Streamlining Data Harmonization for Private Equity and Beyond with Nexadata

Streamlining Data Harmonization - For Private Equity and Beyond with Nexadata

The world of reporting faces a recurring challenge: consolidating disparate data from here, there, and everywhere for monthly and quarterly reporting. The consolidation process often involves Excel workbooks with multiple tabs, prone to version control issues, limited auditability, and many, often late hours, behind a computer screen. 

While I have an inkling of what other industries and departments are facing, my expertise lies with banking and asset management. For asset managers, and Private Equity in particular, this challenge often centers around consolidating data from portfolio companies (portcos) for monthly and quarterly reporting.  Each portco provides financial and non-financial data in different formats, creating a complex puzzle of disparate datasets. 

Nexadata transforms this burdensome task into a streamlined, scalable process that ensures precision and significant time savings. Let’s find out how.

The Challenge: Diverse Data Formats and Intercompany Transactions

Portcos generally report results using various templates, making it difficult to achieve uniformity. Adding to the complexity are one-off transactions or changes in the reporting structure. Consolidating this information still involves manual work, large spreadsheets, and constant cross-checking. Obviously, this is not only inefficient, error-prone, and time-consuming, but this never-ending, repetitive reporting cycle can exhaust the most dedicated employees and drive them to the brink of desperation. 

"This never-ending, repetitive reporting cycle can exhaust the most dedicated employees and drive them to the brink of desperation. Believe me, I have been there." 

Nexadata to the rescue. Our Approach to Data Harmonization

1. Technical Transformations: Achieving Uniformity Across Portco Data
   ‍Nexadata automates the technical transformation process to standardize incoming datasets. For instance, Portco A might report revenue in a single "Revenue" column while Portco B splits it into multiple categories like "Product Revenue" and "Service Revenue." Nexadata can automatically merge these categories from Portco B into a unified "Revenue" column, ensuring consistency across all datasets. Similarly, date formats like "MM/DD/YYYY" and "YYYY-MM-DD" can be seamlessly standardized.
   
   Manual reformatting is a thing of the past, thanks to transformations like split, merge, join, and pivot. Before proceeding to the next stage, you can rest assured that every dataset aligns with the firm's reporting structure.
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2. From Spreadsheets to Scalable Transformation
   ‍With Nexadata, a centralized, controlled platform replaces the manual, error-prone, and time-consuming Excel workflow. Each portco uploads its data, which is harmonized through Nexadata’s seamless integration of technical and functional transformations. The result is a clean, consolidated dataset ready for both statutory and management reporting. This approach ensures consistency, improves audibility, and reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks, allowing private equity firms to focus on insights rather than wrangling data.

From Spreadsheets to Scalable Transformation

With Nexadata, a centralized, controlled platform replaces the manual, error-prone, and time-consuming Excel workflow. Each portco uploads its data, which is harmonized through Nexadata’s seamless integration of technical and functional transformations. The result is a clean, consolidated dataset ready for both statutory and management reporting. This approach ensures consistency, improves audibility, and reduces the time spent on repetitive tasks, allowing private equity firms to focus on insights rather than wrangling data.

Unlocking the Full Potential of Data

Nexadata’s platform redefines how private equity firms handle data harmonization. Combining intuitive transformations and in the future robust metadata management, it provides the agility needed to adapt to changing business dynamics while delivering a comprehensive, error-free view of portfolio performance. Say goodbye to the Excel chaos and unlock the full potential of your data with Nexadata.‍

To learn how Nexadata can revolutionize your data harmonization process, contact us.

About the Author

This blog was written by Barbara Eelens, who brings firsthand experience to this topic from her earlier career in banking and asset management, where she was deeply involved in managing and harmonizing complex datasets for financial reporting. Barbara is now the co-founder and COO of Nexadata, a cutting-edge platform driving data quality management across a range of use cases, including business consolidation, annual operating plans, scenario modeling, and sales operations. Nexadata provides line-of-business users with a smarter, more efficient tool than traditional spreadsheets, revolutionizing how businesses consolidate and harmonize data.

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