Post 02
Is your NAV review still in Excel? The numbers behind the spreadsheet problem.
Most fund administrators still check the NAV in Excel. The evidence points that way: in the Alpha FMC Global Operations Survey 2025, only 19% of firms said they were automating NAV production, and many still rely on spreadsheet calculation to strike NAVs. Look at the job boards and the picture is the same: at the time of writing, hundreds of live fund-accountant listings in Luxembourg, Dublin and the Channel Islands still ask for strong Excel and experience "investigating NAV breaks" by hand.
A NAV review is the set of checks a fund administrator runs on the day's net asset value before it is released: cash, positions, prices, FX, fees, capital activity and the movement in the NAV itself. Typically that review lives in workbooks rolled forward every morning.
What the spreadsheet actually costs.
Not the licence. The hours. Files collected by hand from custodians, brokers and pricing feeds, some behind a two-factor login, one arriving as a PDF to be re-typed. Formulas maintained by whoever built the sheet. Evidence typed into a cell as a set of initials. And the most senior people in the business spending the morning comparing numbers that agree, when they could be reviewing the ones that do not.
Why it persists.
The review logic in those workbooks is sound. It has years of daily use behind it. The problem was never the checks; it was that the only tools priced for a small or mid-size administrator were spreadsheets. The enterprise reconciliation platforms were built for administrators with hundreds of funds, with implementations measured in quarters.
What is changing.
Regulators now expect documented, evidenced controls: the GFSC pricing controls guidance, and CSSF Circular 24/856 in force since January 2025, which tightens the rules on NAV errors. Clients expect transparency. Auditors expect evidence stronger than initials in a cell. Spreadsheet controls are becoming the thing that separates administrators, in the wrong direction.
What a NAV reconciliation solution changes.
The files come in on their own or in seconds. Every check re-performs in seconds with the firm's own tolerances. Reviewers see only the breaks, ranked by their impact on the NAV, and sign off on a tamper-evident record. The judgement stays human. The collection, re-typing and comparison do not.