We tailor our comprehensive private fund services to meet the unique needs of private equity, venture capital, and real estate funds.
Private Equity, Venture Capital & Real Estate Fund Services
- Accounting
- Audit & Tax Management
- Financial Reporting
- Investor Services
- Middle Office Services
- Shadow Accounting
- Technology
- Treasury Services
Ultimus provides comprehensive private fund accounting services that support investment firms at three distinct levels: portfolio/investment accounting, fund accounting, and partnership/investor accounting. Even if your fund involves complex or unusual structures, different classes of investors, complex waterfall structures, complicated management fee arrangements, or multiple types of assets, our seasoned accountants are prepared to handle the details.
In addition, by outsourcing your fund accounting to Ultimus, you can ensure that your accounting operations will be accurate, on time, and prepared by skilled specialists. In fact, the majority of our accounting professionals hold either a CPA or an advanced accounting degree, and many have public accounting experience. We have the expertise to deal with the inevitable complexities that occur while managing private funds, and we are here to support you.
We’ve built personalized services into the Ultimus culture, right down to our operational structure. Instead of the “call center” approach of most large administrators, we provide you a dedicated specialist, who forms a strong and trusted relationship with you and learns the unique aspects of your fund in order to problem solve and anticipate your needs.
Ultimus’ audit and tax management services include:
- Interaction with the fund’s independent accounting and tax firms
- Audit coordination and support
Audit Support
When you choose Ultimus for administration of your private fund, we will work with your audit firm to determine timing and complete requirements for items on the Prepared by Client (PBC) list for an audit. From there, we will prepare all required schedules and create and distribute confirmation letters. As needed, we explain financial transactions and consult with the audit team to help ensure the audit is completed timely.
Tax Preparation Assistance
Generally, it is most efficient to have your fund’s CPA firm also prepare the K-1 forms and state and federal tax returns for your fund. However, we will work closely with your tax provider to provide the necessary economic information and data.
At first glance, preparing the draft of the annual audited financials for a private fund may not appear to be a significant task. In practice, however, many issues and complications can arise, which require the technical expertise of an experienced CPA. At Ultimus, our financial reporting group alleviates these concerns for our clients. We take ownership of the entire financial reporting process, including the interface with your auditor on your behalf. As a result, your staff can rest easy knowing these reports will be done accurately and on time.
At Ultimus, we understand that your investors are your most important asset, so we have created a responsive, accessible, and controlled environment that gives you and your investors the attention you need and confidence in the reporting we provide.
Ultimus’ comprehensive suite of investor services for closed-end funds includes:
- Maintenance of all investor records
- Communication with investors
- Processing of capital activities (commitments, capital calls, distributions, transfers)
- Enablement of online reporting for investors
- Reporting services, including dissemination of newsletters, management updates, and tax documents
- Preparation of investor due diligence questionnaires
- Investor identity verification in accordance with Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures
- Distribution and tracking of offering documents
- Monitoring ERISA percentages and investor slots
Ultimus’ unique co-sourcing operating model leverages a single technology platform to support your front office, sales and marketing team, and investors. This advanced central data repository stores all of your investment data (security master, transactions, holdings, taxlots, daily P&L) as well as third party market data (analytics, prices, corporate actions, benchmark data). In addition to having extensive experience integrating this data with many different front office technologies, the Ultimus solution also makes this data available to your investors through web portals. Our state-of-the art technological infrastructure provides you access to important post-execution trade data, including profit and loss computation, attribution and risk analytics, to support daily portfolio evaluation and sales efforts.
Contact us or click here to learn more about the specific front, middle, and back office services Ultimus provides.
Shadow accounting— keeping a complete separate set of fund records for the sole purpose of finding and correcting mistakes – is growing in popularity as investment managers strive to enhance the accuracy and integrity of their data and offer their clients the additional level of comfort that an outside firm is verifying their portfolio reporting, administrative processes, and Net Asset Value (NAV) calculations.
A private fund can take on the function of calculating its own official NAV or hire a third-party administrator to do it for them, but it ultimately remains the investment manager’s responsibility to investors to verify the portfolio’s numbers. Some funds perform shadow accounting in house, though it can place a significant burden on a fund’s financial, IT, and human resources departments. As a result of that and because of increasing regulations and investor demand for transparency, hiring a third party for this role has become the new industry norm. By outsourcing the shadow accounting responsibility, a fund manager can also focus on important core activities, such as portfolio management, raising capital, and strategic planning. This “shadow” of your administrator’s reporting offers the important independent verification that investors demand.
The decision to outsource shadow accounting depends on many factors, including internal resources and investor demand.
Ultimus utilizes a combination of proprietary and third party best-in-class technology to provide fund managers and investors with extensive, detailed portfolio and partnership data and reporting. We continually research industry technological innovations and evaluate our providers to ensure we are offering best-in-class solutions. We also regularly consult with you to understand your changing data requirements to ensure our proprietary offerings meet your reporting needs and those of your investors.
Specific private fund technology includes:
- 24/7 access to complete accounting, portfolio and investor reports
- Automated state-of-the-art software with the ability to:
- Calculate intricate waterfalls with the ability to track special distribution schedules
- Track capital and allocate profit and loss calculations on a deal by deal and lot by lot basis
- Track actual and prospective transactions, including hypothetical waterfall calculations
- Automate and customize call and distribution letters
- Support fund of fund reporting
Ultimus’ private fund treasury services revolve around putting in a robust system of financial controls to protect the integrity of your fund. This system relies on the principle of joint control between your fund and Ultimus regarding the movement of money, as well as separation of duties within Ultimus.
Ultimus will initiate all banking and money transfer activities for your fund while giving you the final approval for all disbursements. As with all other aspects of our operation, a series of process-driven internal controls provide accuracy and timeliness. We work with a large number of banks to ensure the right fit for you.
Ultimus’ treasury services include:
- Fund expense payments
- Line of Credit (LOC) payments
- Distribution payments
- Bank account setup
- Investor capital contributions
- Bank reconciliations
- And more
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The Ultimus Group, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All rights reserved.
DISCLOSURE: Information contained on this website is based on public data, historical agreements and dialogue with intermediaries. Such information represents our current understanding of the described platforms and the costs associated with them. In many cases, such costs may be negotiable. All pricing and fee information is subject to change without notice.
