According to Thomson Reuters, today’s wealth management and private banking firms want access to comprehensive, up-to-date financial market information and analytics delivered as a multi-channel digital experience chiefly to enhance risk management and regulatory compliance capabilities and capitalize on an electronic audit process to track accountability for individuals and teams across a firm. As the digital wealth management technologies rapidly accelerate to digitize all parts of a firm, cloud computing and cloud ERP has become a clear and substantially logical alternative to expensive in-house technological infrastructure environments. Right now, more and more wealth management firms are trading in their licensed software for cloud-based digital solutions, with those lagging growing increasingly motivated to discover the benefits cloud delivers.
5 reasons multi-entity wealth management firms go cloud ERP.
- The Push for Multi-Entity Collaboration: Most firms today are multi-entity in nature, managing multiple funds spanning multiple asset classes, often including real-estate. Most these firms are using outdated on-premises technology for accounting and limited reporting technology or Excel for consolidation and dashboards. Wealth management firms want to streamline operations, boost productivity and growth – and drive decisions with real-time analytics. They want to integrate data from different systems, calculate fair market value and net asset value, monitor cash-on-cash performance, consolidate results across multiple operating points and create timely, actionable reports. Cloud accounting helps reduce tens of hours to minutes, helping wealth management firms handle millions of dollars in real estate, equity investments and more with greater efficiency and real-time accuracy – 24/7.
- Ensuring Compliance: Lack of compliance with no audit trail? Tedious close processes? No real-time data to measure compliance? Cloud accounting software provides collaborative compliance with front-to-back audit trails of all transaction, accessible any time of the day or night. By leveraging the latest compliance strategies and auditing techniques, today’s cloud accounting software can minimize compliance risk exposure. With cloud-based financial management dashboards, critical information can be instantly shared across multiple entities, with real-time metrics and tracking of financial data available for review.
- The Allure of Dashboard Analytics: With cloud-based financial management dashboards, critical information can be instantly shared across multiple entities, with real-time metrics and tracking of financial data available for review. What’s the allure? Officers need to access integrated management and financial reports across their holding companies and operating companies – in minutes not days – to grow and drive their investment business. Dashboards operate on a combination of both financial and operational data. Wealth management firms can access within and across entities to reveal cash balance, balance sheets, and cash-flow statements for collaborative decision-making. Analyze client billing, revenue per client, profit per client, and return on partner capital. Doesn’t real-time shared access and report visualizations within and across multiple entities and managing key metrics, including P&L, sound good?
- The End of Spreadsheet Drains: Wealth management organizations that have multiple entities and rely on spreadsheets for consolidations must function with error-prone and time-consuming processes that involve everything from manual journal entries to varying calculations. Removing the reliance on spreadsheets by adopting cloud accounting processes allows firms to generate financial and managerial reports faster, in time to make real-time decisions and, if warranted, corrective actions.
- Scaling for Growth: Cloud ERP scales wealth management firms for growth, allowing for firms to take advantage of a cloud-based, data-driven delivery model to increase assets under management – without requiring additional personnel. Continuous, real-time reporting allows for better, faster business decisions ideal for companies looking to expand. An end-to-end cloud accounting platform provides wealth management professionals with greater business visibility – plus a scalable design to enable the accounting system to grow with the business.
