This is the third installation in our series on alternative treasury management systems.
Orbit Treasury Solutions is a cloud-based TMS designed by treasury professionals for their peers. Perhaps this is why users are so enthusiastic about it. Orbit is produced by Walking Man Software, whose founder and CEO is Dan Farrand. Mr. Farrand was a treasury analyst at Apple for eight years before founding Green River Computing as a vehicle to pursue his interests in corporate treasury and software, working with Apple, Cisco, KLA Tencor and Juniper.
Orbit Treasury Solutions is partnered with California-based Treasury Dynamics, a strategic and operational financial consulting firm that has worked with several NeuGroup members. Mr. Farrand leads Orbit’s development team and also provides technical and implementation support, while Chris Matthews from Treasury Dynamics leads the marketing, installation and related management services, as well as offering operational and strategic support.
New requests add more value
Talking to Mr. Farrand is an exercise in contagious enthusiasm for something a lot of people often are not so enthusiastic about: treasury management systems. Mr. Farrand’s clear passion for both treasury and technology development have created a culture at Orbit for both clear technology solutions and a treasury-first mindset. “New requests add more value,” he says. This is a departure from the trend toward fitting processes to systems that never are as customizable as they first appear.
Orbit’s strength is as a foreign exchange management system, but it offers all of the standard TMS functionalities, including:
- Cash Management:
- Cash positioning, accounting, forecasting and reconciliation
- Bank account administration
- Payment solutions
- Interface with the ERP, banking network and SWIFT
- Ability to attach back-up documentation to payments files
- Secure international payroll wires
- FX Management
- Exposure capture, trade confirmation and warehousing
- Integration with the cash module
- Automated G/L accounting and automated settlement planning
- Exposure visibility and “nimble” reporting
To provide a user perspective, we asked NeuGroup members using Orbit our standard set of questions about their experience:
What do you use it for?
One of the first things that came up in this discussion was visibility. In the quest for accurate and real-time data, Orbit’s coding facilitates automated processes and allows it to provide detailed vision into global cash positions in local and functional currency, displayed as the viewer needs by clicking the relevant boxes.
Pressed for specifics, a member of The NeuGroup’s Tech20 Treasurers’ Peer Group said he uses the system for balance-sheet data collection, funding requests, FX management (including reporting and interfacing with FXall), cash management, and tracking users involved with these processes. His team also uses Orbit’s intelligence on hedge strategies and trade execution. The system can be taught which days hedges roll to, which positions are hedged, and market conventions by currency.
Another user cited bank account management, signing authority, cash management and overnight MMFs, as well as FX operations, although she noted that her team still uses the ERP for payments.
In discussing cash management and FX, two users noted that Orbit integrates with whichever portals the organization uses, and does FAS133 accounting that automatically goes into journals that go into the ERP. It also interfaces well with Capella, HedgeTrackers’ FAS 133-compliant accounting software which was also created by Mr. Farrand and in use by several NeuGroup members.
Regarding potential new additions to Orbit Treasury Solutions, Mr. Matthews mentioned the IRS’s FBAR or Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts compliance and an expected increase in demand for eBAM (electronic bank account management) in the near future, which the company plans to introduce through 2015.
What do you like best?
Orbit’s customizability and ability to free up Treasury time with straight through processing are big selling points. One user, who is a member of the NeuGroup’s Treasurers’ Group of Thirty (T30) and was one of Orbit’s first customers, wanted to automate some of the data entry for FX trades. Orbit now takes the trade, shifts it to FXall, and then once the trade is executed, moves it back to Mysis, the confirmation matching service, and Capella for hedge accounting, after which wires can be sent to SWIFT. Thus four formerly manual data-entry processes are now automated. Orbit also took the company out of the business of bank tokens, which were reduced from five to one. Freeing up time from manual activities means that Treasury can focus on the analytical support that moves it up the value chain.
Our Tech20 user added that adding or changing functionalities or modifying the interface of its Orbit’s logic is relatively easy compared to the more rigid, out-of-the-box tools offered by larger players in the treasury workstation market.
What don’t you like?
This question yielded two points. The first is that with a limited number of clients at the moment, some features are not yet enterprise ready. However, these are not yet being relied upon by otherwise satisfied users. The second is that that while the system works very well and is easy to use, it is “not pretty” to look at.
What made Orbit the right choice for you?
None of the deciding factors our users mentioned were company-specific, but all were impressed with the overall package and able to achieve their TMS goals. Our T30 member chose Orbit first for the opportunity to work with someone who knew both treasury and IT and was thus able to build the system from the view of a user without having to translate for a programmer. Another user emphasized that Orbit “works and functions like a treasury professional would want,” which, when combined with the price and the customization, made the decision clear. And our Tech20 user’s response was that “Orbit is a flexible cost effective FX management system,” which is exactly what he needs.
Knowing how busy people in Treasury are, Mr. Farrand makes it a point that his staff know what Treasurers are talking about and can relate to their requests.
As for Orbit’s own target market, according to Mr. Matthews it can start making sense at the smallest levels and is currently in use for clients with $50bn or more in revenue.
How was the set-up?
In keeping with the theme of building client relationships, set-up is a highly collaborative process between the Orbit team and the client. This helps establish goals without increasing the need for internal resources.
Our T30 member’s entire setup took seven months, with an emphasis on automating everything. These seven months included time to map the entire process and see where the pain points were so that the final product would fit the company’s needs. He summarized the experience as “[allowing you] to get to a useful TMS in a short amount of time,” which was once again attributed to Mr. Farrand’s knowledge of treasury and its related processes. The company used a project management team from Deloitte in order to let Orbit’s small team stay out of the project management side and concentrate on getting the system running.
Another user had a setup of three months, although she noted that this was when her company was still young and there was no SOX. She then made the point that Orbit has “served [the company] very well,” being user friendly, highly customized and very cost effective. Setup was easy enough that it did not figure highly in the discussion.
Regarding the use of internal versus Orbit and Treasury Dynamics resources, Mr. Matthews said that generally setup can be done with “little impact on internal IT resources.” While SaaS is becoming more mainstream, it is up to the clients whether they want a cloud-based or client server installation. For those who do choose the cloud-based option, the sensitive data—generally payments and payroll—will remain behind their firewall. SaaS-based clients require far fewer internal IT resources, but the other factor is the number of processes and systems that need to be integrated.
Would you recommend Orbit, and if so, what words of caution you would add to this recommendation?
Everyone said yes to this question, with a few notes. While the ability to customize with a smaller vendor is great, there is a bit less infrastructure support. This is not to say that there is no support—on the contrary, a corollary to its tailored product is Orbit’s responsive support team, but there are fewer people to deliver it.
A note on pricing:
Users cite Orbit as reasonably priced and cost effective. Individual modules are priced approximately from $1200 to $3900 per month, depending on the module and the complexity of treasury structure. However, the company takes a holistic approach to pricing, “getting to know the client and looking at functional needs,” assessing the complexity of the operation every few years as opposed to charging per user. This fits well with the company’s long-term partnership approach to its clients.