Commercial Application for the Family Office
- Maria Barnes
- Apr 25
- 3 min read
Application Profile
Name | MyPrivate Family Office |
Tasks | Covers all things that matter to families under 4 major themes: Household, Family Safeguarding, Finance and Leisure |
Users | On-premise only, ~750 clients |
Software Versions | Access 365 with .NET |
Particularities | Designed to manage family administrative and transactional affairs on-premise to maintain control over private data |
Company | MDF-BIS S.A., Switzerland, www.myprivate.ch |
Writer | Henk de Wolde (developer at the software manufacturer) adapted by Maria Barnes (AFo) |
MyPrivate Family Office is designed for well-off families to manage all aspects of their personal and financial lives. The software operates locally on users' devices, ensuring data confidentiality by not relying on cloud storage.
Although we regularly re-evaluate our technology stack, we have found that Microsoft Access is unparalleled for our type of application, which targets a large population and requires scalability, affordability, ease of use, upgradeability and a long-term support horizon.
Highlights of product capabilities include:
Incoming documents and invoices are digitized, stored & processed in a single process.
End to end support for real estate management, tenants, legal, tax, insurances and mortgages, as well as supporting the well-being of the family through health and personal development.
ChatGPT integration supports a variety of functions across all modules.
Below are some major strengths of Microsoft Access and some illustrative screenshots.
The Backbone
The software runs on 64-bit Microsoft 365; all customers operate within a unified environment. This standardization has simplified technical support and scaling. In our experience, clients fully understand the need and advantages of requiring a common backbone and consider the cost perfectly reasonable.
Without Microsoft Access's ability to generate forms, reports, tables, queries and custom classes using a dictionary-driven approach, it would not have been possible to offer what we believe is the broadest functionality of any Family Office solution while maintaining a consistent and user-friendly interface. It has simplified the process of developing, supporting, and maintaining the software.
The Microsoft ACE Engine is so efficient and fast that we do not need to store subtotals; these are calculated on the fly, ensuring all calculations reflect the latest data. The software stores data in multiple databases through linked tables holding up to 2Gb of data each. A family, regardless of its complexity, can manage its full history.
Access & Excel: Close Cousins
The ability to use Microsoft Access with Excel to create clear, concise reports is crucial. Interfacing with Excel also allows you to use Excel's built-in features, like getting stock quotes automatically, without extra subscription costs. The example below is the long-term financial planning process.
Interacting With the Internet
The VBA MSXML libraries retrieve and analyze a variety of data from the internet, such as ISO 20022 bank account statements and Forex data from the European Central Bank.
With the introduction of ChatGPT, we have shifted our focus from the labor-intensive task of managing multi-lingual content for various regions, to handling real-time inquiries that bring more relevant data into the software. The principle is based upon identifying key data elements required for a certain inquiry, and a sample XML dataset to be completed by ChatGPT that will populate the client database. Examples include:
Identifying key elements/questions to consider for the choice of policies and options when meeting with the insurance broker
Writing legally valid documents. Examples include an organ donation codicil for the client taking into account the client's country of residence and other considerations or formulating powers of attorney in case of incapacitation or death
Retrieving recommendations for vaccines for family members based upon age, gender and country of residence
Providing recommendations for the family to reduce its emissions using its actual CO2 footprint and benchmark data
Sometimes Microsoft Access Just Isn't Enough
Family Office software requires strong document management capabilities, and the Microsoft Access capabilities (e.g. WIA) have not always met the needs of clients. A single .NET class has been implemented providing access to robust technologies such as:
Microsoft Access is a great fit to deploy a commercial application for private use!
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