While family offices perform a myriad of functions, their primary purpose is to manage the complex financial lives of the families they serve. One key activity they perform is ensuring that the families’ bills are paid accurately, on time, and with appropriate oversight and safeguards.

Bill payment and related treasury functions often receive less attention than investment strategy, estate planning, philanthropy, or family governance. All too often, cash and expense management activities are under-resourced, rely on outmoded or point-solution technology, and can be prone to errors or worse.

Bill pay often gains executive attention only when something goes wrong, such as when the office receives a call from a family member about a missed or incorrect payment. This lack of focus, however, belies its importance. The downstream effects are real: missed or incorrect payments can impact a family member’s plans, trigger penalties, and damage credit relationships. Poor transaction oversight can expose a family member to fraud. The lack of coordination with a comprehensive treasury and accounting function can lead to overdrafts, duplicate payments, and late fees. Poor documentation hinders oversight and reporting and can complicate tax and audit preparation. Current approaches may lack scalability and redundancy and may not meet operational demands as family wealth structures grow more complex. As the number of entities grow and the volume and variety of invoices multiply, staff can quickly become overwhelmed.

This article examines the key challenges family offices face in managing bill payments and cash management, the risks created by inadequate processes and technology, and the principles and approaches that family offices need to adopt to modernize this important function.

Why Family Office Bill Pay Is So Complex

In most instances, family offices are managing payments for multiple entities in an ecosystem of fragmented financial interests and structures. A typical ultra-high-net-worth family may hold assets and require disbursements through a combination of the following:

• Personal residences and vacation properties in multiple states or countries

• Revocable and irrevocable trusts for estate planning purposes

• Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies  

• Private foundations and donor-advised funds

• Operating businesses and holding companies

• Investment accounts and special purpose vehicles

The personal lifestyles of individual family members also generate a broad array of recurring and, at times, irregular payment obligations, including:

• Property management and related fees across multiple residences

• Household staff payroll, benefits, and employment taxes

• One-time or periodic purchases of luxury items: cars, aircraft, art, and yachts

• Luxury asset maintenance

• Personal security services

• Educational expenses  

• Medical concierge services and ongoing healthcare

• Subscriptions, memberships, and club dues

• Family member-specific tax obligations

• Charitable pledges and recurring donations

• Capital call obligations for private fund investments

It is easy to see how quickly the payment environment can become complex as each payment category involves different vendors, payment frequencies, levels of urgency, approval processes, and sources of funds. Invoices must be paid for by the correct entity and from the correct bank account. Some family members or entities may have their own bank account, payment obligations, and accounting requirements. Others may simplify the process by paying invoices from one entity and allocating expenses across the partnership structure through the accounting process. All of this needs to be reconciled across multiple transactions, statements and recorded in the accounting system.

Complexity increases when families maintain residences, businesses, and service relationships across multiple jurisdictions. This can result in invoices in multiple currencies, international wire transfers, currency conversion, correspondent banking fees, and cross-border compliance requirements, adding another layer of complexity to the bill pay process.

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Operational Challenges

Legacy family offices may rely on less formalized or consistently documented processes. Invoices arrive through multiple channels, often in hard copy, including paper mail, email, vendor portals, and property management systems. Invoices are often handled in hard copy with little tracking or workflow management. It is easy to make duplicate payments when invoices are received through multiple channels and processed independently. Misplaced invoices and missed payments can also arise when invoices fall through communication gaps or are simply lost.

Expense approval and oversight can be haphazard. Family offices typically maintain payment approval thresholds, with amounts below which staff can authorize payments independently and amounts above which principal or trustee approval is required. In practice, these frameworks are frequently informal and inconsistently applied, lacking approval documentation, tracking capabilities, and an audit trail.

Many family offices use spreadsheets, small business accounting software, or a combination of the two to manage their bill payment process. While flexible and familiar, spreadsheets present fundamental limitations for payment management, including:

• Poor spreadsheet access controls can allow any user with file access to alter payment data without an audit trail.

• The lack of version management can result in staff working from outdated files, creating conflicting records.

• There is little workflow to support the end-to-end process.

• Manual data entry can lead to errors.

• There is little system integration, with data manually entered into other recordkeeping and accounting systems, creating redundant work that is time-consuming and may diverge from the official books and records.

Many accounting platforms pose their own set of challenges. They are not designed for family office complexity and may lack integration among payment processing, cash reconciliation, and the general ledger. Workarounds that allow these platforms to approximate family office requirements can create duplicative processing and reconciliation of data between systems, increasing the risk of errors. In addition, they have significant reporting limitations that require manual effort to overcome.

Finally, a key challenge is the lack of staff redundancy. Family offices frequently have lean staffing models. Often, this complex process relies on a single employee or a handful of employees. If someone leaves or is unavailable, this can create a gap in the bill-paying process.  

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Coordination with Treasury Functions

Communication and coordination with treasury functions present another challenge. Once an invoice is approved for payment, the treasury function must be notified of the correct bank account and the amount of the payment. Treasury must then review relevant banking details to ensure adequate funds are available to meet the obligation. Treasury then notifies the bill pay team to execute the transaction. Without a robust workflow and platform, this process often relies on email and callbacks and is prone to errors.

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Fraud Prevention Can Be Weak

Not surprisingly, family offices are potential targets for financial fraud. The combination of substantial assets, lean staffing, informal processes, and lack of systemic controls can create an environment that sophisticated fraudsters can easily exploit.

One approach is known as a Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack. Fraudsters compromise or spoof the email account of a trusted party — a property manager, investment manager, attorney, or one of the principals themselves — and issue fraudulent invoices or payment instructions to family office staff.

A vendor impersonation scheme is another fraudster favorite. A fraudster monitors family office communications and business relationships to learn of important vendor relationships. In a typical vendor impersonation scheme, attackers send invoices using spoofed or lookalike domains that closely resemble legitimate vendors, request bank account changes for future payments, and exploit informal vendor management practices that lack verification protocols. Without fraud detection and prevention processes, it is easy for busy staff to miss fraudulent activity.

Family offices are also not immune from internal fraud. They often operate with insufficient segregation of duties in their payment functions. A single employee may have authority to add new vendors, initiate payments, and reconcile bank accounts — three functions that should ideally be performed by separate individuals to create appropriate segregation of duties and oversight.

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New Solutions and Best Practices

Leading family offices are addressing these challenges by taking a fresh approach to bill pay and the broader cash and expense management process. Through a combination of technology, organizational design, workflow tools, process discipline, and outsourcing to a third party, they are adding significant scale, efficiency, and safeguards.

Purpose-built family office bill payment platforms can now provide capabilities specifically designed for the multi-entity, multi-bank, multi-currency environment. These platforms consolidate and digitize invoice receipt and capture and allow for invoice tracking and multi-tier approvals with complete audit trails. They enable payment execution across multiple payment entities, automatic reconciliation with accounting systems, and consolidated reporting across all entities. Also included are important aspects of the treasury function to ensure funds are available to meet obligations and payments are made from the correct accounts. By outsourcing this function, a family office can gain access to a best-of-class technology platform and achieve scalability and personnel redundancy.  

Key Components of a Modern Bill Pay Workflow

Whether managed internally or with an outsourced partner, a modern family office bill pay workflow should include the following components.

How Archway Can Help

Bill payment management sits at an unusual intersection in the family office: it is operationally essential yet often organizationally undervalued, technically complex yet frequently entrusted to informal processes, and financially significant yet rarely properly resourced.  

Archway’s Cash and Expense Management solution addresses the treasury, accounting, and bill pay needs of complex family offices. Our secure, permission-based platform manages the full operational lifecycle of the payment process, from invoice receipt and approval through payment generation, reconciliation, general ledger integration, and reporting. Clients can delegate the full process to the Archway team or retain control over selected activities, including approvals and fund disbursements.

Recognizing the value of an enterprise-grade treasury and accounts payable platform can achieve more timely bill payment, better cash management, more accurate reporting, stronger fraud detection, and a more efficient payment process.

Why Financial Institutions and Family Offices Are Adopting Outsourced Accounting and Investment Reporting Solutions to Serve Their Ultra High-Net-Worth Clients.

In some corners of the private wealth management world, the word outsourcing, sometimes referred to as business process outsourcing (BPO), has become taboo. Oftentimes considered synonymous with offshoring, outsourcing has erroneously been painted as cheap work performed by unskilled labor.

But it only takes a bit of due diligence to find that these negative connotations are often an inaccurate portrayal of the true value of an outsourced service offering.

To that end, like other outsourced service providers to family offices and financial institutions, Archway is frequently faced with questions about our people, our processes and our technology and, ultimately, why outsourcing may be the right solution.

To help answer this question, here are 10 reasons private wealth managers are leaning into outsourced services.

1. They enable you to grow, quickly.

A new advisor joins your firm and brings a dozen new clients into the firm. Is your team prepared to absorb the account aggregation and report preparation responsibilities that will soon follow?

When you’re in high growth mode, the last thing you want to do is realize your team is not equipped to scale. An outsourced service provider like Archway can help financial institutions and family offices smoothly onboard new clients or households, so that wealth managers can focus on helping their clients achieve their wealth goals.

2. They can enhance your quality of service.

Enhanced service quality tops the list and it’s quite a simple notion.

Instead of spending time normalizing data, performing consolidations, paying bills or preparing and reviewing report packages, private wealth managers can focus on their passion: serving their clients and delivering results that build client wealth.

