What is advisory intelligence?

Learn about the infrastructure layer commercial banking has been missing.

The term “insights” gets used a lot in the modern banking industry. But, in practice, most banks are still operating on periodic reviews, manual workflows, and client data that’s always one step behind. Advisory intelligence presents a fundamentally different approach to insights – one that turns client data into a continuous, personalized engine for smarter decision-making, better conversations, and stronger relationships.

Commercial bankers know their clients. They know their industries, their growth goals, and the names of their CFOs. What most bankers don’t have is a reliable, real-time picture of what’s actually happening inside their clients’ organizations, including supplier payment patterns, working capital inefficiencies, and FX exposures sitting unaddressed under the surface.

That knowledge gap is where most banking relationships stall out. It’s why bankers default to quarterly roundups instead of proactive calls, why pitches are built around generic product categories instead of specific client needs, and why mid-market clients increasingly wonder whether their bank really understands their business model.

Advisory intelligence is designed to close the gap. It gives banking teams the on-demand data, tailored analytics, and actionable recommendations they need to make consultative banking something that happens consistently and at scale across the entire portfolio. Read on to learn what advisory intelligence is, why it’s becoming essential for the banking sector, how it works in practice, and how leading financial institutions are already putting it to work.

What does advisory intelligence mean?

Advisory intelligence is a fundamental infrastructure layer that turns raw client financial data into specific, forward-looking insights commercial bankers can use right away. When leveraged effectively, it enables different teams, from relationship managers to treasury officers and card specialists, to have better client conversations, win more business, and deepen every relationship.

At its core, advisory intelligence combines four essential layers:

• On-demand data: Deep, secure access to specialized financial data from client’s ERP systems, including real-time, transaction-level detail on invoices, supplier payments, payment methods, and cash flows that paints a full, accurate picture of each client’s financial position. Because this data comes straight from source systems instead of in periodic statements, it reflects what is actively, actually happening inside a business right now.
• Standardization and Normalization: Raw ERP data doesn’t arrive in a ready-to-use format. A payment recorded in one ERP looks different from the same payment in another — and without a way to reconcile those differences, analysis at scale is impossible. All incoming data is normalized into a single, consistent data model regardless of source system, currency, or format. Every supplier, bill, and payment is cleaned and mapped to the same structure before any analysis begins — making it possible to run the same intelligence across an entire bank portfolio, consistently and at scale.
• Specific insights: Intelligent analysis that transforms raw data into personalized, forward-looking insights that go beyond describing what happened last quarter to revealing what’s likely to happen next. For instance, where are cash flow gaps emerging? Which suppliers are consistently paid late, and what does that mean for a client’s working capital position? Which payment methods are leaving revenue on the table? Advisory intelligence surfaces those answers automatically, across every client, without requiring a team of analysts to root them out.
• Actionable opportunities: Clear, client-ready recommendations that turn information into confident next steps, delivered in a format bankers can act on right away – whether that’s a report, a dashboard view, or data surfaced through existing banking operations, systems, and workflows.

Put another way, advisory intelligence is a critical infrastructure layer that sits between a bank’s data and its people. It makes it possible for every relationship manager, treasury manager, and commercial card specialist to walk into every conversation with specific, quantifiable recommendations that are ready to go before clients ask for them.

Advisory intelligence is a way for banks to amplify human relationships, not replace them. It enables every banker to deliver expert-level advice to every client, at scale.

For most banks today, the promise of consultative banking runs into a practical wall. The client data exists, but getting it, interpreting it, and delivering it to the right banker at the right time is a slow, resource-intensive, and highly manual process. Advisory intelligence solves for all three hurdles at once.

Learn how advisory intelligence differs from revenue intelligence →

Why it matters now

To understand what makes advisory intelligence so essential, it helps to understand the pressure banks are under from three different directions at once.

1. Client expectations have shifted, likely permanently.

Mid-market businesses interact daily with digital platforms that respond to their preferences. That includes everything from streaming services that adapt to their viewing habits and food delivery apps that remember their favorite orders to personal finance apps that give them tailored saving and spending tips.

When their primary bank offers sporadic check-ins and generic product pitches, the contrast is palpable. Fintechs and digital-native financial service providers are already clearing this bar. Banks that don’t meet it are falling behind when it comes to customer experience, ultimately driving away the client relationships they’ve invested years in building.

2. The economics of relationship banking now require more efficiency.

Traditional, high-touch advisory banking is time-consuming and costly. The many hours senior bankers spend on manual data collection and intense analysis has historically made personalized service economically viable only for the largest corporate clients. For mid-market and growth segments, where the opportunity is greatest, most banks default to a more basic, transactional service model – not because they want to, but because they have no other reasonable option. Advisory intelligence changes the math, making advisory-quality service scalable across a whole book of business without proportionally increasing headcount or costs.

