In today's complex fund environment, the relationship between General Partners (GPs) and their fund administrators is more nuanced than ever. While administrators remain essential partners in fund operations, many CFOs and controllers face persistent challenges in accessing timely data, maintaining oversight, and ensuring accuracy across their administrator relationships.

The Operating Model Challenge

Most fund managers have experienced common pain points in the traditional operating model:

• Multi-day turnaround times for basic information requests
• Difficulty accessing and aggregating data across multiple funds
• Challenges in validating administrator work product
• Resource-intensive reconciliation processes
• Loss of institutional knowledge during administrator staff turnover

These challenges aren't necessarily due to an administrator's lack of ability, rather they're inherent in an operating model where critical fund data and calculations live primarily with a third party.

The Real Cost of Limited Data Access

When fund managers lack direct access to their operational data, seemingly simple tasks become multi-day exercises:

• Responding to investor queries requires administrator assistance
• Modeling different distribution scenarios means multiple rounds of admin review
• Validating waterfall calculations becomes a time-consuming reconciliation exercise
• Historical data requests can take weeks to fulfill (See the most recent PF CFO survey showing the increased demands on the back office from LPs)

While administrators work diligently to support these requests, their service model and systems (generally a General Ledger and Excel) simply aren't designed for the real-time access and flexibility that today's fund managers require.

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Reimagining the Operating Model

Rather than replacing administrators, forward-thinking managers are adopting technologies that help them maintain control while maximizing the value of their administrator relationships. This means:

• Maintaining a "shadow" book from automated software that provides real-time visibility
• Automating routine calculations to reduce reliance on manual processes
• Enabling self-service access to critical information

A Better Path Forward: The Maybern Approach

This is why we built Maybern, to help bring control back to CFOs and their finance teams and empower them to operate more effectively. Maybern offers a unique solution that enhances and works alongside the traditional administrator relationship. By providing GPs with their own operational and financial platform, Maybern enables:

• Real-time access to fund data and calculations
• Automated validation of administrator work product
• Self-service reporting and analysis capabilities
• Preservation of institutional knowledge
• Reduced key person risk through standardized processes

Most importantly, Maybern's approach derives data from core workflows rather than requiring duplicate data entry. This means fund teams can maintain oversight and control without significant additional effort.

Empowering Your Team While Preserving Administrator Relationships

The goal isn't to eliminate administrators but to create a more effective operating model where:

• Fund managers maintain direct control of their data
• Administrators can focus on their core competencies
• Both parties work from a single source of truth
• Teams can respond rapidly to business needs
• Institutional knowledge is preserved regardless of staff changes

Conclusion

As fund operations grow more complex, managers need both strong administrator relationships and direct operational control of their data. By adopting platforms like Maybern, fund managers can maintain oversight while maximizing the value of their administrator partnerships - creating a more efficient and scalable operating model for the future.