Dec 8, 2025 - Last Updated: Dec 9, 2025
If your treasury management team is still trading bonds (and only bonds) like it’s 1999, we invite you to modernize your investment practice with multiple levers to help your clients and investors achieve yields that can meet their investing needs. Set aside the tangled web of emails, phone calls, and manual processes — and seize the opportunity to automate and streamline your treasury investing practice.
Do These Manual Bond Investing Steps Feel All Too Familiar?
How many manual steps — including phone calls, faxes, and disjointed technology — does your current bond trading system require?
1. Buy-Side Market Data Gathering
Manually gather and evaluate bond data from disparate legacy systems and third-party providers — a time-consuming process that can rely on trader expertise to piece together a complete market view.
2. Multiple Voice-Based Negotiations
Initiate a request-for-quote (RFQ) process by calling multiple dealers, negotiating terms over the phone, and manually documenting the prices and trading volumes discussed — a process based on relationships and trust, not the best available execution strategies.
3. Manual Trade Entry Into an Order Management System (OMS)
After agreeing on a price, manually enter the trade details, creating the risk of human error when transcribing from the voice conversation.
4. Multiple Post-Trade Confirmations
Use a manual, multi-step confirmation process with phone calls or faxes, which can lead to data entry errors that cause trade breaks — possibly triggering a complex manual reconciliation process.
5. Settlement and Reconciliation
Navigate a settlement process that requires manual oversight because your legacy Order Management System (OMS) is not fully integrated with multiple clearinghouses and payment systems.
Free Yourself From the Operational Drag of Legacy Bond Trading
Even one manual step can erode your team’s efficiency and growth potential. That’s why the true cost of a legacy treasury department cash management process isn’t in daily increments of minutes here and minutes there — ultimately, settling for less than the best treasury management software could be limiting your company’s potential in a variety of ways.
Operational Drag: The hours your team spends on manual tasks are hours they can’t spend on higher-value, strategic work. “Fixed income hasn’t been easy,” our CEO, Bill Capuzzi, says. “Fragmentation makes it complicated. Liquidity is dispersed across dozens of venues, forcing traders to toggle between systems just to find competitive pricing.” This is where advanced Apex technology comes in, which can bring together smart order routing, fractional bond trading, and data integration — all in one seamless system.
Limited Scalability: Sure, you can staff up to handle more work, a potentially costly way to power growth. Or you could undergo a digital transformation that leverages modern technology instead.
Reduced Client Revenue: If you provide manual treasury investment management for clients, you’re probably not optimizing your revenue potential.
Take a Modern Approach: What the Best Treasury Management Software Can Do
Here’s where we get to the good news: Modern software can make your idle cash management more automated, more integrated, and more streamlined with:
Unlock a Wide Range of Income-Producing Products
- Choose from many fixed income securities, including:
- Government and Agency
- Corporate, including some international
- Municipals
- Certificates of Deposit
- And more
- Invest in a variety of mutual funds, including money market mutual funds
- Earn interest on cash balances in various programs, including FDIC Sweeps with up to $5,000,000 FDIC deposit insurance per account
- Use Money Market Mutual Fund Sweep with up to $500,000 total SIPC insurance ($250,000 insurance limit for uninvested cash)
Use Instant Cash Transfers to help manage your company’s money with more speed, precision, and confidence. Move funds immediately, 24/7/365, without being limited by traditional banking hours or multi-day settlement windows to help ensure cash is exactly where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. These irrevocable payments can also significantly reduce the risk of reversals.
Tap Into an End-to-End Trading Solution: Why juggle multiple vendors and disjointed systems when it’s now possible to use one unified platform for trading whole, fractional, and notional shares of fixed income securities?
Count on Real-Time Data Access: Tap into up-to-the-moment reference data, historical data, and market data you need to make informed decisions, all in one place. This is a core feature of the best treasury management software.
Connect With a Single, Simplified API Suite: With cloud-native solutions, your developers have modern tools, such as a sandbox and SDKs, to help them integrate without months of manual coding.
Lean on Intelligent, Automated Execution: Smart order routing can help streamline many manual steps, from price research to trade execution.
Access to More Trading Venues: No longer feel limited to the handful of dealers your team knows and can reach by phone. Instead, you can tap into a more competitive environment, which can improve pricing and overall execution quality.
Straight-Through Processing: Legacy systems typically rely on an overnight batch processing system, meaning one erroneous trade could break the whole batch — and you won’t know until the next day. On the other hand, straight-through processing can execute and settle a trade in real time.
Consider Apex for Your Treasury Investment Management Needs
Sure, you’ve probably got a whole Treasury Management System (TMS) in place — but do you have professional-grade investing tools? You could embed Apex’s API-forward investment solution right alongside your other TMS tools, providing your treasury team with built-in automations and algorithms that can help streamline their day-to-day work.
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing Apex when you need to invest idle corporate cash:
Cloud-Native Means Real Time
Built on our modern AscendOSTM infrastructure, Apex treasury investment solutions include the reliability, scalability, and security of cloud solutions, plus real-time data and straight-through processing.
Automations, Algorithms, and More
Get a solution designed for power users — Apex treasury solutions include the streamlined workflows professional financial advisors use day in and day out. Take, for example, the Apex smart order routing system, which leverages automations and algorithms to help identify the best possible trading centers for execution.
Pre-Built Investment Management Screens
Your IT team probably has a long to-do list that doesn’t include building investing screens from the ground up. That’s why Apex includes white-label, configurable screens for the investing part of your treasury management solution.
Access to a Wide Array of Fixed Income Securities, Including Some Fractional
Give your treasury investment professionals more choices with fractional access to many fixed income securities, giving your team the opportunity to invest every last idle dollar if desired.
Government and Agency
- Treasuries
- Agencies
Corporate
- U.S. Investment Grade
- U.S. High Yield
- Brazilian Corporate Bonds
- USD Denominated European Credit
- USD Denominated Asian Credit
Municipals
- U.S. Municipals
CDs
- U.S. Brokered CDs
- USD Denominated Foreign Brokered CDs
Coming Soon
- U.S. Structured Products
- U.S. Convertible Bonds
- U.S. Commercial Paper
A Better Technical Support Experience
We believe that a typical trade shouldn’t include voice communications, but great client support might. That’s why the Apex service experience includes a dedicated point person you can contact when time is of the essence.
Leverage Apex Direct for FINRA Registration
To help companies that have a core business outside the investment industry (or startups awaiting their own FINRA registration), Apex Fintech Brokerage Services LLC (dba Apex Direct) provides the essential broker-dealer responsibilities you need to get to market faster.
Ready to Modernize Your Treasury Management Software?
Do your team a big favor by removing friction from your investment management process. Automate your fixed income workflows, and you can save time, reduce costs, and feel empowered to scale up without staffing up.
Let’s talk about how Apex’s fixed income API can bring your operations into the modern age.