3. When it comes to client data, access alone isn’t enough.

Many banks have already invested in becoming more data-driven. In most cases, they’ve discovered that the hard part isn’t getting the data; it’s using it. Even when ERP data is accessible, it typically arrives in a raw format that wasn’t designed to answer the sorts of questions bankers handle from day to day. It can take skilled analysts days or even weeks to interpret what a single client’s financials mean for a single use case. That model doesn’t scale to hundreds or thousands of mid-market relationships, and it’s why banks that have built their own data collection capabilities – or partnered with limited third-party aggregators – often find themselves stuck at the halfway point.

Until now, most banks have focused on getting client data, when the real problem is understanding and using that data. In other words, centralizing clients’ financial data is only the first step. Transforming it into personalized, actionable guidance at scale is the next, more important one.

That critical distinction is the heart of what advisory intelligence was designed to solve.

How advisory intelligence works

Advisory intelligence is a layered capability with different steps working seamlessly together.

1. Secure connections that unlock on-demand access to client data

The foundation of advisory intelligence is connectivity: deep, reliable access to the financial systems clients use to run their business. Rather than waiting for periodic statements or chasing down clients for exported spreadsheets, advisory intelligence draws on direct connections to clients’ ERP platforms and accounting software to create a continuously updated picture of each client’s financial position.

That includes transaction-level data on supplier invoices, payment terms, cash flows, external account balances, and more. These are the specific fields and metrics bankers need to identify opportunities in spend management, FX, supply chain finance, working capital, and beyond. Because this data comes from source systems with the client’s explicit consent, it is both comprehensive and current in a way manual data collection processes can’t replicate. For banks, the result is a shift from weeks- or months-long data collection cycles to on-demand access, often in a matter of days or hours.

2. Standardization and normalization that makes analysis at scale possible

Raw ERP data doesn’t arrive in a ready-to-use format. A payment recorded in one ERP looks different from the same payment in another, and without a way to reconcile those differences, analysis at scale is impossible. All incoming data is normalized into a single, consistent data model regardless of source system, currency, or format. Every supplier, bill, and payment is cleaned and mapped to the same structure before any analysis begins, making it possible to run the same intelligence across an entire bank portfolio, consistently and at scale.

3. Enrichment that turns standardized data into specific opportunities

Getting data into a consistent structure solves one problem, but it isn’t enough to answer banking questions on its own. The enrichment layer adds intelligence on top of the data: inferring what isn’t explicitly recorded, identifying patterns that aren’t immediately visible, and translating financial activity into bankable insights. A good example is an inference model that predicts the payment methods a company actually uses even when that detail isn’t captured in their ERP or accounting system, surfacing FX and card opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed. That same logic runs across spend management, supply chain financing, treasury management, working capital, liquidity, and more.

4. Clear, actionable recommendations delivered where bankers already work

Even the strongest analysis creates value only when bankers can access and act on it quickly. The final layer of advisory intelligence delivers specific, client-ready recommendations in a format that fits naturally into banking workflows – whether that’s a report a banker can pull on demand before a client meeting, data surfaced through a familiar dashboard, or information made available via API to an existing system. The goal is to make the next best action clear and immediately usable, without requiring bankers to become data analysts themselves or to learn an entirely new tool.

When these layers work together, banking conversations can change overnight. Relationship managers can start delivering information instead of asking for it, treasury managers can start identifying opportunities instead of pitching products, and card teams can start leading with data that closes deals.

How advisory intelligence differs from existing banking tools

That layered approach helps differentiate advisory intelligence from tools that might seem similar. Banks often have some version of each individual layer in their stack. But what they rarely have is all three. That unified approach makes the difference between having data and using it to build better relationships.

The point isn’t that existing tools don’t provide value. They do. But none of them close the gap between data and advice. Advisory intelligence is the only solution that can bridge it.

The business case for advisory intelligence

Advisory intelligence creates measurable impact at every level of a commercial banking organization, from empowering individual bankers to boosting the entire institution’s profitability, efficiency, and competitive position.

For the bank as a whole, it means extending the economics of high-touch advisory service into segments where manual processes can’t or don’t scale. Mid-market and growth clients have historically been underserved because personalized service is too resource-intensive to deliver profitably at that volume. With advisory intelligence, mid-market clients become viable candidates for consultative banking. That translates directly into deeper relationships, higher product penetration, and stronger revenue per client.

It also means better risk management. When banks have a real-time view of clients’ cash flows, payment patterns, and financial health, they can identify emerging credit risk earlier, make better underwriting decisions, and build a more accurate picture of each client’s risk profile – not just at onboarding, but on an ongoing basis.

Additionally, advisory intelligence builds the data foundation that next-generation AI capabilities will require. Banks that are already working with clean, structured, and consented client financial data will be better positioned to layer on AI-driven decisioning, forecasting, and personalization down the line as those capabilities mature.

Advisory intelligence for different banking teams

Because advisory intelligence operates across the full data-to-service pipeline, it creates real opportunities for change across every team that touches client relationships, from treasury officers to card specialists and beyond:

Relationship managers

Relationship managers (RMs) are the connective tissue of commercial banking, responsible for the overall health of client relationships and often serving as the first point of contact when clients have a need or a problem.

