Your solution for managing a public finance debt portfolio

As a public finance professional, sifting through spreadsheets, sticky notes, or filing cabinets to manage municipal debt can be exhausting.

If this is your situation, you’re not alone. Anyone who deals with debt payments and compliance in a public finance department is likely all too familiar with this scenario. Managing debt like this is time-consuming and tedious, even for the most skilled professional.

What if you could manage your public finance debt portfolio in one location, where you could find debt information easily, with built-in features that do the reporting and tracking for you to help you manage your debt more quickly and cost-effectively?

Crowe Debt Manager is that one location. Built to respond to the needs of our municipal finance clients, Crowe Debt Manager is powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365™ and can share information with an organization’s existing financial management system through various methods.

It’s also part of Crowe Government Hub, a suite of solutions to help manage government operations on the Microsoft™ platform. A walk-through of the core features of Crowe Debt Manager highlights how public finance professionals can use the software to better manage debt obligations and reach organizational goals.

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Crowe Debt Manager features

Debt Dashboard

The Debt Dashboard rolls up an organization’s entire debt portfolio into downloadable graphs for quick use.

When asked a question, finance professionals can quickly find the answer and export the data to share in presentations. It’s important for government units to know which revenue stream they have pledged or that they use to pay each debt obligation. Crowe Debt Manager isolates revenue streams and provides high-level graphs. It can also export data to look at the numbers more granularly.

The Debt Dashboard graphs are based on certain attributes of an individual debt series within a debt portfolio. Users can quickly view their debt portfolio from a variety of different perspectives using filters.

Filters

Users can manipulate the Debt Dashboard graphs by selecting from the following filters:

Change of date
Program type (if applicable)
Sales method
Gross versus net
Revenue source
Revenue source type

Due Date Dashboard

The Due Date Dashboard offers a consolidated list of upcoming items or payments, such as continuing disclosure filing dates, general compliance activities, and upcoming debt service payments. Users can update the status on the right-hand side once a task is completed. List items will turn red when outstanding.

Dashboards at obligor level

Financing authorities and conduit issuers take note: Crowe Debt Manager has both the Debt Dashboard and the Due Date Dashboard at the obligor level, too. If obligors or obligations supporting or tied to debt issuance are present, users can capture information at both the debt series and obligor debt series level to quickly see the relationship between the issuer and obligor level.

Debt Series view

The Debt Series view opens with a list of all the outstanding debt series in a portfolio. The list presents key attributes such as name, principal amount, issuer, the current principal balance of the debt series, next payment amount and date, date issued, and final maturity date. If there’s an early redemption feature connected to the outstanding debt series, a call date will be displayed as well.

General Information tab

From the General Information tab, users can select a specific debt series and really dive into the specifics for more granular information. When users click on a debt series name, they will see a general information screen with details like program type, issuer, purpose narrative, debt series type, relevant dates, and more.

Information such as the original issuance amount, current principal balance, next payment amount, and next payment date are all locked. These fields are automatically updated and linked to the actual amortization schedule to keep data consistently up to date.

Users can also set up security roles with system users, allowing specific individuals to have access to certain elements of the tool. Enabling security roles determines which fields are locked or accessible to users.

Amortization Schedule tab

Next there is an Amortization Schedule tab with the repayment schedule and associated details. On this screen, users can mark payment records as paid, outstanding, or refinanced, which provides an additional layer of internal controls. The tool will not automatically mark paid on any past dates to prevent the system from assuming payments have been made. Marking a debt service payment as paid clears it from the Due Date Dashboard so there isn’t a need to change the status in both places.

Working Group tab

A running list of key individuals or firms that were part of the working group for a particular debt issuance can be captured on the Working Group tab such as a municipal advisor, bond or legal counsel, or underwriter. Users can store key contacts, contact information, and fees paid to the working group members here.

Compliance Activities tab

It’s important to track compliance activities, such as continuing disclosure filings, arbitrage calculations, and so forth, to stay on top of filing due dates. Tracking these on the Compliance Activities tab helps populate the Due Date Dashboard to help finance professionals stay on track with one centralized view.

Manage Documents tab

Hunting through physical shelves of books, CDs, or flash drives for documents related to a debt series is a thing of the past – and so is searching through computer folders. On the Manage Documents tab via Microsoft SharePoint™, public finance professionals can tie all debt series documents together to the issuance itself and have them all at their fingertips.

Consolidated Amortization page

On the Consolidated Amortization page, every payment in the amortization schedules can be seen in a consolidated view. Users can customize the view on this page to see the information most important to them related to amortization schedule. They can also use the advanced find feature to export data to Microsoft Office™ and Microsoft Excel™ to analyze, summarize, or aggregate data to view from different perspectives.

Active Organizations page

On the Active Organization page, users can quickly view all the organizations they have worked with, along with their contract information by debt series. And since Crowe Debt Manager is built on the Microsoft platform, it can integrate with a client’s Microsoft Outlook™ account to send and receive emails related to an issuance. Users can also track company interactions, such as phone calls, meetings, or conference interactions on a timeline within Crowe Debt Manager to have a full understanding of client engagements.

Active Contacts page

The Active Contacts page includes additional catalog contact information from the organizational to individual level.

Active Documents page

The Active Documents page offers a consolidated view of all documents that have been uploaded to Crowe Debt Manager.

We can help you manage your debt portfolio in one location

Crowe Debt Manager is intuitive, simple, and built for people who work in public finance. It offers users high-level details they need at a glance and enables them to dive deep into the details when they need to – all from one tool.

You know what a game-changer that would be. Not only could you manage your municipal debt more quickly and cost-effectively, but you could get a little needed time back into your day.

Microsoft, Dynamics 365, Office, Excel, and Outlook are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

Angie Steeno

Principal, Municipal Advisory Leader

+1 317 269 2367

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Becca Zakowski

Public Sector Consulting

+1 317 689 5506

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