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When AI forecasts cash in real time, will treasurers finally trust the numbers?
In this episode of the Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast, EY professional Francois Holzman and APQC's Kelley Pruetz discuss how CFOs and treasurers are closing the accuracy divide.
In this episode of the Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast, host Myles Corson speaks with Kelley Pruetz, Principal Research Leader at APQC, and Francois Holzman, EY Global Treasury and Commodities Leader, about why many organizations still struggle with cash forecasting accuracy and confidence.
Drawing on insights from APQC’s Cash Flow and Liquidity Management Practices Report and the 2025 EY Global DNA of the Treasurer Survey, they highlight a shared reality: while automation and analytics continue to evolve, finance leaders are still working to strengthen trust in the foundational data that supports decision-making. Their discussion explores how fragmented processes and collaboration challenges can affect cash visibility, and how connected finance systems and technology-enabled forecasting can help organizations build liquidity resilience and transparency.
The conversation discusses how an important shift is underway: from viewing forecasting as a technical exercise to recognizing it as a strategic capability that can build confidence, support collaboration and enable finance to shape the future with confidence.
Key takeaways:
Discover why cash flow forecasting remains a persistent challenge for treasurers and CFOs despite advances in automation and analytics.
Explore how cross-functional collaboration can help finance and treasury teams break down silos to improve forecasting accuracy and liquidity resilience.
Recognize how “transformative treasurers” can redefine value creation through mentorship, collaboration and strategic leadership.
For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
Myles Corson
You're listening to the EY Better Finance: CFO insights podcast, a series that explores the changing dynamics of the business world and what it means for finance leaders of today and tomorrow. I'm your host, Myles Corson from EY.
In today's conversation, we're bringing together two perspectives on a shared challenge – cash flow forecast and accuracy. APQC's [American Productivity and Quality Center] latest Cash Flow and Liquidity Management Practice's Report shows this is a number one issue finance leaders face in managing liquidity. And the EY Global DNA of the Treasurer Survey confirms treasurers are struggling with the same challenge.
To explore how finance functions can respond, I'm joined by Kelley Pruetz, Principal Research Leader APQC, and Francois Holzman, EY Global Treasury and Commodities Leader. Kelley, Francois, welcome. Thanks for joining us today. Before we jump into this really important topic about the role of treasurers and particularly around cash flow forecasting and liquidity, perhaps I could ask you both to do some brief introductions on your background and your roles. Kelley, first over to you.
Kelley Pruetz
My name is Kelley Pruetz and I am the Principal Research Lead for the financial management side at APQC. APQC is American Productivity & Quality Center. We are a trusted global resource in the world's leading authority in benchmarking, best practices and process performance improvement.
Our research and our benchmarking resources help our clients and our members identify opportunities for improvement. They build better business cases and platforms for sustainable growth. I joined APQC about two and a half years ago from the practitioner world. I do have about 30 years of experience, having worked in the finance and treasury function of publicly traded entities here in Houston, predominantly in the oil and gas industry.
Most recently, I served as the vice president and treasurer of an international EMP company. But I'm happy to be here at APQC and I'm happy to be here with you guys and I appreciate you having me.
Corson
Fantastic. Well, thanks, Kelley. Great perspectives to share. So, look forward to hearing more. And Francois?
Francois Holzman
I'm Francois Holzman. I'm a French EY partner. I'm also the global leader for treasury and commodity trading solution at EY, and I've been with EY for, I think, it's 28 years.
Corson
Fantastic work and thanks, Francois, for joining and looking forward to hearing your insights as well. The trigger for this conversation was some really interesting research and analysis that APQC has put out around cash flow forecasting liquidity practices. What was the background to that research, and what did you uncover in terms of how treasurers and finance leaders are managing some of the pressures today?
Pruetz
Here at APQC, we do an annual priorities and challenges survey at the end of every year, where we reach out to not only our members, but our clients, and we ask them for the coming year, “Where is your focus?” And we do that as far as digital transformation, data analytics, cash flow management and risk management. And what we learned last year at the end of the year was that digital transformation was the number one focus, but those investment dollars were hoping to gain a better insight and more accuracy with forecasting. And then, we heard on risk management, the number one concern was market risk, market volatility and then cash flow management.
