Confluence Whitepaper Helps Fund Administrators Gain Control Over the Expense Management Process.

PITTSBURGH -- Confluence, the global investment management industry's leading provider of automated data management solutions, today announced the availability of a newly revised version of its "Controlling Fund Expenses: Taking Charge of the Expense Management Process" whitepaper.

Today, rigorous expense management is taking on new meaning as fund companies, already operating within narrow margins, must manage rising fees due to the market decline and investor demand for low-cost products. At the same time, boards are requiring greater expense management transparency and new lower cost alternatives to improve margins and remain competitive.

"Prudent expense management requires the visibility to identify and react to expense trends, the predictability to forecast and budget, and the scalability to meet growing demands for more frequent and ad hoc reporting," said Kirk Botula, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Confluence. "Error-prone and labor intensive manual processes can no longer live up to the challenge. In today's environment it is vital that funds have rigorous automated processes and controls in place to track, allocate, and budget for expenses."

The whitepaper examines how automating expense payments, reporting, and budgeting enables fund administrators to complete these essential functions more quickly, with greater accuracy, and with less staff time than before. Fund companies have traditionally managed these expenses through manual spreadsheets, a process which is prone to errors. In fact, research by a major accounting firm found that more than 90 percent of spreadsheets larger than 150 rows contained at least one significant formula mistake.1

To download a copy of "Controlling Fund Expenses: Taking Charge of the Expense Management Process," visit www.confluence.com/CONTROLEXPENSES.

This whitepaper is part of Confluence's "Essential Moves for Back-Office Control" initiative, which offers practical insight through educational outreach such as whitepapers and web conferences to help fund companies consolidate data and automate processes so that they are better positioned for competitive differentiation and operating success in the post-recession era. The initiative also offers best practices for implementing systemic changes that have a measurable effect on risk management, transparency, process control, and scalability.

Confluence introduced the program to help fund administrators manage the "perfect storm" of challenges they are facing in addition to the volatile economy--from increasingly complex global regulations and compliance requirements to the need to provide added transparency and disclosure with fewer staff.

About Confluence

Founded in 1991, Confluence is a global leader in fund administration automation. Confluence helps investment management companies gain unprecedented control by automating every step of the fund administration process--including the collection, creation, confirmation, and delivery of investment product data. Results are lower costs, reduced risk, decreased reporting turnaround times, and the scalability to automate more processes without additional resources. Confluence solutions are used by 40 percent of the leading global investment managers, and more than 60 percent of US mutual funds. The Unity[TM] platform from Confluence addresses a wide range of problems from performance measurement to customized reporting for a full array of domestic and international managed investment products, including mutual funds, funds of funds, collective funds, separate accounts, and variable products, as well as hedge funds and other alternative investments. Major fund companies such as the Principal Financial Group[R], T. Rowe Price, and Russell Investments; and service providers such as The Bank of New York rely on Confluence. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, Confluence serves the international fund industry with key locations in London and Luxembourg. For more information, visit www.confluence.com or e-mail [e-mail].

1 The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) Journal of Accountancy, 2006.