Northern Trust today announced the launch of automated endowment accounting, a Web-based solution that allows not-for-profit clients to allocate investment performance, track donations and manage distributions across multiple accounts in a pooled endowment fund.
The addition of automated endowment accounting completes a full suite of accounting, custody and related services - including performance and risk reporting, foreign exchange, global securities lending and planned giving services - available to not-for-profit organizations.
Through an agreement with Fundriver Inc., a leading provider of endowment accounting software, Northern Trust has deployed FUNDRIVER Online PRO to automate endowment administration through unitization, simplified reporting and information sharing among multiple subaccounts. FUNDRIVER is delivered through Northern Trust Passport, a client information system that integrates Northern Trust and third-party financial information through a single Web portal.
"Northern Trust's endowment accounting service provides an alternative to institutions that have relied on spreadsheets or legacy systems to manage the complex accounting requirements of endowment funds," said Beth Douglass, senior vice president and division manager of the Not-for-Profit segment of Northern Trust Corporate & Institutional Services. "As endowments experience growth in assets under management, more institutions are turning to automated solutions to meet increasing demands for transparency and accountability."
Utilizing the FUNDRIVER system, Northern Trust's automated endowment accounting establishes a regular, repeatable process for allocating investment performance across individual endowment fund accounts, tracking donor restrictions on original value or income, and managing spending rules that drive the distribution of income. Fundriver, Inc., based in Cincinnati, Ohio, provides endowment administration software to many of the leading not-for-profit organizations in the United States. The service helps clients achieve best practices in endowment unitization as recommended by The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and facilitates compliance with regulatory directives that address accountability to donor, preservation of historic value of donated assets (corpus), and equitable distribution of earnings.
"At Northern Trust, we have more than 100 years of experience in providing services to not-for-profit institutions," Douglass said. "Automated endowment accounting is an example of Northern Trust's ability to combine our expertise and leading edge technology to create solutions that allow our not-for-profit clients to focus on meeting their goals."