Author: Mark Byrd

Family Office Financial Management

Family Office Financial Management

Family offices are growing in popularity. It used to be the domain of a relatively small number of wealthy families. As families continue to increase their wealth, family offices continue to grow and need to be able to organize and centralize the family’s business and personal financial affairs.

The management of a Family office can be complex as it generally involves the oversight of a broad range of service providers and entities in the pursuit of managing the family’s wealth. Maintaining accurate records across a diversified portfolio can be a considerable challenge in terms of compliance, transparency, and risk. Choosing the right accounting software is important.

For single and multiple family offices, governance is key to financial success and is an important element of your organizational structure. Financial governance allows your organization to meet compliance requirements, such as IFRS and GAAP updates, by having the right financial controls in place. Proper control allows your office to collect, calculate, and present financial data according to regulatory rules.

Investing in multiple asset classes and across multiple entities can be complex if the right systems aren’t in place.  However, there are exceptional cloud accounting software programs that can take that complexity and make it simple. Software like Sage Intacct automates many of the manual accounting and finance functions and allows your team to focus on higher-value tasks.

With a cloud-based accounting solution such as Sage Intacct, your family office will benefit from a fully integrated multi-entity accounting software that can continuously consolidate multiple entities, improve your business intelligence, streamline financial planning processes and manage investments in real-time while ensuring GAAP compliant financial statements.

As your family office grows, you want to make sure your accounting solutions can grow with you and can scale to meet new needs, be it comprehensive automated asset management, rules, compliance for sales & use taxes, project accounting for project management, time and expense management, vendor payment services or inventory management.

With the right accounting solution in place, you can “right-size” your staffing. Automation allows you to streamline your accounting processes and minimize your staffing needs. All the data you need is captured in real-time for improved financial forecasting, reporting, and planning accuracy. Consolidations and allocations, typically prone to manual errors, are now done in minutes rather than days.

If your family office is ready for a comprehensive, scalable accounting solution. Contact us to learn more.

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Why you probably Don’t Need a CFO

“I think we need a CFO”

This is what we hear from business owners who contact us.

The truth is often they don’t.

Outsourced, fractional, or interim CFOs seem to be everywhere.

You see them on LinkedIn pitching their services every day.

Maybe you’ve met a couple on the golf course playing around with friends.

Most owners hear the words “Financing” or “Strategy” and convince themselves that’s what they need.

Then they call us.

We get it; talking about raising capital and tactical plans is sexy.

You can’t open the WSJ or HBR without running into SPACs, IPOs, and KPIs.

But most of the time owners don’t need a CFO.

So if you don’t need a CFO, what do you need?

(Lean forward – I’m going to tell you a secret)

You probably need a Controller.

With a little bit of digging and questioning, many of the owners that contact us say things like;

  • “I’ve hit a ceiling/wall and really want to grow this business, I know I can”
  • “I feel like my team’s just stuck”
  • “I’ve got several businesses and multiple locations, but I can’t tell which ones are the most profitable”
  • “I could probably grow this business 5x, but I can’t keep up with what’s going on”
  • “It’s just totally out of control”

After hearing these phrases over and over, my mind can’t help but think of the lyrics to Bo Diddley’s classic song Signifying Blues –

Say, look here!

(A-what dat?)

It look like your process took a recess

(Ha-ha)

(A-that’s alright, at least I can afford to get one)

(You wear one of them do-it-yourself job things)

Eee

Why What You Really Need Is A Good Controller

woman working while outside on vacation

Is It Time To Change Your ERP System? Choose a Technology That DOESN’T Steal Your Soul!

Imagine a world where financial reports are delivered in real-time without your direct involvement and you stop working late nights, weekends, and during your family vacations?

As the CFO or Venture Capitalist of a Private Equity Fund, you may already have an ERP system in place. Most companies are running Netsuite, Great Plains, or possibly QuickBooks. 

But, you could be planning to change your direction this year by moving to a newer ERP system. If that’s the case, why not choose a system that quickly delivers what stakeholders want and also gives you more time to spend with your spouse and children during the various weekend trips and vacations that get squandered when an investment firm requests a report at the last minute? It’s a win-win for you and your clients.

Maybe you’ve considered a change but don’t yet have it in the budget. With the many systems your organization is using, managers are experiencing avoidable headaches. Does that include you?

Are You?

  • Struggling with consolidations and allocations on multiple funds?
  • Still using Quickbooks logging into numerous instances each day — as if you’re an adult wearing children’s clothes?
  • Frustrated with spreadsheets loaded with errors and mistakes?

person, outside blurry window, hands, head, black and white

How Do You Keep Up, Without Losing Your Soul?

As a company managing various funds, you have the complex task of creating reports, and quickly. The balance sheet tallies include incentive and management fees to the fund management costs. Unfortunately, in Quickbooks, these numbers must be manually tracked in a spreadsheet, consuming your highly paid people’s valuable time. And, when you have 35-40 funds, this becomes a nightmare, even if you’re willing to burn large stacks of money.

joker, money burning

How do you keep up with contributions, distributions, co-investments, unique preferences, particular needs?

Your management company wants to receive reporting of the funds. How often do you give that to your clients? Is it once a year?

How will you ever hear that they tell their colleagues what a great job you are doing on their behalf?

What if you used an ERP Software that provides you the capacity to…

  • Report key financial performance indicators weekly?
  • Send weekly reports with a net asset value in practically real-time?

So many times, companies make considerable investments to build their software. Why? They are unaware that a solution already exists to resolve their problems.

