Background

The client, a Canadian-based family office, manages a large portfolio with investments spread across multiple asset classes including equities, fixed income, and real estate. The firm was already using FundCount, an industry-leading solution for accounting and reporting, but faced challenges with data integration from external sources. As with many family offices, they dealt with complex workflows and required a solution that could optimize operations and reduce manual labor.

Family offices typically spend 30% of their time on manual data entry tasks such as pulling financial data from disparate systems, which makes automation a critical need. With the office juggling multiple bank statements, each from different financial institutions, alongside data feeds from investment platforms, the process of manually gathering, converting, and importing this data had become overwhelming. Staff were logging into a dozen separate systems, navigating security protocols, downloading statements in varying formats, and then spending hours converting and uploading files into FundCount. What once seemed manageable had devolved into a daily grind, with each step prone to errors, delays, and lost time—an unsustainable burden for an already stretched team.

Challenge

As the family office grew, so did the complexity of managing its data streams. What started as a manageable task had ballooned into an intricate, multi-step process involving dozens of bank accounts and investment platforms, each with different formats and security protocols. Pulling data from various sources was no longer just time-consuming—it had become a daily operational headache. Each month, staff found themselves logging into multiple systems, retrieving statements and files in inconsistent formats, and then manually converting these files for compatibility with FundCount.

The increasing volume of accounts added a new layer of stress: if a single misstep occurred—such as an account lockout due to a wrong password or a file format error—it could cascade into delays across the entire reporting process. Even worse, these errors often happened during crucial reporting periods, leaving the family office struggling to meet client deadlines. The process wasn’t just inefficient; it was putting their client relationships at risk. Simply put, the manual approach was no longer scalable, and the burden on the team was becoming unmanageable.

Investigation

When the family office approached FundCount for a solution, the analysts immediately recognized the broader scope of the problem. It wasn’t just about inefficient processes—it was about how these inefficiencies were limiting the firm’s potential to scale and maintain client relationships. The analysts took a deep dive into the office’s daily workflows, mapping out the specific bottlenecks, from logging into bank portals to manually converting file formats and uploading data. Each step of the process presented an opportunity for error, especially when repeated across dozens of accounts and platforms.

During their assessment, the analysts uncovered not only how much time the team was spending on manual tasks, but also the sheer volume of errors these manual processes introduced—errors that could have cascading effects across the entire operation. They realized that automating these processes wasn’t just a matter of convenience; it was essential to the family office’s future growth and operational resilience.

Recognizing the need for both precision and efficiency, the FundCount team proposed Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Unlike a simple software fix, RPA offered a transformative solution. By automating repetitive and error-prone tasks like logging into bank portals, retrieving and converting data, and seamlessly integrating it with FundCount’s system, RPA would eliminate the human element in these time-intensive tasks. What was once a manual, tedious process would now be handled with pinpoint accuracy, reducing the error rate to near zero. With RPA, the analysts not only solved the immediate problem but also future-proofed the family office’s operations, allowing the firm to grow without being held back by these bottlenecks.

Solution

After carefully assessing the situation, the FundCount team implemented an RPA solution that revolutionized the family office’s data management. With their deep understanding of the office’s workflow, the FundCount team configured RPA to automate the entire process of data retrieval, conversion, and integration. What had once required hours of manual effort and was prone to human error now occurred seamlessly in the background, without user intervention.

Within just five days, the system was fully operational. The solution automated critical tasks that previously drained resources, such as logging into multiple bank accounts, downloading files in various formats, and converting them into a compatible format for FundCount. This was no ordinary fix—RPA became the invisible workforce that handled all external data integrations, completely eliminating the manual processes that had caused so much frustration.

The transformation was immediate. No longer did staff members have to spend their days jumping between platforms or worrying about errors. Instead, the RPA system, synced with FundCount’s scheduled task manager, ran autonomously at pre-set times, ensuring data was always ready for analysis and reporting. The laborious tasks of the past—retrieving, converting, and uploading files—were now handled swiftly, reducing the need for manual intervention by up to 90%.

The ripple effects of this automation were felt across the office. Reports were generated faster, with far greater accuracy. Freed from the burden of repetitive data entry, the family office staff could now focus on higher-level tasks, such as analyzing investment performance and deepening client relationships. With the RPA system quietly running in the background, the office operated more efficiently, its processes now future-proofed against further growth.

Outcome

The implementation of FundCount’s RPA solution brought immediate and substantial benefits to the family office. The automated system freed up over 10 hours per month for key employees, time that had previously been spent on repetitive, manual tasks like logging into multiple accounts and converting data. More importantly, the reduction in human error—nearly 100%—meant fewer delays and mistakes, leading to smoother operations and enhanced report accuracy.

Client satisfaction improved significantly as the turnaround time for reports decreased, allowing the family office to provide timely and accurate insights that strengthened their client relationships. These operational improvements translated into broader savings. With the integration of RPA, the family office saw an estimated 25% reduction in overall operational costs, coupled with a 20% boost in productivity.

The return on investment (ROI) for FundCount’s system and RPA was felt almost immediately. In fact, industry estimates suggest that RPA solutions can save family offices between $250,000 and $500,000 annually, depending on the scale of operations and labor costs. For this family office, the initial investment in FundCount had not only paid off but delivered returns that multiplied over time. By streamlining previously cumbersome workflows, they could now handle increased account volumes without needing to scale up their workforce, positioning the office for growth without proportional increases in overhead.

With the RPA solution now fully integrated, the family office was not just saving time and money but operating at a new level of efficiency, reinforcing the long-term value of their investment in FundCount.