Streamlining Treasury with Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations

A global technology platform and e-commerce business for luxury fashion (Under NDA) faced recurring treasury errors, slow reconciliations and limited cash visibility during high-volume trading periods in the United Kingdom. The client ran Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations but relied on manual processes and file transfers to handle payments and bank statements, generating operational risk and forcing finance teams to spend days each month reconciling activity.

Awara IT designed and implemented a direct Citibank integration into Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations to automate payment submission and bank statement imports. The result: automated cash flow balancing, faster reconciliations, and a measurable reduction in treasury errors—delivering daily cash visibility and a scalable, auditable treasury process for a retail business operating across Western Europe.

Client / Industry / Country

Under NDA is a UK-headquartered global technology platform and e-commerce provider for luxury fashion, operating across Western Europe with high transaction volumes and centralized finance teams supporting multi-currency sales and supplier payouts.

Business challenge

The client’s finance and treasury teams were managing high-value payments and incoming receipts with manual handoffs: export files from Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations were manually formatted, uploaded to banking portals, and bank statements were imported through ad-hoc file processing. This process created gaps in the audit trail, frequent posting errors, and slow reconciliation cycles that eroded working capital visibility.

Because the business scales rapidly during seasonal peaks, the existing approach was an operational constraint. Key triggers for change included the need to lower treasury error rates, accelerate month-end bank reconciliation, and provide near-real-time cash position reporting to support budgeting and short-term liquidity decisions.

Why Dynamics 365 was selected

Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations already formed the client’s ERP backbone, handling general ledger, AP and cash management. Choosing to extend Dynamics F&O to host treasury automation and direct bank integration minimized data duplication, preserved existing master data and reduced integration surface area.

Selection criteria focused on native bank management capability, support for ISO 20022/camt bank formats, Electronic Reporting for configurable file templates, and secure Azure-based connectivity. As a Microsoft partner, Awara IT recommended leveraging Dynamics F&O plus Azure integration services to deliver a secure, maintainable solution aligned with the client’s Microsoft stack.

Modules implemented

• Cash and Bank Management (Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations)
• Accounts Payable and Electronic Payments
• Treasury Management (payments and statement reconciliation)
• General Ledger and Intercompany Posting
• Electronic Reporting (ER) and Data Management Framework
• Budgeting and Cash Forecasting modules
• Power Platform (Power Automate) for approval workflows

Integrations

• Direct Citibank host-to-host integration (ISO 20022 / camt.053 / pain.001)
• Azure Logic Apps for secure file exchange and orchestration
• Azure Active Directory for SSO and role-based access
• E‑commerce order system (payment reference imports for reconciliation)
• Microsoft 365 notifications for payment approvals and audit trail

Localization & compliance

The implementation ensured compliance with UK banking and data requirements: bank message formats were aligned to ISO 20022 and account statement imports conform to camt.053 expectations used by UK corporate banking. Security and data protection measures respected GDPR and corporate data residency preferences by hosting services in Azure and applying encryption-in-transit and at-rest. Solution design also considered UK Payment Services Regulations and Strong Customer Authentication (where applicable) for corporate channels and ensured that audit logs met regulatory and internal control requirements.

Business value

Automating payments and statement imports removed repetitive manual steps and materially reduced operational risk for a high-value retail business. The client gained near real-time visibility into cash positions, enabling treasury to optimize short-term liquidity and reduce overdraft and financing costs. Faster reconciliations freed finance staff to focus on exception management and analysis rather than data entry, improving month-end closes and internal controls.

Using Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations as the single source of truth preserved master data integrity and reduced total cost of ownership. The Citibank direct integration, paired with Azure-based orchestration, provided a maintainable, secure path for scaling treasury operations during peak trading periods while keeping an auditable trail for compliance and audit requirements. Awara IT delivered the solution as the implementation partner and supported handover and runbook documentation so the client could operate autonomously.