I think the most surprising thing to me that I learned, having had been in the business, was customers not paying their invoices on time and it creating headaches, trying to determine what the cash flow looked like and the liquidity management looked like. And so, having heard all of those things, we knew that this needed to be a little bit of a deeper dive where we could ask more specifically on cash flow management in regards to liquidity management technology. And also one thing that we've heard over and over again, and I'm interested to hear your input too – on skill gaps. With the introduction of new technology, new automation, we're hearing a lot that our members and our clients are having a bit of a struggle with skill gaps.
Corson
Fantastic. Well, again, a lot to unpick there. So, we'll come back and explore some of those. Francois, you've also been responsible for authoring the EY DNA of the Treasurer research, which has been released recently. How does what Kelley described map up with what we found from an EY perspective?
Holzman
Well first, as you mentioned, EY launched the DNA survey series, which is focused on the finance department. I think it started three years ago. Being responsible for treasury, I was really eager to launch, I would say, my DNA of the Treasurer Survey, which was issued in September 2025. And I really like the angle of the survey, which is first of all, not only treasurers are interviewed, but CFOs. And it's really focused on value creation.
I recall one client mentioning and I quote, “You know how to capture attention with the treasurer as value creator.” And this concept of value creator, I think, is smart and insightful. I mean, 84% of the CFO surveyed, they believe it's important for treasurers to regularly identify opportunities for creating new value. And while actually only one treasurer out of two identifies as a value creator. So, the survey covers a lot of things that Kelley has mentioned. And it's most areas where the treasurer is expected to bring value to its organization by being a mentor for his teams. And you mentioned that.
You mentioned the skills gap. It's important for the treasurer to make sure that the teams are up to skill and those teams actually are looking for this level of expertise. The treasurer needs also to be a sustainability champion. He will be different by using trusted and reliable technology and also to produce accurate data. He needs to be visible, a proactive collaborator, getting out of his expertise silo.
He needs to be an expert, but not only an expert. And last but not least, and it's one of the purpose of being on the same call, is he needs also to be good at what the treasurer is known for, which is build resilient risk management strategies. And also, he needs to be there to lead the way to a cash focus mindset, which obviously includes cash forecast. And we have several data points covering the pain points the treasurers face on cash flow forecasting. And the one which strikes me most is the fact that 65% of treasurers report not having highly accurate 13 weeks’ forecast.
Corson
When we come back to this question about accuracy of forecasting, because it's such an important topic. I think you've both touched on the importance of collaboration, collaboration across the finance organization, but also more broadly across the enterprise, and particularly in these areas of forecasting, implementing technology, how you drive process improvement. Are there thoughts that you both have on how treasurers and finance leaders can tackle some of these problems in a more connected way? Kelley, anything you'd want to add there?
Pruetz
Well, we did hear that people are establishing cross-functional liquidity committees so that people are working together to be ready, trying to prepare for instances that come up, and they're doing it across the functions. Not just, this is what we're thinking and this is what we're thinking. They're creating committees to establish that communication and the frequency of that communication. And then, what level do we hit when we engage? I think that that's a really important thing is just the communication staying open across the organization.
Corson
Francois, anything you'd add on effective collaboration?
Holzman
Collaboration is absolutely key. A good, well-structured, data-driven cash flow forecast cannot be only built on treasury data. It needs accounting for account payable, for account receivable, usage of inventory. It needs credit management to obtain accurate data from cash collection teams. It needs FP&A [financial planning and analysis] or other finance department, notably to identify those M&A [mergers and acquisitions] non-recurring data which are not yet in accounting. Collaboration is everything which will make the information flow with treasury in order to obtain accurate cash flow forecasting information.
A month ago, a client told me he relied on his relatively good forecast, but it was very manual and maintained on a spreadsheet. And it lacked this capacity of interaction with accounting, interaction with FP&A. And he was looking for an alternative and this alternative was needed because he wanted to better spread a smart cash mindset in his organization. He needed a collaborative tool where people could contribute, control and report on cash flows.
Corson
Kelley, coming back to this point about accuracy, your study shows that the cash flow forecasting accuracy is the number one liquidity challenge. Why do you think it is so difficult for organizations to solve some of these challenges?
Pruetz
You know, I think, right now in the time that we did our survey, it's the economic volatility, the rapid changes that we're seeing happen. Inflation, rising interest rates, and of course something that I made a decision to not even touch on because I felt like it was changing so quickly is tariffs. I felt like by the time I wrote the survey, did the survey, got the results, that was already gonna change.
