"xlteq successfully streamlined a process of extracting KPIs from our portfolio, saving a significant amount of time and resource."
Philip Shuttleworth - Finance Partner, ECI
Quarterly Investment Portfolio Reporting
Quarterly Investment Portfolio Excel Reporting
Large UK Private Equity Group instructed xlteq to rebuild and automate their quarterly investment reporting.
The Problem
Our client had an Excel template for collecting quarterly financial information from their portfolio of investments. Every quarter they would manually update 15-20 separate templates (one for each company), to enable the collection of data for the new period. These templates had been customised for each company and there was no standardisation. The updated templates were then sent to the investment companies for completion. Typically this rebuilding process took 1.5 to 2 working days to finalise.
The templates, once returned from portfolio companies, were manually consolidated using a lot of copying and pasting into a single data set for reporting. Again this process would take a day to complete before the client could begin to report on the data.
The Solution
Our first task was to standardise the Excel data template and ensure that all the customised features were included in a standard blank template. This meant that any changes or additions to the template would only need to take place in one file; not 15 to 20 different files. We also designed and created a data store for all the previous quarterly data.
Next we built a template creator which used the standardised blank template. The template for each company is populated automatically from the data store and saved to a folder ready for checking and sending. The template set-up is now a process that takes two minutes.
Our next task was to build a temple consolidator. The consolidator processes all the returned templates, automatically moving the data into the data store ready for reporting. Again this process has reduced from approximately one day to 2 minutes.
Finally we built an interactive reporting model which used the consolidated data to provide results to the investment board.
The Output
Standardising and automating rusing advance Excel Development reduced the potential for copy paste errors to zero. Any structural template additions and changes only needed to be carried out in one place.
Most importantly the project significantly reduced the time taken to manage and produce their quarterly financial reporting. A task that previously took in the region of three to four working days was condensed to just over 5 minutes, saving not only time but also resulting in significant cost savings.
For a free consultation
Either call us now on 020 3817 6945 or fill out the form below and one of our team will be in touch.