Cash management Cash management includes operations within the budget year that handle cash flows into the government,payments made by the government,use of funds while they are held by the government, and accommodation strategies when revenues fail to cover approved expenditures. Payments in and out should be made through a single treasury account, not through individual agency accounts, to maintain control and accountability and to obtain the advantages of cash pooling. Revenues must be received and recorded to the appropriate accounts, and payments must be made on a timely basis to legitimate claimants. The timing of revenue flows into the treasury will seldom match payments from the treasury and,even in a government with a balanced annual budget, there will be periods in which accumulated revenue will be less than accumulated expenditures. One task of cash management is to develop short-term mechanisms to bridge those differences without payment arrears (forced loans from suppliers).20 During other periods of the year,the treasury will have cash balances,and the second task of cash management is to make productive use of those funds in secure short-term investments. 21 Balancing the return from those assets with the need for cash to meet payment obligations is a fundamental resource management issue. An alternative approach is used in parts of Francophone Africa. Disbursements and revenue remain centralized for local governments,22 and the national treasury is responsible for managing all these cash flows. That method reduces the need for local capacity in this component of fiscal administration—because the capacity remains centralized. In general application, this approach will almost certainly lead to concerns about lack of financial control by localities and suspicions that funds are not being credited properly (Winter 2003). In this scheme, other elements of fiscal administration can be local while cash management remains centralized.