3. They provide business continuity in the event of disaster or significant change.

We’ve learned some tough lessons throughout the pandemic, but one that stands out for businesses is strengthening their ability to overcome disruption. Whether you’re trying to minimize the effects of a health crisis, employee departures or just a simple power outage, having a dependable outsourced service partner helps ensure that you can continue to meet the demands and expectations of your clients despite forces beyond your control.

4. They offer workforce stability in the face of employee turnover.

Key person risk is one of the chief concerns amongst family offices and financial institutions. If an employee departs or a position needs to be eliminated, how do you ensure that your operations don’t falter?

From our vantage point, outsourced service providers should operate as a seamless extension of your internal team. Using operational documentation, thorough communication and repeatable processes, an outsourced service team can quickly take on additional responsibilities in the absence of key personnel.

5. They are built on operational expertise.

There’s an adage that says, “You can be great at one thing or good at many.” We believe that you should always strive for greatness, which may mean leveraging third-party resources to perform key tasks that sit outside of your expertise or aren’t a valuable use of your time.

By partnering with an experienced BPO team, you will be able to work with subject matter experts and highly-skilled operations professionals that are solely focused on a single function. Examples of commonly outsourced activities include portfolio reconciliation and consolidated investment reporting, personal expense management, tax preparation, partnership administration, legal services, and trust administration.

6. They help you manage risk.

In some cases, particularly amongst private banks and other financial institutions, there may be compliance requirements related to particular service offerings that necessitate the need for third-party oversight. This oftentimes translates to creating a business relationship with an outsourced service provider.

Financial institutions and family offices can further manage their risk exposure by establishing service-level agreements (SLAs) with outsourced service providers that help define the who, what and when of service delivery.

7. They allow you to customize your solutions offering.

We’ve all watched this scene play out before: you’re courting a new client who presents a unique set of wealth management demands and you need to spin up a new solution offering quickly. It can be an anxiety-inducing situation if you don’t already know what’s out there.

On the other hand, if your financial institution or family office has a pre-established relationship with an outsourced service partner, it’s much easier to explore other available services and expand your relationship on an as-needed basis. Additionally, you can craft tiered service offerings that span the range of your clientele to ensure you’re delivering the right solutions to the right clients.

8. They provide efficiencies in your back office.

Most outsourced services focus on one of two areas: highly repetitive processes or highly specialized processes. The common thread between these two areas is that they both require a significant amount of time to complete.

By allowing an outsourced service team to absorb click-heavy, recurring operations like portfolio reconciliation, or time-consuming, tedious operations like family office partnership accounting, your staff can focus on doing what they do best and not worry about the monotony of data.

9. They can offer access to purpose-built technology.

While some envision BPO firms as shops filled with endless rows of desks and people, the reality is that most outsourced service organizations rely on a key tool to help drive efficiency: specialized technology.

At Archway, our BPO teams use our proprietary family office software, the Archway Platform℠, to perform the nuanced operations that exist within family offices and financial institutions serving high-net-worth clients.

Then, using the Archway Client Portal, we can securely deliver the processed and formatted data to family office professionals, advisors and their end-clients in an intuitive, easy-to-use platform. This gives them the opportunity to engage with their financial information in an interactive, tech-forward way that may not exist if the family office was exclusively responsible for designing and developing the end-client reporting experience.

10. They can reduce your firm’s overhead costs.

Maintaining technology can be expensive, especially if you are the designer, developer, quality assurer and information systems architect.

An outsourced service partner alleviates the need to maintain the technology and the servers that run it, which can ultimately reduce your overhead IT costs. As both an experienced technology firm and an award-winning outsourcing provider, our services include hosting and server maintenance, data backup and disaster recovery, ongoing technology enhancements, software quality assurance, data collection and normalization, system connectivity troubleshooting, and product documentation and training.

We know that outsourcing doesn’t always receive the recognition and appreciation it deserves, but the benefits of partnering with an outsourced service provider are demonstrated to be plentiful for private wealth management firms.

Whether you are seeking to ease the burden of client reporting, add new concierge services like client bill payment or offload the complex process of private fund bookkeeping and reporting, Archway is prepared to work and grow alongside your firm.

Check out our full suite of technology and outsourced service solutions for family offices and financial institutions to find out how we can help you better serve your high-net-worth clients.

Archway and Canoe Forge Path to Further Advance Alts Data Management for Family Offices Using the Archway Platform

Since 2020, collaboration and a desire to solve complex financial problems have been at the core of Archway and Canoe Intelligence’s strategic partnership. Throughout the years, Archway’s experience working with nearly 600 ultra-high-net-worth families through the Archway Platform has made them acutely familiar with the challenges family offices face when it comes to collecting and reporting on alternative investment data.

Coupled with Canoe’s innovation and vision in the alts technology space, where the Canoe platform covers 42,000 active funds across $8T in Assets Under Management or Advisement for its 325 alternative investor clients, our teams knew early on there was an immense opportunity to streamline alternative investment data management within the family office space.

Recently, the two teams have been working on the next iteration of our partnership as we develop a more robust integration between the Canoe and Archway platforms.

This integration between Canoe and Archway automates the transmission of private equity and hedge fund valuations, as well as Private Equity Call and Distribution data. Moreover, Hedge Fund subscriptions and redemptions extracted from Canoe can be effortlessly imported into Archway.

In this article, we share how the two technologies are teaming up to test and build this expanded integration—and how we believe it can level up the operational efficiency for our mutual family office clients.

Common Challenges in Alts Data Management

Alternative investors, particularly family offices, navigate a complex landscape fraught with challenges when it comes to managing alts data. Among these challenges are data silos, where crucial information is scattered across multiple systems and platforms, making it difficult to obtain a comprehensive view of investments. Additionally, the reliance on manual data entry introduces a significant risk of human error and inefficiency, consuming valuable time and resources.

Compounding these issues is the lack of standardized data formats, further complicating the integration and analysis of disparate data sources.

In response to these challenges, Archway Family Office Services and Canoe Intelligence are expanding their strategic partnership and integration methods. By automating data transmission and ensuring data consistency, the integration streamlines the process of accessing and integrating alts data. This not only enhances operational efficiency but also mitigates the risk of errors, empowering family offices to make informed decisions with confidence.

How Canoe Enhances Archway’s Platform

• Automated Fund and Allocation-Level Data Extraction: Canoe's integration with the Archway Platform facilitates automated extraction, validation, and delivery of fund and allocation-level data.
• Pricing Updates: Canoe seamlessly updates pricing information in Archway, providing alternative investment valuation data extracted as soon as received and processed.
• Effortless Management of Capital Calls and Distributions: Canoe automates the process of updating Archway with capital call and distribution transactions.
• Streamlined Subscription and Redemption Transactions: Canoe generates extracts of subscription or redemption transactions, which can be uploaded directly to Archway.

Archway’s Platform at a Glance

Archway's Platform serves as a comprehensive wealth management technology solution tailored specifically for family offices. With Archway, family offices gain access to a wide range of benefits, including a 360-degree view of clients' wealth, enhanced operational efficiency, improved data accuracy and reliability, and robust operational and client reporting.

Bringing the Integration to Life

Prior to launching beta testing for the integration in late 2023, the Archway and Canoe teams worked in concert to automate data flows, normalize values, and define accounting rules and transaction mapping across systems.

The teams collaborated on extensive internal testing to validate the effectiveness and reliability of the integration, with the intent to not only automate the transmission of alternative asset data between platforms, but to simplify the complex nature of accounting for alternative investment transactions.

Through rigorous analysis and learning, the team identified and addressed potential challenges, fine-tuning the integration to meet the unique needs and requirements of family offices.

Now in its beta testing phase, the team continues to collect invaluable real-world perspectives, helping to guide iterative improvements and ensuring alignment with client expectations.

To date, Canoe has processed 150,000+ documents on behalf of Archway’s clients. Additionally, this collaborative effort has positioned two dozen mutual clients to automate the transmission of data across 3,400+ alternative investments, underscoring the substantial impact of the integration on operational efficiency and data management accuracy.

What's Coming Next

Looking ahead, Archway and Canoe are finalizing the initial integration offering with plans to expand the universe of data available to mutual clients seeking to automate the transmission of their alternative asset data. This next phase promises to unlock new levels of efficiency and value for family offices leveraging the combined power of the Archway’s Platform and Canoe Intelligence.

As Archway continues to leverage Canoe's capabilities, clients can expect further enhancements that drive continued scale and elevate client satisfaction. With a commitment to innovation and excellence, Archway and Canoe are poised to shape the future of alts data management. Stay tuned for more updates as the integration nears launch later this year.

Disclaimer: All statistics as of March 31, 2024.

Originally published by Canoe Intelligence.

A Look at 4 Key Areas of Strategic Focus Expected in 2023

As the end of the year looms near, so do project deadlines, final data reviews, and annual reporting deliverables. With family offices bogged down by the mechanics of reconciliations and closing the year-end books, strategic planning can unintentionally get pushed to the bottom of the pile.

But whether strategy is top of mind or not, the family office space is in flux—changing now more than ever—which warrants consideration of several key focus areas.

Outsourcing

Continuing a multi-year conversation, outsourcing has been a trending topic in the market for some time now. With more family offices reviewing internal operations and a growing appetite amongst financial institutions to offer a more holistic set of services to its ultra-high-net-worth clients, we at Archway Family Office Services believe outsourcing will continue to be the centerfold in the ongoing assessment of operations and resources.

Employed as a long-term strategy or as a trusted stopgap during unanticipated events, outsourced services can create meaningful capacity within family offices. Although family office outsourcing is often synonymous with professional services like tax and regulatory compliance or cybersecurity, it can also be impactful in core operational areas like data aggregation and reconciliation, partnership administration, and routine reporting.

