“Is it too much to ask that we deliver some working software?” asked Philip, the CTO.
Not an unreasonable request, although things aren’t always straightforward.
“We’ve been waiting on the cash payments for months. We were 95% complete two weeks ago, but today the same. What happened?”
It was a fair question from someone who had already earned the respect of his team.
“We discovered a discrepancy in fund prices that can cause inaccurate quotes and overcharging”, explained a developer.
“We didn’t know this was possible and are working to reproduce the issue as a matter of urgency”.
A truthful explanation.
However, Philip and the developers didn’t know the situation had been entirely avoidable.
Unlike shares, the price quoted when buying a fund is indicative until the fund manager advises the final price, usually the next day but occasionally much later.
Not knowing this, the developer used the indicative price to settle deals when the final price was several days late.
Several other niggles had slipped through recently, a worrying trend Philip was keen to reverse.
He asked us to investigate
A small development team that frequently didn’t have the time, or business acumen, to perform the required analysis was found to be the cause.
We gladly provided the analysis Philip and the developers very much needed, and as the saying goes, the rest was history.