In the realm of investment management, effective management of data is paramount. As financial institutions navigate an increasingly complex landscape, the need for accurate, timely, and comprehensive investment data has never been more crucial.

Investment books of records (IBOR) and accounting books of records (ABOR) are vital components in the operational infrastructure for asset managers, asset owners, and administrators. However, the distinctions between IBOR and ABOR — and the mere fact that they most typically run on two separate systems — often lead to inefficiencies and complexities in data management processes.

The role of technology leaders and chief operating officers is to support their stakeholders and to do it cost effectively. That means delivering accurate and timely data, at a cost not detrimental to margin. However, with information stored in multiple systems, maintaining and providing accurate data to stakeholders, including portfolio managers, auditors, and regulators, introduces risk and erodes trust in their investment data. Teams across the front, middle, and back office must have a single, coherent system to compute and source the investment-related data necessary to perform the responsibilities of their role. A unified platform provides transparency into the origins of their data, transformations, and inter-relationships.

The ability to operate portfolio construction, risk, and trading systems based on a consolidated view of your investment and accounting books of record promotes operational scale.

Understanding the divide: IBOR vs. ABOR

IBOR and ABOR serve distinct but complementary purposes within the investment management ecosystem.

Strategically aligning operations with an IBOR solution enables an investment manager to execute informed investment activities daily without performing the operational rigor required to close the accounting books. An IBOR is designed to deliver an accurate and timely view of investment positions to support front-office functions such as portfolio management and trading. With accurate position and P&L information, managers gain clarity on their cash, positions, trade statuses, and a variety of other metrics they can rely on to make investment decisions. The ABOR relies on the investment activity resulting from those investment decisions to create financial statements and supporting reports at a tax lot and journal entry level of granularity. The ABOR serves as the foundation for back-office operations and regulatory compliance.

Both IBOR and ABOR are essential for managing investment portfolios. However, the traditional approach of managing separate books often results in siloed systems and disjointed processes. Fragmentation not only complicates data reconciliation and reporting, but also hampers a firm’s ability to generate useable and timely insights from the investment data flowing through their systems.

Creating a universal view

Firms investing across public and private markets often have multiple accounting systems to support derivative investments, fixed income, equities, private assets, and more. However, maintaining separate IBORs and ABORs, and potentially multiple versions of each for public and private investments, creates complexity. The intricacy of multiple systems only compounds as you diversify your fund and investment product offerings through organic growth and M&A activity.

One of the primary challenges of maintaining multiple books of record is the struggle to create a consolidated view of your front-, middle-, and back-office operations without slowing down your front-office functions to complete your accounting. Equipping your teams with a single source of truth for all asset classes helps resolve disparate data challenges — a force multiplier that helps you effectively manage the cost of doing business and eliminates siloed system.

When the goal is one system and one process, creating a universal view of all asset classes eliminates the challenges associated with disparate data and siloed systems.

Scalable, cloud-native capabilities can deliver seamless position and cash management, profit and loss generation, and portfolio accounting across asset classes. Consolidate investment data by implementing a holistic view of public and private assets for position management, investment profit and loss, and double-entry accounting. With data on a unified platform, a holistic view of your data lets you thoughtfully analyze the intricate drivers of your investment performance.

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Nick Tuoni