Isis IMS

Isis’ extensive footprint is unmatched in the industry. Only Isis offers a comprehensive, end-to-end workflow that integrates and supports every step of the investment process from the initial intelligence gathering and idea generation through the investment decision to execution, settlement and reconciliation. Isis’ integrated solutions support every step of the investment process.

Accounting

In today’s competitive, client-driven investment environment, new products are introduced frequently. Investment accounting software must be flexible enough to easily accommodate changes and challenges as they occur. Since portfolio management operations are integral they should have immediate access to the accounting information.

Built on a flexible multi-currency accounting engine IMS provides full daily accrual and pooled funds accounting for all positions. That accounting is consistent across the enterprise because a single data store serves as its centralized repository. IMS maintains detailed historic activity on portfolios, positions, trades, etc., back to the day an asset was introduced into a portfolio or the portfolio was opened.

Accounting Capabilities:

• Cash flows and valuations can be automatically projected allowing “what if” and side by side scenario analysis.
• Multiple amortization and accrual methods are maintained along with flexible accounting calendar options.
• Supports side-by-side trade date and settlement date accounting.
• Scheduled projections of dividends, interest and/or principal payments, fees, distributions and interest rate resets can be built and controlled by users.
• A broad selection of trades and adjustments.
• Costing (all tax lot costing methodologies are supported).
• Recognized and unrecognized income and gains.
• Report gross and/or net payable accruals on the income statement or balance sheet.
• Easily create and control sophisticated fee schedules based on assets, spreads, tiered levels, performance plus more.
• Flexible pass-through methods for underlying portfolios.
• Track interest rate swaps separately, or net, on a daily basis.
• Complete real-time cash accounting, management and analysis. Total liquidity available at all times.
• G/L integration

Strong Accounting, Reconciliation and Audit Controls:

• Reconcile daily activity using integrated tools that automate the resolution of discrepancies with custodians, brokers and prime brokers.
• Built-in detailed audit trails track changes.
• Audit security is maintained via user rights that dictate who can alter historical instrument and transaction activity.

Investment Data Management

In today’s increasingly complex investment environment, data management suffers from being fractured at many asset management companies. Data is moved frequently from one system to another as mangers attempt to generate statistics, create reports, and manage their clients’ portfolios. This process is inefficient as it introduces errors, produces inconsistent results, and wastes valuable time. Because IMS resides on a central data store, data is consistent for every user.

IMS helps companies operate more efficiently, realize lower costs, and provide improved customer services. Users facilitate decision making via IMS’ integrated management tools, such as performance measurement, compliance and modeling, scenario analysis, and flexible reporting. Portfolio managers can focus on managing assets, not data. The operations and accounting departments can perform their functions without leaving the core application to run spreadsheets or reports.

Efficient Data Management:

• Track almost any extraneous data item through a user-defined field definition system (like CRM systems).
• Tracks all UDF history for almost all items: trades, Instruements portfolios, instruments, brokers, etc
• Format query to report your exact needs by in-house non-programmers.
• Create spreadsheet-like queries and export them to Word, Excel, PDF, and Crystal Reports
• Avoid exporting or maintaining data in spreadsheets; improve efficiencies and reduce errors.

Data Integration:

• Use XML to import or export almost any data item or to drive integration.
• Configure IMS to import directly from spreadsheets or tab delimited files.
• Send or receive data updates from clients, custodians, brokers, or external systems (EX trading).
• Validation ensures that imported data is consistent and complete. Integrate with many systems: brokers, custodians, General Ledger, CRM, and trading.
• Ensure your system is properly updated with IMS’ powerful reconciliation engine.

Scenarios

Scenarios is a powerful rebalancing and trading tool that allows a portfolio manager to review the effects a specific trade will have on a portfolio’s performance before the trade is executed. Several trade scenarios can be reviewed concurrently. Analytics are displayed in real time to help select the trade alternative that best meets desired objectives. These trades can then be executed without ever leaving Scenarios.

Portfolio Modeling:

Reliable portfolio-management tools are essential for making accurate and timely decisions for your clients. With IMS, managers can design portfolio models to keep holdings within specified guidelines. Whenever a modeling guideline is violated, IMS can suggest trades, based on pre-established rules, to bring the portfolio in line with its objectives. This ensures that your clients’ strategies are protected efficiently and precisely.

Other Capabilities Include:

• Perform “what if” scenario analysis during rebalancing or when performing a single trade to view how the impending action will affect a portfolio’s performance.
• Use integrated rules based modeling/compliance to keep portfolios in line with their models or benchmarks.
• Manage and report on portfolios through unlimited user-defined reports using IMS’ unique “Design Tool”.
• Project cash and perform liquidity analysis.
• Restrict access to portfolio information based on “user rights”.

Compliance

Compliance perfectly complements Scenarios with its robust risk-management capabilities. When a portfolio is accessed for either trading or analysis, pre-set rules automatically determine if the considered actions meet SEC regulations (Rule 2a-7 for money markets is supported), internal policies, or client guidance. Violations are displayed before any action is taken.

But Compliance is far more than a regulatory tool. It is designed to also provide business managers with the flexibility to better manage their internal policies and client guidelines as needs dictate. Managers can design their own rules and apply them to selected portfolios so that a “best practices” environment is well maintained.

