Cash management workshop francais

Notes de l'éditeur

• #72: Don’t base it strictly on return – that would not match what you need. If you match your CFF you are more likely to invest more prudently and leave less “Idle” balances.
• #81: Cash flow forecasting may or may not be done in conjunction with the process of preparing allotments and apportionments. Arguably, if a strong system is in place to control spending rates then cash flow forecasting as presented here is not entirely applicable.
• #82: Treasury Control 1. Shortening float 2. Reducing opportunity cost of funds Financial Control 1. Cash – most important government financial asset 2. Accounts Receivable 3. Accounts payable 4. Current portion of debt 5. Loans Receivable
• #83: For Example: Dedicating revenue streams to finance certain categories of expenditures or pay debt service. Using cash versus debt to finance certain capital expenditures.
• #84: “ Net Present Value” analysis. While not totally applicable in the public sector, NPV analysis involves a discussion about the long term costs and benefits of major capital investments.
• #85: Do I have the right amount of cash when I need it?
• #87: The answer to the question of “Why are we doing a cash flow?”, will lead you to settle on what time frame you want to focus on. The key point here is that with any forecasting the further out you go the less accurate you will be. Also the shorter the time horizon the more detailed you may want to be. It does not make sense to spend time doing a daily forecast for a year from now, but a weekly forecast for the next month and a daily for this month would perhaps make sense, again depending on for what reason you are using the information.
• #88: Information Technology has to be a part of the participants either specifically stated or implied. An integrated financial system should be able to generate the reports or data needed to develop and monitor the cash flow forecasts.
• #89: It is important to remember that the Treasury, in the initial stage of the preparation of a cash flow statement, has to act as an impartial assembler of information to coordinate the preparation of a cash flow forecast. For that reason the forecast must tie back to the budget, otherwise other agencies or stakeholders will believe that the treasury is trying to alter or make judgments about the budget that has already been passed by the legislature. Make sure you properly document your assumptions.
• #91: The choice has to be rational and be supported by the cost/benefit of different planning, collection and forecasting techniques. If a strong I.T. system exists for compiling and synchronizing spending plans then the agency approach might make the most sense. If there are three or four major fund groups of equal size then it may make sense to approach this on a fund basis. The discussion of methodology is going to lay out a process or choice of processes that continually break down and build a plan. In the alternative some sort of regression or multiple regression can be used as well. In younger budget systems the data may not be available to support a quality forecast based on a regression model. A regression model may however be a nice compliment to the planning approach laid out here.
• #92: Again, the choice has to be rational and be supported by the cost/benefit of different collection and forecasting techniques as well as information available. Using the economic classification likely lends itself to the easiest forecast to compile and analyze. The functional approach is likely not needed if realistic plans are prepared by agencies (Ministries) on an economic classification basis. Robust means a little information should lead to many conclusions.
• #93: The methodology of “Degree of Certainty” is more applicable to a private company that forecasts expenditures for a minimum amount of business units. The degree of certainty implies that as the forecast is put together you should recognize the following levels as parts of your risk. That means that the level of comfort you develop with your forecast needs to recognize that risks exist that will lead to certain variances between forecasts and actuals. Eventually your cash planning needs to take into account the level of risk involved so that proper reserves can be established to cover for variances in your estimate. In reality this technique will be used as agencies prepare a plan.
• #94: How is your Treasury Single Account organized. Multiple bank accounts? A true single account? How are flows executed between bank accounts.
• #95: Your choice of components to include or focus on will depend on your data sources. We will talk more about some of the components later.
• #96: A bad budget will lead to a bad cash flow forecast especially if the revenue estimates are poor from the beginning. The Treasury must use the revenue forecasts from the budget in the initial formulation since it is the main financial document. As the year progresses updates should be made as new information becomes available on the revenue side. This needs to be a collaborative effort with revenue collecting agencies. Again the cash flow forecast, cannot be seen as an alternative budget, so updates to revenue and expenditures need to be done in a way that supports the current budget and provides information that can be used by the legislative branch if adjustments need to be made to the budget. The same observations about “on-budget” revenue can be made for off-budget revenue, expenditures and funds (cash balances).
• #98: Some weekend days are included for the example where zero is collected.
