BST Awards 2022: Best portfolio accounting platform—SS&C Advent

Overview

Advent Portfolio Exchange (APX) and Geneva are designed to provide buy-side firms with high levels of operational efficiency and access to real-time data. APX allows firms to manage alternatives, multi-strategy portfolios and industry/client mandates, while Geneva enables firms to manage complex investment vehicles, multiple investment strategies and tiered fund structures.

What problem does it address?  

APX enables firms to follow industry/client mandates by automating workflows, eliminating additional systems and supporting regulatory compliance. Geneva specializes in complex fund structures, data governance, asset class coverage and data access. SS&C Advent has responded to the industry’s recent private credit trends by introducing new workflows and investor accounting requirements.

Secret sauce 

APX simplifies operations with a centralized platform for portfolio, relationship and prospect data. It enables compliance with Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules to reassure managers and investors that their performance is correct and comparable. 

Complex investment accounting is the heart of the Geneva platform, with asset class coverage and fund structure capabilities its particular strength.

Recent milestones

• Expanded APX asset class coverage, improved cost-basis handling and reconciliation, and expanded multi-strategy portfolio workflows.
• Increased scale and automation for SS&C Advent’s managed services team.
• Augmented the Geneva experience through the rollout of a web-based user interface and user-centric workspaces to improve data access and simplify manual tasks.

Future objectives 

• APX continues to enhance its scalability with real-time data integration, a modern user interface, streamlined workflows, and accurate accounting and performance data.
• Advent continues to modernize Geneva for a better user experience with higher levels of automation and intelligence, helping to lower the total cost of ownership and improve data access.

Why they won 

Two products that have become synonymous with these awards since they were launched in 2007 are SS&C Advent’s APX and Geneva offerings, which form a compelling duo when it comes to buy-side portfolio management and accounting practices. They each have their own areas of specialization―APX in alternatives and multi-strategy portfolios, while Geneva’s sweet spot is complex investment vehicles and tiered fund structures―which, when combined, cover every aspect of buy-side firms’ portfolio management and accounting functions.