Process automation

When the Archway Platform℠ was introduced in the early 2000s, it offered family offices the opportunity to automate the manual ticking and tying of prior decades. It offered automated data aggregation and the creation of financial statements and client reports. It offered automated partnership allocations, investment performance calculations, bill payment, and more. And all of this automation offered family offices something they’d long been after: Time.

Now 20 years later, countless technology solutions have been introduced to automate family office functions from A to Z, each offering a new layer of efficiency—and potentially adding hours back into the work week for family office professionals.

Enhanced analytics

Ultra-high-net-worth investors and next gen wealth owners are clamoring for data. They want more transparency, deeper insights, and a higher probability of success. For family office professionals, this translates into looking beyond traditional performance measurements and delivering enhanced analysis across a variety of metrics and results like attribution, benchmarking, value-at-risk, stress testing, exposure mapping, and what-if scenarios.

Entity and tax restructuring

While most family offices don’t endeavor to restructure every single year, certain events can lead to this conversation taking a front row seat during annual strategic planning. Impending tax laws, new regulations, and political posturing can all lead to an evaluation of a family office’s structure. But so can major changes to the nuclear family like deaths, births, divorces, or marriages.

As family offices and their tax attorneys consider tax advantages and implications, entity restructuring can help families weather the changes—political, social, environmental, or personal.

At Archway Family Office Services, we can’t overstate the importance of having the right family office software in place to manage the restructure, automate asset transfers, define new ownership, and validate the changes through reporting. With the help of the right tools, family offices can make the restructuring process feel nearly seamless—or at least as seamless as restructuring goes.

While it’s likely that your to-do list is long and the countdown to the New Year is short, we encourage family offices and advisors to high-net-worth clients to spend some time reviewing the outcomes of the past year and strategizing for the next.

The Importance of a Family Office Software User Community

At Archway Family Office Services, we have always prided ourselves on our ability to understand the nuances of our ultra-high-net-worth clients. Our teams have extensive experience working through complex issues and one-off scenarios that are unique to family offices and private wealth management organizations. We are, by all accounts, well suited for the job.

We’ve helped hundreds of family offices leverage the Archway Platform to support critical facets of their operations like central disbursement entities, multi-layered ownership structures, complex equity transfers, and family member-specific reporting requirements.

But even our most tenured team members will tell you: There is no substitute for the opportunity to problem solve amongst your peers.

As mentioned in our blog discussing the what, where, who, and why of Archway’s exclusive Archway Platform User Conference, IMMERSION, the leading request from our clients is access to other members of our family office user community.

So what exactly can family offices who share a common wealthtech solution—say, the Archway Platform—learn from one another?

1. How family offices are using the Archway Platform to solve complex issues.

The evolution of family offices and the development of family office software are undeniably intertwined. As the needs of family offices have shifted over the years, so has the Archway Platform’s suite of tools.

With each product upgrade, we’ve introduced new functionality, built efficiencies and automation into the application, and enhanced the capabilities of our existing tools. As a result, our users have found that there’s often more than one way to do the same thing in the system.

And while we offer release notes, product documentation, and system training, sometimes the easiest way to learn something is to hear from someone else that’s already using it.

Common in-app operations that our clients discuss with one another include:

• How to transfer ownership based on different scenarios, and which Archway Platform tool is most suitable for the desired outcome
• Best practices when using the Archway Platform’s reconciliation tools
• Usage of alternative asset-specific tools to track activity and report on investments
• Accounts payable processes best practices
• Creating ad hoc reports and recurring family member report packages
• Archway Client Portal use cases and adoption strategies for family members and outside stakeholders

2. What Archway Platform tools they could be utilizing, but aren’t today.

When a client begins discussing how they’re using the Archway Platform to solve complex issues, this often leads to another user saying, “We hadn’t thought of doing it that way!”

The fact of the matter is, it’s our human nature to create routines and processes. If a process works, we don’t necessarily go out looking for another way to do it. But, when a step in the process changes, it presents an inflection point: Is there a better way to do this?

And when it’s time for our clients to find that answer, Archway Family Office Services offers multiple channels:

• Reach out to the Archway Family Office Services Client Relations team for product support
• Engage with the Archway Platform Training team for consulting on a new process
• Pose that exact question to other Archway Platform users through a variety of forums and idea exchanges in our secure, online client support portal

Although it’s widely accepted that each family office has its own unique way of operating, we frequently find that there are common threads that tie them together. While our clients’ experiences may not be identical, users may have experienced similar scenarios that can nonetheless lead to the adoption of new tools and the implementation of new processes.

3. Which reports they can use to answer challenging financial questions.

Reporting is the pinnacle of family office wealthtech. It is, after all, how family offices and the family members they advise render and make sense of the data that’s been collected, entered, and validated in the technology. So it’s no surprise that reporting is one of the most comprehensive functions that exists in the Archway Platform.

With a suite of tools consisting of an extensive report library, raw data queries, dashboards, and a client reporting portal, users of the Archway Platform have a variety of options when it comes to reporting on their financial data.

That said, in a perfect world, family office professionals would have plenty of free time to explore the report library, try out new queries, and customize reporting dashboards. But day-to-day responsibilities often prevent that.

So what’s a quick and easy way to discover new reporting ideas? Clever report configurations? Unique data classifications and groupings?

Enter: The Archway Platform user community.

By inquiring with other users to learn what reports they’re using, which metrics they’re leveraging, and how they’re applying parameters and data groupings, family offices can quickly identify the right combination of reports, data points, and formats to get the output they desire—straight from the individuals that have walked the same path.

4. How family offices are handling situations that have nothing to do with the software.

Perhaps the most important thing family offices can learn from one another has nothing to do with technology or operations at all.

As anyone who works in the family office arena knows, it can be excruciatingly difficult for family offices to connect with other family offices. And while there are a variety of family office membership organizations and events that can help, family offices are, generally speaking, incredibly private and confidential, making networking and communicating with one another challenging.

Understanding that gap and recognizing the commonality of our client base, we created a trusted community in which all of the members share a unifying theme: Usage of the Archway Platform.

Sustained through national and regional user conferences, virtual peer dialogues, online user forums, and brokered introductions, our family office software user community presents our clients with the unique opportunity to connect and build relationships with other family office professionals.

Through their expanded network, our clients have gone on to create a variety of breakout peer groups that frequently get together to discuss the issues they face as family offices—whether it pertains to the Archway Platform or not.

These peer groups, though born out of their common usage of the Archway Platform, have grown across a much wider spectrum, where family office professionals can discuss trust law, tax planning, family office restructuring, burgeoning investment strategies, talent acquisition, process documentation and new hire training, and so much more. The community has flourished.

To learn more about joining the Archway Platform user community, schedule a call with a member of our team to discover how other family offices and private wealth management firms are using Archway’s purpose-built wealth management solutions.

Everything you need to know about IMMERSION: Archway’s Platform^SM User Conference

When we ask our clients what would help them become even more successful, we get plenty of answers: Specialized functionality, new reports, more hours in the day. But time and time again, the answer that we hear most often—the one that is echoed over and over by family offices, regardless of location, size, or tenure—is the opportunity to connect with other family offices.

And so, nearly a decade ago, the IMMERSION User Conference was born.

Let’s take a look at the history of IMMERSION: What it is, where it happens, who attends, and why it’s become a mainstay in the Archway Family Office Services training program.

What is IMMERSION?

The IMMERSION User Conference is a multi-day training and networking event hosted by Archway Family Office Services. We invite our family clients from across the globe to join us for a three day immersive experience (see what we did there?), where they’re given the opportunity to:

• Receive firsthand training from our team of experts
• Preview new Archway Platform enhancements
• Join roundtables discussing family office best practices
• Hear from strategic partners about additional family office solutions
• Build their network of family office professionals

While at IMMERSION, attendees can choose from a menu of expertly curated, CPE-accredited sessions. Focusing on key functional areas of our family office software platform, these sessions deliver best practices, tips, and tricks in areas like troubleshooting system issues, completing reconciliations, managing accounts payable, tracking alternative investments, measuring performance, and producing family office reporting.

In 2016, we introduced our first-ever New User Workshop, giving new clients the opportunity to get up to speed prior to the more advanced sessions at the main conference. Not surprisingly, the New User Workshop has become a cornerstone of our event and has expanded to include not only new users, but existing users simply looking for a refresher on Archway Platform blocking and tackling.

Where does IMMERSION take place?

Since the inaugural IMMERSION was hosted in our hometown of Indianapolis, IN, in 2014, we’ve had the chance to collect plenty of feedback over the course of several events, allowing us to evolve the format of the event, the topics we cover, how we deliver the content, and even where we host the conference.

Following our first IMMERSION User Conference, we decided that we would alternate between the large global conference in even-numbered years and smaller, regional user conferences in odd-numbered years.

We followed this cadence through 2019, hosting two additional IMMERSION User Conferences in Indianapolis and a dozen regional user conferences across the country, from New York to Dallas to San Francisco—and many more in between.

But like most firms, Archway Family Office Services took IMMERSION virtual in 2020 and 2021 as we adjusted to the world around us. Broadcasting live from a pop-up studio in our Indianapolis office and powered by a newsroom-worthy studio crew, we were able to carry on the IMMERSION tradition despite the obstacles that inherently come with transitioning a typically in-person event to being fully online.

And now, in October 2022, we are back in-person and we’ve moved. This year, our global conference is being hosted in Austin, TX.

Who goes to IMMERSION?

