Summary
Opterra® now includes Diagnostics, giving controllers and fund accountants direct access to the calculations behind accounting results, scoped to book, security, date, and P&L version. Diagnostics also integrates with Arcesium Intelligence - ask natural-language questions about accruals, P&L, FX, and other accounting data and get explainable answers grounded in the underlying calculations.
As portfolios grow more complex and data volumes increase, accounting teams face a familiar question: Why is this number what it is?
An auditor may ask for the workings behind a position. A portfolio manager may challenge a P&L figure. A controller may need to validate a trial balance before books close. Answering these questions requires more than the reported result. It requires visibility into how that result was calculated.
Traditionally, investigating an accounting number has meant combining product documentation, spreadsheets, support requests, and the expertise of accounting specialists who understand the calculations inside out. Diagnostics changes that.
Available now on the Opterra® platform, a new Diagnostics feature gives users direct access to the detailed calculations behind portfolio accounting reports, scoped to the exact book, security, accounting date, and P&L version being investigated.
Controllers and fund accountants can now investigate, trace, and validate accounting results themselves in minutes, without leaving Opterra or opening a support ticket.
Consider a month-end reconciliation where interest income appears to be off.
Instead of waiting for a support investigation, an accounting user can open the relevant interest accrual report and review the daily accrual records for the affected tax lot. A discrepancy around the coupon period becomes visible immediately. The user can then move to the realized accrual report to confirm how that accrual flowed into realized income.
In minutes, the team can identify the source of the variance, assemble the supporting evidence, and determine the next step. The investigation happens where the accounting result was produced, not across spreadsheets, emails, and support tickets.
Diagnostics connects reported accounting results to the underlying data and calculations used to produce them.
Users can select a specific book, security, accounting date, and P&L version to investigate the calculation associated with that accounting run. This keeps the investigation tied to the exact version of the data that produced the reported result, rather than a newly recalculated view.
From there, users can:
The result is a clearer path from accounting output to underlying calculation to explanation.
Diagnostics spans the accounting lifecycle.
Wherever an accounting question requires tracing a number back to its source, Diagnostics provides the underlying detail to investigate it.
Diagnostics also integrates with Arcesium Intelligence, bringing natural-language investigation to the underlying accounting data.
Instead of manually navigating reports, users can ask questions such as:
“There is a $1,234 trial balance break on a single-sided adjustment. Using the diagnostic reports, help me identify what is driving it.”
Or:
“Walk me through the workings behind total realized interest and accruals for security XYZ.”
Arcesium Intelligence analyzes the relevant Diagnostics data and returns an explainable answer with supporting calculations and the reasoning behind the conclusion.
The investigation becomes a conversation while remaining grounded in the underlying accounting data.
This brings together two important capabilities: the transparency to see the calculations behind an accounting result, and the intelligence to help users interrogate those calculations more naturally.
Diagnostics is available now in Investment Accounting → Diagnostics. Access follows existing user permissions, with no additional setup required.
To get familiar with the capability, start with a number you already know, such as an interest accrual or realized P&L figure, and trace the calculation behind it.
For details on submitting requests and working with the results grid, see the Diagnostics Request documentation.
Diagnostics represents another step toward making investment accounting more transparent, traceable, and easier to investigate. Opterra doesn't just produce an accounting result. It now gives users greater visibility into how that result was calculated and the evidence behind it. Combined with Arcesium Intelligence, that foundation opens the door to a more intuitive way of investigating complex accounting questions, helping teams reduce operational dependency, resolve questions faster, and stand behind every number with confidence.
Contact us to learn more about Diagnostics and how Opterra can help bring greater transparency and efficiency to your investment accounting operations.
Authored By
Alok Kumar Choudhary
Alok Choudhary is Vice President of Product Management at Arcesium. He leads the product portfolio powering end-to-end P&L data and workflows across IBOR and ABOR — from ingestion and warehousing through transformation and reporting.
No spam. Just the latest releases and tips, interesting articles, and exclusive interviews in your inbox every week.
