By Matt Abar on 12/21/2009 11:07 AM

We finished Beta 2 on Friday. I'm happy with the software--this is the last big beta release and we are almost feature complete, with the notable exception of performance composites. We created the structure for composites when we implemented stored performance (see below), so it should be fairly simple to implement.

We're now working toward a release candidate which involves bug fixing, polishing off the existing functionality, finishing the user manual, and making minor tweaks to the UI. We're continuing to chisel away at speed and expand our report and graph library. I'll update after the holiday when I have a better idea of a release date.

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By Matt Abar on 11/20/2009 9:43 AM

Callouts are large text areas where you can use variables and conditional criteria to write messages to clients. You can talk about specific performance numbers, call your clients by name, or remind them which model you selected. Conditional text can say different things for different clients, based on the model they own, the account market value, or anything else. Think of it as a super mail merge.

It's a subtle thing, but these descriptive text blocks tie everything together to give your reports a professionally-designed feel. We've added callout sections to the table of contents and several other summary reports. You can put a personal touch on your data presenta Read More »

By Matt Abar on 11/12/2009 5:12 PM

What is a client report? At FinFolio we consider the report to be the final package that is delivered to your client. This package consists of a cover page, table of contents, and various other report sections. They print from your printer already collated and ready to be sent to your clients. Packages can be printed for any of the major folio types (households, clients, portfolios or accounts).

You start by creating a new report package in FinFolio. Yyou can create an unlimited number of report packages and each package has one or more sections. Each section is a small report unto itself and can span multiple pages with unique formatting, data, charts and graphs. The list of sections includes Cover Page, Table of Contents, Portfolio Summary, Portfolio Returns, Index Comparison, Transaction Summary, and many more.

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By Matt Abar on 11/11/2009 10:55 AM

At Techfi we were overwhelmed with feature requests. It seemed like every client who bought the software wanted to do something different. Eventually we found the common thread running through the requests--90% of them centered around client reporting. We took a step back and realized that instead of approaching requests one-by-one, we need to make a bigger change that would accommodate them all at once. We needed a much more flexible custom report capability.

 

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By Matt Abar on 9/23/2009 11:14 AM

Managing your imports is a complicated process. Almost all portfolio accounting data comes from custodial import sources, as opposed to manual data entry. In most systems, you lose the provenance of your data once the import has completed. You can't look at a specific transaction or client record and determine which custodian or import file the data came from.

Even if you can figure out where your data came from, what options do you have for fixing problems? You need high-level tools that let you manage blocks of data at the custodian or file level. If you import a bad batch of files, you need some way to back out information globally without going line-by-line through your accounts or having to restore a database backup.

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By Matt Abar on 8/31/2009 3:15 PM

The bulk of the work we've been doing over the last month has been cleaning up our SOA layer so  FinFolio can run in a web browser. It was much trickier than I'd anticipated but we're finally ready to go.

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By Matt Abar on 8/25/2009 12:35 PM

Now that the beta is trucking along, we've been whittling down the remaining FinFolio R1 features. We have a few things that I'll be highlighting over the next week, starting with grouping. Most portfolio management systems have some sort of grouping structure that lets you create miscellaneous groups of clients, accounts, etc. They usually do this by allowing you to select specific items at the time you create the group; this is called "static" grouping...

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By Matt Abar on 6/22/2009 9:41 AM

On Friday, we posted an update to the FinFolio beta. We are planning on doing weekly updates during the Beta period as we make changes and fixes. This is primarily because we need to do regular custodial interface updates now that we're getting good feedback from the beta sites.

This last update included the developer example project, which is a Visual Studio 2008 project that can be compiled as a FinFolio add-in...

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By Matt Abar on 6/19/2009 7:52 AM

One of the benefits of building software from scratch is that you can eliminate limitations of existing systems. Sometimes this comes from better design, but often the new functionality comes at a cost, either in slower software speed or more complicated code maintenance. With Techfi, a good example of this was having current values and other calculations available in the software without having to run reports. In order to do this, we moved some of the business logic into the database, which made our imports take longer* than other systems.

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By Matt Abar on 6/8/2009 5:52 PM

We just released Beta1. Woo hoo!

I'm reasonably happy with the state of the product. The beta is as clean as we can make it without having any live installations; our bug lists are clean and we only have a small handful of known issues. Mike and I feel that the product is about where Techfi was in its last year in terms of release quality. We're a bit late but we haven't compromised on any of the features or promises we've made over the last year. I think we're well on our way to delivering a next generation portfolio management system.

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