What defines a good consolidated reporting platform for family offices?

TL;DR

Spreadsheets are time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to adjust for changes when reporting in family offices. Consolidated reporting platforms automate manual tasks, centralise data, and enhance reporting while ensuring scalability and security. 

Introduction

Accurate and efficient reporting is essential for family offices managing their wealth in diverse and complex portfolios. Using spreadsheets for consolidated reporting is time-consuming, error-prone, and inflexible.  

According to The Family Office Operational Excellence Report 2024, when considering the problems that arise from current technology and processes used in their family offices, 40% of participants cited too much reliance on spreadsheets and 38% highlighted the manual aggregation of financial data. 

Consolidated reporting platforms have emerged as the replacement to traditional methods like spreadsheets. They provide a clear view of net worth, financial performance, and ownership structures, enabling family offices to manage their wealth more effectively. 

DATA AGGREGATION

• Spreadsheets: Data aggregation is a time-consuming process where information is derived from statements and other supporting documents, and then organised in a spreadsheet. This data requires a significant amount of manual manipulation before it can be analysed or reported. 

• Consolidated reporting platform: The platform streamlines data management by automatically retrieving information directly from banks and custodians. This data undergoes a rigorous quality control process before being mapped into a standardised format and stored in a centralised database. By fully automating data aggregation, reconciliation, and standardisation, the platform eliminates countless hours of manual work and ensures data accuracy when tracking performance and running reports. 

SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

• Spreadsheets: Data is spread across multiple files and in different formats, which are manually brought into a spreadsheet. These can be slow to work with when handling large amounts of data. They are inefficient for collaboration due to version control issues, where it is easy to change numbers and create new errors. 

• Consolidated reporting platform: All structured and unstructured data related to your net worth, assets, liabilities, ownership structures, along with relevant documents and notes are available in a centralised location in a standard format. This enhances collaboration and handling of large data sets. 

PERFORMANCE MONITORING

• Spreadsheets: Performance monitoring is time-consuming with spreadsheets because it involves manually creating and updating calculations and gathering benchmarking data. Spreadsheets also struggle with large-scale calculations and lack flexibility, requiring manual formula adjustments for any changes. 

• Consolidated reporting platform: Consolidated reporting platforms offer a variety of dynamic calculations as well as enhanced analytics using benchmark and other market data. The platforms can calculate necessary metrics like IRR, Multiple, TWR, unrealised/realised gain loss, and others. 

DASHBOARDS & REPORTING

• Spreadsheets: Creating reports from scratch on spreadsheets can be time-consuming and the information becomes outdated by the time the report is created. It requires manual data collection and has limitations in formatting and visualisations. Lastly, it lacks the ability to automate and repeatedly run for different owners and entities, making it difficult to scale. 

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• Consolidated reporting platform: With mobile and web app interfaces, reporting platforms offer dashboards and other interactive views to help analyse and gain insights into their investments on demand. Tailored Automated PDF report generation ensures all stakeholders get detailed information in the format of their choice. 

USABILITY & SCALABILITY

• Spreadsheets: Spreadsheets used to manage wealth information can be difficult for others to use without prior insight into its set up. They are also hard to adjust for new investments, and changes in asset classes and ownership structure. Large amounts of data can make it slow and clunky to work with.  

• Consolidated reporting platform:  The platform is built to scale with documentation available on using and understanding it. It seamlessly handles growing portfolios, new asset classes, and changing wealth profiles without considerable manual effort. This saves family offices from re-engineering processes every few years. 

SECURITY

• Spreadsheets: With spreadsheets, one can’t centrally manage and administer access. Information is typically shared via files and email inboxes, which can expose sensitive data to security risks.  
• Consolidated reporting platform: In contrast, consolidated reporting platforms offer enhanced data encryption, centralised user permissioned access, multi-factor authentication, and compliance with standards like ISO 27001 and GDPR to protect your data. 

Asora is a consolidated reporting platform for family offices of all sizes. It helps track and oversee assets, automating data capture and providing digital on-demand reporting on the web and mobile. Asora provides a single secure location for all the family’s data, which is protected with always-on encryption and robust security protocols.  

With Asora, time-consuming manual data aggregation and report creation are replaced with: 

• Automated data aggregation 
• A single source of truth for all financial data 
• Digital on-demand dashboards and reporting 

Whether you’re managing a growing portfolio or seeking a more efficient way to track performance, Asora is designed to optimise your reporting process and help you focus on what matters most. 

SEE ASORA IN ACTION

Discover how Asora simplifies reporting and gives you back valuable time.