Cash management; Payment cards draw more interest: survey.

You'd think that with all the technology and the advancements out there in administration processes, companies would be doing better at cash management. Yet the perception among financial executives is that they aren't--but that corporate payment cards could help. That's one conclusion from Visa USA's latest annual cash management survey, which polled more than 400 financial and treasury executives from more than 20 industries.

In all, only 58 percent of financial executives and cash managers view their cash management process as efficient, due to the lack of streamlined operational processes and increases in labor-intensive administrative work. This represented a marked drop from the 2004 study, in which 70 percent of respondents said those processes were efficient.

In responding to the survey, corporate cash management professionals noted plans to continue reducing their reliance on checks to make commercial payments over the next year, while similarly preferring corporate payment cards over checks when receiving commercial payments.

Responding financial executives indicated that corporate payment cards play an increasingly important role in the cash management process. While satisfaction with card-based payments has increased to 77 percent from 70 percent last year, their preference for other electronic payment options such as automated clearing house (ACH) payments appears to be declining. Respondents reporting use of ACH for commercial payments has dropped a full 20 percentage points, to 35 percent, in 2005.

Corporate financial and treasury executives identified a number of key areas where corporate payment cards have helped improve the cash management process. Some of the areas with the largest increases include:

Providing new levels of data        +12 percentage points, to 44 percent
Giving more visibility into cash    +12 percentage points, to 36 percent
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Helping forecast future cash needs  +10 percentage points, to 30 percent