What is the optimal accounting system for an investment company?

The question is hopelessly vague. What do you invest in (accounting for real estate or private equity investments will be very different from accounting in publicly traded securities)? Do you need the accounting system for clients' accounts (portfolio accounting) or for the firm itself (practice management)?

Portfolio accounting or Practice management, one has to keep ones books if one need to know at the end of the day what one is doing. What is so vauge about it? Report It

the one enron used

Investment company is no different from other companies except that they don't manufacture. Still they have revenues and expenses. So they should have along with a Journal , revenue and expense ledgers. An overhead ledger might help in separating out ovehead expenses.
You can maitain an Investment schedule in place of a Sales ledger in manufacturing , Liability schedule for financing investment and a depreciation schdule if the Office space is owned. If rented not required. One caveat is if you want to monitor the investment on a timely basis then investment schedule can be created like a sales control account in manufacturing.
Then the should mainatain a Payroll account depending on the different types of employees in the company, permanent employees, partimers, executives, performance compensation field etc;

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