As the deadlines for filing Form PF have been ticking by, the latest being the liquidity fund deadline on July 16, dozens of companies are offering technology solutions intended to facilitate filing of the form. In a primer released this week, Phil Niles, director and client executive at Butterfield Fulcrum, says that not all solutions are created equal.
In a list of criteria, Niles lists six attributes he says are key to a good Form PF solution.
First, the solution should allow easy collaboration between multiple people over the Web, as many people from different business units in various offices and jurisdictions will be involved in the filing, not just a single person.
It should also have robust audit tool, which can track what is being edited, who is editing, why it is being edited and when the edit happens. This is especially important since the form can be subject to audit by regulators, Niles says.
The tool should also be flexible and able to adapt to both future changes to Form PF by regulators and new reporting requirements that funds may be subject to, eliminating the need to use multiple technology solutions for compliance.
And as a technology solution, it should be able to automate calculations within the form, reducing workload and chances of human error. It should also include data validation and sanity checks, alerting users to when a number seems odd or fields are missing.
Finally, the information imparted to the service needs to be guaranteed to be secured and maintained in a reliable fashion, as Form PF includes very sensitive information. The solution and the firm that created it should be accredited by a regulatory body and have its security processes regularly audited.
The next form PF deadline is August 26, when private funds with regulatory AuM over $5 billion will be required to file.
(OS)