PFPC Reviews

Pros

It was a good initial exposure to the financial services industry. As a college student it gave me a hands on introduction to the world of mutual funds and managed accounts.

Cons

Interactions with other employees was extremely compartmentalized. I rarely worked with members of other departments. I would have like to have had more open sharing of information across departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Make an effort to encourage interaction between departments.

Pros

Interesting clients and fund structures.

Cons

Excessive hours; insufficient staffing, including quality of hires. Inadequate and outdated technology tools to get the job done.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in people and technology. Price your services accordingly. You can not squeeze both ends of the profit equation simultaneously.

Pros

Relaxed.
Good Working environment.
Excellent starting point to start a career in Investment Industry
Excellent Managers and Directors with great knowledge of Fund industry and accounting

Cons

Pay is Low
Back office / Cost center Environment
Outsourcing Risk
Not a good place for a critical thinker
Not a good place to improve your presentation or writing skills

Advice to Senior Management

Implement Bonus/ profit sharing incentives to improve employee moral

Pros

You will learn a lot at PFPC/PNC GIS. They make sure of that. I don't t think it was a good idea, however, in retrospect, to stay there as long as I did. I saw many people advance further and faster bouncing back and forth between PFPC and other companies.

Cons

Advancement within is sketchy. There are managers who knew the work, but who were far less capable of managing other employees. OR helping an underling with issues with an employee. I had a situation occur like that, and my only recourse as a supervisor was to write the person up, something PFPC is keenly adverse to doing. (someone who did the minimums required to get the daily job done, and spent every other waking moment surfing or texting or on the phone. Having to wait, often, 4-5 minutes for a non emergency personal phone to talk to someone is unacceptable. Being then told (repeatedly), by said underling they didn't have time to do a project involving funds they did normal activity for after that is also unacceptable. )

Supervisors and managers doing accountants work in such cases, due to such push back. This was a large part of my dissatisfaction with the job. (Well, that, and that I was sick, I found out later, actually had been for some time. I ended up in the hospital for GI issues and an ongoing infection just after I was laid off. This, I was told, had been affecting me for at least a year. My lay-off was a very good thing, it allowed me time to recover from invasive surgery.)

Advice to Senior Management

Management classes for supervisors and above. Support your supervisors, and give them ways and means to manage others, and deal with pushback.

What has come to my notice recently, as I job searched in NYC, is something else. It is likely they will need to pay their accountants more, especially in Alternative Investments. They use the Geneva system there, since 2006. It has come to my attention that BOTH JP Morgan and CITI are moving to that platform for accounting.

Pros

Good benefits for employees with families but not as good for singles
Depending on your work group may be a laid back environment
Management tends to be approachable
Many friendly people

Cons

Low compensation does not motivate many employees
Very little vacation time in many positions
Too little training provided in some areas

Advice to Senior Management

Improve benefits so that every demographic feels appreciated. Improve training. Communicate all information that impacts employees as soon as possible.

Pros

Depending on the group you might work with some amazing people. Benefits are not bad either.
Nice place to work if you have a family.

Cons

Most upper level people from supervisors to directors dont even say goodmorning when they come in. Management is good for ignoring accountants and giving you the run around when you it comes to advancement. They are good for telling you one thing and then next review telling you another, and another, and another. They play favortism when it comes to getting promoted at the rate you want it.

Advice to Senior Management

Get back to the basics. If you want to follow rules, follow all the rules. Do not just apply them to certain people and not to others. Learn how to listen to everyone and not just management.

Pros

-Relatively low turnover
-Very hard to be terminated
-Casual Friday
-Volunteer opportunities
-Very culturally diverse
-Very accommodating to new parents
-Occasional health screenings

Cons

-Unwillingness to terminate incompetent management
-Hypocrisy from management, management will not allow vacation during the beginning of the month because of month end deadlines, but guess who took just took the first week of week of May off?
-Actual accounting knowledge relatively low on an individual accountant level
-Obvious favoritism by upper level management
-Low compensation

Advice to Senior Management

Compensation as a whole is probably the worst thing about this company. 3% annual raises hardly keep in line with inflation. Also, promotions seem few in far between. There would definitely be much higher turnover over this simple fact alone if the economy was doing any better.

Pros

If able to find the right department and management team, you will be recognized for doing a good job. But finding that department is a crapshoot. Westboro has a cafeteria.

Cons

Pay is very low compared to competitors and other financial services firms. "Merit increases" max out at 3% per year. Other than the standard annual review, there's very little feedback that takes place. Most departments in operations are dead ends. Your ability to move up in the hierarchy depends totally on your manager's interest in seeing you do so. Can be very political. Virtually no communication between senior management and employees regarding issues that will directly impact employees. Can be very thankless place to work. Just been bought by BONY. Cafeteria is overpriced. Vacation time starts at 2 weeks. Don't get 3 weeks until 5 years. No consistency between departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase base level pay to get more qualified candidates. Environment doesn't reward motivated and ambitious employees, nor does it give them any reason to stay. So the best and brightest leave resulting in a lot of weak players being left behind to shoulder an increasing burden.

Pros

Great work/life balance. Opportunities to learn and try new things are plentiful due to the huge lack of abilities by many employees. If you want to work from home or just 6 hours a day, this is the company for you!

Cons

It gets lonely in the office on a Friday when no one else is there. Entrenched management hate change and are threatened by anyone who tries to instigate it. Management are terrified at the idea of confrontation therefore if they do not like what you are doing, you will only hear about it in your yearly review.

Most people in management positions are there purely because of who they know or who they have 'buttered up'. Many of these people justify their existence by being a vocal roadblock instead of a leader looking for solutions and opportunities.

My advice is get plenty of experience here as there are opportunities, learn how NOT to manage people and projects and then find a company that can use that experience well.

PS the bonuses here are a joke

Advice to Senior Management

Take a long hard look at whats happening. Do you want great results from hard working professionals or poor results from mediocre employees who tell you what you want to hear?

Pros

Great place to start out your career and learn about hedge fund accounting.

Cons

Pay is not as high as other comparable companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should be much more careful of who they hire, the qualifications employees have, only 9 or 12 credits in accounting are needed to start as an accountant, and even people without a bachelor degree in accounting or finance have obtained jobs.
The reputation of the company therefore suffers.