Buy-Side Technology Awards 2015: Best Portfolio Accounting Platform—SS&C Advent Software

Advent was one of the largest deals in the history of financial technology, when in February this year, SS&C Technologies, a Windsor, Conn.-based holding company, purchased it for $2.63 billion. And while sometimes a deal of that magnitude can be distracting to a firm, the quality of the San Francisco-based firm’s flagship portfolio accounting platform has shown no signs of diminishing. 

It should come as no surprise that Advent’s Geneva platform has dominated the category since its inception in 2007. This year marks the fifth time the firm has made it to the winners’ circle.

“Geneva really stands apart from other solutions for its ability to efficiently support the most complex workflows at the world’s top-tier firms, and over the years we’ve worked closely with our clients to make this a reality,” says Robert Roley, senior vice president of products and client experience with SS&C Technologies. “Their feedback and input has allowed Geneva to constantly evolve to meet new demands, prioritizing functionality and user experience, while offering comprehensive instrument coverage and industry-standard integration tools.”

Global expansion was a major theme this year for the enhancements made to the Geneva platform. Brazil, Chile and Mexico market-specific capabilities were added, along with the ability to apply currency-rounding rules.

SS&C Advent also made general improvements to Geneva’s reporting functionality and tweaks to its accounting workflows for swap and bank debt, all of which were made based directly on client feedback.

The addition of a few letters prefixed to the Advent name hasn’t changed things much at all, as SS&C Advent and its Geneva platform have taken home this year’s Buy-Side Technology Award for best portfolio accounting platform for the second straight year.

The upgrades will continue. There are plans under way to provide more flexibility to support various ISDA swap counterparty agreements by allowing users to calculate financing based on market value, not cost. The final touches are also being put to a significant bank debt re-factor project that will offer clients dealing with bank debt greater granularity in terms of accounting detail for unsettled bank debt instruments, according to Roley.

Roley says the vendor is also focused on improving scalability and system performance via simplifying the migrations process, automating install and upgrade scripts, and developing standard integration with other SS&C products and services.