• #100: Using spending plans to control monthly cash outflows will work if there is a financial management system that integrates all the spending (budget) plans with the accounting system which process payments. If such a system does not exist the costs of collecting estimates, issuing allotments and following up on compliance with plans will likely be quite high. In an integrated system, plans may be easily synchronized and spending limits can be easily implemented, monitored and changed as conditions change. The 80 percent needs the most scrutiny. Since payroll costs are likely a major area of the budget, they should be easily forecasted and a good estimate should be easy to develop. Similarly, transfers to lower levels of government should also be relatively easy to forecast especially if the transfers are supported by a federal law or existing regulations governing the timing of their disbursement.
• #101: In the case of very dynamic financial situations historical information needs to be “normalized” by adjusting for, among others: inflation, changes in government programs, changes in salary levels for public employees and emergency situations which on a going forward basis will distort patterns. Also be aware of historical spending patterns that may have been distorted due to the non-payment of incurred expenditures which may have lead to growing arrears. The treasury should be able to use historical information to check the spending plans, especially in the major areas of expenditures. In mature financial and budgetary systems, budgets tend to grow at predictable rates which can translate into predictable rates of growth or decline in cash out- and in-flows. Similarly, historical revenue information needs to be normalized to adjust for changes in tax rates, types of filers, types of taxes, etc. The best information gleaned from historical cash flows is not necessarily the actual figures but the seasonality or patterns of spending and revenue collection.
• #102: Likely there will be peaks for cash outflows at the beginning of the month (for utilities and vendors for prior month expenses, mid month (1 st payroll) and end of month (for 2 nd payroll). Pension or other social insurance disbursements should be over laid on this pattern to begin to develop the “80” of the expenditures with transfers to other levels of government and debt service rounding out this analysis.
• #104: Debt Management How much is authorized but has not been issued? What are the legal limits? Are there restrictions on long vs. short term debt. What are our options for borrowing: Direct Securities Publication of plans
• #105: Short term investments means investments made for cash management/liquidity purposes. The budget law may address some of these areas, but if not they should be inventoried and examined to see how/if they affect the planning.
• #106: Short term investments means investments made for cash management/liquidity purposes. The budget law may address some of these areas, but if not they should be inventoried and examined to see how/if they affect the planning.
• #107: Once the forecast is prepared the actual results need to be compared to the estimate.
• #109: Many of these points should not be a problem measuring actuals to revised estimates, but when comparing actual to original estimates it can be a problem.
• #110: Float and Calendar Issues both underscore the issue that you must understand from start to finish the administrative trail the revenue and disbursements processes follow. Once you know each inside and out you can improve each and shorten or eliminate float.
• #111: Once we have understood the nature of our variances how do we make changes to the estimate. Fundamental changes need discussion with key stakeholders. Legal changes are not likely to be forthcoming. Technical/Administrative Changes are how treasury people earn their pay!
• #114: In the public sector another type of float can be identified as “apportionment float”. That is the time between making funds available to agencies and the time that they actually use the funds. What flexibility do you have with regard to making payments?
• #115: Decreased costs will come in the form of higher interest earnings, avoidance of interest costs and fewer errors in processing. Decreasing process time should also lead to improved internal efficiencies and improved customer service. (I.e. decreasing time from receipt of invoice to vendor receiving payment.
• #116: In this example there are three revenues that are collected each month. Each revenue has a different collections float. The 4 th column is the product of the dollar amount and the calendar days of float.
• #117: The opportunity cost of funds can be either the inflation rate, the borrowing rate or the investment rate.
• #118: In this example 9% is assume to be the opportunity cost of funds. This means that we lose in some form or another 99,000 each year either to lost investment earnings, loss of purchasing power or interest costs incurred.
• #120: The beginning of the process is to assemble a cashflow forecast. As the forecast is assembled questions will arise as to the process used by the Treasury to make payments and collect taxes. There are a couple areas where the Treasury can start to get more control over its in- and out-flows as well as improve service to its constituents. This is through the implementation of accounting/process controls or procedures and the other is through the use of available banking products and services. Of course not all products and services are available in every country or region but the goal is to see what are the possibilities of the banking system to make overall improvements in the functioning of the Treasury. In either case a legal framework needs to be in place that can facilitate either changes in procedures or using the commercial banking system if needed rather than a central bank.