Family Office Services

Overview

Each family office’s menu of services is reflective of the goals and priorities of the family it serves. Some offices focus heavily on the investment process and rely on the expertise of a chief investment officer and investment staff to oversee the deployment of the family’s financial assets; others focus on recordkeeping, reporting, and compliance and outsource the investment process. The make or buy decision – whether to provide services internally, with the assistance of external advisors or to outsource completely – is one that every office considers in an effort to provide the best possible service for a fair price.

Family Office Best Practice

The State of the Art in Family Wealth Management provides a big picture view of the work that families need to be prepared to do, where families need to focus their efforts, and how families and advisors must work together.

To better understand the roles and responsibilities of a family office, see page 8 of the FOX Guide to the Professional Family Office, which documents the overarching roles of the family office including primary support for family governance, coordinator of multi-generational financial strategies and provider of individual wealth planning services for family members. To get a sense of what sophisticated family offices strive to accomplishment, take a look Inside the Family Office To-Do List.

Effective client service requires an understanding of each client’s goals along with a documented process for consistent, quality service delivery. Learn more about client service agreements, annual service plans and the reasons why families decide to outsource in Section IV of 50 Best Practices for an Enduring Enterprise.

The webinar titled A Family Office Case Study: Evolving Servicing and Structure to Meet the Needs of the Family looks at the shared benefits, roadblocks, and considerations involved as well as the progression of client and family office services.

Listen to the FOX recorded webinar Getting the Job Done: Services in the Family Office to learn about the services that family offices provide and the importance of a well-crafted service agreement.

Family Office Industry Benchmarks

What services are commonly provided by family offices and how are they provided? Section one of FOX Insights outlines the common reasons for outsourcing and inventories the top 10 services provided internally, with assistance from advisors, and outsourced.

Read about one family’s decision to outsource the accounting process on page 14 of Investing in the Future: A Look Inside the Small Family Office.