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Maximizing Returns and Mitigating Risks: The Power of Automated Fund Accounting in Private Capital Partnerships

The modern family office industry faces a range of challenges, including complex regulatory environments and the increasing flow of capital towards private capital investments. Private capital refers to investments held through private partnerships that divert funds away from public assets and into focused strategies like private equity, venture capital, and real estate. This shift necessitates the adoption of new accounting systems and processes by family offices to manage their evolving needs. However, the operational silos within family offices hinder the development of robust internal processes and control frameworks, as legal, accounting, and investment professionals operate independently. This outdated approach of tracking and managing privately held partnerships results in diminishing returns and a significant cost burden, including cybersecurity investments. To address these challenges, a streamlined solution is required to enhance the efficiency of family office operations, automate allocation methodologies, and improve financial reporting. By embracing such a solution, family offices can adapt and thrive in the changing landscape of private capital investments.

Moving Beyond the Old Adage of Perpetual Uniqueness

The theme of this paper is that best practice business processes and workflows for the family office are essential factors in maximizing efficiency, minimizing risk and positively impacting ongoing staff challenges. However, clinging to old ideas has hindered family offices’ adoption of modern capabilities. To succeed, any organization needs to develop, maintain, and adhere to well-defined business processes and workflows. Robust, established processes ensure efficiency and employee productivity, reduce risks, and improve outcomes. For family offices, which manage the complex financial and business affairs of ultra-high-net-worth families, best practice business processes are paramount yet under-utilized. A key cause of this is the belief that each office is unique, which often hinders family offices from adopting proven industry best practices and family office software. Despite the uniqueness of every family office, there are many areas to incorporate universal truths where industry-standard workflows and best practices can be leveraged. This modernized perspective resists the old adage, “if you’ve seen one family office, you’ve seen one family office.” It enables the office to move from the burdensome practice of customizing everything to harnessing the power of industry best practices to foster change in the organization. The office can thus go beyond siloed functions, like accounting, and instead transform itself to maximize efficiency, minimize risk, and make life better for staff across the entire enterprise—embarking on the journey to The Family Office of the Future.

Transforming a Family Office to Reimagine the Value it Delivers

Take a deep dive into the challenges family offices face, the transformation required to overcome them, and the future of the family office. We answer questions such as: How do you operate the office efficiently and minimize risk? How do you move away from manual processes and workflows? How do you meet the office challenges of staffing and training? What will the family office of the future look like, and how do you prepare for it? How can you enhance the value you bring to the family? To solve these issues, family offices must look to technology. But where do you start? As family office professionals ourselves, this whitepaper is a guide to what a reimagined family office looks like and the transformation required to get there. The family office evolution is gaining speed, and most offices are already behind. Learn how you can catch up.

Path to Family Office of the Future

Professionals working in family offices are experiencing significant and increasing complexity. Manual, high-risk work processes such as spreadsheets and point systems erroneously rely on human reconciliation – leading to incomplete, delayed, and inaccurate reporting and the inefficient use of high-value human resources. Moreover, manual calculations inherently lack cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and business continuity processes and skills. How, then, can family offices remain up-to-date in the tools, software, and security to manage UHNW assets? When family offices look to the future, tools that revolve around Natural Language Generation (NLG), automated BOT processes, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) inevitably become part of the conversation on how to get there.  Part of a family office’s challenge is to remain relevant not only in terms of the need for ultra high net worth wealth management, but also in terms of its ability to deliver such services. Use of antiquated data tools and limited flexibility puts a family office that is not focused on the future in the past. Will family offices have to try and make use of such tools developed for larger markets, like investment management, hedge funds and private equity, and try and make them fit their fact pattern?  This is a well-known problem. Which is not a surprise as most of the point applications that family offices are forced to use were created primarily for other markets. The major question to consider when thinking about the Family Office of the Future  is what are the specific challenges family offices now face that could be remedied using technology?

Fund Accounting At the Abyss

The expanding universe of alternative investments is accelerating the use of investment partnerships and the need for Fund/Partnership accounting within the Family Office. Traditionally, recording data for a fund or partnership and then tracking and reporting on it, starts small and is managed by someone like the office CFO using spreadsheets.  However, the inevitable and incremental growth in the use of this investment type has caused the spreadsheet model to grow in complexity. This has brought to the forefront the inherent limitations of using the spreadsheet model. Spreadsheets, as we know them, have two key limitations. First, they can be the source of mistakes and result in huge error rates. Secondly, they can cause major problems when it comes to audit and compliance concerns. Spreadsheets give the user a lot of flexibility, for example, with allocations. However, all the knowledge about how the spreadsheet model works is typically in an individual’s head and the lack of transparency and the degree of risk makes this model unsustainable. This way of working is now teetering on the edge of the abyss and must change to include systems integration, controls, and best practices so that Fund/Partnership accounting in a family office can be implicitly trusted. It starts by looking at the tools the hard-working staff at a Family Office have at their disposal. The use of spreadsheets and the associated manual processes should be replaced by a state-of-the-art accounting and reporting platform to enable every type of Fund/Partnership to be administered more efficiently, accurately, with less risk, with more security and built-in transparency.

Family Offices and AI: What you need to know

Prepare to revolutionize your family office operations with Eton Solutions' whitepaper on AI integration. Explore firsthand how artificial intelligence is reshaping wealth management, empowering offices to streamline workflows, optimize data processing, and enhance client interactions.

Gain invaluable insights into:

- The game-changing role of AI in transforming traditional processes.

- Strategies for leveraging AI-driven analytics to drive informed decision-making.

- Practical applications of personalized AI solutions for superior client experiences.

- Harnessing AI for risk management and portfolio optimization.

- Unlocking the potential of AI-driven insights for strategic decision-making.

- Navigating the challenges and opportunities of AI implementation in family offices.

- Real-world case studies showcasing successful AI integration and its impact on office efficiency.

Equip your family office with the tools and knowledge needed to thrive in the rapidly evolving landscape of wealth management. Download below for exclusive access to this essential resource and unlock the potential of AI for your office's success.

Business As Usual in the Family Office

During the COVID19 crisis Family Offices have been struggling with remote working and in meeting client requests for updates - often daily. The impact on staff has been tremendous.

Professional Family Office

A Professional Family Office: Here’s How to Make It Work. It’s an obvious goal, to manage your wealth in the most effective way. You built a successful enterprise before and sold it, now your next enterprise is your professional family office. As the Family Office Exchange put it, the family office in its best form provides a structure that helps preserve the family enterprise by supporting four dimensions of the family: • Business Legacy – where the wealth originates, and for some, the cornerstone for the Family Enterprise• Financial Legacy – where financial security and management of the wealth are maintained • Family Legacy – where the family comes from and where they are heading together • Philanthropic Legacy – where the lasting contribution for the family resides, by giving back in a meaningful mannerWhat makes family wealth preservation so complex are the dynamics of the family in tandem with the shared ownership of assets.

The Confluence of Tech & Ops in the Family Office

An opportunity for real integration of technology and operations in the SFO and MFO world can be revolutionary and can positively impact the family office business model. It can make the complex simple. Technology no longer needs to reside in its own silo and its potential to impact operations can be exponential when the right tool is used. It can be a critical lever for supporting operations staff and in adding value and in increasing quality. The impact of technology can be employed across nearly all operational functions, providing the opportunity to manage family office complexity and costs. What does it look like and how can family offices rapidly implement a technology that can really make an impact?

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