How Ardena automated its treasury with Cobase

As a pharmaceutical services company, Ardena was dealing with a plethora of small biotech firms and academic research teams, which required a high volume of relatively small payments. These were being made through multiple banking systems and, while the CFO had been seeing a weekly cash position created in a spreadsheet by the accountancy team, there was no clear overview of payments or anything like a daily cash position. What was needed was group-wide visibility of cash and the ability to analyse, forecast and optimise cash flow.

Desloovere’s first thought was to make better use of bank-supported portals, such as Belgium’s Isabel network. This had the merit of being relatively inexpensive, but Ardena soon reached the limits of these platforms and began to look for a more sophisticated alternative that could do more and yet still be affordable.

Fortunately, Ardena’s owner, UK private equity firm GHO Capital Partners, had made full cash visibility a priority after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, so a treasury upgrade was already budgeted. Having selected Cobase, based on recommendations from his treasury network, Desloovere set to work to transform Ardena’s fledgling treasury from a largely manual operation to a fully automated one.

Like many PE-owned firms, Ardena’s growth trajectory includes acquisitions, so adding new entities and bank accounts and managing them within the platform was a key benefit.

With this multi-entity structure, there is a constant requirement for inter-company loans and interest calculations, which can now be handled seamlessly within Cobase.

The platform can also optimise balances across accounts based on pre-set parameters without manual intervention – ideal for a one-person treasury team like Ardena’s.

The close integration between different Cobase modules means that these balance optimisation transactions are automatically administered within the in-house banking module. The module can generate balance forecasts based on the actual balance and the scheduled payments to determine the balance targets. This function allows treasury and finance to make rapid, informed decisions.

For Desloovere, Introducing Cobase has acted as a catalyst for a wider aim of bringing structure to the treasury function, replacing older, manual processes with modern, automated workflows. “We have now implemented a more structured approach,” says Desloovere. “Now everybody uses the system on the same level – before it was individuals having signing rights within different bank platforms.”

Ardena’s treasury transformation serves as a benchmark for mid-sized enterprises navigating rapid growth and globalisation. The company successfully transitioned from a decentralised financial structure to a sophisticated treasury operation through strategic investments in technology and process optimisation, ensuring sustainable growth and resilience in a competitive market.