Understand As Of Transaction Processing

On Eagle Accounting, all transactions are stored with an Accounting Date and a Monthly Accounting Date. Transactions where these two dates are different are considered As Of (or as-of) activity (on Eagle Accounting). As Of activity consists of transactions that occur any time after a daily valuation period is closed, usually around a month end period.

About the Transaction Level Accounting Date and the Monthly Accounting Date

As Of transactions occur after the daily period has been closed. Because funds process activity on T+1 (trade date plus one), the system gets the transactions on a day lag. This becomes an issue at month end because Eagle Accounting wants to capture the T+1 trades in the correct month. For example, the 31-January daily period is closed and now it is 1-February. The system gets capstock and trades from 31-January on 1-February. This becomes As Of activity because the system wants TD 1/31 captured in the 1/31 month report but it got the trades in the 2/1 daily period.

Many daily portfolios need the ability to accurately report As Of transactions in the month-end reporting period that they occur in, while including them in the valuation process for the daily period in which the transaction was posted. The Monthly Accounting Date provides the ability to accurately report transactions in the month end period that they occur in. Eagle Accounting uses this functionality mainly for Mutual Fund portfolios while all other portfolios can use the monthly accounting date for reporting purposes.

Eagle Accounting stores two dates, accounting date and monthly accounting date (tag 4733), on every transaction in order to store and generate month end accounting data for daily portfolios. All of the panels located in the Cash, Fund, Ledger, Income, and Custody tabs include the monthly accounting date field.

The system stores each transaction where accounting date and monthly accounting date are different as As Of adjustments. To create month end activity, Eagle Accounting uses the daily accounting period balances as of the month end date plus the stored As Of activity for the monthly accounting date. In order to store these As Of adjustments, a column is present in the STAR ledger and record keeping tables, as well as on the object. Rows in the accounting period table store the monthly accounting date. During daily processing, the system adds the ME date in the ledger to each daily row.

Transaction Processing Example

For example, if a portfolio receives a trade with an Effective Date of 8/31 on Accounting Date 9/1, then this is considered As Of activity. The trade occurred as of 8/31, but the transaction is not received for processing until 9/1. The trade would be processed in the daily period of 9/1. However, to correctly report it for the month end process, it would be reflected in the August month period because the Effective Date is 8/31.

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How the System Identifies the Day of the Month to Use for Month End Reporting

The system uses the entity- or master fund-level Month End Date Rule to determine which day of the month to use for month end reporting. By default, the system assigns a DEFAULT rule to an entity or master fund, which assigns the last calendar day of each month as the month end accounting date. However, you can create your own month end date rules to assign the month end accounting date using other criteria. For details, see Manage Month End Date Rules.

View the Monthly End Accounting Date for an Accounting Period

You can use the List Accounting Periods panel to view the month end accounting date that the system tracks for each accounting period. When you use that panel’s Show All tab to view the rows for General Ledger accounting periods created for one or more entities, notice the column named Monthly Accounting Date in each row. If you are viewing a daily accounting period row, you can see the month end date associated with that daily period that the system assigned when it created the accounting period using the entity or master fund’s month end date rule.

How the System Determines Monthly Accounting Date Default Values for Trades

When you use Eagle Accounting to book a trade, the panel’s default logic provides a value for the trade’s Monthly Accounting Date based on the dates entered for the Trade/effective Date and the Accounting Date, as follows:

• If trade date/effective date is the same month as the accounting date, then the system sets the monthly accounting date to a value equal to the accounting date.

• If trade/effective date is not the same month as the accounting date, then the system sets the monthly accounting date to a value equal to the month end date based on the month end date rule.

Trade Panel Example 1

In this example, the trade date and accounting date are not the same month. The panel defaults the monthly accounting date to the month end date based on trade date. This portfolio is using the last calendar day for its monthly accounting date. Therefore, the monthly accounting date is February 29. 

Trade Panel Example 2

If the month end date is closed, and the month of the latest open monthly accounting date is the same month as the accounting date, then the monthly accounting date value defaults to the accounting date.

In this example, the February 29^th monthly accounting date is closed. The next open monthly accounting date is March 31^st.  Because the accounting date and the next open monthly accounting date are referencing the same month, the monthly accounting date defaults to the accounting date.

Trade Panel Example 3

If the month end date is closed, and the month of the latest open monthly accounting date is not the same month as the accounting date, then the monthly accounting date defaults to latest open month end date. 

In this example, the February 29^th monthly accounting date is closed. The next open monthly accounting date is March 31^st.  The accounting date is in April. Because the accounting date and the next open monthly accounting date are not in the same month, the monthly accounting date defaults to the latest open month end date, March 31^st.