This is part of a series of articles in our special report on technology in family offices. To see all the articles, click here.
There was a time in living memory when simple databases on floppy disks and Excel spreadsheets marked the difference between forward-thinking, tech-oriented organizations and those mired in paper ledgers.
Today’s family offices have hundreds of software products and platforms available to them to manage wealth, aggregate data, analyze portfolios, share data, track assets, ensure regulatory compliance and provide detailed reports. Better still, many of those products and services are built and operated right here in Canada where they serve global customers.
Yet choosing family office software isn’t a decision an organization typically makes lightly—or alone. Think about buying a new car without reading the latest consumer reviews and imagine that the success and future of your enterprise may depend on making the right decision.
James Dunne, family office advisor with Markdale Financial Management in Toronto, often advises clients on the type of software solution that would best meet their needs.
“Unlike traditional investment tools, family office software integrates a wide array of asset types, including private equity, real estate and family-owned businesses, into a unified reporting framework,” he says. “It also offers advanced features for customized reporting, performance benchmarking and data integration, addressing the unique needs of family offices.”
It’s no wonder family offices find themselves with an array of unaligned reporting systems, he says. Their portfolios often grew organically, and may now include a range of reporting systems for anything from stocks and private equity to personal real estate holdings, often complicated by the use of trusts and holding companies.
Here are six questions Dunne suggests family offices should ask before investing a cent in any software platform.
- Can the software provide a consolidated view of all your assets? If not, how much work needs to be done on your end to make this happen?
- Do you need the bells and whistles? Some software offers impressive tools that your portfolio may not need. Dunne advises clients to create a list of features that matter most to them before evaluating software products.
- How much will it cost? Dunne says some software will likely equal the salary of a full-time employee for a typical family office. Will the price include all available software features, or will you need to “power up” with additional functionality? Is there a flat monthly fee, or will subscription costs be tied to the number of users or assets under management?
- Will your organization be able to operate the software with existing staff members? Or will new hires or consultants be necessary to extract value from the platform? Determine your level of expertise and internal capacity to manage the software.
- Do existing retail software packages meet your needs and integrate with your existing systems? Or will a customized solution be necessary to reflect the complexities of your portfolio?
- What level of data security is in place? And who owns the user’s data?
“Prioritizing consolidated reporting in a software solution will streamline decision-making,” Dunne says. “Making the right choice will provide a holistic view of the family’s wealth that can enable informed decision-making and even support the smooth transfer of wealth across generations.”
The List
Choice, of course, begins with knowing your options. To help, Canadian Family Offices compiled the following (non-exhaustive) roundup of 25 Canadian wealth management-related software providers—and their pitches to family offices.
Founded in 2018, Agora is based in Mississauga, Ont., and offers a wealth platform integrating modern technology, business and investment operations, and custody services. Agora’s platform promises to empower independent dealers and their advisors, increase their ability to compete with large financial institutions and help them meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.
Montreal-based AlphaCCO offers an automated compliance management platform that promises to enable financial firms to move from unstructured and generic compliance manuals and regulations to structured, executable and monitorable compliance processes. It aligns teams in a centralized system with clearly defined controls and workflows. The result is a scalable solution designed to manage a compliance program effectively with existing resources.
Conquest is an enterprise platform that aims to democratize access to financial advice across the wealth continuum. Conquest helps financial institutions, wealth management firms and their advisors deliver meaningful advice to clients in a more holistic, time-efficient and comprehensive manner. Conquest promises to reduce the time it takes to prepare a financial plan by 90 per cent.
Founded in 1987, Croesus offers wealth management solutions from Montreal, Toronto and Geneva. The company promises to “simplify wealth management” through two primary products. Croesus Advisor is a cloud-based portfolio management solution designed to easily integrate with third-party systems. Croesus Central is a cloud-based solution combining modelling, portfolio rebalancing, intrinsic compliance and tax optimization. The company also offers an extensive API library that allows external systems and applications to talk directly with Croesus.
Based in Toronto, d1g1t is an integrated platform designed to be intuitive and easy to use in managing clients, portfolios and business. Workflows cover the wealth advisory life cycle. This includes reporting, full portfolio management, trading and rebalancing, investment policy statements/mandates, compliance, fee administration and client engagement.
Equisoft offers digital solutions and services for investment professionals. The company’s wealth management software solutions include:
- Equisoft/analyze, which helps wealth professionals compare investment products, design portfolios and create proposals and presentations.
- Equisoft/connect, a CRM platform.
- Equisoft/plan, a suite of wealth planning tools.
Based in Saint John, N.B., Four Eyes Financial offers a holistic approach to managing regulatory obligations with an end-to-end compliance platform designed to seamlessly integrate with established policies and procedures.
Toronto’s FutureVault automates, aggregates and centralizes client, advisor and enterprise documentation and extracts document data using its intelligent document processing engine to drive enterprise-wide insights. Built for back-, middle- and front-office teams, FutureVault leverages AI through the use of private large language models that allow natural language queries while keeping data secure.
