Our Services
Aquila provides solutions for clients who face increasingly strenuous demands to meet reporting requirements for the front office, marketing, investors, and regulators.
Aquila offers a variety of back-office solutions that can be purchased modularly. Services include Business Consulting, Operating Model Design, System Selection, Project Management, and System Implementation.
Business Consulting
Aquila advises clients on utilizing and leveraging the appropriate operating model and technology to achieve effective business results.
Operational Risk and Technology Assessment
Every project begins with a thorough current-state assessment of overall risks and weaknesses. With ever-changing regulatory requirements and investor transparency demands, Aquila gives firms the ability to evaluate, and take steps to mitigate, operational risk. The assessment provides a high-level review of back-office technology, workflows and information flows on an intra- and interdepartmental basis. The result is a detailed baseline illustration of the client's current operational and technical infrastructure, highlighting gaps in critical business processes and the applications supporting them. As key deliverables of the analysis, our professionals will recommend appropriate solutions tailored to produce effective results.
Fund Administration Due Diligence and Evaluation Review
With the dramatic increase of third-party fund administrators, selecting the best service provider for your firm can be a daunting task. Aquila consultants have worked as third-party fund administrators and within the back offices of some of Los Angeles' leading investment management firms. We understand the security products, value-added services, controls, requirements and intimate details of fund accounting, and the overall quality of a fund administrator. Our team will assess administrator capabilities, document business drivers and outsourcing requirements. Aquila can serve as our clients' project managers and/or augment their existing staff to aid them during the selection and eventual conversion process.
Operating Model Design
Aquila recreates operating models to fit current business needs. Often, as small firms transition into larger institutions, they realize that their previously manageable process is no longer viable: despite their skilled staff, they begin to have trouble supporting their growing assets under management. Faced with diminishing returns on manual processes, these firms will seek improved and expanded technology to increase capacity and scale while improving reporting timelines.
Aquila can present a clear picture of the current technology landscape and assist management in choosing the appropriate technology upgrades. With the technology solution solidified, Aquila will help management design an optimal operating model supporting, and supported by, the technology. Aquila understands the big picture as well as the finer details, thus enabling us to harvest maximum productivity, scalability, and efficiency in the operating model design process.
System Selection
Aquila's proven approach yields a superior evaluation methodology to guide clients through the RFI and RFP process. Aquila provides objective recommendations to clients when considering the incredible variety of technology vendors available to the investment industry. By aligning current and projected future business requirements with the appropriate technology, Aquila is committed to assisting clients in selecting the most value-added application.
Project Management
Aquila utilizes traditional project management techniques to drive client projects forward. During this process, tasks and timeframes needed for the duration of the project are defined. Aquila works diligently to ensure milestones and key deliverables are met.
System Implementation
Resource and time management, along with proper planning, are the key success factors during any implementation. Use Aquila as an extension of your current accounting staff to add capacity during an implementation. We can take on the many transitional requirements that client staff would otherwise have to perform, thus enabling them to focus on their day-to-day responsibilities.
Aquila provides system implementation services for a variety of core accounting, partnership/tax allocation, and financial statement preparation systems, with a particular expertise in the industry-leading core accounting application Advent Geneva®.
To learn more about Aquila's exceptional services for all your back-office operations solutions support, please contact us today.
