Fund Administration RFP Template: 50 Questions to Ask Vendors

Most managers I speak with run "RFPs" that are really demo invitations. They send a one-page summary, watch three vendor presentations, and pick the one whose slides looked most polished. A real RFP is different. It is a structured document that forces every vendor to answer the same specific questions in writing, with attribution and accountability. It is also the single best tool for cutting through marketing and surfacing the operational reality of a platform. Below is the template I would use today, including the exact 50 questions, organized by category, with suggested scoring weights and an evaluation framework.

Why a Structured RFP Matters

Three things change when you run a structured RFP instead of a demo tour. First, you get written commitments instead of verbal promises. The vendor's RFP response becomes a contractual reference point, not a hand-wave during a sales call. Second, you can compare vendors directly on the dimensions you care about, instead of trying to remember which platform handled multi-currency well and which one had the better portal. Third, the act of writing the questions forces you to clarify your own requirements—which is often more valuable than the answers themselves.

RFPs also signal seriousness to vendors. The best vendors take RFP responses seriously and assign senior people to write them. The worst vendors send templated answers that reveal they have not read your questions carefully. The quality of an RFP response is a strong proxy for the quality of the post-sale relationship.

How to Structure Your RFP

A workable RFP has four sections: a one-page introduction describing your fund and the selection process, the question set itself organized by category, instructions for response format and submission, and a clear timeline including a Q&A window and final decision date.

For scoring, weight the categories by what matters most to your operation. The weights below are a defensible default for a mid-market multi-asset manager. Adjust based on your reality—a real estate fund with US-only LPs might weight payments and multi-currency lower, for example.

Suggested category weights: Company & References (8%), Fund Accounting & Waterfalls (18%), Investor Portal & UX (12%), Compliance Validation, KYC, AML (15%), Payments & Cross-Border (10%), Reporting & Analytics (12%), Integrations & API (8%), Security & Data Residency (10%), Pricing & Contract Terms (7%). Within each category, score each answer 1-5 and weight by category importance.

The 50 Questions

Company & References (5 Questions)

These questions establish whether the vendor is a credible long-term partner. A platform that fails the company-stability test creates migration risk in two to three years regardless of how good the product is today.

1. How long has your company been operational, and what is your current customer count by AUM segment?
2. Provide three reference customers with fund profiles comparable to ours (AUM, asset class, LP count, geography).
3. What is your customer churn rate over the past 24 months, and what are the most common reasons cited?
4. Describe your funding history and runway. Are you profitable, and if not, when do you project to be?
5. What happens to our data and access if your company is acquired or ceases operations?

Fund Accounting & Waterfalls (8 Questions)

Waterfall mechanics are where most platforms break under real fund complexity. Force vendors to be specific.

6. Describe how your platform models American (deal-by-deal) versus European (whole-fund) waterfalls. Can a single fund use a hybrid model?
7. How does your platform handle multi-tier preferred returns, GP catch-ups, and carried interest splits across LP classes?
8. Walk through your clawback calculation logic. Can it model both interim and end-of-fund clawbacks?
9. How are NAV calculations performed? Are they automated, semi-automated, or analyst-driven?
10. Describe your capital account maintenance: how are contributions, distributions, allocations, and reallocations tracked over time?
11. How does the platform handle side pockets, in-kind distributions, and stock distributions?
12. What is your typical error rate on distribution calculations, and how are calculation errors detected and corrected?
13. Can the platform run a complete parallel calculation against an Excel model during onboarding so we can validate logic?

Investor Portal & UX (6 Questions)

LP experience increasingly drives manager selection. Force vendors to describe the portal in operational terms, not screenshots.

14. Is the investor portal mobile-responsive? Is there a native mobile app, or web-only?
15. What documents can an LP self-serve from the portal (K-1s, capital account statements, subscription documents, historical reports)?
16. Does the portal support white-label branding (logo, color, custom domain), and at what tier?
17. How does the portal handle LP entities with multiple authorized users (e.g., a family office with three people who need access)?
18. What languages does the portal support natively, and how are translations maintained?
19. Provide three customer-portal URLs we can review (or live demo access against test data).

Compliance Validation, KYC, AML (7 Questions)

Compliance is the area where vendor responses most often hide important caveats. Be specific in your questions and read the answers carefully.

