Fee Tracker FAQ’s
Q. How do I know if I have a problem with my fees?
A. Fee reconciliation has always been a time consuming and manually intensive process. Most firms have not had experienced resources available to allocate up against fee reconciliations. As a result, firms have difficulty determining whether they have a problem and how costly it is.
Canterbury’s Fee Tracker service is an automated process that can identify fee discrepancies and save firms a lot of money. Our industry experience confirms that at some point most organizations have accumulated incorrect static data in their systems that does not match with the comparable data held at exchanges.
System modifications, limitations in bookkeeping systems, trade flow changes, frequent fee adjustments, the introduction of new products and client membership status all have an impact on the fees calculated and charged by exchanges and member firms.
As a result, firms may charge their clients the wrong fees while at the same time overpaying or underpaying fees to Exchanges. This ultimately results in losses to the firm.
Canterbury’s automated Fee Tracker service offers prospective clients a free initial comparative audit to identify if a problem exists and how serious it may be.
Q. Do I have to purchase and integrate any software or hardware?
A. No. All of the work is done within Canterbury. Our software runs within our data center.
Q. What do I have to do to set up the process?
A. Your technology team works with ours to set up a secure transmission of the relevant data files between our two firms.
Q. What happens to my data after Canterbury gets it?
A. Canterbury matches your file against the exchange file containing identical trades and accounts to produce a database of matched and unmatched trades. We then match up trades and look for any fee discrepancies.
Q. What happens if there is a failure during the processing cycle?
A. Our experienced staff works with your data processing team to monitor and retrieve files during regularly scheduled time periods.
We work with our clients to ensure timely receipt and accuracy of data files.
Our process and systems are designed to be independent for each firm and can be started whenever we receive the appropriate files. So delays in receiving files will have a minimal impact to our daily process and no impact to the firms processing cycle or work load.
Q. How will Canterbury’s analysts help my staff understand the data?
A. Our analysts work with you, at your convenience, to examine the reason behind the differences in mismatched fees. After fixing the data, they can also apply their knowledge of how changes taking place in the course of day to day operations may cause unexpected knock on effects that create systemic problems.
Q. Suppose I discover I have been overpaying fees to an exchange. How do I recover my overpayment? How many months back can I reclaim?
A. Canterbury provides you with reports to support our findings based on extracts from the exchange itself and your own data. These results can be applied to your own books and records to verify their accuracy and check against static data within your own systems.
Depending upon the Exchange, you may be permitted to go back as far as three months to reclaim overpayments. Some Exchanges will not permit you to go back to reclaim fees so you can only fix your data going forward to prevent future overpayments.
In each case, by correcting the static data to match the Exchange, you ensure that correct fee payments are made going forward, and that you are charging and billing clients correctly for each trade.
Q. How secure is the transmission of my data?
A. We offer a number of encryption options to ensure data security. Some of these options include fixed line or virtual private network transmissions, with a secure FTP and PGP encryption.
Q. How secure is my client data?
A. Your client data is very secure, as we suggest that you remove client names from your files for additional security. Your data is then held in a distinct location within our database in our secured data center facility.
Q. All my technology vendors have to be certified, is Canterbury?
A. Yes, Canterbury’s IT infrastructure is hosted by a secure and established data center and is SAS70 certified. In today’s heavily regulated environment, companies are under scrutiny like never before from shareholders and regulators.