‍

Fifteen years ago, alternative investments were largely the domain of institutional investors and a handful of ultra-wealthy families. Allocations were chunky, often concentrated in a few flagship private equity or hedge funds, and the operational work, while still largely manual, was more limited in scope.

Now, the landscape is vastly different. Alternative investing has become increasingly accessible. Lower minimums, a proliferation of feeder funds (often offered as fund-of-fund vehicles by clients’ family offices), and interval products have opened the door to a broader swath of investors than ever before. Simultaneously, client demand for alternatives has surged: “alts” are now seen as an essential part of a sophisticated, modern diversified portfolio.

Operational burden has scaled accordingly. Advisors and operations teams are tasked with managing dozens or more commitments across their client book, tracking capital calls across disparate fund management portals, reconciling documentation, and coordinating liquidity planning at multiple custodians. Without unified, secure infrastructure, teams can be overwhelmed by the volume of manual work, risking errors and delayed payments.

Atomic Insights transforms the headaches of managing alternative investments into a streamlined experience. By integrating with flagship investment aggregators like Canoe and Arch, Atomic automates document ingestion and payment request creation, provides real-time insight into client portfolios, and documents each step of the process via audit logging and attachment tracking.

Operational complexity inevitably bleeds over from back-office teams to client experiences. Capital calls must be processed accurately and on time, and any delays or errors can undermine client trust. Atomic Insights addresses these challenges by creating a seamless, automated workflow from investment notice to payment completion.

Through integrations with Canoe and Arch, investment notices are piped in real time to Atomic’s payments platform. Fund documents and related data are ingested automatically and transformed into payment request drafts, ready for review by operations or client service teams. This eliminates the need for teams to log into multiple fund portals or re-key information - a major source of repetitive, error-prone work.

Once draft payment requests are generated and approved, Atomic’s automated, custom workflow ensures a disciplined, consistent validation process for each payment, based on a firm’s individual review standards. Teams can review, approve, and track payments efficiently with supporting documents remaining linked to the transaction. The workflow maintains a clear audit trail and enforces best practices, so nothing slips through the cracks.

By centralizing notices, data, and payments in a single platform, Atomic provides real-time visibility into all client alternative holdings and upcoming capital calls. Operations and service teams gain actionable insights without the friction of disparate systems, enabling them to proactively manage client accounts and focus on higher-value tasks.

Alternative investments are increasingly a core component of client portfolios, creating both opportunity and operational challenges. Atomic’s focus on data integrity and real-time integrations with alternative asset platforms helps firms manage this complexity. By adopting integrated, automated payments workflows, RIAs and Family Offices are better equipped to manage alternatives at scale, reduce risk, and provide clients with consistent, bespoke service. Firms that implement these solutions position themselves to operate at high efficiency while meeting the growing expectations of today’s investors.