Putting a treasury's policies and procedures into writtenform seems like a good idea, but not all treasuries have formalwritten policies to guide the various types of work they do,according to a surveyby the Association for Financial Professionals.

The incidence of formal written policies varies widely by thetype of activity, with investment management policies the mostcommon. More than half (56%) of the 554 treasury practitioners AFPsurveyed said their company has a formal written policy forinvestment management, while 20% said they have written guidelinesor procedures for investing and 13% use unofficial operatingstandards or rules of thumb.

“Any time you're dealing with money, it's always good to havepolicies and procedures to be your backstop, well-documentedprocedures to make sure you're doing things correctly and they'rereviewed by your auditors,” said Thomas Hunt, director of treasuryservices at AFP. Hunt described such policies as “a safety factor,something that you can fall back on and have confidence in, andthat helps you when things get tough.”