.svg)
Quick Answer
Aggregation collects financial data. Reconciliation verifies that the information is correct. Consolidation organizes it into a unified financial picture.
Family offices need all three.
A platform that aggregates data without understanding ownership can produce misleading consolidated reporting. A system that consolidates unreconciled data can produce an attractive but inaccurate dashboard.
MyFO supports the broader process by bringing information from multiple sources into a family-office structure where assets, entities, documents and reporting can be connected.
Aggregation
Aggregation answers:
Can we get the data into one place?
Sources may include:
- Custodians
- Banks
- Administrators
- APIs
- Data aggregators
- Documents
- Manual inputs
Aggregation solves the fragmentation problem.
But it does not necessarily solve the reporting problem.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation answers:
Can we trust the data?
Information entering a reporting system should be checked against authoritative source records.
Potential problems include:
- Missing transactions
- Duplicate positions
- Incorrect classifications
- Stale valuations
- Broken feeds
- Currency errors
A family office should understand how its technology identifies and resolves these discrepancies.
Consolidation
Consolidation answers:
What does all of this data mean together?
Imagine three accounts.
Account A belongs personally to the principal.
Account B belongs to a trust.
Account C belongs to an LLC that is only partially owned by the family.
Simply adding the three balances together may be incorrect.
Consolidation applies context.
It needs to understand:
- Ownership
- Entities
- Asset classifications
- Liabilities
- Currencies
- Valuation dates
Why All Three Matter
Think of the process as:
Sources → Aggregation → Reconciliation → Consolidation → Reporting
Each layer serves a different purpose.
If aggregation fails, information is missing.
If reconciliation fails, information may be wrong.
If consolidation fails, correct individual data points can still produce the wrong family-level picture.
Private Markets Make This Harder
Private investment information frequently arrives through documents rather than structured feeds.
That creates a second data pipeline.
A family office may receive:
- Capital calls
- Distribution notices
- Quarterly statements
- K-1s
- Valuation reports
AI-assisted document ingestion can help structure that information, but review and validation remain important.
How MyFO Approaches Data
MyFO supports several methods of bringing data into the platform rather than assuming one method works for every asset.
Its current published materials describe aggregation across public and private assets, document ingestion and GL-ready data.
That makes it possible to connect financial data with the entities and assets it actually belongs to.
Questions to Ask a Vendor
- Which custodians can you connect to?
- How frequently does data update?
- How is historical information handled?
- How are discrepancies identified?
- Who resolves reconciliation issues?
- How do private assets enter the system?
- Can documents update investment information?
- How are entities modeled?
- Can ownership percentages be applied?
- Can reconciled information move downstream?
The Bottom Line
Aggregation, reconciliation and consolidation are not interchangeable.
Aggregation gets the data.
Reconciliation establishes confidence in it.
Consolidation turns it into a meaningful family-level picture.
A family office reporting system needs all three processes working together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is data aggregation the same as reporting?
No. Aggregation collects information. Reporting presents information after it has been organized and interpreted.
Why is reconciliation important?
Because automatically collected data can still contain missing, duplicated, stale or incorrectly classified information.
What is consolidated reporting?
Consolidated reporting organizes information across accounts, entities and asset classes into a unified financial view.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)