We're proud of our first version of client statements, in particular the portfolio summary page at the beginning of every statement.

The first attached image is for a fictitious client, Jim Smith, who has three accounts: an Investment account, RSP account, and Joint Investment account. The boxes on the page are used for identification for the purpose of writing a specification (in fact, this image is from our internal specs). We won't go through all of them as many are obvious, but this gives a good sense of the work involved in rigorously defining a statement.

The data elements on the page are:

  • D2 Client Since - the earliest account opening date for all of the accounts in the portfolio. This is used when we calculate fee rebates based on tenure.
  • D5 Market Values - we show market values for all accounts in the portfolio
  • D6/D7 Consolidated Holdings - we consolidate holdings across all accounts, by fund
  • D8 One Simple Fee - this is our standard one simple fee on each fund
  • D9 Weighted Average One Simple Fee - the weighted average simple fee, before rebates
  • D10 Total Fee Rebates - the rebates you received during the statement period. This is calculated by summing up all the rebate transactions during the statement period. This is the subject of another (long) post, but we calculate portfolio rebates daily and then pay them out at the end of the quarter. If applicable, each fund in each account is paid a distribution at the end of the quarter, and the total of those rebates is shown in this field.
  • D11 Your Fee ($) - this is the actual dollar amount of the fees you paid during the statement period. For each fund we calculate the fees paid during the statement period, and from that we subtract the total rebates that were distributed, resulting in the the actual fees paid on each fund.
  • D12 Your Fee (%) - the actual fee you paid.
  • D13 Your Weighted Average Fee - based on the actual fees you paid (after rebates), we determine your weighted average fee for the period.

As far as we know, we're the only mutual fund firm in Canada showing the actual fee paid in dollar terms on a statement. We hope this changes.

The second image shows how the page looks without the definition boxes.

In a separate posting I'll discuss how performance is calculated, both at an account and portfolio level.