Carlos Vega | CEO & Co-founder of Tesorio | Connected Financial Operations.
Even in companies with disciplined financial operations, cash flow issues often remain hidden until they become urgent. An EY-Parthenon study of more than 2,400 global enterprises found that nearly half failed to meet their cash flow targets over a seven-year span.
These are well-resourced businesses with strong finance talent. So why does this continue to happen?
Mindset Comes First: Mandates From The Top
Most companies treat cash flow as something to monitor, not something to shape. It’s tracked, reported and analyzed, but rarely elevated as a core input to strategic decision making.
That’s a leadership problem—but it’s solvable.
Finance leaders who want to drive change need to reframe the conversation. Cash flow isn’t just an abstract bookkeeping concern. It’s the difference between being ready to invest in innovation and being stuck in analysis mode while your competitors zoom past. Once you position it as a core lever for growth and speed, priorities shift.
To accomplish this mindset shift, the rest of the C-suite needs to be on board. That can be a challenge, especially in companies that grew up with quarterly closings and backward-looking metrics as the norm. But alignment only happens when finance takes the lead in showing what’s possible. Show what delays in collections actually block (hiring, R&D, M&A moves) and the existential urgency becomes obvious, and the failure becomes visceral. Make it real!
When finance functions as a driver of action, not just accuracy, it stops being perceived as a cost center and starts being recognized as a competitive advantage. However, to drive that action, you need to first identify the points of failure and get the rest of the team to recognize them as such (versus just accepting them as “business as usual”).
Three Persistent Cash Flow Failures
• Fragmented Systems: ERP, CRM and banking platforms are rarely aligned. Each gives a partial picture of liquidity, and reconciling them wastes valuable time.
• Outdated Forecasting: Most teams still rely on spreadsheets that require manual updates and depend on stale historical data. By the time the report is ready, conditions have already shifted.
• Collections Without Context: Collections processes often default to blanket outreach based on invoice age. That ignores the nuance of customer behavior, strategic value or credit risk, resulting in inefficient follow-ups and poor prioritization.
Each of these issues reduces a company’s ability to deploy capital quickly and confidently.
The Reinvestment Clock Is Always Ticking
Every day that cash is trapped in receivables is a day it can’t be used for hiring, product development or expansion. Remember: Revenue isn’t real until you get paid.
Furthermore, options matter. When your competitors are waiting on collections to land or forecasts to update, quibbling over interest rates on a loan or even courting that next round of capital, you’re already executing. That’s cash flow mastery, and it’s within reach for a data-minded company.
So … Where To Begin?
Cash flow is a data problem, not a finance problem. Creating an environment where your data can flow enables your cash to do the same. Here’s how I’d recommend you structure this, to start:
• Integrate Your Systems: Bring ERP, CRM, banking and billing data into a unified view. This is foundational. You can’t move fast (or really, move at all) if you don’t trust the numbers. And how can you trust them if you can’t even see them?
• Adopt Predictive Forecasting: Static models need to be replaced with tools that account for real-time inputs, seasonality and customer behavior. You’re not just trying to predict cash flow; you’re trying to make decisions based on what’s likely to happen.
• Modernize Collections: Use customer data to inform collections strategy. A reliable but slow-paying customer might get a friendly reminder. A new customer with risky patterns should be escalated earlier. Intelligent workflows let teams focus on what matters, not just what’s overdue.
The Finance Function Is Being Redefined
Cash flow is no longer just a health indicator. It’s becoming a core operating system for companies that want to grow efficiently and act decisively. That requires new tools, but it also requires a different posture from finance leaders.
Instead of managing what’s handed to them, they need to shape what’s possible.
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