Munish Kumar an investment analyst with The Sentient Group, which manages over $1.3 billion in the development of quality metal, mineral and energy assets across the globe, was looking for ways to enhance the company’s in-house portfolio management systems, particularly for the rate of return on irregular payments (XIRR) Excel calculation via SQL Server.

Kumar, a Microsoft-certified solution developer and experienced IT professional, was fully aware that his options were limited and initially thought his only choice was to hire a developer to test and create custom functions for The Sentient Group system.

“In the past, I had spoken with Microsoft to try and develop an Excel function library add-in product for SQL Server, but we were never able to get to a final product,” explains Kumar. “Microsoft doesn’t include many of the functions you’ll find in Excel in SQL Server, which means that we always had to create our own custom functions.”

After searching extensively online for another option, Kumar uncovered XLeratorDB which allows Excel users, like The Sentient Group, to operate Excel-like functions in SQL Server, including XIRR, as well as other financial, mathematical, statistical and engineering calculations.

“Before XLeratorDB, there was no easy-to-use, built in solution for XIRR calculation in SQL Server,” says Kumar. “XLeratorDB is the first product to bridge that gap and streamlines the process for us.”

Kumar credits ease of use, reliability and concept understanding as the key differentiators for XLeratorDB and expects the industry demand for XLeratorDB to grow in the coming weeks, months and years.

“I expect a variety of companies and industries to find XLeratorDB very valuable, including companies and other institutions in the financial, education and software spaces,” says Kumar.