Oakville, Ont.-based Global Manager Research (GMR) is a data aggregator producing investment reports on the performance of institutional and high-net-worth funds. The company offers to provide comprehensive research, competitive analysis and due diligence across multiple asset classes, and provide comparative analysis among strategies. GMR only collects data from asset managers who want to service Canadian institutional investors, providing a peer group for subscribers.
Based in Toronto, Infinite Investment Systems offers solutions designed to support the wealth management industry. These include Harmony, a portfolio management system; Melody, a tool designed to manage client relationships; Data.iQ, which promises to leverage data without abandoning core legacy systems; and Client Portal, a tool to deliver real-time data and reporting to clients. The company develops homegrown solutions rather than outsourcing platform development.
Montreal’s Mako Fintech offers a workflow automation platform built for the wealth management industry. It automates digital workflows, automates client engagement and helps ensure compliance.
Vancouver-based MeetAmi Innovations Inc. was launched in 2020. MeetAmi’s flagship product, AmiPro, enables advisors to buy, sell and store a growing variety of digital assets using a suite of trade execution, portfolio and client management tools. It also offers report integration to traditional wealth management systems, integration with custody and liquidity providers, and reporting tools. AmiLearn, a subscription-based learning platform, provides free and paid educational content.
MyFO is a family office solution built to simplify complexity, cut costs and give families full control over their wealth operations. Designed specifically for the needs of lean, multigenerational teams, MyFO replaces fragmented spreadsheets, manual processes and legacy tools with a single, secure platform that consolidates data, streamlines reporting and improves decision-making. It integrates real-time data from banks, brokerages and private equity to provide a complete view of a family’s assets.
Montreal-based NDEX provides Canadian-built wealth management solutions designed to offer insights to wealth management clients and provide actionable insights and automated risk and compliance alerts. NDEX specializes in managing financial data from multiple sources to streamline data aggregation, enhance accuracy and help clients make better decisions. The company protects sensitive information using a security-centric platform.
Toronto’s NexJ Systems offers CRM for financial advisors, enterprises and corporate and commercial banking.
OneVest offers a modular platform for a wide range of wealth management business functions. The company’s solutions address onboarding, client experience, an advisor platform, portfolio management, compliance and analytics, and reporting.
PhilanthPro offers professional financial planning software designed specifically for philanthropy through donor-advised funds, foundations and charitable trusts. PhilanthPro for advisors is designed to enhance client-advisor relationships, positioning advisors as strategic partners in impactful giving.
Toronto’s Planworth platform is designed to create in-depth client profiles, build detailed financial plans, and generate tailored recommendations and insights for clients. Plans can be custom-branded for advisors.
Portfolio Aid, based in Toronto, provides intelligent compliance solutions designed to improve integrity and efficiency in the investment industry. The company’s tools include PACompare, PAInform, PAInsight, PAMonitor, PAPrime and PortfolioAid360.
Portfolio Xpressway promises to bring clarity to complex wealth structures and assists families in unifying both traditional and private investment data. The platform will manage alternative investments—including private equity, venture, real estate and real assets. It will also allow clients to exchange data with any source—custodian feeds, accounting books of record, investment books of record, client books of record and CRMs. It also manages documents, which can be easily tagged to individual assets.
raisr offers three business tools:
- EdgeLink, which promises to transform exempt market operations.
- Issuer, back-office software that streamlines administration, boosts efficiency and offers insight into capital-raising efforts.
- Dealer, which simplifies deal approvals and helps ensure regulatory compliance.
From Calgary, SIACharts is an investment research solution and portfolio management software. SIA stands for “Strategic Investment Analysis” and promises to save advisors time with unique rankings and insights, objective fintech research, and an in-depth portfolio management solution. The SIACharts platform performs more than 10 billion calculations and millions of head-to-head investment comparisons, producing more than 580 ranked reports, actionable alerts and key risk management and asset allocation decisions each day.
Snap Projections offers transparent, easy-to-use and highly flexible financial planning software for Canadian financial advisors and planners. Snap is designed to quickly create optimized financial plans and what-if scenarios, increase client engagement through interactive presentations, generate high-quality referrals and convert more prospects to clients.
Based in Toronto, Vision Systems offers a fully integrated planning suite in the form of three products. These include VisionWorks, a personal life planning tool, private corporation solution CorpWorks, and personal trust software TrustWorks.
Montreal’s Wealthica was launched in 2015 as a digital financial tracker tool allowing clients to monitor all of their assets and their values using a single portal. The company also offers a budgeting tool that includes advanced and unbiased portfolio analysis and reporting. Wealthica tracks stocks, ETFs, funds, cryptocurrency, private investments and more, and offers a historical view of how clients’ net worth has evolved.
Did we miss anything? Want to share your family office’s experience with software solutions? Let us know at info@canadianfamilyoffices.com or on LinkedIn.
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