Guide to Real time Cash visibility: From Accrual to Actual Cash

For many finance teams, forecasting today’s cash position still feels like trying to hit a moving target. While ERP systems and spreadsheets are reliable for compliance and reporting, they weren’t built to offer Real time Cash visibility.

When you’re preparing for upcoming payroll, supplier payments, or investment decisions, knowing your actual bank position, not just booked revenue, is critical. Yet, too often, businesses discover too late that the cash they thought they had isn’t quite there.

This article explores how to move beyond outdated estimates and towards actionable, real time cash visibility powered by Finexer’s Open Banking API. With real time bank feeds synced into your preferred financial dashboard, you’ll gain:

• A clearer picture of your actual liquidity position, updated throughout the day.
• Relief from common ERP cash limitations that distort your cash flow forecasting.
• A straightforward implementation path to get started with real-time data in just a few weeks.

Whether you’re managing treasury for a growing business or overseeing finance for multiple entities, this guide gives you a smarter, faster way to see where your cash really stands.

Understanding the Forecasting Gap

Many finance teams still rely on spreadsheets and ERP exports for their cash flow forecasting. While these tools are great for tracking performance, they often fall short when it comes to showing how much cash is actually available right now.

Here’s a closer look at why traditional methods make real time cash visibility difficult:

Common Issue	What’s Really Happening	How It Affects Your Forecast
Accrual accounting	Revenue and expenses are recorded when earned—not when cash moves in or out.	Forecasts might include funds that haven’t yet arrived (or might not at all).
Delayed updates	ERP systems usually update balances in batches—daily or even weekly.	Reports can be outdated by the time they’re shared.
Multiple entities & accounts	Businesses with several bank accounts or entities need to pull data from different systems.	Gathering and consolidating cash data takes extra time and increases chances of error.
Untracked fees and currency changes	Fees, interest, or FX changes may hit the bank account but not show up right away in your ERP.	These differences can throw off your cash position without warning.

Why Real time Cash Visibility Matters

• Forecasting accuracy takes a hit. Many UK finance teams report up to 25% variance between their projections and real closing balances.
• Manual work slows things down. Updating spreadsheets across systems can take 6–8 hours, which limits how often forecasts are refreshed.
• Missed opportunities. Without real time cash visibility, it’s harder to move quickly on investments, hiring, or large payments.

ERP and spreadsheet tools still have value—but when it comes to tracking real cash on hand, they can’t always keep up.

Real Time Cash Visibility Through Open Banking

Finexer provides direct, secure access to real-time bank feeds from 99% of UK banks, removing the latency that holds traditional ERP and manual workflows back.

What You Get with Finexer:

Capability	Description	Benefit
Live bank feeds	Real-time cleared and pending transactions	Enables up-to-date cash flow forecasting
Unified UK coverage	One API connection across all UK accounts	Eliminates manual data collection
Tagged and enriched data	Auto-categorises transactions with merchant and purpose context	Reduces time spent on reconciliation
Dashboard-ready format	Compatible with Excel, Power BI, or your existing financial dashboard	Turns live data into a decision-making tool
FCA-regulated infrastructure	Full PSD2 compliance with audit trails and encryption	Trusted by regulated finance teams and auditors alike

Instead of pulling bank files or refreshing spreadsheets, Finexer streams your cash data live—so every stakeholder works from the same, accurate starting point.

Implementation Sprint: Moving to Real Time Cash Forecasting with Finexer

Transitioning to real time cash visibility doesn’t require a system overhaul. With Finexer, most finance teams can get set up in under a month and begin feeding live bank data into their cash flow forecasting models.

Here’s a step-by-step rollout plan to guide your transition from static reports to a live financial dashboard powered by real-time bank feeds.

Phase	What You’ll Do	Outcome
Connect	Link all UK bank accounts via Finexer’s Open Banking API	Begin receiving real-time bank feeds from every entity and account
Normalise	Use Finexer’s auto-tagging rules to categorise incoming and outgoing transactions	Your cash data is cleaned, categorised, and ready for forecasting
Forecast	Plug real-time bank data into your existing 13-week cash flow model	Forecasts reflect actual balances—not estimates or stale accruals
Visualise	Stream live data into Excel, Power BI, or any existing financial dashboard	Finance and leadership teams work from the same up-to-date view of cash

What You’ll Need to Get Started

• Access to your UK business bank accounts
• An existing cash flow forecasting structure in spreadsheets or BI tools
• A few hours from your ops or finance team to walk through Finexer’s guided setup

No engineering support is typically required, just a quick setup session and your live data starts flowing.

What Teams Experience After Switching to Finexer

• Up to 90% reduction in forecasting variance. Teams report sharper accuracy by grounding forecasts in actual balances, not accrual assumptions.
• 6+ hours saved per refresh cycle. No more manually pulling bank files or reconciling across systems.
• Improved cash allocation. With a reliable financial dashboard, excess cash can be deployed faster into growth, investments, or debt reduction.
• Better cross-team decisions. Leadership, finance, and operations all work from the same live, shared view of liquidity.