Every treasury team eventually faces it: the day the balance dips negative. It's not a crisis—it's operations. Temporary cash shortfalls are normal. The real question is whether you've built the plumbing to handle them before you need it.
Your options when a shortfall hits
- Draw down on your operating line of credit
- Tap a prime loan or short-term lender arrangement
- Issue short-term debt—commercial paper or bankers' acceptances
The best funding tools share three traits
- Short-term and flexible—easy to repay or roll over as conditions change.
- Cheap and clean—minimal regulatory friction, minimal cost to issue.
- Fast—ideally executable in a phone call or two.
Speed isn't luck—it's setup
Here's the part most people miss: the reason a seasoned treasury function can fund a gap in minutes is that the agreements were negotiated, signed, and sitting ready long before the cash ever ran short. The work happens in the calm, so the execution is boring in the storm.
Liquidity isn't about having cash on hand. It's about having access on demand. The teams that never sweat a shortfall are the ones that set up their facilities when they didn't need them.
What's your go-to first move when a shortfall shows up? CurvedSpace can help you put the right facilities in place before you need them.