The finance team’s get-out-of-jail-free card: “We’ve always done things that way….”

I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, thinking about my first “proper” finance job. It was 2006, and even though I hadn’t yet qualified, I was taking charge of cash management for a large international TV network.

I had a week to learn the ropes before the previous Treasury Manager left on maternity leave – in hindsight, I’m not sure why it was so rushed; she’d had a fair bit of notice!
While showing me how to update the cashflow forecast, she evidently saw the confusion on my face. She stopped and winked at me conspiratorially.

“If anyone ever asks, just remember these six words: ‘we’ve always done it that way’”.

Next month, I followed her instructions to the letter. I submitted the cashflow and relaxed back in my chair – Michael Alcock, the master of coin.

But within days, I’d been shouted at, my boss had been fired, and we’d come close to losing the satellite feed in most of Western Europe.

I was hauled into the CFO’s office, who demanded to know why I’d prepared a forecast with assumptions that were five years out of date.

“B.. b.. because we’ve always done it that way!”

A lot has changed in the two decades since, not least the acceptability of putting a clueless kid in charge of treasury – actually, that bit changed two days after my CFO meeting.

However, as a Fractional CFO, I still frequently encounter that same six-word get-out-of-jail-free card. Systems and processes that have long outlived their effectiveness or usefulness limp on “because we’ve alwa..” – well, you get the point by now.

But in travel, an industry that is constantly surrounded by change, that excuse isn’t sustainable. You have to adapt or die.

So, which things that you’ve “always done that way” should be on your hit list? Here’s four:

1. Treating cash as a strategic asset

Yes, cash is the lifeblood of a business, but that doesn’t mean you should stick it under the mattress for safekeeping.

Instead, see it as a resource that can be put to work:

• Idle cash: Stop leaving large balances in basic current accounts. Savings account aggregators and term deposits can earn returns much higher than your bank can provide.
• Merchant acquirer: Are your rates and settlement terms still appropriate for your risk profile? My guess is that it’s been a while since you negotiated.
• Credit as a tool: Supplier terms, credit cards and merchant deferral products can smooth seasonality when used intentionally.
• Escrow/trust interest: Protected doesn’t mean passive; structured correctly, it can generate income.
• Foreign currency: Is your hedging strategy more Monty Don than Capital One?

Taking cash management seriously doesn’t require a big team – just a conscious effort. 

However, you can’t optimise cash without knowing what’s around the corner…

2. Predicting the future

In travel, where booking patterns, cancellations and supplier timings shift constantly, outdated forecasting is a direct threat to liquidity. (See also TV networks).

A modern forecast is a living model that shows how your business and cash position will evolve under different conditions.

What strong forecasting looks like:

• A rolling 18–36 month model, with connected P&L, balance sheet and cashflow.
• Multiple scenarios (best, base, worst) to handle volatility.
• Operational inputs: enquiries, conversion, yield, cancellations.
• Financial outputs: ratios, cashflow timing, staffing, ATOL requirements.
• Minimal manual updates to reduce errors.

Forecasting won’t tell the future, but it will tell you how your business will respond to it – and that’s what solid decision-making is built on.

But, you can’t build a reliable forecast without reliable data. Which brings me to…

3. Getting on top of your data

You’ve got a flashy new finance forecast, but as they say, RIRO – Rubbish In, Rubbish Out. Most companies I encounter generate huge amounts of data, but use only fragments of it. Poor data hygiene, basic reporting and disconnected systems mean forecasts are often built on sand.

To forecast well, you must first fix the data foundations.

Start with:

• Clean records for bookings, customers, suppliers and financial mappings.
• Understanding unit economics: booking patterns, product margins, CAC, customer cohorts.
• Connected systems (Marketing ↔ CRM ↔ Reservations ↔ Finance).
• Dashboards tracking volume, yield, conversion, margin and cash.
• Reducing manual exports and spreadsheet workarounds.

But even perfect data won’t help if the underlying processes and people can’t support fast, accurate reporting. Which leads to the final piece…

4. Bringing your finance ecosystem up to date

You can’t maintain clean data, produce reliable forecasts or optimise cash if your processes are stuck in the past. Travel businesses often grow quickly, but their finance function doesn’t. The result is bottlenecks, errors, slow reporting and an inability to scale.

A modern finance team needs the right people, processes and platforms working together:

• Automation of transactions and reporting.
• System integration to eliminate manual exports.
• A fast, disciplined month-end close that produces timely insight.
• Scalable controls for payments and refunds.
• A finance team that has time for analysis, not just admin.

When the processes improve, data improves. When data improves, forecasting becomes meaningful. And when forecasting becomes meaningful, cash becomes a strategic weapon rather than a constant worry.

Start by asking your teams a few questions, and if I have learned anything in 20 years of doing this, it’s that there’s margin hiding in the answer “we’ve always done it that way”.

Hiring a full-time, experienced CFO is expensive and complex. Our fractional finance model solves this: it’s the flexible, low-risk way to bring in C-suite strategic expertise to optimise your entire financial engine.

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