A recent survey by TKS Solutions has revealed that ten per cent of alternative investment funds have considered switching administrators during the past 12 months due to issues stemming from timeliness and accuracy of partner and shareholder accounting reports.

Accuracy of third-party accounting and partner reporting are considered mission critical in attracting and retaining investors, yet many administrators continue to struggle with managing the nuances of each fund’s fee structures and reporting requirements.

Lacking a sophisticated, yet flexible back-office accounting system, administrators often rely on manual procedures and spreadsheet-based record-keeping, resulting in both staff inefficiency and error prone processes.

TKS president Ronald Kashden says: “Based on feedback from our hedge fund customers, we discovered that many administrators were still struggling under the weight of convoluted spreadsheets. By expanding Penny’s partnership and shareholder accounting features to factor in administrator needs we could give them the efficiencies and improvements in accuracy that their customers are demanding in this economic climate.”

Three new features in the Penny software are workflow review, user-defined reporting fields, and automated report distribution.

Penny offers a method for reviewing and approving data entry. Supervisors can monitor the progress of each fund and client and be alerted when overrides and exceptions occur. They can review activity at the fund or investor level, and flag items that require further attention.