Chatham Financial is an institutional debt and derivatives advisory firm whose technology platform centralizes loan terms, payment and rate budgets, critical dates, covenant monitoring and derivative valuations, sold alongside hedging advisory and hedge accounting services. It is the most established name in the category, with a client list that includes several of the largest real estate investment managers. For a firm that wants advisory and software from one vendor, it is the default. Owners look for alternatives for three reasons: they want the software without the service engagement, they want deeper automation of the loan documents themselves, or they are mid-market and the institutional model does not fit.
A disclosure is unavoidable here. LoanBoss was built by Pensford, which is also an interest rate advisory firm and competes with Chatham on hedging. We have tried to describe Chatham the way its customers do.
What Chatham does well
- Scale and tenure. Chatham’s debt platform tracks a very large volume of loan principal and its named references go back years. Institutional buyers value that.
- Derivatives depth. Swap and cap valuation, hedge accounting under ASC 815 and IFRS 9, and execution advisory are core competencies, not features.
- Advisory plus software. For a manager that wants a partner to structure hedges, value them and report on them, and to track the debt those hedges cover, one relationship is simpler than two.
- Acquisitions. The 2024 acquisition of Verumex extended Chatham’s data and loan-level capabilities.
If you are an institutional manager with a large swap book and you want strategy, valuation and tracking under one roof, Chatham is a rational choice.
Why owners evaluate alternatives
The service model. Chatham’s platform is typically part of a broader engagement. Firms that already have a hedging advisor, or that hedge with simple caps and do not need ongoing derivatives strategy, are paying for a relationship they may not use.
Loan-document automation. Advisory firms are strong on the hedge side of the ledger. The loan side, with its lender-specific DSCR adjustments, prepayment conventions with rate lookbacks, recourse burndown, cash management triggers and partial release formulas, is where owners still report Excel work.
Mid-market fit. A 15-loan owner with agency and bank debt needs the same compliance automation as a 300-loan manager but not the same engagement.
Accounting integration. Owners want NOI, rent rolls and balances flowing from Yardi, MRI or RealPage into the compliance tests without a monthly upload.
The alternatives
LoanBoss shares Chatham’s hedging heritage, since it was built by Pensford, and takes the opposite product decision: the software is the product. Loans are abstracted by an in-house team to 400+ fields with two rounds of QA. The platform integrates with property accounting systems, runs each lender’s DSCR and debt yield adjustments per loan, calculates every prepayment convention in real time for any date, and tracks hedge requirements with live mark-to-market and replacement cap costs. It is priced on the portfolio, without an advisory retainer. Where Chatham is stronger: hedge accounting under ASC 815 and IFRS 9 as a service, and execution advisory for large, complex derivative programs. LoanBoss customers who need those services get them separately, from Pensford or anyone else.
JLL Debt Management System offers a comparable institutional profile: debt tracking, covenant automation, alerts and reporting, with JLL’s capital markets advisory attached. The trade-offs mirror Chatham’s.
TreasuryView is a self-service treasury platform with hedge valuation and scenario tools at a transparent price, better suited to multi-currency mid-market treasuries than to US CRE loan documents. See TreasuryView competitors.
Derivative Path focuses on derivatives execution and valuation technology for banks and borrowers. Strong on the hedge side, not a debt management platform.
Yardi Debt Manager is the accounting-integrated option for Voyager users, without native derivatives tracking. See Yardi Debt Manager alternatives.
How to evaluate a hedge-and-debt platform
Ask each vendor to show, on your own loans:
- A cap or swap’s current mark-to-market, and the replacement cap requirement (strike, notional, term, counterparty rating) from the loan agreement with its deadline.
- The lender’s DSCR test with every adjustment, and where each input comes from.
- Prepayment cost on a date six months out, using the rate lookback in the documents.
- What happens to the number when the accounting system updates.
The fourth question separates a monitoring platform from a system of record. If the answer is “your team uploads a file,” the spreadsheet is still alive.
A worked example: a swapped bank loan
A regional owner holds a $24 million bank loan at 1-month Term SOFR plus 225, swapped to a fixed 5.85% with the same bank for the full seven-year term, with a DSCR covenant tested annually on T-12 at 1.25x using the bank’s definitions (5% vacancy floor, 3% management fee floor, $250 per unit reserve) and a prepayment provision that charges swap breakage plus a 1% fee in years one through three.
Under an advisory-plus-software engagement, the swap is valued daily and reported, the hedge accounting is handled, and the loan’s covenant is tracked at the threshold. The advisory team is available for the question “should we unwind.”
Under a debt engine, the swap is valued daily with the same curve, the bank’s DSCR test runs monthly on integrated financials with the adjustments applied (currently 1.33x on the bank’s definition, 1.41x on the textbook one), the prepayment cost on any date is the swap’s mark-to-market plus the fee (today a $410,000 receipt, because rates have risen, less $240,000 in fee), and the year-three step-down is a critical date. The “should we unwind” question is answered with a number; the advice about whether to act on it comes from whichever advisor the owner uses.
The two are not exclusive. They answer different questions, and an owner with a large swap book may want both.
Choosing between advisory-led and software-led
| If | Lean toward |
|---|---|
| Large, complex derivative program needing strategy and hedge accounting | Chatham, or a comparable advisory-plus-software firm |
| Debt tracking and lender compliance are the daily problem; hedges are caps | A debt engine like LoanBoss, with advisory bought separately if needed |
| Mid-market portfolio, no derivatives team | Software with hedge valuation built in |
| Existing advisor you want to keep | A debt platform that does not require changing advisors |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is LoanBoss an advisory firm?
No. LoanBoss is software. Pensford, the company that built it, provides interest rate advisory as a separate business. LoanBoss customers are not required to use Pensford for hedging.
Does LoanBoss do hedge accounting?
LoanBoss values hedges and tracks hedge requirements, settlements and reconciliation. Formal hedge accounting designation and effectiveness testing are accounting services we do not provide.
Can a firm keep Chatham for advisory and use LoanBoss for debt?
Yes, and some do. The debt platform does not depend on who executes or values your hedges.
How do costs compare?
Chatham’s platform is generally part of a broader engagement and priced accordingly. LoanBoss is quoted on the portfolio. Compare on total annual cost for the services you will actually use.
What should a vendor demo show on our own loans?
A cap or swap’s current mark-to-market with the replacement cap requirement and its deadline, the lender’s DSCR test with every adjustment and where each input comes from, and the prepayment cost on a date six months out using the rate lookback in the documents. Then ask what happens to the number when the accounting system updates; that answer separates a monitoring platform from a system of record.
Related reading
- Best CRE debt management software 2026
- JLL Debt Management System alternatives
- Hedge requirements: replacement caps, swap MtM and lender tests
- Caps in your debt portfolio
- Hedge mark-to-market and ISDA in the glossary
This comparison reflects publicly available information as of September 2026. If you are a vendor on this list and believe we have misrepresented your product, contact us and we will correct it.
Sources
- Chatham Financial, debt management and ChathamDirect product pages (accessed September 2026)
- Chatham Financial press releases, including the Verumex acquisition (October 2024)
- Capterra and G2, CRE debt software reviews (accessed September 2026)
- LoanBoss and Pensford product documentation