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Learn how you can harness the power of your online portfolio accounting and performance reporting application to save time and uncover new opportunities to gather assets. Choose a topic below:

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Core Value and Benchmark Report Explained
Daily Time-Weighted Rates of Return Explained
Gain/Loss By Investor Report Explained
How to Produce Batch Jobs
Generating Professional Referrals
Top Ten Features



Daily Time-Weighted Rates of Return Explained

In short, the system uses a daily time-weighted calculation. So, not only does the price change of an underlying security affect the rate of return, but also, the timing of buys and sells will affect the final rate. In making the calculation, the system also accounts for any dividend, interest, capital gains or fees paid by the underlying investment(s).

We follow AIMR guidelines in the reports you present to your clients. (AIMR is the governing standards body of performance presentation). This also means that your compliance department will be satisfied that your return calculations are correct.

From a practical stand-point, you may have to explain to your clients exactly what is meant by "daily-time weighted formula." The good news is, if you offer a simple explanation, the concept can be understood pretty easily.

Some Questions You Or Your Clients Might Ask

1. What is meant by "daily-time weighted formula?"
As you know the market goes up and down. Purchases are made at various price points over time. This formula takes all of those price points into consideration, and helps to explain their impact on the total performance of each investment.

2. Can the Albridge Wealth Reporting application return differ from a return delivered by another system?
Yes, and both returns can technically be correct. In many cases, the returns produced by our system will differ from other returns. This occurs because different systems use different formulas. And even if it's the same formula, the returns can still differ simply due to the method through which the formula is implemented within the system. These differences grow with greater periods of time over which the report is run. Returns run for a given month or quarter should not be off by more than a percentage point or two, based on the varying systems. However, as the length of time covered by a given report grows, the difference in returns can become even more significant (by as much as 3, 4, 5% and more...)

3. Can my return be inaccurate?
The Albridge Wealth Reporting application has an underlying accuracy of the final account data that is significantly higher than any other industry standard. We spent years developing a sophisticated, proprietary cleansing procedure that does not just process your data, but also "understands it," and makes corrections to it as necessary. This is underscored by the automated reconciliation process that maintains the accuracy of your account data. There are many more subtle parts of the system that will be less obvious to you (but which will nonetheless dramatically minimize embarrassing moments in front of your clients.)

For those of you who are statistically inclined: Our understanding is that most standard systems typically require a 10% reconciliation rate. By cleaning the data prior to reconciliation, we have effectively reduced many of the repeating events that cause reconciliation. Our reconciliation rate is below 1%. Yes, that means 90% fewer reconciliations! And, oh by the way, we take care of that 1% automatically, rather than forcing you to take care of it. That said, no system is perfect. If a truly exceptional case does arise (and this should occur so infrequently that you may never actually have one), we have a dedicated in-house customer service group, to respond to any concerns that you might have. One last point, most of the calls we get on "questionable return calculations" are actually refuted.

4. Occasionally, when I add up all the returns of the assets listed on a report for an account return, they just will just not seem "right." Why is this?
This is typically the case in heavily-traded accounts where assets are bought and sold during the period, but are not held explicitly either at the beginning nor the end of a reporting period. Remember that the account return will take into account all gains and losses of activity in the account, regardless of whether you still own the asset at the beginning or end of the reporting period.

5. What is the difference between "Since Start Date" and "Since Inception" on the Multi-Period Performance report?
Reporting "Since Start Date" requires a little in the way of explanation. This is a similar concept to "Since Inception" reporting, but we have used different terminology to let both you and the client know that the return is calculated since the first day of data to the system (this date is also present on the report). If the account has history going back prior to our receiving the initial data feed through your Broker/Dealer, then this figure may well be different from their true "Since Inception" rate of return.