I’ll confess that this post should have been issued in December, but, alas, I just thought of it, so here it is!
Preparing for your next GIPS verification
First, what you need to do to prepare for your 2014 annual GIPS® (Global Investment Performance Standards) verification.
- Review your year-end numbers to ensure everything looks correct.
- Review your policies and procedures to make sure you’ve followed them throughout the year.
- In addition, check your P&P to see if any changes are in order. For example, if you added a new rule to classify an account non-discretionary, is it clearly stated in your policies?
- If you began any new composites in 2014, make sure you’ve created presentations and included returns for the “stub” periods. And, added their description to your list of composite descriptions!
- If any composites terminated in 2014, make sure you’ve created the presentation showing the “stub” period returns.
- For all new accounts that came in during the year, make sure they’ve been properly assigned to their appropriate composite(s), and the timing of entry was in accordance with (IAW) your policies.
- If any accounts left in 2014, make sure they were removed from their composite(s) IAW your policies for timing.
- If any accounts changed composites in 2014, make sure you have documentation to back up the change, and that the shift was done IAW your policies.
- If any errors were discovered in 2014, make sure you handled them IAW your error correction policy.
- Review your verifier’s list of items they want to see when they arrive, and that you can have them ready for them.
We provide a great deal of material to our verification clients in their GIPS Orientation Kit™. This includes a list of items we want prepared for us when we arrive to conduct their verification, as well as a list of questions that they need to be able to answer “yes” to before we show up. I’m sure other verifiers do similar things.
If you have already had your verification conducted I apologize for not having this out sooner.
What’s new with the GIPS standards?
But, you may still be interested in a webinar we’re hosting on February 5 @ 11:00 AM EST: What’s New With the GIPS Standards?
We hold monthly webinars and this is actually our slightly delayed January edition. It will be hosted by Ken Robinson, CFA, CIPM, CPA, PFS, who is a Director, Global Investment Performance Standards, at the CFA Institute. We thought, who better to deliver such an update than someone from the CFA Institute, and are very pleased that Ken will do this for us.
The webinar is free! (see below)
Ken will cover:
- Recent releases related to the standards
- Current initiatives
- Available resources
- And More…
Note that there will be a Q&A session and pre-submitted questions are welcome.
Ken’s bio:
As noted above, Ken is a director in the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) area at CFA Institute. He helps maintain the GIPS through management of the interpretations process, developing guidance for new technical areas, working extensively with volunteer committees, promulgating the GIPS standards and serving as a thought leader. Prior to joining CFA Institute, he was a director in the investment management audit practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
Ken is a member of the Quantitative Investing Subcommittee of the Boston Security Analysts Society (BSAS) and the GIPS Task Force of the Real Estate Information Standards (REIS). He has served as an appointed member of the North American Investment Performance Committee and the Interpretations Subcommittee of the GIPS Executive Committee. Ken earned a BS in finance from Indiana University.
How to sign up for the GIPS webinar!
To sign up, simply go here!
Hope you can join us!