IMMERSION is an exclusive, invitation-only event for our family office and private wealth clients. By bringing together a group of family office professional that all share a common usage of the Archway Platform, we create an intimate, secure environment where users can connect, share ideas, collaborate, and learn together.

Today, IMMERSION has become a core tenant of the Archway Family Office Services training program. Outside of its discernible popularity amongst clients, the event has grown be so much more than a training exercise for users.

IMMERSION is an opportunity for our team to connect with one another, to put faces to names, and build lasting relationships with our clients. Sure, we spend a lot of time talking about partnership accounting, performance validation, and data management.

But we spend an equal amount of time talking about the things that happen in our lives outside of the four walls we work within. IMMERSION is about discovery and learning and bringing people together: Some of the most human elements we all possess.

After 20 years working with family offices, the team at Archway Family Office Services understands how critical your technology partner—and the people who comprise it—is to your success. Which is why we invite our clients to come together for a day—or three—every year so that we can continue to grow together.

Discover the many ways Archway Family Office Services connects with our family office clients through education, support, and training in our mini ebook, Our Commitment to Exceptional Client Service.

Leveraging Family Office Software and Outsourced Services to Help Your Operations Stay Balanced

The very nature of a family office is to provide multiple services, across multiple households, across multiple generations. To that end, it goes without saying that family offices are rarely, if ever, afforded a singular operational focus.

The ubiquity of daily, multi-entity data management, routine monitoring of inflows and outflows, evolving investment strategies, shifting ownership structures, and seemingly always-on-the-horizon tax and reporting deadlines can make running a family office inherently challenging. Compounded by social, economic, and political influences, running a family office can truly become a balancing act.

And when you’re juggling that many balls at the same time, it can be difficult to know which ones to keep in the air and which to hand off to someone else.

Luckily, growth and innovation in the family office space have created a host of options to help lighten the operational burden.

Struggling with your family office’s financial data management? Evaluating or implementing a new technology solution? Wanting to connect with other family office professionals to talk shop? From purpose-built family office technology to exclusive family office communities, dedicated family office service providers, and experienced consultants, the answers are out there. You just need to know where to look.

Here are three universal strategies that can help your family office identify solutions and overcome its unique challenges—big or small.

Pursue all of the training, education, and networking opportunities.

You’ve probably said it, we’ve definitely said it, and you’ve surely heard it: We don’t know what we don’t know. But more often than not, someone is willing and able to help you learn—and what better way to connect and share experiences than through training, education, and networking events?

Nevertheless, even on our best days, when your capacity is already hitting the limiter, it can be hard to look at a new opportunity and say, “Yes, I want to add more to my plate.”

We get it: It’s hard to make time. We’ve all felt the pinch, but when it comes to training, education, and networking, we at Archway Family Office Services firmly believe it’s worth the reward.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Scheduling one-on-one or team training with your technology provider

Pros: Expand your knowledge of the application; Explore new tools and functionality; Smooth out workflows; Discover ways to automate processes and reduce clicks

Cons: Requires time out of your schedule; May incur a financial cost

Attending a family office conference

Pros: Connect with other family office professionals; Discuss alternative solutions to shared operational challenges; Learn about new technology and service providers; Gain insight into regulatory changes, investment trends, and other strategic topics

Cons: Requires time out of your schedule; May incur a financial cost

Among the weary, the busy, and the cost-conscious, a natural response is to say “I don’t have the time” or “It’s not in the budget.” But a shift in mindset to say “It is worth my time” or “It is worth the cost” can pave the way to new connections, elevated conversations, and creative ideas that just may hold the solution to your most stubborn challenges.

Don’t be afraid to outsource underserved operations.

Sometimes it’s not a matter of training, education, or networking—after all, even a creative solution can’t add hours to the day. And if you’re not in a position to hire additional staff, capacity challenges can quickly become overwhelming.

But the situation doesn’t have to be dire. The industry is laced with experienced, trusted service providers that specialize in family office operations.

Take Archway Family Office Services for example. Given our deep roots in family office software, it’s only natural that we offer outsourced services to our clients that either augment or replace their in-house usage of the Archway Platform^SM.

Ranging from portfolio reconciliation and consolidated client reporting to personal expense management and partnership administration, our menu of solutions helps our clients create a bespoke combination of technology and services that is right-sized for their family office or financial institution.

Still on the fence? Check out the Top 10 Reasons Private Wealth Managers Choose an Outsourcing Partner.

So, whether you’re looking for expertise in broader areas like financial data management and tax planning, or more niche areas like private foundation management and family governance, there’s a good chance you can find a service provider that specializes in it.

Which brings us to the world of consultants.

Partner with an experienced consultant.

When in doubt, reach out to a consultant.

Oftentimes leveraging in-depth assessments and contextual reviews, consultants are equipped to help make recommendations that are appropriately suited for your family office. Their range of expertise and their unbiased opinion can help your family office identify key pain points, evaluate viable solutions, partner with experienced technology and service providers, and implement long-term strategies.

Read How Consultants Can Help Family Offices to get a deeper understanding of the three primary roles of family office consultants: Administrative consulting, technology consulting, and operational consulting.

Contact Archway Family Office Services to find out how our suite of technology and service solutions helps our clients overcome their accounting, investment data aggregation, and reporting challenges.

Just need a suggestion for a family office consultant or conference? We can do that too.

Using Client Service as a Mechanism to Qualify Family Office Technology Providers

Capabilities and tools, code and databases, reports and more reports.

When it comes to family office technology evaluations, these tend to be the topics that dominate most conversations. And for good reason: These topics are, no doubt, core to selecting a solution that will work for your family office.

But a technology solution that merely works for your family office is a far cry from a technology solution that enhances your family office. Your family office software should extend beyond functionality and reporting. Ideally, an investment of this magnitude should support the growth and strategy of the family, generation over generation.

In our experience, the key to finding a dependable technology partner with a staying power equal to the family wealth itself is to look beyond the product or service and evaluate the whole of the firm’s client service approach.

It’s no secret that at Archway Family Office Services, we routinely cite the importance of client service as a key consideration when choosing a family office software provider.

Client Support

Oftentimes, the most common face of client service is client support. In the traditional sense of client support, this is the real human answering the phone, replying to your email, or triaging your support ticket. In a more modern sense, it could equate to chatbots, automated voice systems, or robotic process automation (RPA).

When evaluating your technology provider’s client support capabilities, consider the following:

• Support hours and availability
• Location of support staff
• Types of support channels (i.e. phone, email, online support portal, etc.)
• Experience and/or qualifications of support staff
• Self-service support capabilities

Client Education

Client education can come in a variety of forms, from knowledge bases, setup guides, and product release notes to step-by-step process and policy documentation. A key pillar in any client service model, education is fundamental to giving clients the tools they need to successfully operate a wealthtech solution.

But perhaps more notably, this facet of client service puts clients in the driver’s seat, allowing them to acquire the knowledge and skills they need so that they can become self-sufficient within the application.

When evaluating your technology provider’s client education capabilities, consider the following:

• Availability of online, self-service product documentation
• Communication strategy related to product enhancements, upgrades, and announcements
• Creation of thorough process documentation and/or best practices for critical operations
• Access to how-to guides, tutorials, and setup manuals
• Opportunity to join peer networks and/or forums for best practices, tips, and tricks

Client Training

Ongoing client training is critical to maximizing your family office’s technology investment. Training represents the tipping point from becoming self-sufficient to proficient in an application and often covers more advanced features and functions of the technology.

At Archway Family Office Services, we offer a variety of training opportunities including ad hoc client-specific trainings, recorded tutorials, live group trainings, and our pinnacle training event exclusively for our family office clients: Archway’s IMMERSION User Conference.

When evaluating your technology provider’s client training capabilities, consider the following:

• Availability of dedicated, in-house training staff
• In-person and/or virtual group training opportunities
• One-on-one custom training opportunities
• Access to user conferences, regional user groups, or client communities
• Accreditation of training content

By checking the boxes in these three areas of client service, your family office can feel more confident in not only the technology you’ve selected, but the people, processes, and documentation that will support you going forward. More importantly, these areas—even more so than the software itself—will define how you engage, connect, and grow with your technology partner for years to come.

Learn more about how Archway Family Office Services builds lasting relationships and connects with our family office and financial institution clients through education, support, and training in our mini ebook, Our Commitment to Exceptional Client Service.

What to Look for When Selecting Client Portal Technology for Your Family Office

Client portals have taken many shapes throughout the years. With nearly every modern financial institution offering clients some form of digital access to their financial information, online portal technology is a far cry from its infancy.

The same can be said for family office client portals.

To paint the picture, let's take a look at the evolution of the Archway Platform^SM and its portal technology.

Originally introduced in the early 2000s, our initial portal concept was referred to simply as Investor Login. Limited to a handful of configuration options, the Archway Platform's Investor Login served as an online access point for individual users to view performance returns, capital activity, fees, and a select number of reports.

Since those early days, we have rolled out several iterations of the portal using a combination of client requests, internal feedback, and a healthy dose of innovative thinking.

Which brings us to today, where the Archway Client Portal gives end-clients on-demand access to an interactive, mobile financial reporting tool.

Based on our experience developing and enhancing our own family office software and client portal, here are several key financial insights you should consider looking for when selecting client portal technology for your family office or financial institution.

1. Consolidated net worth

This seemingly simple request can actually be one of the most difficult to questions to answer, especially when it comes to high-net-worth (HNW) individuals.

Your family office’s client portal should be able to—at a minimum—tell your end-client exactly how much they are worth, inclusive of cash, investments, property, and indirect exposure to additional holdings, at the click of a button.

