How to Calculate the True Cost of your Legacy Registry (Hint: It’s not on the invoice)

For many organisations, the cost of their share registry is viewed as a simple line item on an invoice; a necessary expense for maintaining compliance. However, the true cost of legacy systems goes far beyond the obvious financial outlay. The real expenses are often hidden within operational inefficiencies, the financial impact of errors, and the significant cost of missed strategic opportunities. This blog provides a framework for calculating the true total cost of ownership of your outdated infrastructure.   

The direct costs: more than just a licence fee  

The most visible costs are, of course, the direct ones. These often include inflated fees for multiple, distinct software solutions that are not designed to work together. This piecemeal approach, often a result of functional expansion through acquisition rather than deliberate design, leads to increased maintenance costs for disparate systems. Keeping these functions separate and spread across numerous platforms/systems almost always leads to higher operational expenditures.   

Hidden cost 1: the hours lost to manual work  

One of the most substantial hidden expenses of a legacy share registry is the cost of manual reconciliation. With multiple entry points and interfaces, inconsistent information is an inevitability. This requires teams to spend countless hours manually reconciling data to create a single source of truth. This process is not only time-consuming and error-prone but also requires specialised staff to manage each unique system, further adding to the financial burden.   

Hidden cost 2: the price of data discrepancies and errors  

When systems are not synchronised in a timely manner, data can drift, leading to two different platforms generating different outputs for the same report at the same point in time. This lack of a single source of truth completely undermines trust in the data and makes it difficult to determine which version is accurate. Correcting these discrepancies often requires costly and time-consuming manual event auditing to re-establish accurate recordkeeping, adding further delays and the potential for human error.   

Hidden cost 3: the strategic cost of missed opportunities  

Perhaps the most significant hidden cost is the strategic one. Legacy systems that provide delayed data, often by as much as 24 hours, mean that crucial decisions are being made without a clear and accurate picture of the current situation. In a market where capital raising cycles are compressed into weeks rather than months, this delay can have a major negative impact on strategic initiatives. The inability to act on real-time information is a significant competitive disadvantage.   

Conclusion: investing in efficiency, not inefficiency  

When you combine the direct costs of maintenance with the hidden costs of manual labour, error correction, and missed strategic opportunities, the true price of a legacy share registry becomes clear. Investing in a modern, unified platform is not simply an expense; it is a strategic investment in efficiency, accuracy, and growth that delivers a far greater return by eliminating these hidden costs and transforming a cost centre into a strategic asset.  

Stop letting hidden costs drain your budget.   

Download our complete whitepaper, Transforming the share registry from a compliance tickbox to a strategic asset, to learn how a modern registry drives financial efficiency and insight.