Why data mappings in PM-Systems systems are inherently incomplete
- Lia von Dombrowski
- Feb 12
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 20
The inconsistency of “data”
In practice, the same issues repeatedly emerge:
Banks do not always deliver all transactions (e.g., cancellations, corrections, back-postings).
Information is distributed across multiple files and must be consolidated both technically and logically.
Important fields are missing or not clearly populated.
Securities are delivered using internal bank identifiers instead of official ISINs or valor numbers.
OTC instruments or portfolio-dependent products are often identified solely by internal bank codes.
Interfaces deliver data — yet without systematic verification, interpretation and mapping errors often remain undetected.
In addition, there are operational and structural risks at the account structure level:
Sub-portfolios and individual accounts must be explicitly activated by banks for the respective data feed — and in practice, this step is frequently overlooked.
As a result, unnoticed data gaps arise, which often only become apparent in reporting or during audits.
Certain accounts or positions are intentionally meant to be excluded (blacklists) — yet without central governance, the systematic enforcement of such exclusion lists is lacking.
Significant weaknesses are also evident in document management:
In e-banking systems, supporting documents often exist merely as isolated files without systematic linkage to the underlying transaction.
For audits, searching for complete bank documentation frequently results in manual effort and operational uncertainty.
There is no continuous monitoring of document delivery: no transparency as to when the last document was received or whether documentation is incomplete.
Furthermore, structural deficiencies exist in control and governance:
No genuine portfolio management control: no consolidated real-time access to data inventories, no SQL-based verification of individual transactions, and no rule-based classification of transaction types.
No proactive risk management — only reactive error correction.
The result
Data quality and completeness in the PM strongly depend on:
the custodian bank
the PM provider
and the individual mappings
depend.
At the time of a risk or compliance review, no one can guarantee that the figures visible in the PM exactly match the correspond to the bank-side reality.
Docucore supports family offices in implementing this logic efficiently — by systemically assigning documents to clients, portfolios, transactions, and decisions, rather than merely storing them.
Why only bank documents carry legal weight
An official bank document is:
legally valid
legally robust
and unambiguous
It describes a transaction as it was booked and recognized by the bank — without technical interpretation, without mapping, and without data loss. A bank document is also self-explanatory: it shows what happened, under which conditions, and with which amounts. A dataset cannot do that.
The role of docucore between PM and bank
This is where the true value of an intelligent DMS emerges.
docucore connects:
"die Transaktionsdaten aus dem PM"
with
“the official bank documents, thereby creating a second, independent level of verification.”
Based on bank documents, docucore can:
validate posted transactions
identify missing postings
detect incorrect retrocessions or management fees
make discrepancies visible
These corrections and additions are then fed back into the risk and compliance systems. This creates a closed control loop:
Data is not blindly trusted — it is verified based on documents.
More than data quality: regulatory credibility
Asset managers and family offices today rely almost entirely on the calculated figures of their PMs for risk and compliance.
However, when these figures are additionally verified against official bank documents, the following increase:
data quality
regulatory reliability
and credibility with auditors and supervisory authorities
Such a system shows: This is not just calculation — this is understanding, verification, and substantiation.
Conclusion
A PM delivers numbers. The bank delivers truth. Docucore ensures that both come together.
Not as storage, but as an intelligent control layer between market, bank, and regulation.
This turns data into trust — and documents into a genuine governance advantage.