We recommend looking for family office portal technology that can:

• Consolidate net worth across entities, portfolios, and assets
• Compute net worth based on direct and indirect holdings
• Show net worth changes over time based on investment performance, purchases, sales, contributions, withdrawals, accruals, and other types of activity

2. Aggregated holdings

Having the means to answer the question “How much am I worth?” is powerful, but being able to show the assets that make up your client’s net worth can have an even greater appeal.

A standard family office client portal should allow your end-clients to view individual holdings. An elite family office client portal should allow your end-clients to consolidate, group, filter, and categorize their holdings in ways that are meaningful to their understanding.

We recommend looking for family office portal technology that can:

• Aggregate holdings data across all types of assets such as equities, bonds, cash, real estate, personal assets, and alternative investments like private equity, hedge funds, and cryptocurrency
• Assess changes in market values over time
• Maintain user-defined asset categories or groupings

3. Investment performance

Being able to analyze investment performance falls into family office reporting 101—and serves as a key capability of any financial reporting tool. But to really hit the mark, a family office client portal should feature the ability to attribute performance to factors like asset type, portfolio manager, strategy, or region.

We recommend looking for family office portal technology that can:

• Render performance data in both graphic and tabular formats
• Compare performance against benchmarks
• Measure performance over time, across multiple periods
• Use multiple performance calculations such as time-weighted and money-weighted returns

4. Cash balances

Understanding how much cash is available at any point in time is vital to a client’s financial health, particularly amongst individuals that have high transaction volumes or large purchase amounts.

Even for clients whose bills are paid by family office staff or an outsourced bill payment service, it’s always helpful to know how much money is available for day-to-day expenses.

We recommend looking for family office portal technology that can:

• Pull in daily cash activity from banks, custodians, and brokerage firms
• Provide on-demand cash balances as of a point in time
• Display cash flows and changes in cash balances over time

5. Expense and spending detail

Speaking of expenses, it can be easy for a family office or HNW advisor to focus their client portal search on tools that primarily show investment-related detail. But there can be tremendous value in being able to share accounting and investment data within a single portal.

By selecting a tool that can summarize expenses, identify spending habits, and even compare outflow detail against budgets and cash inflows, end-clients are able to be more in control of their recurring cash flow.

We recommend looking for family office portal technology that can:

• Categorize expenses based on user-defined expense categories
• Display summary-level expense data as well as underlying detail such as vendors, payment terms, and invoices

Beyond financial analytics and insights, we recommend assessing for other features as well, including things like bill payment approval functionality, document management, and customizable reporting dashboards.

To find tips, tricks, and best practices for adopting a client portal in your family office, check out Best Practices to Transition Your Family Office into the Age of Digital Reporting.

A family office client portal featuring valuable financial insights can introduce a new approach to traditional family office reporting.

Better yet, when offered as an interactive, user-controlled reporting experience, family offices can engage end-clients in ways that far surpass anything paper reports provide to create contemporary, meaningful connections with current and future wealth owners.

But if you’re still debating the merits of a client portal for your family office, start by checking out the Archway Client Portal’s flexible reporting dashboards, comprehensive financial insights, and easy-to-use tools. Operating as a seamless extension of the Archway Platform, our client portal can serve as the link you need between your family office staff and the family members they serve.

Looking Beyond Functionality as You Evaluate Family Office Technology Providers

Around the holidays, lists of all kinds are plentiful. From gift ideas and holiday menus to New Year’s resolutions, it seems as though everyone is creating a list of some sort. And while these examples apply more to our personal lives than our professional careers, we can say nearly the same thing about businesses.

As we approach the end of this year and work through how we plan to execute our strategy in the coming year, nearly all of us are making our lists—and checking them twice.

For family offices and financial institutions that have set their sights on evaluating family office software and service solutions in the New Year, one of the most important lists they’ll make is their family office solution wish list.

More times than not, your list of family office solution requirements begins with the obvious: the features and functionality you hope to gain with a new solution.

But we also believe it’s important to weigh other—sometimes more intrinsic—benefits of your future long-term strategic partner.

Here are five additional ideas to add to your family office solution wish list:

1. An experienced family office solution provider that continues to innovate and grow

Whether you’re expanding your administration to include new households or family members, adjusting your investment strategy or adopting new allocation structures, your family office is constantly evolving. Your family office solution provider should too.

We recommend keeping innovation and growth near the top of your wish list to help you find a family office technology and service provider that has a clear strategic vision, a defined product roadmap and a track record of growing their family office community.

2. A trusted, reputable organization that understands the nuances of family offices and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) wealth

Family offices and advisors to UHNW individuals and families face a unique set of challenges when it comes to the accounting, investment data aggregation and reporting operations required to manage complex wealth. By checking this box on your wish list, you’ll feel more confident that your family office solution provider specializes in and understands these specific requirements and can offer flexible, purpose-built technology and outsourced services that simplify these complexities.

3. A reliable, time-tested client service approach

Client service is more than product support. This wish list item can help you discern which family office solution providers truly create a thoughtful and rich educational experience for their clients. Keep an eye out for things like user conferences, training events, comprehensive product documentation and self-service support portals, so that you and your team can extract the full value out of the solution.

4. A family office solution provider that offers flexible technology models

At Archway Family Office Services, the Archway Platform℠ was originally marketed and sold as software-as-a-service (SaaS), meaning family offices used the software in-house. But for some family offices, a technology strategy may not mean they have a desire to run a technology platform themselves. Instead, their wish list includes finding an outsourced service provider that can perform the work while offering a technology-driven reporting experience for their staff and their end-clients.

It can be incredibly beneficial to find a family office solution provider that can do both.

5. A wealthtech system that can integrate with your broader family office technology ecosystem

Technology is not a one-size-fits-all approach and where a single system may suffice for one family office, another family office may require multiple systems that integrate together to accomplish their goals. Adding this to your wish list will help you select a solution provider that can coexist in your family office ecosystem alongside other systems and tools in a seamless, interconnected fashion.

Whether you’re prepped to launch a technology evaluation or simply planning to evaluate your existing wealthtech strategy in the coming year, Archway Family Office Services has a breadth of experience, connections and insights to help you throughout the process.

Schedule a call with a member of our team to let us help you think through your technology strategy and discover how Archway Family Office Services can create a centralized hub for your accounting, investment and reporting operations.

Understanding the Pros and Cons of In-House Technology, Outsourced Services, or Hybrid Models

Today’s family offices have more options than ever when it comes to selecting a technology solution. From integrated wealth management technology that comprehensively handles accounting, investment data aggregation and client reporting to best of breed family office tools that provide specialized, hyper-focused capabilities, private wealth management organizations are inundated with choices.

Now, we have all heard that your technology is only as good as the data going into it, but we seldom talk about how the data is being entered, managed and reported on in the first place.

So before you choose a technology solution, it’s important to consider your overarching technology strategy. It’s worth noting that your technology strategy will cover a variety of requirements, like technology infrastructure, capabilities and reporting expectations.

But another important consideration to keep in mind is your resourcing capacity. Specifically, do you plan to run the technology internally or partner with a third-party organization to run the technology on your behalf?

To help you choose the right technology model for your family office, we’ve put together a brief description of these models alongside some thoughts on what makes them great and what makes them challenging.

In-House Family Office Technology

A far cry from on premise servers, local hard drive installations and CD-ROMs, today’s in-house technology is typically web-based software applications that are run by the family office staff. This model requires family offices to have sufficient staffing—and sufficient staffing capacity—to effectively use the software.

Pros:

• Provides greater flexibility in dictating how the data is managed

Since you and your team will be responsible for validating and reconciling the financial data piped into the technology, as well as the ultimate reporting output, in-house technology offers maximum flexibility in how the data is managed and conveyed to your end-clients.

• Gives family offices the ability to create a custom technology ecosystem

Many family offices choose to bolt multiple tools together. For instance, some family offices elect to take an integrated solution like the Archway Platform and leverage APIs to funnel data into their own data warehouse or other complementary systems like alternative investment data extraction technology, tax preparation tools and trust administration software.

Cons:

• Requires dedicated family office staff to run the technology

While some family office software solutions can easily be managed by an individual or a small group of individuals, more sophisticated technology stacks comprised of multiple systems may require additional volume and expertise.

Helpful Tip: While you can’t magically conjure more staff, you can help mitigate this drawback by thoroughly evaluating your technology strategy from the start so that you understand capacity limitations and resource availability within your family office to avoid overextending your team. Additionally, be sure to review your technology vendor’s product documentation to ensure that your team will have access to the right educational and training materials as they begin leveraging the platform more fully.

Family Office Accounting

Although more commonly seen amongst private banks aiming to enhance their HNW client service quality and establish greater scalability across their solutions, outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular amongst single family offices.

In this model, family offices partner with teams of highly-specialized accounting, investment and operations professionals to provide a full suite of family office administration services like portfolio reconciliation, bill payment, partnership accounting and client investment reporting.

Pros:

• Creates scalability and extensibility in your offering

It’s a bit of a misnomer that outsourcing is purely a means of replacing headcount. The reality is, single family offices choose to partner with trusted outsourced service providers so that they can focus on things like estate planning, investment strategies and financial literacy amongst the family members, while their outsourcing partner performs monotonous, data-focused tasks.

Additionally, as rising generations become more active in the family’s wealth story, family offices can quickly expand their services to include additional family members and households with little to no disruption amongst their internal staff.

