The Lupton Company

The Challenge

With its large number of family entities and ownership structures, Lupton needed a flexible accounting and reporting solution that would support the office’s complex environment. Specifically, they wanted a system that could integrate private equity, real estate, performance metrics and marketable securities on a single platform. The solution also had to integrate partnership accounting and performance reporting as well as offer a complete range of out-of-the-box reports.

The Solution

Upon learning about FundCount, Lupton requested a demonstration of the software, which was followed by a proof of concept using private equity and marketable securities data for two of Lupton’s entities. Lupton wanted to test the full capabilities of the system and compare results to their current process. “The results came close to the process we were currently using,” said Marcie Odum, CEO of Lupton. “We were surprised by how well FundCount fit.”

The Results

FundCount brings Lupton greater visibility, ease of use and enhanced efficiency. The system consolidates partnership and portfolio accounting through one general ledger for an integrated financial picture while offering the flexibility to view ownership and run reports by individual entity, asset, investment, geography and other parameters. Robust drill-down features provide quick access to underlying details in accounting and performance measurement.

Odum and her team use FundCount’s drop-down menus to open up and view activity in any entity and toggle back and forth between entities. “The multi-entity drop-down menu is my favorite feature,” said Odum. “I used to have to log into each entity individually but now I can easily switch between partnerships to see other entities.” Reviewing 10 partnerships used to take as many as three days. The same process can now be accomplished in a single day because there is a higher level of confidence in the accuracy of the data and verifying underlying details is faster.

Odum is quick to praise FundCount’s responsive client service team. And, she notes that FundCount has an unusual and pragmatic approach to reports. FundCount knows that any good reporting idea one family has will likely be helpful to others. As a result, FundCount makes reports created by the client available to all clients through its ever-growing encyclopedia of reports.

“Lupton is a small family office but we are in our 5th and 6th generation, so we’ve learned to be very efficient,” said Odum. “We never anticipated that a software solution could make us even more efficient, but FundCount did just that.”