Tips for FOLIOfn | Spoke Fund ®

	calesmith	0
	I use FOLIOfn as custodian for the Tarpon Folio, and though I'm a fan of their platform, there was a bit of a learning curve to it at first. At times I would have killed for a user manual. Fortunately, the support desk is great, so between a lot of calls to those guys, and just monkeying around, it's old hat at this point. That said, in my Evernote account I keep notes about things that aren't otherwise written down on FOLIOfn anywhere, and which I might not otherwise remember. Here is one note regarding funding new client accounts via EFT or Electronic Funds Transfer (like wiring money in, but with no fees, and takes a couple of days). Some context first... Just because new cash appears to have shown up in a client's account doesn't necessarily mean it is there. There is a non-obvious time lag that it's important to be aware of there. In my case, I discovered this when I had an investor who set up an EFT to transfer money in from a checking account. A few evenings later, I got a message from FOLIOfn saying the cash had hit the account. The next morning, I started investing a chunk of that cash in Tarpon. Later that day, though, I got a call from FOLIOfn saying the cash was actually not there. Turned out there were insufficient funds in that client's checking account due to a mix-up with a spouse. That left a negative balance in the investor's account. Unless we funded it as soon as possible, then technically FOLIOfn could liquidate those sort-of phantom shares owned thru Tarpon to bring the balance back to zero. Had the value of shares gone down in the interim, then somebody was going to be on the hook for eating what was really a phantom loss...and that somebody was probably going to be me. Luckily, the investor - who was as surprised as I was about the shortfall - had another checking account that we then used to successfully EFT money over, and it was a non-issue. Turns out that FOLIOfn basically credits an investor's account with the amount of an EFT, based on what is a first check over the link between FOLIOfn account and bank account. In this case, the bank didn't tell FOLIOfn there were insufficient funds until way late in the process...more than a day after the cash showed up in the client's account at FOLIOfn. So to avoid this potentially rare but still kinda important issue, I now basically wait 48 hours after EFT money shows up before I begin to invest it. I also noted the following in my Evernote account: For one-time EFT transfers: Transfer starts on Transfer Initiation Date and money hits the account in the afternoon of the day after that. So, basically takes two biz days to complete. On recurring EFT transfers: Hits the account the afternoon of the day initiated, because it actually starts a day before the Transfer Initiation Date. That all make sense? Probably more useful when setting up an EFT than when reading about it, but there it is. Would have saved me a little head-scratching at the time, and perhaps now will do the same for you. More tips soon. And open for others, too, natch - about FOLIOfn or any other custodians. Cale
	Sat, Jul 31 '10 at 4:10PM EDT	Post 1 • IP

Here's another tip for PMs using FOLIOfn when it comes to admin and compliance.

For longer than I care to admit, I would, at the end of every month, go through all client Filing Cabinets on FOLIOfn and save all monthly statements and/or trading confirms onto my computer, and then re-upload them to client folders I had created using DropBox. To have copies, just in case.

It's obviously important to have copies of any and everything related to the client, custodial statements especially, but at some point the ridiculousness of what I was doing finally dawned on me. Namely...

I was downloading a bunch of files from one website, and uploading them back to another site.

Both sites offered hosting/security/archives that were bulletproof. The only real difference was that one site was accessible by the client 24/7, and the other wasn't (although you can enable that pretty easily on DropBox). But for my purposes - having a back-up - that didn't matter.

So here's the secret...if you go through your rep and ask nicely, Drew Wieder, the VP of customer service at FOLIO, will send you a CD with all client statements saved onto it at the end of every quarter. It's password protected, too. So, instead of wasting a lot of time making backed-up copies of backed-up copies, you just get them all delivered to you. For free.

Can't beat that, eh?

	calesmith	0
	Here's another tip for PMs using FOLIOfn when it comes to admin and compliance. For longer than I care to admit, I would, at the end of every month, go through all client Filing Cabinets on FOLIOfn and save all monthly statements and/or trading confirms onto my computer, and then re-upload them to client folders I had created using DropBox. To have copies, just in case. It's obviously important to have copies of any and everything related to the client, custodial statements especially, but at some point the ridiculousness of what I was doing finally dawned on me. Namely... I was downloading a bunch of files from one website, and uploading them back to another site. Both sites offered hosting/security/archives that were bulletproof. The only real difference was that one site was accessible by the client 24/7, and the other wasn't (although you can enable that pretty easily on DropBox). But for my purposes - having a back-up - that didn't matter. So here's the secret...if you go through your rep and ask nicely, Drew Wieder, the VP of customer service at FOLIO, will send you a CD with all client statements saved onto it at the end of every quarter. It's password protected, too. So, instead of wasting a lot of time making backed-up copies of backed-up copies, you just get them all delivered to you. For free. Can't beat that, eh?
	Tue, Oct 5 '10 at 3:16PM EDT	Post 2 • IP

Tips for FOLIOfn4