• Provides business continuity in the event of unexpected conditions

Propelled by the winds of a global pandemic and the resulting disruption it caused to routine business processes, family offices are looking to outsourced service providers to help them uphold business-as-usual. Whether your family office faces employee departure, natural disaster or another scenario that puts your operations in limbo, an outsourced service partner can be a constant source of stability amid changing circumstances.

Cons:

• Makes changes to processes and reporting a bit more difficult

While any outsourced service provider worth its salt offers transparency into how they deliver their services, business process outsourcing (BPO) providers are successful because they create predictable, streamlined processes. After all, it’s how they maintain accuracy and efficiency in their service.

What may seem like a simple alteration in a procedure or a minor adjustment to your end-client reporting may actually turn out to be a material change to the original Service Level Agreement (SLA), which can subsequently introduce lengthy timelines and challenging change orders.

Helpful Tip: To ensure maximum satisfaction, be sure to carefully discuss SLAs with your outsourced service partner during your due diligence and re-contracting periods to ensure both sides are appropriately setting expectations that will meet—and hopefully exceed—your internal and end-client requirements.

Technology + Outsourcing Hybrid for Family Offices

Finally, a scenario where you can indeed have your cake and eat it too. For many family offices, technology is core to their operations. At Archway Family Office Services, we see hundreds of family offices whose accountants, A/P managers, investment professionals and reporting analysts rely on our technology to perform their daily objectives. We also see family offices that need an elevated level of support to make sure that their daily objectives can be met, both on an intermittent and permanent basis.

In the instance of the latter, this model allows the family office to perform a selected set of operations, while leveraging an outsourced service partner, like the Archway Family Office Services team, to perform other tasks.

Pros:

• Offers a wide variety of technology and service combinations

The hybrid model comes in all shapes and sizes, allowing family offices to create an ideal cocktail of in-house technology utilization and outsourced services. For example, if accounting is an area of inefficiency, family offices can choose to perform the bookkeeping for a subset of entities, while offloading the accounting work for more complex entities, like multi-owner family limited partnerships, private funds and other pooled investment vehicles. Or maybe accounting isn’t the issue at all.

Perhaps the volume of work needed to reconcile accounts or prepare client reports is beyond the family office staff’s capacity. Either way, a hybrid approach lets family offices take the most strenuous, time-consuming or just plain mundane tasks and hand them off to a team of capable, trustworthy subject matter experts.

• Provides a stopgap during short-term absences or times of transition

Hybrid approaches don’t have to be forever. In fact, many family offices employ these types of relationships on an as-needed basis. Should your family office find itself in a period of flux, whether it be due to parental leave, retirement or the pending appointment of a new staff member, the right outsourced service provider can quickly step in to fill the void.

This becomes even more prolific if your primary technology provider also offers outsourced services, as the delivery teams are already well-versed in the technology and likely have insight into your ongoing operations.

Cons:

• Requires flexible technology and a nimble set of operations

While some solutions are more intuitive than others, all technology is nuanced. For instance, if your technology provider charges per user, you may find it cost-prohibitive to grant access to additional third-party service providers. Similarly, if the technology solution is not equipped with APIs or data extract tools, you may find it unmanageable to share data between your platform and your service provider’s platform. And technology isn’t the only hitch.

If your operations require technology workarounds, are overly complex or lack documentation, you may find it challenging to bring outsiders up-to-speed, rendering your process transition ineffective.

Helpful Tip: When selecting a technology vendor, be sure to vet out their ability to provide supplementary services. If they are unable to offer outsourcing alternatives, request recommendations for endorsed outsourcing partners or industry consultants that have knowledge of the solution and can be relied upon to perform service contracts should the need arise.

Choosing the right technology model for your family office is key to building efficiency and enhancing the way you and your clients interact with their financial data. Whether you’re exploring family office solutions for the first time, or simply trying to understand what’s new in the market, take some time to evaluate your family office technology strategy to make sure you understand which approach will satisfy your internal staff and end-client needs in a manageable, sustainable fashion.

Originally authored by Archway for publication on Family Office Exchange.

How 3 Family Offices Are Using Different Technology Models to Operate the Archway Platform℠

Selecting a family office software solution can be an exciting opportunity. Manual processes can be completed with the click of a button and routine workflows can be streamlined and buttoned up.

With the prospect of more automation, greater efficiency and new capabilities on the horizon, it can be easy to overlook one of the most important questions: how will you manage the technology?

For family offices with dedicated resources that are prepared to manage the technology implementation and run the software in-house, the answer is easy.

But for family offices with staffing constraints or capacity limitations, failing to address this critical resourcing question can kneecap an entire technology investment.

Despite its importance, many family offices and financial institutions serving high-net-worth individuals aren’t even aware of which technology models are available—or which is right for their organization.

To help private wealth management firms understand how to choose the right technology model, Archway Family Office Services authored a guest blog for Family Office Exchange that defines and compares three primary family office technology models: in-house, outsourced or hybrid.

Here, we’ll provide three corresponding examples of how those technology models are actively being used by Archway’s family office clients to operate the Archway Platform.

In-House Family Office Technology

What You Need to Know:

After spending more than 18 years juggling two separate accounting systems and a troubling number of spreadsheets, a $1B+ single family office invested in the Archway Platform to better manage its accounting operations, aggregate assets and produce consolidated financial reporting for more than a dozen individual family members across the family’s 2nd and 3rd generations.

How is the 10-person family office staff using the Archway Platform?

Family Office Entity Consolidation: The family office uses a custom, multi-currency Chart of Accounts to perform bookkeeping for approximately 150 entities including individuals, trusts, foundations, LLCs and limited partnerships.

Brokerage and Bank Account Data Aggregation: The family office leverages automated data feeds with nearly 20 financial institutions to aggregate 250+ brokerage accounts and 100+ bank accounts.

Bill Payment and Vendor Management: Using custom check stock, the family office cuts an average of 60 checks per month across 500+ vendors.

Partnership Accounting: The Archway Platform’s sophisticated partnership accounting tools help the family office manage and report on several highly complex, multi-owner pooled investment structures.

Management and Client Reporting: Prior to beginning their implementation of the Archway Platform, the family office had a largely disjointed, inconsistent reporting process. Using the platform’s automated tools, the family office can now streamline their reporting operations to produce financial statements and gather deeper insights into the family’s financial picture including asset allocation, exposure, holdings, performance and net worth reporting.

Outsourced Family Office Services

What You Need to Know:

With a desire to minimize overhead expenses, reduce internal headcount and run a lean financial management operation, a single family office representing three households, and three generations, partners with Archway Family Office Services to administer the books and records for all of the family’s legal entities, which span 20+ individuals, trusts and partnerships, as well as a foundation.

What operations is Archway Family Office Services performing for the family office?

Portfolio Aggregation and Reconciliation: Archway’s accounting administration team consolidates and reconciles investment activity and transactions across 80 unique brokerage and custodial accounts including 125+ alternative and personal asset valuations.

Financial and Client Reporting: Archway Family Office Services prepares standard financial reports for the family office including balance sheets, income statements, cash flow forecasts and partnership-level reporting, as well as quarterly client reports which are delivered to family members online via the Archway Client Portal.

Performance Reporting: Archway Family Office Services provides quarterly NAV calculations and investment performance reporting for each individual family member.

Capital Movements: Due to the unique investment structure of the family office, Archway Family Office Services processes a significant amount of investor capital activity including commitments, calls and distributions into and out of the family’s limited partnership.

Cash and Expense Tracking: Archway Family Office Services works on behalf of the family office to facilitate cash movements to support charitable giving, as well as perform expense calculations and accruals.

Document Management: Using the Archway Platform, Archway Family Office Services stores and organizes financial documents for family office staff and family members to access and view.

Technology + Outsourcing Hybrid for Family Offices

What You Need to Know:

In the wake of unexpected staff turnover, a single family office that originally formed in the early 2010s partners with Archway Family Office Services to assist them with routine accounting administration functions for four of the family’s investment partnership entities, while their in-house staff continues to use the Archway Platform to manage 60+ additional entities.

What operations is Archway Family Office Services performing for the family office?

Complex Partnership Administration: Archway Family Office Services provides comprehensive oversight of the family’s complex investment partnerships, which are owned by underlying investor entities and contain a substantial number of side pockets.

Transaction Processing and Reconciliation: The Archway Family Office Services team processes transactions and completes portfolio- and fund-level reconciliations.

Software Management: The service team maintains and updates accounting records within the Archway Platform including adding new accounts, portfolios and securities for the investment entities.

Alternative Investment Tracking: Archway Family Office Services collects data, organizes documents and inputs alternative investment activity into the Archway Platform including calls, distributions, subscriptions, redemptions and valuations.

Monthly Financial Statements: Archway completes quarterly accounting period closes and conducts preparatory reviews ahead of producing financial statements including balance sheets, income statements, period balances, portfolio profit comparisons, open position summaries and private equity analysis.

How is the family office client using the Archway Platform?

Investor Entity Administration: The family office manages and maintains all family-level investor entities that feed into the investment partnership entities managed by Archway Family Office Services.

Cash Management: The family office’s accounting team executes all cash movements between bank accounts, including to/from family members and to/from investment entities.

Budgeting and Cash Flow Management: The family office maintains family and household budgets to manage expenses, monitor spending and measure cash flows against total assets.

Family Member Reporting: The family office staff prepares, produces and delivers quarterly reporting to family members including net worth, asset allocation history and comparison, performance against benchmarks and traditional financial statements.

At Archway Family Office Services, we understand that technology is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor and we’re prepared to help you think through important questions like:

• Which technology model is right for my family office?
• Who will be responsible for running the technology platform?
• Should I outsource some or all of my family office functions?

