like about this service.
• Reward and Incentive Cards are good for consumer rebates, promotions, employee bonuses and other incentive plans commercial customers may be interested in.

Account Reconciliation services are offered by larger institutions for larger business customers. The service entails balancing the customer’s accounts each month – taking the burden of reconciling accounts away from the customer.

Liquidity Management

Cash Concentration provide an automated way to bring cash back to a customer’s master account(s) from geographically dispersed remote accounts. For instance, if a customer has many remote locations, it allows them to deposit cash locally at a local institution. From the central office, customers can pull back cash via ACH either manually or automatically based on balance parameters.

Automated Sweep Accounts cover several sweep services: overnight investment sweep where excess balances are automatically transferred to interest-bearing accounts overnight, automated loan sweep where excess balances automatically pay down on credit lines, and zero balance accounts where funds are automatically transferred from master accounts to sub accounts, such as those used for payroll, accounts payable and other uses – allowing greater control and visibility into account balances.

Think we are missing something important in our treasury management services master listing – especially ones which apply to smaller institutions? Please let us know by contacting us.

Is your institution struggling in building your Treasury Management department? We’re always here to help.

Looking for ideas to expand your Treasury Management reach to new business customers? Look into the TMClarity Framework, our comprehensive and transformative training and Treasury Management business management system that leads to greater sales success, higher margins, and increased customer retention in a competitive marketplace.

List last updated: January 2024

If your institution is experiencing the effects of the Great Resignation, then strategic succession planning is a must. Our clients across the nation experience the challenges that come from the transition between the legacy employees and the younger generation moving into all positions of the organization. The key to a successful transition is to have a strategic succession plan for all positions in the institution.

Below are five strategic steps you can take to successfully transition successors into their new positions and keep legacy employees happy in their last months with your institution:

1.      Choose Successors Wisely.

The first step before you even start the succession planning process is to choose the specific successors for each key position wisely. Start by asking these questions:

• Who is retiring in our organization within the 12-24 months? Make a list with name, title, department, approximate retirement date. Often, you will find out through casual conversations. You can also ask everyone the same question during the performance review: Where do you see yourself in the next 3-5 years?
• Are those retiring occupying leadership positions?
• Are other individuals in key positions throughout the institution who possess unique knowledge retiring?
• Add the following columns to your list: Immediate Successor (in case of an unexpected departure or death), and Strategic Successor (the planned successor). Enter the name of the potential successor on each column. It is acceptable to enter more than one employee who will fulfill only one of the functions the current employee is performing in their current role.

2.      Update Job Descriptions.

Now that you have your list completed, it’s time to focus on job descriptions. The top benefits of establishing job descriptions are to:

• Establish accountability so each employee knows exactly what they’re responsible for.
• Clarify roles so everyone knows what others do in the company.
• Ensure jobs are classified properly based on federal and state labor laws.
• Include your organization’s core values as a best practice. Doing so prompts each employee to assess if their core values align with the organization’s.

3.      Formalize Performance Review Process.

Now that you have job descriptions established, it’s time to hold employees accountable to perform the jobs you hired them to do. Your employees deserve to know how they’re doing and their potential career opportunities within your company.

The performance review process starts with an employee self-evaluation to assess how they feel they performed their job in the past year, what training they received and what they want to learn in the upcoming year, what other areas they may be interested in learning about, and where they see opportunities to improve. Providing employees’ input to managers help them to write a meaningful performance review.

Lastly, as a best practice, have the “money conversation” separately from the actual performance review meeting. This takes away the anxiety of the employee wanting the manager to “get to the raise, please.” Both parties can then focus on truly evaluating the employee’s performance and planning for their future with the company.

4.      Establish Clear Accountabilities and Expectations.

The next step is to establish clear accountabilities for both the person leaving and the designated successor. Create milestones during the time they work on the formal transition of duties. Depending on the position, the transition should start anywhere from 3 months before departure to two years before the person retires such as in the case of the President or CEO.

The person leaving or retiring is accountable to transition all the duties that are unique to the position and that only that person knows. The successor is accountable to learn and put into practice the new responsibilities within a specific timeframe. In the case of a CFO position, for example, where there are tasks that are only done quarterly, you need more time to ensure the successor has enough opportunities to practice. Of course, you should also have other backups to assist the successor with the new duties after the employee retiring leaves.

If you are promoting from within, then you also need to create a succession plan for the employee moving into the new role who’s position is now vacant.

5.      Implement Mentoring Program.

There is another aspect of the succession planning that is extremely important too: Mentoring the successor. For example, if an experienced Ag lender is retiring, it is important to mentor the successor on how to deal with the various customers’ loans as well as their individual relationships. The retiring employee must transfer the “knowledge of the customer relationship” to the successor in the best way possible, so your customers have a seamless transition.

Successors can have more than one mentor in their new role. For example, if a successor is transitioning to the Director of IT or CIO type position, the successor may need a technology mentor and a leadership mentor depending on the person’s leadership experience.

If you want a successful transition and positive experience for both the person leaving and the successor, then strategic succession planning is a must. Going through these steps above will ensure you have a good base to start from. I hope these ideas help you in your succession planning journey for your organization.