I think that just the rapid changes that people are having to be set for, as well as the external dependencies, the unpredictable customer behavior, customers using invoice payment date as a cash management tool now is difficult for those of us who are waiting to receive those funds.
You may have a net 30 payment day. We don't know, you're not paying till net 45. You're making that decision, but that makes it a hard internal ability to be able to forecast that.
Corson
You mentioned this issue about people paying on time. Was that the biggest issue, do you think, or were there other key factors that contributed to the challenges with making forecasting accuracy and reliable?
Pruetz
It was the number one cash flow management issue that they were addressing. It contributes to the forecasting accuracy whenever you're talking about day-to-day accuracy. I dealt with big dollars, I was oil and gas, but if I was expecting a payment of US$50m and that just didn't come in today, that's an issue for me.
And, I think, people are having to deal with that more and more. And I would assume that luckily for me in oil and gas, we had fewer payments, larger dollars. But there are people out there that have hundreds and hundreds of receipts that they're planning on with no real foundation of when those may be coming in.
Corson
And to go back to your point about some of the economic and geopolitical volatility, do you think that's what's driving some of this issue with delayed payments or is it a very conscious working capital strategy?
Pruetz
I think it's both of those things. I think the inability to go to the market as quickly as people used to be able to, to borrow funds, has changed the strategy in that they're sitting on cash so that in the event something comes up, they're ready to react. And I don't think that's a lot different than what people are facing personally.
We know that it's harder to borrow money, it's harder to buy a house. So maybe, you sit on a little bit of cash so that you're ready to make that leap when you want to, as opposed to when the market is ready for you to. And I think that's what businesses are doing. The businesses are setting themselves up to take advantage of opportunities that come to them when they come to them. And part of that is not knowing when I go to the bank, what hoops am I gonna have to go through? What price am I gonna have to pay for that? And how long is it gonna take?
Corson
Francois, anything you'd add on other obstacles that you've observed?
Holzman
I would like to mention two:
One, which is coming from the DNA of the Treasurer Survey. Leveraging data and technology is the highest ranked mean to allow the treasurer to create value. And a second that doesn't come very specifically from the survey, it comes from client discussion, from views shared with specialist software vendors. I've been speaking also with both clients and software vendors and they were more or less confirming what I'm going to state. It's the fact that 30% of the treasurer produce a cash flow forecasting by using the cash flow forecasting module from their TMS [treasury management system] that they would have switched on.
More or less, 20% are using a dedicated expert cash flow forecasting software, which is plugged on the internal technology infrastructure plugged in the internal data model, which leaves 50% for clients who are using spreadsheets, using data from a data lake or any smart data model. There is a pattern. I'm not thinking there is an ideal solution and 50% might appear high number of clients who are using spreadsheet. And it can be very effective to use spreadsheet because most of the time when you do that, you achieve something, which is tailor-made, fit for your own purpose.
But I believe two factors should be kept in mind. The first one is time. There are only 24 hours in a day. So, you want to avoid losing time in reconciliation and using spreadsheet might impose some complex reconciliation. There is a data point which I have in mind, which is that only 16% of treasurer's time is devoted to making and addressing strategic decisions. So, time is the essence there. And the second factor is accuracy through collaboration. Data is accurate when it is contributed by someone who owns or controls the data.
Corson
And Kelley, I saw you nodding vigorously there when Francois talked about the allocation time to strategic decision-making. Anything you wanted to comment on?
Pruetz
We've also just recently completed a survey on FP&A. Then, very much, what he just said is a lot of what we learned in our survey, the amount of time that's being spent. I think we did learn there a little bit less are still relying solely on spreadsheets, still not fully automated, but fully automated as single digits.
But I think there is a slight movement toward more automation, which I think is good. But the amount of time, just like Francois said, is key. I mean, that's ultimately what we're trying to get here is that we can make better decisions with better data more quickly.
Corson
Obviously, technology is an important component. And I think, Kelley, to go back to something you said earlier on, the importance of skill set and the human aspect. So, are there other things treasurers and finance leaders should be thinking about in terms of getting the right skills in their own organizations to support forecasting accuracy?