Schedule a call with the Archway Family Office Services team to discuss the Archway Platform’s accounting, investment data aggregation and reporting capabilities, and determine whether your family office should run the platform in-house, partner with our team of accounting and operations professionals to do the work for you or some combination of both.

DISCLAIMER: These case studies describe the attributes of a specific Archway Family Office Services client based on objective criteria, including organizational goals, product offering and asset size. Discussion of results is intended to help clients understand Archway’s customized approach and capabilities and should not be regarded as representative of the experience of other clients nor indicative of future results.

Why Financial Institutions & Family Offices Are Adopting Outsourced Accounting & Investment Reporting Solutions to Serve Their High-Net-Worth Clients

In some corners of the private wealth management world, the word outsourcing, sometimes referred to as business process outsourcing (BPO), has become taboo. Oftentimes considered synonymous with offshoring, outsourcing has erroneously been painted as cheap work performed by unskilled labor.

But it only takes a bit of due diligence to find that these negative connotations are often an inaccurate portrayal of the true value of an outsourced service offering.

To that end, like other outsourced service providers to family offices and financial institutions, the Archway Family Office Services team is frequently faced with questions about our people, our processes and our technology—and, ultimately, why outsourcing may be the right solution.

To help answer this question, here are 10 reasons private wealth managers are leaning into outsourced services.

1. They can enhance your service quality

Enhanced service quality tops the list and it’s quite a simple notion.

Instead of spending time normalizing data, performing consolidations, paying bills or preparing and reviewing report packages, private wealth managers can do the thing they’re passionate about doing: serving their clients and delivering results that build client wealth.

2. They enable you to grow, quickly

A new advisor joins your firm and brings a dozen new clients with him. Is your team prepared to absorb the account aggregation and report preparation responsibilities that will soon follow?

When you’re in high growth mode, the last thing you want to do is realize your team is not equipped to scale. An outsourced service provider like Archway Family Office Services can help financial institutions and family offices smoothly onboard new clients or households, so that wealth managers can focus on helping their clients achieve their wealth goals.

3. They provide business continuity in the event of disaster or significant change

We’ve learned a lot of tough lessons throughout the pandemic, but one that stands out for businesses is strengthening their ability to overcome disruption.

Whether you’re trying to minimize the effects of a health crisis, employee departures or just a simple power outage, having a dependable outsourced service partner helps ensure that you can continue to meet the demands and expectations of your clients despite forces beyond your control.

4. They offer workforce stability in the face of employee turnover

Key man risk is one of the chief concerns amongst family offices and financial institutions. If an employee departs or a position needs to be eliminated, how do you ensure that your operations don’t falter?

From our vantage point, outsourced service providers should operate as a seamless extension of your internal team. Using operational documentation, thorough communication and repeatable processes, an outsourced service team can quickly take on additional responsibilities in the absence of key personnel.

5. They are built on operational expertise

There’s an old adage that says you can be great at one thing or good at a lot of things. We believe that you should always strive for greatness, which may mean leveraging third-party resources to perform key tasks that sit outside of your expertise or aren’t a valuable use of your time.

By partnering with an experienced BPO team, you have the opportunity to work with subject matter experts and highly-skilled operations professionals that are solely focused on a single function. Examples of commonly outsourced activities include:

• Portfolio reconciliation & consolidated investment reporting
• Personal expense management
• Tax preparation
• Partnership administration
• Legal services
• Trust administration

6. They help you manage risk

In some cases, particularly amongst private banks and other financial institutions, there may be compliance requirements related to particular service offerings that necessitate the need for third-party oversight. This oftentimes translates to creating a business relationship with an outsourced service provider.

Financial institutions and family offices can further manage their risk exposure by establishing service-level agreements (SLAs) with outsourced service providers that help define the who, what and when of service delivery.

7. They allow you to customize your solutions offering

We’ve all watched this scene play out before: you’re courting a new client who presents a unique set of wealth management demands and you need to spin up a new solution offering quickly. It can be an anxiety-inducing situation if you don’t already know what’s out there.

On the other hand, if your financial institution or family office has a pre-established relationship with an outsourced service partner, it’s much easier to explore other available services and expand your relationship on an as-needed basis. Additionally, you can craft tiered service offerings that span the range of your clientele—ensuring you’re delivering the right solutions to the right clients.

8. They provide efficiencies in your back-office

Most outsourced services focus on one of two areas: highly repetitive processes or highly specialized processes. The common thread between these two areas is that they both require a significant amount of time to complete.

By allowing an outsourced service team to absorb click-heavy, recurring operations like portfolio reconciliation, or time-consuming, tedious operations like family office partnership accounting, your staff can focus on doing what they do best and not worry about the monotony of data.

9. They can offer access to purpose-built technology

While some people may envision BPO firms as shops filled with endless rows of desks and people, the reality is that most outsourced service organizations rely on a key tool to help drive efficiency: specialized technology.

At Archway Family Office Services, our BPO teams use our proprietary family office software, the Archway Platform℠, to perform the nuanced operations that exist within family offices and financial institutions serving high-net-worth clients.

Then, using the Archway Client Portal, we can securely deliver the processed and formatted data to family office professionals, advisors and their end-clients in an intuitive, easy-to-use platform. This gives them the opportunity to engage with their financial information in an interactive, tech-forward way that may not exist if the family office was exclusively responsible for designing and developing the end-client reporting experience.

10. They can reduce your firm’s overhead costs

Maintaining technology can be expensive, especially if you are the designer, developer, quality assurer and information systems architect.

An outsourced service partner alleviates the need to maintain the technology—and the servers that run it—which can ultimately reduce your overhead IT costs. As both an experienced technology firm and an award-winning outsourcing provider, we can offer:

• Hosting and server maintenance
• Data backup and disaster recovery
• Ongoing technology enhancements via product upgrades and feature releases
• Software quality assurance
• Data collection and normalization
• System connectivity troubleshooting
• Product documentation and training

We know that outsourcing doesn’t always receive the recognition—and appreciation—it deserves, but the benefits of partnering with an outsourced service provider are demonstrated to be plentiful for private wealth management firms.

Whether you are seeking to ease the burden of client reporting, add new concierge services like client bill payment or offload the complex process of private fund bookkeeping and reporting, Archway Family Office Services is prepared to work and grow alongside your firm.

Check out our full suite of technology and outsourced service solutions for family offices and financial institutions to find out how we can help you better serve your high-net-worth clients.

How Operational Survival Tactics Will Translate In Newly Redefined Work Environments

In the first quarter of 2020, the world saw seismic shifts in the way businesses operated. Employees left their offices, receding into their private residences where the only means of connection was via email, video, phone or online chat.

Without a centralized office, there weren’t any drop-ins or quick sign-offs. Swivel chair processes as we knew them ceased to exist. And, in the thick of it—across geographies, industries and markets—we saw entire operations upended and antiquated workflows grind to a halt.

Much like the rest of the world, many family offices and financial institutions serving wealthy families scrambled to create continuity in the absence of the in-person processes they relied on to serve their clients.

And then we saw something extraordinary.

Wealth management firms became scrappy. Determined to make it to the other side, they mended broken processes with new technology and they invested in teams of people that provided scalability and extensibility in a totally digital world.

Now, as businesses begin to reopen, doors are unlocked and lights begin to flicker back on, the question has become: what will remain? What pieces of remote work will stick as employees find themselves back inside of the physical family office?

Based on our experience working with hundreds of wealth management organizations, here are four pandemic-fueled trends we believe will continue to be front and center for family offices and financial institutions as they balance managing a decentralized staff with providing meaningful client interactions across in-person, remote and hybrid work environments.

Technology Investment

According to Family Office Exchange’s 2021 State of the Ultra-Wealth Business report, an overwhelming percentage of family offices invested in new technology during the pandemic.

Ranging from integrated family office software solutions like the Archway Platform℠ to best of breed and purpose-built solutions like Canoe’s AI-based data extraction technology for alternative assets, family offices are ditching spreadsheets and industry-agnostic data management tools in pursuit of technology designed specifically for private wealth management firms.

Why It Sticks:

We are in the throes of a technological revolution. And while COVID-19 may have throttled the adoption of technology forward amongst wealth managers, we have seen new technology entering into our personal and work peripherals for several years now. Disrupting the status quo and ushering the wealth management industry into a new era of digital engagement, technology is—and has been—changing the way we manage, interact with and exchange wealth information.

As the next generation of wealth owners takes asset control, there will be a greater demand for modernization of all kinds. From tools that facilitate digital touchpoints with wealth managers to technology that offers a better way to track and report on future-facing asset classes like cryptocurrencies, NFTs, SPACs and other types of alternative assets, wealth managers should be prepared for rapid changes in technology expectations amongst younger clients.

At Archway Family Office Services, we believe that family offices and wealth management firms that choose to embrace the abundance of technology at their disposal in pursuit of innovative client experiences will be better able to attract, engage and retain clients moving forward.

Digitization of Routine Processes

It goes without saying that the global COVID-19 pandemic—and the transition from office parks to home offices—exposed critical holes in the operational processes of many family offices and other wealth management firms. Traditionally beset with manual touchpoints and face-to-face interactions, processes like bill payment and client reporting were at risk of failure when social distancing became the norm.

But over the course of roughly 16 months, these organizations were pushed to review their operating procedures. As they identified areas of inefficiency, they were able to utilize new and existing technology solutions to help them remotely complete these historically manual tasks.

