FinFolio > Blog

Author:	Matt Abar	Created:	1/10/2008 12:13 AM
Personal blog of FinFolio CEO, Matt Abar.

Notes

By Matt Abar on 7/12/2010 7:08 AM

We don't have a CRM module for FinFolio, mainly because we went down that path at Techfi and it was a money-losing distraction. After I sold Techfi, Advent rolled the CRM into the main Portfolio 2000 application and I think it was a good decision. There are many good CRM providers out there so with FinFolio we're focusing on integration with them, rather than rebuilding something that already exists.

However, FinFolio has several CRM-like features and at least a few users are using it as their main tracking database for client/account contact information. My favorite of these CRM-like features is the Note taking capability.

Chart: Market Value

By Matt Abar on 5/25/2010 12:42 PM

The Market Value chart is the simplest of FinFolio's ten+ charts. It displays a static snapshot of a folio's values as of a date. If you place it on a report, it defaults to showing the values on the last day of the report period, but it can also show values on the first day of the period, last day of the year, or any other date.

FinFolio Ships Today

By Matt Abar on 5/10/2010 1:47 PM

FinFolio Workstation 2010 is finished.

Today is the cumulation of more than two years of development and a year of beta testing. It took a bit longer than I'd expected but I'm extremely happy with the end result; we stayed true to the original plan and built the operations tool we would want to use ourselves. Thank you to all the advisors who gave us feedback through the process and the beta testers who devoted significant hours helping us improve the software.

Release Candidate #2

By Matt Abar on 4/19/2010 7:09 AM

We just uploaded the second (and last) Release Candidate to the web site. There have been two months of bug fixes since RC1 and we wanted to make these fixes available to all the betas who are printing reports.

Data Quality IV - CleanData™

By Matt Abar on 3/29/2010 8:18 AM

CleanData™ is what we're calling FinFolio's global error tracking system. Our bold claim is that CleanData™ eliminates data problems. Or more accurately, it identifies and highlights any problems in your data so they can be easily cleaned up by your operations team. We've made it virtually impossible for there to be bad data in your software without you knowing about it.

Data Quality III - Presenting the Errors

By Matt Abar on 3/24/2010 9:10 AM

The problem with the many-small-checks approach to finding data errors is that the process is more complicated than the simple "balance check" report that most operations teams are familiar with. Most teams check custodial balances by running the balance check report, doing some data cleanup, then running the report again to see if the problems were fixed.

When you have twenty interlocking checks and balances, having separate reports for each rule makes it difficult to track down problems. You would make a change that fixed one rule but broke another, and you couldn't see the correlation -- errors would seem to randomly jump between reports. We needed something that could display all the errors for an account in one place that would update in real-time as users made changes to their transactions.

Data Quality II - Finding Bad Data

By Matt Abar on 3/23/2010 7:31 AM

When we started Yet Another Portfolio Management Software company, Mike and I spent a lot of time analyzing portfolio accounting data quality issues. It was one of our biggest headaches at AdvisorMart and we feel it's the biggest challenge currently facing our industry. The biggest problem isn't that portfolio accounting systems have bad data... it's that you don't *know* when there is bad data.

If you can't find it, you can't fix it.

Data Quality I - An Industry-wide Problem

By Matt Abar on 3/22/2010 3:34 PM

There is a systemic problem with portfolio management that affects our entire industry--poor/inconsistent data quality. The problems with data quality are so bad that an entire cottage industry has sprung up around hosting and reconciling portfolio management systems.

The root of this problem is that your portfolio management system isn't the legal system of record. If your transactions don't perfectly match the transactions at your custodian, then you've got problems... and matching one system to another is much harder than it sounds.

Reporting VI - Graphs

By Matt Abar on 2/24/2010 9:40 AM

I've already talked about FinFolio's on-screen graphs here. Our graphs are modular, allowing you to see the same graphs on the screen as well as in reports. Some reports allow more than one graph.

You can mix and match graphs with reports, giving you a wide array of possibilities. On reports, the color scheme and other formatting options become much more important.

FinFolio Release Candidate

By Matt Abar on 2/17/2010 4:23 PM

We just posted the Release Candidate to the web site--FinFolio Workstation 2010 is feature complete. We're working closely with our beta sites to round off any remaining issues. If you've been waiting until FinFolio was futher along before you dove in, this is probably the right time. We're ready to go.