20. How many international watchlists does your KYC/AML engine check against, and how frequently are they updated?
21. Does the platform support ongoing monitoring, or only at-onboarding screening?
22. Describe how you handle PEP (politically exposed person) screening and adverse media checks.
23. How is accredited investor verification documented and retained for SEC examination?
24. Which jurisdictions' regulatory frameworks does your compliance validation cover (US, EU MiCA, UK, UAE VARA, Brazil CVM, Mexico CNBV, others)?
25. How are FATCA and CRS classifications captured, validated, and reported?
26. What audit trail is produced for each compliance decision, and how long is it retained?

Payments & Cross-Border Operations (5 Questions)

Payment infrastructure determines whether distributions take hours or days and whether they cost basis points or percentage points.

27. Which payment rails does the platform support natively (ACH, wire, SWIFT, SEPA, stablecoin, others)?
28. How are FX rates sourced and applied for cross-border distributions, and what is the typical all-in FX spread?
29. Describe your stablecoin payment infrastructure if any. Which stablecoins are supported, and in which jurisdictions?
30. What is the typical time-to-LP-wallet for a cross-border distribution via your fastest rail?
31. How are failed or returned payments detected, surfaced, and reconciled?

Reporting & Analytics (6 Questions)

Reporting capability is often the difference between a CFO who can answer LP questions in minutes versus days.

32. Does the platform produce ILPA-template quarterly reports, and can outputs be customized while maintaining ILPA compliance?
33. What real-time dashboards are available to the GP, and what can be exposed to LPs?
34. Can performance be sliced by vintage, asset, geography, LP segment, and arbitrary tags?
35. Describe how K-1s and equivalent tax documents are generated, distributed, and tracked.
36. What custom report-building capabilities exist, and is custom report development self-service or vendor-billable?
37. How are portfolio company financial updates collected and integrated into fund-level reporting?

Integrations & API (4 Questions)

API depth determines whether the platform is the center of your operations or a silo you have to work around.

38. Provide your API documentation and describe which platform objects are fully readable and writable via API.
39. Which third-party systems do you have pre-built integrations with (general ledger, CRM, e-signature, banking, tax software)?
40. How are webhooks supported for event-driven workflows (new subscription, completed capital call, distribution sent)?
41. What rate limits and authentication standards apply to API access?

Security & Data Residency (4 Questions)

Institutional LPs increasingly diligence vendor security posture as part of operational due diligence on the GP. Your vendor's answers become your answers.

42. Provide your current SOC 2 Type II report, ISO 27001 certification status, and any other relevant attestations.
43. In which geographic regions is customer data stored, and can data residency be selected (US, EU, UAE, etc.)?
44. Describe your encryption posture at rest and in transit, and your key management approach.
45. What is your incident response process and historical incident record over the past 24 months?

Pricing & Contract Terms (5 Questions)

Pricing transparency is the single best leading indicator of vendor culture. Vendors that obscure pricing during evaluation will obscure it at renewal.

46. Provide a complete pricing schedule including base platform fees, AUM-based fees, per-investor fees, per-fund fees, and any add-on modules.
47. What setup and implementation fees apply, and what is included versus billed separately?
48. What is your standard contract length, renewal terms, and price-escalation policy?
49. Describe your data-export and offboarding process. What is the timeline and cost to extract our data if we terminate?
50. What SLAs apply to uptime, support response, and feature delivery?

How to Evaluate Vendor Responses

Once responses arrive, run them through a structured evaluation rather than reading them narratively. The narrative review will favor whichever vendor writes better marketing copy, not whichever vendor will operate best.

Score each answer 1-5 on a clear rubric: 5 means the answer is specific, complete, and demonstrates the capability is production-ready. 3 means the answer is acceptable but reveals a workaround or limitation. 1 means the vendor cannot do this or sidestepped the question. Weight scores by the category weights you defined upfront.

Two pieces of evaluation discipline matter more than the scoring math itself. First, score each answer in isolation before reading the next vendor's response to the same question. This prevents anchoring. Second, have at least two evaluators score independently before comparing. Disagreements are signals—they reveal questions where the answer was ambiguous or where the evaluators had different priorities.

After scoring, shortlist the top two to three vendors for live demos and reference calls. The RFP is the screen; the demos are the validation. Do not invert that order.

For context on the capabilities behind these questions, see our fund administration, investor portal, and reporting feature pages.

Sources

• ILPA (2024). ILPA Due Diligence Questionnaire 4.0 — Operational due diligence requirements and reporting cadence standards
• AICPA (2024). Alternative Investment Fund Operations Survey — Fund administration benchmark data
• SEC (2024). Division of Examinations: 2024 Examination Priorities — Investment adviser compliance examination focus areas
• EU Commission (2024). Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — Cross-jurisdiction compliance framework reference