Analysis

AI & Alternatives case study: Consolidating files into a NAV dashboard

We at Alter Domus are regularly approached by our key clients to help them solve some unique business challenges. As both our expertise and investment technology have grown significantly, we have increasingly begun to utilize artificial intelligence as a central mechanism to find and deliver solutions to our clients. This is the first in a series of case studies designed to highlight the multiple ways we are creating impactful, customer-centric technology for alternative markets.

Davendra Patel

Head of AI & Automation

24 October 2023

technology close up data on screen scaled

The challenge

Getting a clear picture of your net asset value, or “NAV” as it’s known, is a crucial calculation for every investment company. Essentially, a company’s NAV is its total assets minus its total liabilities, and as the number of funds and assets accumulate, the task of calculating this becomes ever more arduous – especially when using legacy tools such as Excel. We were approached by one of our key clients to see if we could create a solution to this labor-intensive task.

Their team faced the challenge of having to manually consolidate up to 11 Excel files to create one final NAV dashboard for each of their funds. What is of course crucial is that as the volume of data and manual work increases, the greater the possibility for data inaccuracies and calculation errors. On average, this entire process took days for their team to complete.

The solution

To address this challenge, the team proposed and designed a solution that involves the user uploading the 11 Excel files, including trial balances, bank balances, and FX rates, into a tool that consolidates them into a single NAV dashboard. Once the consolidation is complete, the user receives an email containing the new dashboard.

How the process and AI bot works (per each fund)

STEP 1:

Alter Domus team logs into the Web Apps Portal and runs our NAV tool

STEP 2:

Alter Domus team uploads the 11 Excel sheets received from client, including:

Trail balance, bank balance, collateral abacus & eFront
FX rates, loan & credit facilities, accruals listing
Loan request, ICAS previous & current period, hedging

STEP 3:

Bot opens each Excel sheet. It copies and pastes, and completes lookups from the column data in the various spreadsheets
Bot cleans data where required

STEP 4:

Significant reduction of the time and effort required by client’s team to complete this task: what once took days now takes minutes
Enhanced data and calculation accuracy
Client’s team is freed up to focus on less manually intensive, more strategic tasks
The bot is able to handle increasing volumes of this work, eliminating the need for the client to hire additional staff or reallocate internal resources

Implementation time