Spreadsheets got you here.

Almost every fund starts on spreadsheets, and for a while they work. Then a second fund arrives, or derivatives, or a digital-asset sleeve, or an allocator’s due diligence questionnaire — and the same files that got you started become the risk. This is an honest comparison of spreadsheets vs portfolio management software, including where spreadsheets still win.

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Positions 1,284

Auto-matched 99.6%

Exceptions 5

Found this morning, not at month-end

Dividend not booked Corporate action Flagged

Stale close · 2 bonds Pricing Flagged

Cash difference · prime broker Reconciliation Assigned

Trade date vs settlement Timing Resolved

Management fee accrual Fees Resolved

5 exceptions raised 2 resolved Nobody opened a file

01 / The honest part

Where spreadsheets are fine.

Spreadsheets aren’t the enemy. For a single fund with a simple book, they’re fast, flexible and already on your laptop. The question isn’t whether they work — it’s when they stop working, and whether you notice before an allocator does.

One fund, one strategy

A long-only book priced off a single close, one share class, one custodian. A well-built spreadsheet handles this, and replacing it early is rarely the priority.

Ad hoc analysis

Modelling a trade, testing a scenario, building a one-off chart. Spreadsheets are genuinely better at this than any system of record, and they should stay in your toolkit.

Zero cost to start

No subscription, no onboarding. When you’re pre-launch and every euro matters, that counts for something real.

02 / Where they break

The risks that don’t show up in the formula.

Spreadsheet failures are rarely a wrong formula. They’re structural — and they tend to surface at exactly the moment the fund is being scrutinised.

Key-person risk. The process lives in one person’s head and one person’s file.
No single version. Positions in one file, cash in another, NAV in a third — and they drift.
Reconciliation at month-end. Breaks are found weeks after they happen, when they’re hardest to explain.
Changes without reasons. A figure changes and nothing records who approved it or why.
Compliance after the fact. Limits are checked once the trade is done, if they’re checked at all.
Every new asset class is a new tab. Derivatives, share classes and crypto each add a workaround.

03 / Comparison

Spreadsheets vs portfolio management software.

Side by side, including the row where spreadsheets win.

	HedgeGuard	Spreadsheets
Book of record	One system, one version of every position	Several files that drift apart
NAV	Shadow NAV struck daily, per share class	Built by hand, usually monthly
Reconciliation	Automated daily against custodians, brokers and administrator	Manual, typically at month-end
Audit trail	Every change timestamped, attributed and exportable	No reason or approval attached to a change
Pre-trade compliance	Rules checked before an order routes	Checked after the trade, if at all
Key-person risk	Process lives in the system	Process lives in one person
Asset coverage	Traditional and digital assets on one book	A new tab for every asset class
Allocator due diligence	Evidence exported from the system	Rebuilt by hand for each request
Cost to start	Subscription	Free — already on your laptop

04 / When to switch

The signals worth noticing.

01 / GROWTH

A second fund or share class

The moment you consolidate across vehicles, the spreadsheet stops being a book and becomes a stitching exercise.

02 / COMPLEXITY

Derivatives or digital assets

Margin, leverage, perpetuals and staking don’t fit the columns you built for a long-only equity book.

03 / SCRUTINY

An institutional allocator

Operational due diligence asks about controls, audit trail and key-person risk — the three places spreadsheets are weakest.

04 / TIME

Month-end takes days

If closing the month means several people and several days reconciling files, the cost is already higher than it looks.

05 / PEOPLE

Your ops person might leave

If one departure would stop you striking a NAV, that’s the risk to fix first.

06 / ERRORS

A NAV had to be restated

One restatement is survivable. It’s also usually the moment a fund decides it needs a system.

05 / Moving off spreadsheets

Keep your history. Lose the files.

Your positions, transactions and NAV history come across, reconciled against your existing records before go-live. Your spreadsheets stay live until you’ve signed off on numbers you’ve already checked.

30 DAYS

Pre-launch or a clean sheet

No history to migrate. Start on HedgeGuard from the first trade and never build the spreadsheet at all.

60 DAYS

Moving an existing book

Full transaction and NAV history migrated and reconciled against your spreadsheets before cutover.

ALONGSIDE

Excel doesn’t disappear

Reports export to Excel and data is available through the API — so your analysis stays in the tool you know, fed by numbers you can trust.

06 / FAQ

Spreadsheets vs portfolio management software.

Yes, early on. A single fund with a simple long-only book, one share class and one custodian can run on a well-built spreadsheet. The problems appear with growth: a second fund, derivatives or digital assets, an institutional allocator, or the departure of the one person who understands the files.

The common signals are adding a second fund or share class, trading derivatives or digital assets, facing institutional operational due diligence, month-end taking several days, key-person dependency, or a NAV restatement. Most funds switch at the first of these that affects investors rather than waiting for all of them.

No. Positions, transactions and NAV history are migrated and reconciled against your existing records before go-live, so track record and audit trail stay intact. Your spreadsheets remain in use until you’ve signed off on the migrated numbers.

A fund starting from a clean sheet typically goes live in 30 days. Moving an existing book with full history typically takes 60 days, and a deployment wiring in a full set of third-party integrations typically takes 90.

Yes. Reports export to Excel and data is available through the API, so analysis and modelling can stay in Excel. The difference is that the numbers feeding it come from a reconciled book of record rather than from another spreadsheet.

It depends on the allocator and the size of the ticket, but operational due diligence consistently probes controls, audit trail and key-person risk — the three areas where spreadsheet operations are weakest. A fund that can export evidence from a system answers those questions faster and more convincingly than one rebuilding the answer by hand.

Next step

See your book outside a spreadsheet.

Book a working session. Bring your current files — we’ll show you what they look like as a reconciled book of record.

Book a session How migration works