The top five benefits of outsourcing accounting and reporting for family offices

Any family office leader that has been through a software implementation can tell you that it cannot be taken lightly. The process can be time-consuming and expensive, especially if your staff has competing priorities or does not have the technical experience to implement new technology with an appropriately sized operating model. Nevertheless, family offices that invest in this process benefit from real-time reporting and valuable portfolio insights that can streamline and transform their business. 

When assessing and implementing the right platform, many family offices initially focus on the capabilities the software vendors highlight. Quite often, family offices later need to revisit their data strategy when software conversions come up short in meeting the original objectives.   

Rather than handling these responsibilities independently, some family offices choose to use a managed service to free themselves from the daily responsibilities of data management. This allows them to focus on their primary goal of delivering high-quality information and insights to the family and advisors instead of tasks that can be effectively managed and automated by an institutional quality service provider.   

Could using a managed service help streamline your accounting and reporting function? More and more family offices are seeing the following benefits of outsourcing: 

1. Enhanced focus on strategic insights: By outsourcing transaction processing and platform maintenance tasks, your staff can shift their focus towards strategic initiatives. 

2. Scaling without resource constraints: Outsourcing can provide the flexibility to grow and shrink your operations without increasing the number of in-house resources.  

3. Optimized technology platforms:  When implementing a new technology, outsourcing uses a proven, agile approach that can help ease the burden on your team and increase the potential of your systems, allowing you to save time, gain “super user” experience, and better utilize the system's capabilities.  

4. Streamlined technology integration:  Outsourcing can help overcome the challenge of synchronizing disparate technology systems, leading to smoother workflows, improved collaboration, and enhanced efficiency by leveraging intentionally integrated elite platforms. 

5. Reduced staff turnover: Outsourcing can help alleviate operational inefficiencies that may result in employee turnover.  

The popularity of outsourcing operations is on the rise. Today, even large family offices are opting for the managed service model. We are seeing clients appreciate the ability to stay up to date on the latest in tech, the convenience of having a single point of contact for any issues, and access to additional specialists to support less frequent transactions.  

At PwC, we have spent years working with those in the ultra high net worth space through our managed service, Wealth Compass. We offer a flexible service model to fit your unique needs, no matter the complexity. Each of our clients has a dedicated relationship manager that is a specialist in accounting and their specific technology stack. Additionally, we have specialists in robotics process automation (RPA) to help integrate disparate platforms as well as generate custom reporting.  

PwC focuses on servicing family offices with accounting and reporting services, not custody or investment management to provide a completely independent point of view.  

Contact us today to learn how PwC can support your family office's outsourcing needs.