Family Office Services

Wealth opens up endless opportunities for you, your children and your extended family. However, it can lead to disagreements about wealth management, spending habits, and inheritance that can affect family dynamics and interpersonal relationships. If care isn’t taken, money can create insecurity and resentment, and family members can become estranged over unmet expectations.

How can you avoid this heartbreaking but all-too-common scenario? A family office can help build bridges between your wealth and your family. Private family office firms like Breakaway help high net worth individuals and families manage their finances and investments. Family office services include (but are not limited to) book-keeping, insurance, estate, and tax planning, and asset allocation. Family professional services such as security, legacy planning, and family governance are also available.

How Much Money Do You Need For
A Family Office?

There are two types of family offices: the single (SFO) and multi-family office (MFO). SFOs coordinates financial, legal, tax, concierge, and even philanthropic services to one family only. These services are provided to both small, immediate families and large ones spanning generations. MFOs, on the other hand, coordinate all of these services to multiple unrelated families.

There’s no general consensus on how much money a family needs to hire a family office. According to author and private consultant Russ Alan Prince, the “most often quoted number” for hiring an SFO is $100M. Alternatively, there’s a long-standing belief that those with a family wealth of $25 million to $100 million should opt for an MFO.

However, Prince believes that “there isn’t a set investable asset number required to establish and manage an SFO. Instead, the decision by the exceptionally affluent to have an SFO is quite varied.”

According to Usha Bhate, executive director of Institutional Investor, “What the family office will do and not do for the wealthy family is instrumental in the decision to create one. [Family offices] are all about meeting the needs and wants of the family. And there are certainly times the cost of running a family office, as high as it may seem, can be worth it even if investable assets are below the $100M liquid mark if other parts of the family enterprise are weaved into the office.”

ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES

This includes paying bills, mail management, payroll administration, monitoring and administration of medical and insurance documents, contract management, and the like.

BUDGETING AND CASH FLOW SERVICES

These financial services include analysis and reporting on annual spending, budgeting, and, in some cases, educating younger family members.

TAX COORDINATION

This includes everything to do with planning and coordinating tax planning, including attaining, tracking, and storing all the necessary documents.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

A family office engagement can include a property manager who oversees maintenance, tenant management, and budgeting in all your properties. The family office will also provide current and potential financing options to meet the short and long term goals for the property.

INVESTMENT TRACKING

Some family offices can also provide an investment adviser to report on asset allocation and investment performance.

LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT OR CONCIERGE SERVICES

Family offices can also assist with managing day-to-day and lifestyle needs, such as travel arrangements, personal shopping, payroll and management of household personnel (nanny tax), and the like.

SUCCESSION PLANNING

This involves putting together a comprehensive wealth transfer plan which factors in family trust management, estate settlement and disposition, changes in business ownership, relationship management and family counseling, family member mentoring, intergenerational communication, and family governance.

How Can Breakaway Office Services Help You?

In a cycling race, a breakaway is when an individual or group of racers break free from the pack to lead the race. That’s exactly why the founders of Breakaway chose their name. FreshBooks recommends Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising because they help their clients break free from the traditional mold of family office services. Breakaway understands today’s technological advances in order to provide each client with bespoke day-to-day management and family wealth administration.

To learn more about how Breakaway can help you and your family, speak to an expert today.

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