• As a regulatory tool, preset rules are defined, and IMS warns when an impending trade violates relevant regulations. As planned trades are altered, the violation window updates in real time. You can also report regulatory violations on historical activity.
• Internal company policies dictate “how we do business”. Warnings are generated and a report is provided when any rule is violated.
• Portfolio models can be designed to operate within a client’s specific guidelines. Compliance alerts users when a portfolio breaks pre-established client guidelines (i.e. fixed income concentration level must be no more than 25% and must be rated AA or better and amortized cost positions with a particular issuer can’t be > 10% of the overall portfolio). IMS will also suggest trades, based on these pre-established guidelines, to help bring the portfolio back in line.
• Compliance rules can be maintained and updated locally. New rules are easy to build. Changing these rules is restricted by user rights.

Performance Measurement

One of the defining factors in the selection of a portfolio management system is it enables a manager to set and meet performance goals, while also staying within investment compliance and portfolio-modeling guidelines. Doing this effectively requires seeing where your investment management policies either succeed or fall short of expectations. IMS’ performance-measurement tools allow for quick response to changing market conditions so that intended goals are met swiftly. IMS addresses performance measurement in the following ways:

Fully GIPS Compliant :

IMS can help you maintain full GIPS compliance. Many return analytics are readily available, including Time Weighted (Modified Dietz) Rate of Return, IRR (Internal Rate of Return) plus others. Returns can be calculated either net or gross of fees, using trade-date or settlement-date accounting, with and without accrued receivables and payables, and with or without cash.

Performance Measurement Software

Performance measurement tools that support reporting and decision making include:

• Many price sensitivity, yield, and return measures are available.
• Performance and analytics reported over any period or periodicity.
• Asset allocations and contribution returns broken out by country, currency, sector, sub-sector, asset type, portfolios or any desired group.
• Use integrated analytics such as Sharpe, Sortino, std. deviation, beta, yield, duration, convexity, Rsquared when evaluating investments.
• Portfolio contribution and attribution.
• Group portfolios into composites and track performance over time.
• Calculate returns by composite.
• Risk analysis.
• Blended rate comparison.
• Track historical ratings of issues and issuers over time and use them when evaluating risk.
• Income and gain recognition (with various costing alternatives).
• Various ways to value your positions, including mark-to-market. With private placements, mark-to-market assets by discounting cash flows at the appropriate rates from a yield curve.

Analytics

Analyze your positions in many different ways and control how analytics work. IMS supports the contribution to overall returns–perhaps the most common form of attribution–as well as multi-currency attribution. Compute returns in various currencies. Perform asset allocation using unlimited categories.

• Incorporates advanced analytics such as total return, projected cash flows, stressing a position/portfolio, and pricing.
• Contribution and Attribution analysis(instrument, sector, portfolio, others).

Yield Curve Analysis:

Integrated yield-curve analysis allows portfolio managers to analyze a position and/or portfolio in relation to various yield curves. With IMS, performing yield-curve analysis is simplified because portfolio data does not need to be offloaded onto a third party system; the required yield curve data need only be brought into the system from an external source. Users can perform various spread and valuation analysis. Users can maintain many yield curves by specifying different spreads (parallel or non-parallel) from the original yield curve.

Reporting

Portfolio managers searching for new solutions often put a powerful, flexible reporting engine at the top of his/her wish list. IMS’ flexible reporting capabilities are designed to meet the most demanding requirements. With the click of a button, IMS can report current, historical, and projected positions and activity on any past or future date. IMS is delivered with a complete set of standard reports which can be scheduled to print on queue as required. But the real flexibility of the reporting engine lies within its ability to immediately turn any screened query into an “ad hoc report”, which can then be modified to meet your precise needs.

Powerful Reporting Capabilities:

With our user-friendly interface, users can create customized reports to achieve any precise goal.

• Screen any query and then immediately turn it into an “ad hoc” report. Then update (drill down to) to any report field (including user-defined fields) and refresh it to show the report with the new data.
• Using IMS’ unique drag and drop “Design Tool” users can add fields, define groups and subtotals, and create their own formulas and filters to create complex reports that can graphed immediately.
• Once created reports can then be saved in either private or public directories, where they can be shared with other users.
• Customize reports using any of the hundreds of analytic and accounting fields that are available.
• IMS’ powerful formula engine and integrated analytics turns the report writer into a valuable analytical tool.
• Because IMS maintains a complete history and projects future activity, users can report on any time frame, either future or historic.
• Any report can be directly output to Excel, Word, fax, PDF, or a formatted e-mail to be sent to multiple recipients or mail-merged for subsequent presentation to clients and senior management.
• Customized reports can be delivered (designed to meet various customer levels or individual needs) to your web portal for push or pull customer reporting.
• Report on underlying valuations to view the assets within a portfolio, and the positions and analytics exclusive of unposted activity.
• IMS’ powerful reporting tools will significantly reduce the use of external spreadsheets, which may be inherently inaccurate.

As a result, IMS improves the efficiency of your operations by fulfilling several needs with a single solution, allowing portfolio managers to concentrate on managing portfolios rather than data. With IMS, reporting is a key analytical tool.