Self-service reporting from P&A systems: Shaping the future of performance and attribution

Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving investment landscape, more asset owners are embracing the adoption of self-service reporting directly from their Performance Measurement and Attribution (P&A) system. The shift is typically driven by the inefficiencies of traditional manual processes, growing concerns around data governance, and the need for a single, consistent view of performance.

Traditional Excel, PowerPoint and Power BI: Flexibility at the cost of control

This is where most organizations begin, and for good reason. The primary advantage is flexibility. Excel is well suited to prototyping draft calculations before they are automated within a performance and attribution system such as PEARL. Its formulas are also relatively easy to trace and audit, and because stakeholders are already familiar with these tools, adoption is rarely a significant hurdle.

The drawbacks, however, become increasingly apparent as reporting requirements grow in volume and complexity. Each additional step in a spreadsheet-based process introduces opportunities for error, while keeping models and reports up to date requires ongoing manual effort. As reporting demands increase, this can place a growing burden on teams and require significantly more capacity than a more automated solution.

PowerPoint (and increasingly Power BI) often serves as the reporting layer on top of an Excel-based model or a model built directly in Power BI. While these tools can improve the presentation and accessibility of reporting, the overall process can still create significant key-person risk, particularly for Power BI. Critical knowledge may sit with the individual or teams who built the model or reports, making it difficult for others to maintain, troubleshoot, or update them when that person is unavailable or leaves the organization.

While these challenges are likely to persist in the foreseeable future, the growing integration of AI into traditional tools could play a significant role in addressing them.

Centralised reporting built on an enterprise data management (EDM) platform: Control at the cost of agility

In this model, data from multiple systems is consolidated into a central EDM, with Power BI or similar tools serving as the reporting layer. This creates a powerful setup in which a centralised data pool is maintained by a core team of experts, while enabling users to report across multiple sources of information. For example, performance, risk, exposures, and member data can be combined into a single view.

However, this model requires a high degree of organisational maturity and operational efficiency to work effectively, and organisations may encounter the following challenges:

• Data synchronization: As a data aggregator, the EDM can fall out of sync with the source of truth once data is loaded into it. Maintaining continuous alignment with the source system can also be operationally challenging.
• Data governance and ownership: Defining clear ownership and governance becomes more challenging once data is moved into the EDM. For example, who owns the Official Performance Book of Records in the EDM - the Data team or the P&A team?
• Longer implementation lead times: Changes often need to be implemented across multiple layers before they are reflected in the final output, resulting in longer lead times before updated information is available to stakeholders.
• Cost and resource requirements: Maintaining dashboards, upskilling SMEs on visualization tools, and providing the necessary resources can create significant ongoing costs, which may make it difficult to justify the investment relative to the benefits.
• Potential misuse of the data: Once performance data is moved to EDM, it becomes more difficult to control how data is used and, more importantly, to ensure it is used appropriately. A misunderstanding of the PBOR could result in it being presented or interpreted in a misleading way by downstream users.

Self-service reporting directly from the PMA system: Control with less complexity

Traditionally, P&A systems have focused on producing a robust and comprehensive Performance Book of Records (PBOR). As P&A reporting functionality has matured, self-service reporting directly from the P&A system is becoming a viable option for more organisations. Rather than exporting data to other platforms, users can access dashboards built directly on the P&A system. With a single source of data, BAU changes are reflected immediately, while data integrity is easier to maintain because the data does not need to be replicated across additional systems. Dashboards can also be aligned with the timing of P&A calculation runs, ensuring that reporting reflects the latest available results.

Knowledge and ownership remain within the Performance team, which understands the underlying data and calculations best and can tailor dashboards to user requirements. The approach is relatively straightforward to implement and does not require a dedicated specialist to maintain. User access can also be managed by the Performance team through bespoke authorisation settings tailored to each organisation. Monitoring overhead is lower as well, since daily P&A checks can be performed within the P&A system rather than requiring additional monitoring and support for a separate EDM. Users also benefit from rich attribution drill-through, allowing them to explore positions, time series, and underlying portfolio details without requiring additional data to be transferred to an EDM.

However, there are limitations to consider. A P&A system may not be designed to offer the same level of visualisation and presentation flexibility as Power BI or Excel, so it is important to manage stakeholder expectations around customisation. In addition, reporting is generally limited to the information available within the P&A system. As a result, some use cases may still require reporting to be developed in Excel or Power BI, particularly where users need to combine P&A data with information from other sources.

A strategic and effective foundation with flexibility

While self-service reporting from the P&A system is not designed to replace Excel or Power BI, its key value lies in strengthening governance and consistency. For most asset owners, it may not fulfil all reporting requirements on its own. However, when combined with a small number of complementary tools, such as Excel and Power B, it can deliver a flexible and efficient reporting framework that balances governance and consistency with the flexibility to meet more specific reporting needs.