Independent
Our advisory work starts with the client's cash flows, exposures, processes, systems, and objectives, not with a product quota.
Advisory-first treasury and FX support
Why finance teams call Bastion
Treasury expertise for companies that have outgrown ad hoc FX, payment, cash, and spreadsheet workflows but are not ready to build a full treasury department.
The treasury capability gap
Treasury work often appears before treasury headcount.
Currency purchases, cash forecasts, supplier payments, customer receipts, exposure tracking, bank relationships, policy decisions, and reporting often sit inside accounting or finance. That can work for a while. As cross-border activity grows, the hidden cost is less visibility, more reactive decisions, weaker controls, and unclear ownership.
Bastion fills that gap with specialist treasury and FX advisory designed for commercial and mid-market finance teams that need practical support, not generic market commentary.
Cash forecasts driftForecasts are incomplete, outdated, or disconnected from payment timing.
FX appears lateExposure is handled when invoices arrive instead of before decisions are forced.
Pricing is hard to verifyBank or broker spreads are difficult to see from normal reporting.
Approvals stay manualPayment approvals, beneficiaries, and settlement details rely on manual handoffs.
Hedges lack a recordTrade decisions become hard to explain after the rate has moved.
Spreadsheets carry riskFinance teams are stretched into treasury, risk, and operations without enough control structure.
Capability gap
Finance owns the work, complexity grows, then structure has to catch up.
The goal is not to make treasury complicated. It is to make recurring decisions visible, owned, documented, and easier to repeat.
01Finance owns cash and payments
Accounting and finance absorb daily treasury work.
02Cross-border volume grows
Supplier, customer, and entity flows become more frequent.
03FX exposure becomes recurring
Currency risk is no longer occasional or immaterial.
04Controls and reporting strain
Manual routines become harder to govern and explain.
05Bastion adds structure
Policies, workflows, reporting, and decision rules are organized.
06Decisions become repeatable
Finance has a clearer rhythm for treasury and FX decisions.
The Bastion model
Independent advisory, practical implementation, and transparent execution support where relevant.
Bastion's core work is independent treasury and FX advisory. We help clients understand exposures, costs, workflows, systems, policies, controls, and decisions before recommending a provider, product, platform, hedge, or execution approach.
Advisory fee options
Advisory can be structured as fixed-fee, project-based, variable-fee, or monthly retainer work depending on scope.
Clear provider context
Where payment or FX execution support is relevant, Bastion explains the provider relationship, available options, and compensation clearly.
Transparent
FX costs, markups, trade rationale, governance, and risk limitations should be understandable to finance leaders who do not live in the currency market.
Analytical
Recommendations are grounded in exposure mapping, cash-flow timing, cost analysis, workflow review, and market context.
Practical
Deliverables are built for finance teams that need usable policies, templates, workflows, reporting, controls, and implementation support.
Compared with other options
Bastion sits between product providers and full internal treasury buildout.
Option
Useful for
Common gap
Banks
Infrastructure, credit, accounts, relationship coverage, and product access.
Often tied to products, pricing models, and internal provider priorities.
Brokers
Execution access, market coverage, and service around transactions.
May not address policy, cash visibility, controls, and internal workflow.
Software vendors
Systems, portals, workflow tools, data capture, and reporting infrastructure.
Process design, ownership, and decision rules still need to be built.
Consultants
Focused projects, outside review, and structured recommendations.
Finance may still need practical ongoing support after the report is delivered.
Bastion
Specialist treasury and FX structure for finance teams that need practical process, decision support, and implementation help.
Best fit when the issue is not just a rate, platform, or one-time report.
What changes
Better treasury work turns recurring pressure into a controlled process.
Cost transparency
Understand where FX spreads, forward points, fees, timing decisions, and counterparty pricing affect margin.
Better FX execution
Move from reactive currency purchases to exposure-based decision rules, approval structure, and documented trade rationale.
Cash-flow visibility
Connect cash forecasts, payment timing, supplier obligations, receivables, currency balances, and liquidity needs into one operating view.
Practical policies
Document risk appetite, ownership, hedge permissions, approval limits, escalation paths, and reporting cadence.
Reduced burden
Give finance teams outside support, templates, reporting, and decision routines so treasury work does not remain informal.
Decision support
Use company exposure data, payment timing, and market context to make timely, defensible treasury decisions.
When to talk to us
Signals that treasury work has outgrown the current process.
These are usually process signals before they are staffing signals. The right first step is often a focused review of what is already happening inside finance.
- Cash forecasts are not reliable enough for upcoming payments
- FX exposure is discussed only after rates move
- Payment approvals depend on email chains or informal signoff
- Bank or broker FX pricing is not independently reviewed
- Hedge decisions are reactive, inconsistent, or undocumented
- Spreadsheets are used for exposure tracking, cash visibility, or payment control without review
- Finance is spending too much time reconciling payments, trades, and bank activity
- Cross-border volume is growing but policy, reporting, and ownership have not caught up
What the first conversation clarifies
Start with the operating issue, then decide what support makes sense.
A good treasury review should not begin with a product recommendation. It should identify the pressure point, the owner, the workflow, the risk, and the practical next step.
1
What is happening now?Current cash, FX, payment, approval, reporting, and spreadsheet routines.
2
Where is the risk or cost?Visibility gaps, pricing uncertainty, weak controls, timing pressure, or unclear ownership.
3
What should change first?A practical sequence for policy, reporting, workflow, provider review, or ongoing advisory.
Start with a Free Treasury Audit.
We will help identify what to fix first, what can wait, and where treasury work needs clearer ownership.