Rick Higgins
CIO
The Art and Science of Efficient Comprehensive Wealth Reporting
What do you get when you combine a long history in the family office space with a passion for film-making? Meet Rick Higgins, a thought leader for family firms and a passionate filmmaker, winning two Heartland Emmy’s and earning nominations for thirteen more.
You could say it’s in his blood, since Rick grew up in a family with parents who ran a family office. He developed a keen intuition of understanding the challenges family offices face, but he also had a flair for software solutions. As his education and experience grew, he developed a passion for finding ways to craft efficiencies so the firm could better serve families.Rick gained valuable experience in Silicon Valley and went on to form multiple companies with the mission of solving problems for family offices.
" Risclarity’s innovative integrations are primarily due to its DataHub, which can be installed in any location the client chooses, cloud or on-premise. "
Understanding the advancements in technology, Rick saw an opportunity to provide something new to the family office industry. In 2010 he founded Risclarity, which is a financial technology company that does two things better than anyone else: Interconnecting a client’s existing technology with Risclarity’s own proprietary software and tailoring the solution for each user.
With Rick’s leadership and his team’s deep experience andtechnologies, Risclarity provides integration solutions to multi-family offices and registered investment advisor firms. These solutions are helping firms reach new levels of scalability while increasing the levels of services they can provide to their customers. For many years, firms opted to use “all-in-one” software because they offered pieces of technology that would solve certain problems.
Risclarity has now made it possible for firms to choose specialized, “best of breed” solutions to bring together portfolio accounting, general ledger accounting, CRM, document management, and allowing for a “plug and play” option. With Risclarity’s integration solutions, firms can implement new software, or in most cases integrate current software, resulting in new efficiencies, at a much lower cost.
How is it possible to provide better, more efficient solutions at a lower cost? Risclarity’s innovative integrations are primarily due to its DataHub, which can be installed in any location the client chooses, cloud or on-premise. Each firm receives its own DataHub, and the client’s data is not co-mingled with any other firm’s data. The DataHub creates a primary, single source, location for all ofa firm’s most complex data, ranging from investment transactions and positions to CRM and demographic data. Risclarity’s software then utilizes its robust mapping engine to translate the data to any other type of system which can then be transferred via APIs or file uploads. In addition, Risclarity’s software can produce supplemental reporting never available before. Risclarity’s unique methods for integrating portfolio accounting systems to general ledger systems are currently receiving the highest notability and accolades in the industry.
A real-world example of one client whose accounting was transformed by the ingenuity of Risclarity is an MFO that services approximately $20 billion AUM. The firm provides investments as well as accounting services to their clients. It had a problem transferring investment transaction data to the general ledger systems. The firm had been doing this process manually, utilizing a great deal of service professionals’ time and causing a six-month backlog. After installing Risclarity’s DataHub and implementing Risclarity’s GLmapLINK, integration software, the firm was able to automate the process of inputting investment transaction data to the general ledger system. The solution greatly increased accuracy and eliminated manual input errors. The backlog was eliminated and the firm’s service professionals could more effectively allocate their time. The custom solution also allowed the firm to scale and bring on many more clients – all with a net reduction in personnel.
Of course, Rick isn’t content to keep the status quo. His vision for interconnecting business systems as part of a seamless and comprehensive ecosystem has him developing artificial intelligence to aid accountants, lawyers, portfolio managers and their teams better see the financial future for their clients. Rick envisions offering unique solutions to customers worldwide and assisting them in new, unimagined ways to bring efficiency and boost scalability. It seems Rick’s creative combinations continue to bring the art and science of family office reporting to new audiences.
Company
Management
Rick Higgins
CIO
Description
Risclarity specializes in family office reporting, data and accounting systems integrations.