Advisory intelligence gives RMs a real-time window into what’s happening inside each client’s business, so they can move from reactive check-ins to proactive conversations backed by specific, quantifiable, and justifiable recommendations. Instead of walking into a meeting and asking a client how their business is going, an RM equipped with advisory intelligence already knows, and they can show up with an opportunity or a solution already in hand.

That means, with advisory intelligence, RMs can:

• Initiate proactive conversations based on real client data instead of just intuition
• Identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities without pulling analysts off of other work
• Deepen their relationships by delivering consistent, personalized value across an entire book of business

Treasury management officers

Treasury management officers (TMOs) are responsible for growing share-of-wallet across a complex suite of treasury projects, including payments, FX, working capital, supply chain finance, and more.

Advisory intelligence gives them the data-driven specificity they need to move beyond generic, market-level pitches and identify opportunities at the individual client and even individual transaction level. A TMO who can walk into a conversation and say, “Based on your current AP flow, you’re leaving approximately $X in FX savings on the table” has a fundamentally different sales conversation than one who can only describe what their products can do in general terms.

With advisory intelligence, TMOs can:

• Surface cash flow gaps and liquidity constraints before they become visible through conventional reporting methods
• Identify specific suppliers or payment patterns where working capital solutions could add meaningful value
• Build more credible, data-backed proposals for treasury products across the portfolio

Learn more about how advisory intelligence works for treasury management →

Check out Codat’s Working Capital Insights solution →

Commercial card teams

Commercial card teams succeed and fall based on their ability to identify the right clients at the right moment and before their competitors do.

Once a client is connected, advisory intelligence does the heavy analytical lifting, processing spend data to surface exactly where a card program could deliver clear, quantifiable value and by how much. Rather than waiting weeks for a manual spend file review, card specialists can enter those conversations with a ready-made business case backed by the client’s actual financial data.

With advisory intelligence, card teams can:

• Identify card-ready clients based on actual spend patterns and supplier payment behavior
• Build compelling, data-backed business cases for card adoption
• Reduce time-to-close by entering client conversations already knowing the opportunity

Learn more about how advisory intelligence works for commercial card teams →

Check out Codat’s Spend Insights solution →

Leadership teams

For executives and team leaders, advisory intelligence changes the strategic calculus around mid-market banking. It makes advisory-quality service economically viable at scale, which means segments that were previously too expensive to serve profitably become accessible and defensible against fintechs and other digital-native competitors.

It also provides portfolio-wide visibility that supports better decision-making around resource allocation, product development, and risk management.

With advisory intelligence, commercial banking leadership teams can:

• Scale consultative banking services across mid-market segments without proportionally scaling headcount
• Build the data infrastructure that will support and fuel AI-powered capabilities as they mature
• Improve portfolio-level profitability by increasing product penetration and deepening existing relationships

Getting started on advisory intelligence with Codat

Codat is a comprehensive advisory intelligence solution built specifically for commercial banking. Where most providers in this space offer partial solutions – data connectivity without intelligence or analytics without the underlying real-time data – Codat delivers the full stack. Our unified solution spans on-demand client data, automatic enrichment, and actionable outputs that banks can deploy across their portfolio and teams.

Among other advantages, Codat clients get:

Specialized data that goes deeper than legacy platforms

Rather than chasing universal connectivity, Codat builds deep integrations to the ERP systems commercial banking clients use. We reliably deliver the data that matters, with categorization and enrichment that makes it actionable for banking-specific use cases.

Because we connect directly to source systems rather than relying on secondary data or public filings, our insights are both more accurate and more up to date than alternatives.

A decade of data sharing expertise as part of a strategic partnership

More than just a technical advantage, Codat’s experience in ERP connectivity means we understand the nuances of how financial data (including complex accounting details) is structured, categorized, and interpreted across thousands of different business types and industries.

These nuances matter enormously when you’re trying to surface a specific, credible opportunity to a client rather than a generic one. Codat works as a consultative partner throughout implementation and beyond, bringing our expertise to bear on each bank’s specific use cases, workflows, and goals.

Robust, bank-grade security and compliance

In financial services, trust is non-negotiable. Codat is built to meet the security, compliance, and regulatory requirements that even the most conservative risk committees demand. That means transparent data handling, client consent at the center of every connection, and enterprise-level infrastructure that banks can stake their reputations on.

Codat has powered over 350,000 connections to business customers’ financial systems, and we’ve partnered with leading commercial banks including J.P. Morgan, BMO, and Lloyds. These clients and more have moved from months-long data collection cycles to on-demand insights – and, in some cases, from weeks of analyst work to a matter of hours.

See advisory intelligence in action

Advisory intelligence is already changing the way leading banks serve their clients, and the banks that adopt it early are building relationships and competitive advantages that will be difficult for others to replicate down the line.

Whether you’re just starting to explore what’s possible or looking to expand an existing program, we can show you what your clients’ data could unlock.

Learn more about our Spend Insights or Working Capital Insights solutions to explore our platform first-hand – or get in touch with our expert team to discuss your specific needs.