Feature Requests

[mkabjian]

Hello, I am currently evaluating the advisor version. I am very pleased so far but have a couple of small feature requests. Not deal breakers by any means but nice to haves:

1. A 'Category' field for each subportfolio and the abilty to generate reports based on that category. I am systems trader and I trade about 5 systems for each of my clients. The client will be the main porfolio and each system will be a subportfolio (Trend Following, Swing, Value, etc...). However, I would like to report on the overall performance of a system (i.e. group all the subporfolios into one report based on category.). I did not find a way of doing this so far.

2. An 'Entity' name in the client database. I work with partnerships so I will have the first/last name of the main contact but they are often associated with an overall LLC entity that I would like to capture on reports. Not a big deal since I can just name the portfolio accordingly but it is a nice to have.

3. An interface for automation. I am sure this is a long way off if ever but I figured I throw out a request. I use VB as my overall engine and interface it to my trading software and brokerage accounts. I collect everything automatically. I do not want to duplicate Fund Manager functionality so that is why I will probably buy it. I will use VB to generate a text file each day that I will manually upload into fund manager. However, it would be nice to be able to automate those types of activities through an interface.

Thanks again for a great software package. Let me know if you need clarifications.

Best,
Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for trying Fund Manager, and the feedback. This does help. For the 'category' feature, you may consider using either the 'Asset Type' or 'Investment Goal' categories. You can rename these to whatever you want under "Options / Category Labels". You can report based on these, including sub-totals, listing by, or filtering by these categories. These are properties based on the investments, not sub-portfolios, but you could assign them at the investment level within each of your strategy sub-portfolios.

The automation interface would be nice to have. This would take some thought. I'm curious as to what you would want to access? Would you use it for updating transactions/prices only? How about accessing performance data, like reports/graphs?

[mkabjian]

Thanks for fast response Mark.

Regarding your Asset Type/Investment goal suggestion. I assume these are specific to the subportfolio/investment combination? This is important since I may have the same stock in multiple sub-portfolios. Also, I assume I need to structure my import file to specify the 'ITYPE' field at the symbol level. If that all works correctly then it is a pretty good workaround.

Regarding the COM interface. At first thought, my main uses would be to update all the portfolios with transaction data and reconcile any discrepancies with my brokerage account - as much as that can be automated. New account creation and modification would probably be useful as well since everything has to synch up with the brokerage account and my master database. Perhaps I will also kick-off a mass email of reports monthly as well but this can easily be done manually. Essentially I will be using Fund Manager as the reporting add-on to my backoffice program since I see no reason to duplicate your great reporting functionality. Therefore the interface will mostly be one-way to FundManager.

Thanks,
Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

The asset type/investment goal category assignments are unique to each investment. You may have the same security in different sub-portfolios, but these would each be their own investment file, so can be assigned separate category properties.

Unfortunately, there is no way to assign the asset/goal category property during the generic transaction import. The ITYPE key is for the investment type (Stock, Fund, etc), not these categories. I'll look into adding this for a future version, as it would be a good capability to have.

Thanks for the insights into a potential COM interface. This would be a neat feature, but probably isn't going to be available in the real near future...