TMS Explainer: The Treasury Management System database (TMS)
- Peter Quarre RT
- Dec 31, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 4
Treasury Management System database
A Treasury Management System (TMS) is built on a foundation of well-structured data tables that support critical financial operations. These tables store essential information, ranging from bank account details to transactional records, ensuring that treasury teams have access to accurate and organized data.
By structuring data efficiently, a TMS enables seamless payment processing, cash management, reconciliation, financial reporting, and audit compliance. Each table plays a specific role in supporting treasury workflows, whether by capturing bank balances, tracking payments, or maintaining a log of system actions for transparency.
Understanding these fundamental data structures is crucial for treasury professionals who aim to optimize system efficiency and utilization and enhance reporting accuracy.
The Role of Databases in a TMS
A TMS database serves as a centralized hub for all treasury-related data. This role is vital for ensuring accurate reporting, efficient processing, and compliance with audit and regulatory requirements. Here's a closer look at its responsibilities:
1. Storing Data
Effective treasury management relies on the structured storage of critical financial data. A well-organized data repository enables accurate cash forecasting, streamlined transactions, risk management, and regulatory compliance. This chapter explores the key data categories that form the foundation of a Treasury Management System (TMS).
Entities: The core organizational structure, including legal entities and their associated bank accounts, forms the basis for all treasury operations.
Bank Accounts: Maintaining an up-to-date record of all corporate bank accounts ensures visibility into liquidity and supports transaction execution.
Counterparties: Treasury interactions involve external parties such as banks, financial institutions, and suppliers. Properly storing counterparty data facilitates secure transactions and risk assessment.
Account Balances: Daily bank account balances provide real-time insight into liquidity positions, ensuring optimal cash utilization.
Transactions: Payment instructions, settlements, and receipts must be accurately recorded to track cash movements and maintain reconciliation integrity.
Deal Information: Executed treasury transactions, such as loans, deposits, foreign exchange (FX) deals, and In-House Bank transactions, require proper documentation to support decision-making and reporting.
Forecast Data: Future cash flow projections, derived from historical patterns and expected financial activities, enable proactive liquidity planning.
Market Data: Exchange rates, interest rates, and other risk-related metrics, such as credit ratings, support financial decision-making and exposure management.
Security Information: Ensuring that access to treasury data is controlled and monitored through user roles, permissions, and authentication methods is crucial for data integrity and cybersecurity.
By systematically storing and managing these data points, treasury professionals can enhance operational efficiency, ensure compliance, and make informed strategic decisions.
2. Supporting System Processes
To ensure efficient treasury operations, the system must not only store data but also support automated workflows and financial calculations. This chapter explores how structured data enables key treasury functions, enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and control.
Facilitating Workflows: Treasury workflows such as payment approvals, cash pooling, and netting rely on structured processes. The system database stores the instructions for initiating, authorizing, and settling transactions, ensuring seamless execution at the right time.
Powering Financial Calculations: Accurate exposure assessments, hedging strategies, and liquidity forecasts depend on the availability of real-time and historical data. The system enables these calculations by centralizing and structuring the necessary financial information.
By integrating these supporting system processes, a TMS enhances automation, minimizes manual intervention, and provides treasury teams with the tools needed to make informed decisions.
3. Enabling Reporting
Accurate and timely reporting is essential for effective treasury management. A well-structured Treasury Management System (TMS) not only stores and processes data but also enables comprehensive reporting that supports decision-making, compliance, and strategic planning.
Consolidating Data: The system's database serves as a powerful source and engine for generating reports, dashboards, and compliance documentation, ensuring that all relevant information is readily available in a structured format.
Slicing and Dicing Data: Treasury professionals need flexibility in analyzing financial data. A TMS allows users to filter (slicing) and group (dicing) information by key dimensions such as currency, region, entity, or any other relevant field, providing tailored insights for different stakeholders.
By leveraging these reporting capabilities, treasury teams can enhance visibility, improve financial oversight, and drive data-driven decisions.
Common Database Technologies Used in TMS
A Treasury Management System (TMS) relies on powerful database technologies to manage the vast volume and complexity of financial data. The efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of treasury operations depend on the underlying database infrastructure, which supports everything from transactional processing to financial reporting.
SQL-Based Systems
Relational databases form the backbone of most TMS solutions, providing structured data management and reliable querying capabilities.
Examples: Common relational database management systems (RDBMS) include Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database, both widely used in enterprise treasury environments.
Structured Query Language (SQL): The use of SQL allows treasury professionals to perform precise data manipulations, complex queries, and automated reporting, ensuring data integrity and efficiency.
Use Cases: SQL-based databases are ideal for handling structured treasury data such as account hierarchies, payment instructions, transaction logs, and financial records.
Benefits of SQL-Based Systems
Established Technology: SQL has been a trusted standard since the 1970s, making it one of the most widely adopted database technologies in modern financial systems.
Broad Industry Support: Many TMS and ERP vendors leverage SQL databases due to their reliability, performance, and compatibility with reporting and analytics tools.
By understanding the role of SQL-based database systems in TMS, treasury professionals can better appreciate how data is structured, stored, and retrieved to support critical financial processes.
Explaining Table Structures in a TMS
The database backbone of a Treasury Management System (TMS) is built on well-structured tables, each designed to store specific financial data. These tables ensure that treasury operations run efficiently by organizing information in a clear and systematic manner. By structuring data into dedicated tables, a TMS enhances data integrity, increases processing speed, enables seamless reporting, and supports automation across various treasury functions.