Pruetz
That's kind of the challenge, is how to do that. I think they feel like every year, skills are getting better and better. I think a lot of what tools are available to us today are being taught in universities. What we learned was that people feel like every year it will get better. But at the current time, there is just a little bit of a gap. Maybe we're seeing some shifts, some supply chain individuals that are coming over to the financial side and just trying to take advantage of where the skills are and where they're needed and trying to fill that way. But it's certainly a challenge and it's certainly shifting for them.
Corson
And Francois, anything you'd add on the talent side in terms of how you're seeing organizations you work with upskill and develop talent?
Holzman
Mentorship is really key and if we refer to the DNA of the Treasurer Survey, there are interesting data on the fact that having recurring team building, expertise, classes or session in order to improve the competency of the team is considered absolutely necessary.
Corson
Kelley, one of the things that again stood out to me from your survey was that only half of the organizations that you surveyed described their liquidity strategies as being somewhat effective. That struck me as fairly low levels of confidence. Anything you can comment on there and what's driving that?
Pruetz
I think it's the unknown of the economic volatility that they're having to continue to deal with. But I also believe that just breaking down silos. I think that historically the finance department has worked very different than the treasury. Treasury is dealing with cash. We're dealing with what's happening today. And finance, a lot of that is still the plan.
It's part of the plan and what your assumptions were that went into that expectations. And so, I know for me, we had the responsibility to forecast both what the oil price was gonna be for the coming quarter and also what the exchange rate would be. And we would provide that at the beginning every quarter. But I can remember time in 2018 when oil prices dropped like US$35 a barrel from October to December.
So, what finance was working with was completely different than what treasury was working with now. And I just think breaking down those silos more and more, so they're working from the same set of data. And I do think that is happening. I think it just needs to happen maybe a bit more quickly.
Corson
One of the things that stood out to me was the importance of scenario planning. And again, to go back to this question about volatility in so many different dimensions, how do you prepare as an organization most effective? Anything you'd want to add on that topic?
Holzman
The DNA of the Treasurer Survey has been built by more than 1,200 treasurers and CFOs [Chief Financial Officers]. There is a data point which confirms the statement on the fact that the data is considered very often as not accurate. So, only 27% of treasurers are very confident that their treasury strategy for managing financial risk are helping to improve decision-making across their organization. Another data point says that they are not confident with their information, the one that I've stated earlier on.
And, by the way, CFO are interestingly generally more confident than treasurers themselves. And confidence in the data might come with real-time data. Scenario planning could be also an answer, but obtaining real-time data might also be considered as providing more confidence, because the more the treasurer and the CFO have access to real-time data, the better the reconciliation process is and the higher the trust in the data and then in the strategy that derives from the use of the data. And obviously, the constraints from the fact that the real-time data and its investment in technology and a centralized and trusted data model is obvious as well. The DNA survey once again mentions that one of the greatest barrier to real-time visibility is the technology constraints to aggregate financial data.
Corson
We've got to this stage in the conversation. We haven't used the letters AI [Artificial Intelligence] yet, which is always a topic that questions get asked about. And just thinking about this area specific and some things we've talked about, it seems like AI would be a natural tool to be used in this. Have you seen anything coming through in your research about some of the adoption, particularly are there specific use cases in these areas of liquidity management, cash flow forecasting that you're seeing the people you talk to starting to think about?
Pruetz
Yeah, that's one of our questions on our annual survey that we do. And one of the questions we say is in three to five years. And so, we were surprised this last year because we weren't expecting the movement. So, there's been a lot of movement toward AI. And I think more specifically, whenever we were asking the questions around companies not knowing when people are going to make payment on their invoice any longer that we did talk to some of our members who have used AI and they have the ability to predict. So even though it's net 30, this AI is able to predict, yeah, but they normally pay 50 days or they normally pay 110 days.
So, you can go ahead and adjust that to try to gain some better visibility on exactly when your cash flow and liquidity management comes into play. We have heard that people are moving in that direction. We have seen people who have taken advantage based on other things that are going on. It's not huge yet, but there's been more movement. I'm anxious to see this year when we do, because our survey will be going out very soon, and see what we learn, how much movement there's been from this last year to this year.
Corson
Yeah, I look forward to that because as you said, it's a fast-moving space and I'm sure there'll be a lot of change. Francois, are there any use cases you're seeing for AI in this function?
