Many finance execs plan to maintain their higher cash balances until at least September, finds the AFP.
About one-third of companies saw their cash balances fall in the first quarter, but did that indicate investment or poor financial performance?
U.S. companies have not relinquished their liquidity buffers or their habit of keeping cash in ultra-safe investment vehicles.
Executive and management-tier finance professionals got smaller raises in 2018, but finance staff received slightly bigger boosts.
"Fraudsters are now trying to use ACH transactions as vehicles for their scams as they move away from checks and wires," said the AFP.
In addition, they remain extremely conservative about how they "invest" excess cash.
Business email compromise scams are evolving into new areas and levels of sophistication, making them difficult to detect, says AFP.
But overall they remain conservative about using their cash reserves, an Association for Financial Professionals survey shows.
But average pay raises for controllers and management-level finance team members were higher, according to the AFP.
Seventy-four percent of finance professionals report that their companies were victims of payments fraud in 2016, according to the AFP.
Absent an economic slowdown, strong free cash flow and accessible debt markets will keep companies from having to tap reserves.
Global uncertainty weighed on U.S.-based companies as they accelerated their cash hoarding in the third quarter.