What happens when a right-hand member of your staff goes on leave or vacation?

One client shared that when their right-hand person, who did everything, went on maternity leave, he didn’t know what to do. Then, he realized that it was a lot harder than he thought to keep up with everything for all their clients.

What was a beast to manage before became “completely unmanageable.”

But, this must be impossible, right?

That’s only possible for people who don’t have a life or a family… for those locked in the office?

locked gated

How Many Weekends Are You Working or Vacations Have You Skipped to Generate Spreadsheet Reports?

How stressful and daunting is your work? Are you anticipating that next crunchtime project, the report you needed yesterday for the top-level management company lending you millions of dollars? Just like that?

How common is this story? You’re leaving for vacation this weekend, and you have to get all your work done before you go. So, you work 90 hours starting on Monday because you want to get everything done so you can take off. But, then Friday comes, and the managing director calls requesting a new last-minute report for Johnny at Goldman Sachs. As you look at the spreadsheet before you, you realize your vacation just got canceled, you’ll be working through Sunday night, and now you have to be the “bad cop” to your spouse and kids.

woman looking outside through a torn hole

What If….?

What if we could show you a system where all you do is press a button, and you never have to work another weekend in your life?

Is that worth exploring?

No more working weekends while you miss your kid’s ballgames, time with your spouse, and vacations!

When large funds entrust you with money to manage, and they say they want this reporting, net asset value fund investments, at least quarterly, and you can’t deliver it, they get agitated. They are known to board a plane, meet you where you are, and harass you until you make it happen.

Your client demands excellent financial reporting, but when you hand them a cobbled-together spreadsheet, that isn’t going to be good enough to keep them happy and coming back to you. The reports you present to your client need to look world-class like they come from sophisticated software.

woman indoors, giving gift

Your Product is the Yield You Give Your Investors

Do you know… What is your product?

Let us help. You manage funds. Fund owners will put their money where the yield is most substantial. There are many Private Equity Firms out there. What is going to make your product (yield report) stand apart?

It’s the packaging.

Consider how your reports look to your clients. For example, are you delivering your reports wrapped in a newspaper (Excel)? If so, your company’s value is under-presented, and under-presented value diminishes the perception of what you do.

Don’t you think that the business owners entrusting you with a billion dollars to manage for them deserve to have your product presented in a wrapper more valuable than a newspaper?

The Four Seasons Hotels and Chick-fil-A are two world-class service organizations. How about an Apple iPhone where the box is just as impressive as the phone?

What if you could save hundreds of hours and that savings could be transferred to your overall operating cost? What if that savings meant you could generate real-time reports? And what if, that report could be delivered in a way that’s reflective of the impressive work done by you and your team?

sage intacct report, dashboard

Sage Intacct Is An Excellent Wrapping — Trusted CFO Solutions is the Right Partner

There are multiple accounting firms like Trusted CFO Solutions that work with Sage Intacct. Many Sage Intacct partnerships will sell you the software, and that’s it.

Choosing Trusted CFO Solutions is choosing a company that understands your situation, your business, and your industry.

You can outsource your accounting to Trusted CFO Solutions. Or, you can hire us to help you set up Sage Intacct and support your internal accounting team who will use it. The team at Trusted CFO Solutions is apprised of accountants and entrepreneurs who do the implementation, hold your hand through the process, and answer your questions. That’s what we do here!

We understand your business and are ready to serve you. While engaged, you call us whenever you need to with your issues, and we get them fixed.

cracked ground, pavement, bandaid

How is QuickBooks Working For You?

Let’s say you have 35 funds and their subsidiaries. In Quickbooks, you have to log in to 35 different companies every day to check cash balances and then plug the numbers into a spreadsheet to calculate them. How many hours are you spending logging in and out and transferring numbers to spreadsheets, which by the way, leaves room for significant error?

What happens when you IMMEDIATELY need those reports for the fund owners? There is no reporting in QuickBooks.

But you do have other options available that do provide reports. Sage Intacct dashboards are what CEOs have been asking for years.

It’s time to get out of Excel spreadsheets and have what you need so your boss no longer comes down on you. Then, when you have what he asks for, you are finally free.

Partners shaking hands, business deal

What Makes Sage Intacct ERP Different?

Sage Intacct dashboards are what CEOs have been asking for years. This financial management solution is:

  • The number one in customer satisfaction
  • Able to consolidate 100s of entities in seconds
  • The AICPA preferred financial management solution
  • A Salesforce Platinum ISV Partner

It’s time to say goodbye to Excel spreadsheets and hello to the reporting you need so your boss no longer comes down on you. When you have what he asks for, you are free to take your family time, weekends, and vacations back.

For a deeper dive into Why Sage Intacct ERP is different, click here.

What Else? What Value Does Trusted CFO Solutions Deliver for Private Equity Firms?

We provide fully customized dashboards giving you advanced financial reporting for management and limited partners allowing management to perform continuous real-time consolidations and automation of multi-entity and inter-company transactions.

What we provide eliminates errors caused by manual projects done in Excel and allows finance and accounting teams to collaborate creating a robust audit trail for auditors.

Our team at Trusted CFO Solutions is here to help you rationalize your back office, get away from using spreadsheets, and give your weekends back to you.

To take the next step or learn more book your 30-minute complimentary consultation.


mark byrdAbout The Author

Mark is an accountant at Trusted CFO Solutions who “combines his intellect with a very astute knowledge of the capital markets to deliver a winning combination to any business venture.”
>> Connect with Mark on Linkedin here.

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