Holzman
Yeah, cash flow forecasting is obviously the first place where you would expect AI to be effective. I think there is some disappointment on the market on the velocity at which AI appears and is embedded in the solutions which are proposed by the software vendors. You would expect to have it functioning quite well in estimating seasonality, in estimating, as Kelley was mentioning, patterns of payments from a counterpart. And when that happens, most of the time, it has been self-developed by companies who have had discussions with their cash collection teams, with their accounting teams to build the proper data without proper data.
I mean, you can have all the AI in the world that will not work. The feeling from the treasurers, quoting the DNA of the Treasurer Survey, is that when you use AI, the quality and the accuracy of the information will increase. The gain, I would say, in terms of accuracy is of 11 points for the 13 weeks’ forecast when people, treasurers, mentioned that they are using AI on a regular basis.
Corson
And then, just in wrapping up, I think one of the things that stood out to me from your research is the confidence that going back to this value creation idea that you talked about at the start, the confidence that CFOs have in their treasurers to be value creators. And yet, that wasn't necessarily mirrored in the way treasurers thought about themselves and their functions. There seemed to be a gap. Anything you can comment on there about how treasurers build confidence, the impact they can have across the organization.
Holzman
The survey sheds light on an interesting category of treasurers who gathers six key characteristics that are mentioned in the survey that we have called the transformative treasurers who correspond to 20% of the whole population of treasurers. So, there are technology savvy, data-driven decision-makers, risk management experts, strategic collaborators, mentors, leaders, champions of sustainability. And when they combine all of these characteristics, it's extremely clear in the survey that their data is more accurate, that their financial risk management strategy is more effective, more followed, more trusted.
They collaborate naturally more with the C-suite, they leverage far more data and data analytics and AI. At the end of the day, they unlock greater value. So, in simple words, if you are a treasurer, you want to be a transformative treasurer. If you are not a transformative treasurer, you want to become one. But more interestingly, if you are a CFO, you would like to have as a treasurer, a transformative treasurer.
Corson
Do those characteristics that Francois described in that profile of the transformative treasurer resonate in anything you'd add?
Pruetz
We're hearing all about the transformation. We're talking to our members and many of the ones that I speak with are on newly formed groups where they're trying to take advantage of the technology, the automation and moving toward that transformation. So yeah, I think that's exactly what we're hearing is that's really a focus right now. And I think it's a focus internally to my organization as well. And so, just taking a look at everything and making sure that we're taking advantage and moving forward.
Corson
We talked a lot about the internal collaboration. And, I think, what you're bringing up, Kelley, is that sort of power of peer-to-peer networking outside of the organization and how you bring the outside-in perspective. And obviously, some of the research we talked about today is another way of bringing those insights to your organization and challenging. In wrapping up, I'd love to get your perspectives for our listeners in terms of what would be a recommendation for how as a treasurer or someone working with a treasurer, you can help to drive effectiveness in liquidity or cash flow forecasting.
Pruetz
Just the continue looking and working with people inside your organization as well as outside your organization, to be able to gain the knowledge and understanding of what's going on and then work internally as a team to drive that transformation, benchmarking where you are and understanding where you want to be against other organizations, your peer organizations, and then being able to see what needs to be done. I think doing that benchmarking, you can see where you stand as far as your forecasting goes and your cash flow management goes, all of those things, and see where improvements can be made and work together across your teams to drive that transformation.
Corson
Thank you. That's a great summary. Francois, finally to you, in brief, key takeaway.
Holzman
The really high-level view, I've mentioned it just before. Identify what is the characteristic of a transformative treasure and try to become one if you are not one. What is key is reconciliation for cash flow forecasting. Very often, our clients are producing cash flow forecasting.
But the reconciliation between the direct and indirect method and between the forecast itself and the actuals when the forecast has become true is very often either not accurate at all or even not done. So, my key takeaway would be insist, focused, invest on reconciliation.
Corson
Really enjoyed speaking to you both. Thank you for sharing your insights. The data we've talked about highlights this is such an important topic, particularly in building resilience to manage through uncertainty and disruption and making sure liquidity and cash is available when needed. So, I think you've provided some real insights and perspectives for people to take away. So, thank you both again.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this or any episode of the EY Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast, please subscribe or leave a rating review. You'll find related links at ey.com/betterfinance. And, as always, thank you for listening and for supporting the podcast.
