All things change – even things at the SEC. Previously, investment managers could upload text (aka ASCII) files detailing their holdings to Edgar. This quarter, a change was made, requiring the file to be formatted in XML. Investors have 45 days from the end of the quarter to file their 13F reports, so Q2 reports are due today.
Some users that attempted to get these reports done earlier in Q3 expressed frustration with the XML issue and their ability to get more proactive assistance from Advent to address it. Last week, as the filing deadline approached, Advent reached out to clients, alerting them of the change and directing them to an ASCII to XML conversion tool to facilitate the process. In my own experience with Advent’s support team, I found them both helpful and knowledgeable in regard to the 13F reporting issues.
Though Advent’s documentation states that the 13F report and conversion tool requires Axys 3.8.5 or higher, the report from Axys 3.8.5 worked fine when we used it on Axys 3.7 with a client. APX users can use the same utility. The utility was simple to use and worked well; the biggest challenge for users is finding the file they need to convert.
The 13F reporting mechanism is functional, but the setup seems cryptic and disjointed. First-time users expecting a turn-key, intuitive solution will be disappointed. Fortunately, the details of what is required to produce 13F reports are well-documented in Advent’s help file.
How 13F Reporting Works…
By default, the 13F report only includes the equity asset class. It is possible to exclude individual securities through the use of the 13F.est file, but it is not possible to include individual securities. Additional asset classes may be added. Report-specific labels must be added to the 13F portfolio file to make the report work properly.
When the supporting files are properly configured, the report produces detailed holdings and simultaneously generates an inftable.txt file with the same information. This file is placed in the specific user folder (i.g. f:\axys3\users\amy) of the person running the report on the network version of Axys or the root folder of Axys on the single-user version of Axys. When users have generated a 13F report without missing data or error messages, they are ready run to the conversion utility to produce the inftable.xml file and upload the information to the Edgar site.
This quarter, running and filing 13F reports was more challenging than it has been in the past, since users were forced to correctly implement the 13F report in order to successfully generate an XML file. Based on my experience with users, this was something they had not been doing in the past. Most users would run the report to get something close to what they needed and then manually modify the text file, rather than keep all of the information updated in the 13F portfolio and 13F.est files. Going forward, the process will still require that new securities and relevant asset classes be classified specifically for the 13F report, but future report runs should be simpler.
For more info on 13F reporting, refer to the SEC’s document detailing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
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About the Author: Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide.
For details, please visit isitc.com, contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.