Key takeaways
  • Efficiently managing cash flow is your lifeline for getting to the next stage of growth.
  • Integrating finance operations helps you avoid pitfalls of fragmented cash management like lack of visibility and data that may reduce your runway.
  • Optimizing cash management integrates your business banking, spending, credit, and liquidity to maximize controls and insights to better support forward momentum.

The fast pace of innovation economy companies can make it challenging to keep control over spending. But managing your cash position is your lifeline for getting to the next stage of growth. That’s why businesses should make cash optimization a top priority, even early on.

Strategic cash flow management integrates banking, corporate card spend, credit, and liquidity. Integrated solutions, real-time visibility and automated workflows help you maximize runway and support growth. It’s a critical approach to help avoid common pitfalls and establish efficient finance operations as a foundation for the road forward.

How fragmented systems create cash management pitfalls

In the flurry of developing, launching and promoting products, closely monitoring how and how much you spend may get overlooked. But without integrated cash management, it’s harder to manage your monthly burn rate and prevent obstacles that limit growth, including:

  • Lack of cash position visibility.
    Many companies do amazing work scaling up with new innovations. But all too often, their finance operations don’t scale along with it. Inadequate cash management can mean your company has to scramble every month to figure out your cash position.

    According to Oliver Grummitt, Managing Director, Global Treasury & Payments, SVB, “For reconciliation, it makes every month feel like it’s the day before Tax Day. No one wants to feel that every month of the year.” SVB helps clients avoid that trap with the right cash controls and expert advisory.

 

  • Limited financial accuracy.
    With disconnected finance systems and processes, you lack the data to know where you are financially every month. And it takes more work to manually check multiple systems and figure it out.

    To solve those challenges, SVB purpose-built solutions to integrate a company’s business banking, spend management, ERP and other systems. It enables automated data flows to reduce manual work and errors, which saves time and provides more accurate insights.

    “When you understand your cash flow position, you can make much better decisions,” explains Grummitt. “Right now, given the shortage of IPO exits and the macroeconomic headwinds, you need that more than ever.”

 

  • Less runway between rounds.
    Funding between rounds is now longer, at every stage. Effective cash management is essential to reduce your burn rate so your loan or investor funding can carry you for many more months. In fact, evolving from seed to Series D is taking 45% longer than in 2022, according to SVB’s State of the Markets H2 2025 report. To bridge the gaps and reduce burn, many companies are adopting more controlled cash flow management and replacing costly manual finance processes with automation.

3 core components of optimized cash management

A critical strategy is to plan for scaling long before you’re ready to scale. The right integrated toolset for cash flow management can give you centralized, automated control and visibility. It empowers your teams to accomplish more that matters, while reducing costs and burn rate.

Integrated finance operations

Using an optimized cash management dashboard like SVB Go integrates controls and insights about your banking, spending, credit, and liquidity. And APIs make it easy to connect this ecosystem with your ERP or accounting software. It enables you to automate a steady stream of data for faster insights and shorter month-end close.

This approach to cash flow management helps you establish solid financial discipline to support your growth. As an example, SVB Go is built to scale from the one-person startup to a large corporate with thousands of employees, or a VC firm overseeing many portfolio companies.

Integrated banking systems also centralize payment data to give you a real-time view of committed spend to improve budgeting and forecasting. The SVB platform leverages AI for richer analytics to help your company foresee your upsides as well as potential challenges.

At SVB, our APIs bring together disparate forms of data so you can make sense of it in one view. Other banks have not done that yet, and we’re getting tremendous positive reaction from our innovators and our VCs.

Automated spend management

Small efficiencies today can make a big impact later – particularly for managing company spend. You want to ensure teams can focus their time on high-value work, instead of wasting it on tedious manual processes. That’s why it’s also crucial to automate expense reporting, reconciliation and accounting sync. The key is having a centralized commercial card program that’s integrated with a robust spend management platform. 

For instance, you can quickly enable procurement, business travel, and SaaS spending by issuing virtual cards with custom limits and pre-set expense codes, and auto-enforce spend policies. In turn, employees can submit expenses and receipts via mobile app as spend occurs, so data automatically flows into your systems. The net effect is a command center that makes it easier to control cash flow.

Improved liquidity management

Strategic cash flow management also makes it easier to identify idle cash that’s investable to boost liquidity. 

For example, if you have surplus cash that you don’t need right away, you can park it in short-term CDs. Or automatically sweep excess balances into interest-earning accounts at the end of each month. Putting cash reserves to work earning income is a powerful strategy for cash flow optimization.

At SVB, you can partner with a Liquidity Advisor who can look at your specific situation and goals and provide optimal solutions for growing liquidity.

Partnering with SVB for cash management strategy

Innovators know that getting to the next stage takes the right capabilities, as well as strategic partners. SVB gives your company an integrated, personalized portfolio view and scalable tools to help optimize cash flow as your business grows. And it’s all backed by our unique expertise in the innovation economy.

At SVB, banking is not just a commodity, it’s a relationship – focused on helping companies be “investor-ready” and poised for successful growth.

“Along with digital capabilities, our clients get extra support and capability to help them solve problems they may not have foreseen, but that we may have seen 10 or maybe 100 times,” notes Grummitt.

Learn more about partnering with SVB for treasury management solutions to help your business succeed at every stage of growth. And check out our video chat on building a scalable foundation.

Frequently asked questions

 

How does cash flow management reduce burn rate?

Strategic cash flow management increases visibility, control and efficiency to prevent wasteful burn. For example, integrated cash management systems provide real-time insights to identify and reduce unnecessary and out-of-policy spend. Companies can also automate spending limits, expense reporting and reconciliation for more accurate cash control. 

What tools integrate with banking platforms for cash management?

Modern banking platforms can integrate a company’s banking, commercial card and expense management, credit solutions, and liquidity management accounts. For instance, SVB Go provides a unified dashboard showing cash position, payables, card spend and earning potential on idle cash. And using easy API connections, all finance data can be automatically integrated with a company’s ERP or accounting software. 

What makes SVB's approach to cash management different?

SVB has purpose-built cash management solutions for the unique needs of innovation economy companies. We provide integrated capabilities and expert advisory to help companies successfully navigate every stage of growth. That includes ensuing businesses have a strong financial foundation early on so they can operate cost-efficiently, better control runway, and stay focused on their innovation journey. 

How does cash flow optimization benefit startups?

Cash flow optimization helps startups extend runway longer between funding rounds. Optimized cash management relies on integrated systems that provide crucial capabilities for managing growth. It includes real-time visibility into the company’s cash position, robust spend controls, and automated reporting and reconciliation. This approach saves time, increases accuracy, and improves budgeting and forecasting decisions. And with liquidity management tools, businesses earn interest income on cash reserves. Collectively, cash flow optimization strategies enable startups to use capital strategically to hit milestones before the next funding round.