One of the fundamental table structures in a TMS is the Bank Accounts Master Data Table, which plays a crucial role in treasury operations.
1) Bank Accounts Master Data Table
This table stores key information about the organization's bank accounts, ensuring that treasury teams have a centralized and accurate record of account details.
Example Fields:
Account ID – A unique identifier for each bank account (must be unique).
Account Number – The actual bank account number.
IBAN – The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) for standardized transactions.
Bank Name – The name of the bank where the account is held.
Branch Code – An identifier for the specific branch of the bank.
Currency – The currency in which the account operates.
Account Type – Specifies the type of account (e.g., current, savings, deposit).
Status – Indicates whether the account is active or closed.
Owner Entity – The legal entity or business unit that owns the account.
2) Bank Balances Table
The Bank Balances Table is a key component of a Treasury Management System (TMS), capturing daily balance data for bank accounts separately from individual transactions. This structured approach allows treasury teams to monitor liquidity, track cash positions, and reconcile bank statements efficiently.
By maintaining a dedicated balance table, a TMS ensures a clear distinction between transactional activity and overall account balances, helping treasury professionals manage cash more effectively.
Example Fields:
Balance ID – A unique identifier for each balance record (must be unique).
Account ID – Links to the Bank Accounts Master Data Table, ensuring traceability to the respective bank account.
Date – The specific date on which the balance was recorded.
Closing Balance – The account balance at the end of the day.
Currency – The currency in which the balance is recorded.
Balance Type – Specifies whether it is a bank ledger balance, available balance, or another balance type. This can also a master data item.
Source – Indicates where the balance data originated (Bank Statement, Manual Entry, System Calculation).
Statement Number – The reference number assigned by the bank to the statement, ensuring proper reconciliation.
3) Bank Transactions Table
The Bank Transactions Table is a fundamental component of a Treasury Management System (TMS), capturing all financial movements within corporate bank accounts. This table provides a comprehensive record of debits, credits, and fees, ensuring that treasury teams have full visibility into cash inflows and outflows.
By systematically storing transaction data, the TMS enables bank reconciliation, liquidity monitoring, and audit compliance, making it easier to track financial activity and ensure accurate reporting.
Example Fields:
Transaction ID – A unique identifier for each transaction.
Account ID – Links to the Bank Accounts Master Data Table, ensuring traceability to the respective bank account.
Transaction Date – The date on which the transaction was posted.
Transaction Type – Specifies whether the transaction is a credit, debit, or fee.
Amount – The total amount of the transaction.
Currency – The currency in which the transaction was conducted.
Description – A detailed description of the transaction (e.g., vendor payment, interest earned, bank charges).
Reference Number – A unique identifier for the transaction, often provided by the bank for reconciliation purposes.
4) Payment Information Table
The Payment Information Table is a critical component of a Treasury Management System (TMS), capturing details of all payments initiated or processed within the system. By maintaining structured payment records, this table ensures transparency, facilitates reconciliation, and supports audit and compliance requirements.
Each payment transaction is assigned a unique identifier and is tracked throughout its lifecycle, from initiation to completion. Treasury teams rely on this data to monitor outgoing payments, verify payment statuses, and ensure seamless execution of financial transactions.
Example Fields:
Payment ID – A unique identifier for each payment transaction.
Payment Date – The date the payment was initiated.
Amount – The total amount of the payment.
Currency – The currency in which the payment is made.
Beneficiary Name – The name of the recipient of the payment.
Beneficiary Bank Account – The account number of the payment recipient.
Payment Method – Specifies the method used (e.g., wire transfer, SEPA, ACH, SWIFT).
Status – Indicates the current state of the payment (e.g., Pending, Completed, Rejected).
Reference Number – An internal or external reference for tracking the payment.
Remittance Information – Additional comments or descriptions added by the payer.
Initiating Account ID – A link to the Bank Accounts Master Data Table, ensuring traceability to the source account.
5) Treasury Transaction Table
The Treasury Transaction Table serves as a chronological log of all transactions (FX, Loans, InHouseBank) processed within a Treasury Management System (TMS), providing a detailed audit trail. Also called Transaction Diary. This table ensures transparency, enhances compliance, and supports internal controls by tracking every action taken on a transaction from initiation to completion.
By maintaining a structured record of transaction activities, treasury teams can monitor workflow progress, investigate discrepancies, and ensure adherence to approval policies.
Example Fields:
Diary ID: Unique identifier for each diary entry.
Deal Type ID: Identifies the type of transaction.
Transaction ID: Links to the Treasury deal contract.
Date and Time: Timestamp for when the transaction was logged.
Action: Description of the action taken (e.g., Created, Approved, Rejected).
User ID: The user or system process that performed the action.
Currency: The transactions currency.
Amount: The transactions value in mentioned currency.
Comments: Additional notes or explanations for the diary entry.
Status Change: Logs changes in the transaction status (e.g., Pending to Completed).
Approval Level: If applicable, the approval stage of the transaction.
Conclusion
The structured storage of financial data within a Treasury Management System is essential for maintaining efficiency, accuracy, and transparency in treasury operations. Each table plays a vital role in ensuring that financial transactions are properly recorded, cash positions are monitored, and system activities are auditable.
Understanding the TMS database structure helps the user to utilize the data for decision making.
Other interesting articles:
Treasury Management System (TMS) Interfaces and Integrations
 Peter Quarre RT | This article is written by Peter Quarré, who plays a key role in designing, building, and implementing solutions. He is ready to assist you with your challenges and help optimize your processes. |  FIS Integrity Silver Certified |