Better data, better reporting…beyond the spreadsheet
Why quality accounting data and processes are crucial for investment reporting
In today's investment environment, high-net-worth families can face challenges in building consolidated reports for their investment portfolios that provide a quality user experience. Behind every polished dashboard or PowerPoint presentation lies a hidden world of spreadsheets, accounting ledgers, data systems and integrations that are often unappreciated but absolutely essential to ensure efficient and meaningful reports.
“Every family office uses a combination of accounting software (e.g. Xero, MYOB) and spreadsheets, suggesting there is no ‘universal’ system as such. Consequently, it is important to understand that there may be a number of separate software systems that need to be able to work cohesively.”
Source: How technology is being used inside the family office - KPMG and The Table Club Australian Family Office Report published February 2025
Investment reporting systems are like icebergs. The visible part of the report — the sleek, interactive graphs and summaries are only the tip of what lies beneath. Under the surface, cloud-based accounting systems, integrated supporting software and processes for aggregating data from different sources form the foundation of the entire system. Ultimately, being able to reconcile back to the Xero files is important so all the net cashflows are captured correctly across the relevant entities within the group.
Building this foundation for a sustainable system early is key, because as the portfolio size expands and diversifies, so can the challenges.
Leveraging cloud-based accounting like Xero, employing efficient data structuring, and presenting outputs through tools like Power BI can provide for a more customised and interactive reporting experience for managing wealth.
Understanding the investment reporting iceberg
Above the Waterline: The polished reports
The use of interactive reporting tools like Power BI work well to centralise and consolidate financial performance across multiple data sources and reporting categories (such as asset classes). However, cool charts and interactive design means little without reliable, well-structured data “under the hood”.
Below the Surface: Systems, data structure and integrity
Beneath the waterline, the data input and structure requires consideration of a number of factors:
Group legal and operating structure:
Investment groups and family offices will typically have multiple entities within their structure (trusts and companies), each serving one or more purposes within the group. An understanding of the group structure, sources and uses of funds, intra-group transactions and the respective entity tax profiles will guide the flow and mapping of the financial data.
Xero cloud accounting and consolidation of multiple entities:
High-quality reporting depends on well-maintained Xero ledgers across all relevant entities:
Bank feed automation and reconciliations (including for foreign currencies)
Account reconciliations, including for intra-group loans and shareholder loans
Adopting proper accrual accounting, including for income taxes vs timing on cash flow when tax paid when presenting sources and uses of funds by period
Reporting categories for filtering data:
How will the mapping of revenue, expenses or other reporting categories occur? Is the tracking category functionality within Xero sufficient or do additional custom categories need to be considered once the Xero data has been extracted?
Expense and receipt management capture and governance:
How will receipts from investment team members be managed and approved?
Data feeds:
What data feeds are available for listed equity portfolios?
Dealing with multiple data sources for other investment inputs:
How will data from multiple asset managers, custodians, brokers, real estate agents be collated and aggregated? What PDF readers and OCR technology via supporting apps work best to achieve this?
Properly cleaned and structured data:
Clean, structured data in tabular format is essential for efficient data modelling in Power BI and filtering visualisations. Elimination of duplicate information (such as contact names or investment products) and mapping of transactions into reporting categories will be a key part of the data input process.
Data quality and inputs
"Rubbish in, rubbish out" – Why clean and consistent bookkeeping matters
You can’t build high-quality outputs from poor inputs. Quality bookkeeping and accounting is key to reliable financial reporting.
Key requirements include:
Consistent transaction coding (with supporting records).
Efficient handling of non-automated data - for input into the accounting system. For example, with property portfolios and custom private investments (private equity or venture capital) there are inevitably going to be pdf reports provided.
Maintaining reliable data feeds for listed equity portfolios and connections pushed through to Xero.
Tracking and synchronising contact names (for example for clients, investment products or fund managers). This can be crucial to allow for filtering in the reporting outputs.
Accounting for income taxes correctly, including the timing of taxes paid and accounted for in the right entity.
Account reconciliations including for intra-group transactions and shareholder loans.
Scalable reporting solutions…building with the end in mind
Investment reporting dashboard
Building an effective investment reporting tool requires an understanding of data transformation and financial expertise.
Manual reporting using spreadsheets can be inefficient to build, update and share, particularly when sharing the reports with multiple users. You want to be able to remove the need for manual aggregation of inputs as best as possible, to reduce the risk of inconsistencies and human error. It also allows you to develop a sustainable, scalable solution that can evolve as your reporting needs grow.
The reporting outputs and visualisations are certainly important. But what really matters, and what makes the reporting tools valuable—is the quality of what’s underneath. Strong accounting processes, smart integrations, and clean data are the unseen drivers of impactful reporting.
By leveraging cloud-based accounting like Xero, adopting efficient data structuring, and delivering reports through Power BI, high-net-worth families, family offices and investment groups can unlock a more customised and interactive reporting experience — one that supports better wealth management and performance oversight.
More information
Please reach out to us if you would like more information and to discuss your specific circumstances in more detail.