Why It Sticks:

Between Q1 2020 and Q2 2021, Archway Family Office Services saw a drastic increase in the number of report packages automatically generated using the Archway Platform’s reporting tools. In June 2021, numbers continued to surge, with over 14,000 unique report sets created in a single month.

Using the platform's tools, clients can virtually collaborate on client reporting by sharing report packages across groups of approved users. The added efficiency of pre-configured, pre-scheduled reporting coupled with the ability to work together regardless of physical location has our clients well positioned to run a largely automated reporting process.

As some employees head back to the office and others continue to work from home, a digitized reporting process helps wealth management organizations effortlessly deliver timely, accurate client reporting.

And reporting isn’t the only process worth automating. Family offices are actively implementing automation when it comes to workflow processes, bill payment approvals, cash movements and financial data collection.

Digital Client Reporting Enablement

Twenty years ago, reporting was a one-dimensional output. Family offices would create basic financial reports using spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations based on hand-consolidated data from accounting files, custodial statements and bank account summaries.

As time went on, technology companies found ways to pipe data between fintech systems, banks, custodians and asset managers. But reporting remained largely unaffected. PDF and Excel-based reports continued to be the predominant reporting mechanism despite the advancement in technology.

Then, COVID-19 hit. For 12+ months, we were asked to stay home. To avoid close contact with our family, friends and neighbors—and our clients. As in-person meetings fell off of calendars, family offices and financial institutions sought out other means of distributing client reports.

So, rather than sitting down at a desk to discuss quarterly or annual report findings, family offices took to digital tools to share financial insights with their clients.

Why It Sticks:

Tools like the Archway Client Portal became high in demand in as wealth management professionals sought out new ways to connect with their clients. While some family offices opted to only leverage the technology’s document sharing capabilities as a short-term holdover until in-person meetings could resume, others elected to share the technology with their clients in full.

With a bit of configuration and a touch of client service wizardry, family members gained on-demand, secure access to a brand new selection of interactive charts, graphs and tables. They were able to customize their portfolio views using self-defined sorting and grouping options.

And directly from their phones and tablets, they were able to dive deeper into their financial insights—from aggregated holdings, expense summaries, cash balances and net worth calculations to performance, risk and model-to-actual reporting.

Much like Pandora’s Box, once a client portal—and all of its bells and whistles—is open, there’s no dialing it back.

Family Office Outsourcing

Over-extended networks. Natural disasters. Power outages. Illness. Turnover.

Financial services firms across the globe have felt the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons have been learned—and continue to be learned—as we navigate our way back to the office. But amidst it all, one recurring theme has emerged: everyone needs a contingency plan.

In the family office world, that plan has been a resounding need for expanded service relationships, specifically through outsourcing. Necessitated by emergency situations, loss of employees pursuing new opportunities and a desire for continuity, family offices and financial institutions are eager to partner with versatile, client-centric firms.

Why It Sticks:

Life happens. And while we all collectively hope to put COVID-19 behind us, there will most certainly be another scenario that will have us dusting off our business continuity plans. Whether it’s the retirement of your family office controller, the departure of an investment reporting analyst or just a jammed MICR printer that puts you on your heels, it’s imperative to have a solution at the ready.

With more than 50 years of experience partnering with wealth management firms, Archway has had the unique opportunity to curate a powerful combination of technology, process and, most importantly, people—all of which is designed to be tailored to your firm’s specific needs so that you can operate under the most stringent circumstances and continue delivering a seamless, dependable client experience.

If you are interested in discussing how our award-winning technology and outsourced services can help you enhance and fortify your family office operations, schedule a call with a member of the Archway Family Office Services team.

Together, we can identify ways that we can help you:

• Upgrade your family office technology stack and enhance the speed and efficiency of your wealth management operations
• Centralize and automate your core accounting, investment data aggregation and reporting processes
• Introduce an engaging client experience using enriched financial insights and tech-forward digital reporting tools
• Reduce the key-man risk by partnering with a trusted team of accounting and operations professionals to perform certain tasks or functions in conjunction with—or on behalf of—your own family office team

A Short Checklist to Help Family Offices Identify Alternative Investment Reporting Inefficiencies

Over the past decade, alternative assets have become a mainstay in the portfolios of high-net-worth (HNW) families. According to the 2020 UBS Global Family Office Report, alternative assets—which include private equity, hedge funds and real estate—make up 35% of family office portfolios.

While these investments represent a significant portion of HNW assets, they’re seldom easy to track and report on as a component of the family’s larger wealth picture. Unlike traditional investments like equities and fixed income, alternatives lack concrete public reporting requirements. As a result, investors are dependent on third-party managers to receive timely, accurate data regarding their investments.

Over time, it seems that this dependency has morphed into complacency, where delayed access to alternative asset data is an expectation and manual transcription of hard-copy documents into digital formats is a given. The reality is that the process of tracking and reporting on alternative investments has remained steadily challenging.

But as new solutions emerge and the integration between family office software platforms grows stronger, the boundaries of efficiency are being redrawn.

Still, it can be difficult to pinpoint inefficiencies within a process that has remained largely unaffected for the past decade—and not for lack of want, but for lack of available solutions.

To help family offices identify inefficient processes and manual tasks ripe for automation, Archway Family Office Services partnered with Canoe Intelligence to put together an evaluation checklist featuring questions focused on five key areas of the alternative investment reporting process.

Five Core Family Office Reporting Operations for Alternative Assets:

• Document collection
• Data access
• Data transfer and delivery
• Report creation
• Report analysis

Post-evaluation, if you’ve found that your family office—like many others—is expending too much time and too many resources manually collecting, normalizing, consolidating and reporting on its alternative assets, it may be time to consider a purpose-built technology solution.

This is where Archway Family Office Services and our friends at Canoe can help.

Using modern, automated tools like Canoe Intelligence and the Archway Platform, family offices can relieve bottlenecks and bridge gaps commonly associated with aggregating and reporting on alternative assets.

Designed to be tightly integrated, Canoe’s automated approach to digitizing printed copies of alternative investment documents helps family office professionals streamline extraction, validation and delivery of alternative asset data into the Archway Platform.

By leveraging the two systems together, users can eliminate manual data entry and automatically incorporate alternative asset data into the Archway Platform’s specialized suite of family office reporting.

Interested in diving into the benefits of Archway’s strategic partnership with Canoe?

Schedule a call with a member of the Archway Family Office Services team to learn more about how the integration between the Archway Platform and Canoe can help your family office streamline its alternative investment reporting process.

A List of Five Client Portal Benefits for Family Offices

From a fintech perspective, a client portal is a digital tool used to present an individual’s total net worth and overall financial position.

More often than not, client portals are accessible as a standalone website or mobile app that provides an on-demand snapshot of an individual’s holdings. Most client portals use a combination of reporting elements like tables, graphs and supplemental documents to present the information in an easy-to-consume fashion.

Depending on the power of the underlying family office software and the completeness of the data, client portals can include simple data points like total account value, asset allocation and account value history, as well as more complex analytics like performance, risk and nested – or multi-layered – ownership values.

Although client portals tend to be more widely embraced by family offices working with Gen X and Millennials given their always-on, at-your-fingertips nature, they can also be beneficial for family offices serving older generations.

This has become increasingly evident given the widespread adoption of remote work environments in 2020, particularly as family offices are seeking to digitize specific processes like bill payment approvals and recurring report delivery.

In this new paradigm where physical distance is being supplemented by digital technologies, client portals are becoming an invaluable asset in the client service toolkit.

So what are the core benefits of using a client portal in your family office? Here’s our shortlist:

1. Customized Client Experience

A well-designed client portal will offer family offices the ability to deliver a personalized client experience for each family member using configurable dashboards, custom data groupings and optional functionality.

2. Frictionless Client Engagement

Allow family members to seamlessly participate in family office operations like bill payment approvals using an intuitive, elegant solution designed specifically with the end-client in mind.

3. Secure Data Sharing

Client portals use encrypted data and multi-level security protocols to reduce the risk associated with sharing highly-sensitive financial information between family office staff and end-clients.

4. Self-Service Access

Clients can access financial reporting and investment insights on-demand without requiring a phone call or email exchange with your family office team.

5. Digital Document Storage

In addition to on-screen reporting, many client portals feature document repositories where you can easily share monthly or quarterly reporting as well as other third-party documents.

In short, client portals help alleviate manual touchpoints and simplify how family offices communicate financial information to their end-clients.

Ready to explore a client portal for your family office? Check out the Archway Client Portal to discover how the Archway Platform and its digital reporting tools can help your family office modernize its financial reporting operations and deliver an engaging, interactive reporting experience to your end-clients.

Learn How an Enhanced Bill Pay Service Can Help You Create a Better Client Experience

Over the years, the term family office has come to represent a variety of organizations. The traditional line of thinking equates to a single family office, where one high-net-worth, often multi-generational, family carries the overhead costs of a dedicated accounting, investment and operations staff.

However, more recently, the term has expanded to include multi-family offices working with unrelated families and high-net-worth divisions of private banks that cater to the needs of wealthy families.

Regardless of how you define a family office, these firms tend to provide a core suite of services that may include investment strategy and measurement, management and client reporting, general bookkeeping, specialized accounting including partnership and trust accounting, tax preparation, and personal expense management.

While any of these services can be outsourced, we commonly see family offices seeking third-party support of one service in particular: personal expense management.

So, what is personal expense management?

Personal expense management traditionally encapsulates bill payment, bank account reconciliation, credit card analysis, vendor management and expense and cash flow reporting.

At this point, you might be wondering what the difference is between personal expense management and more commonly advertised bill payment services?

In general, personal expense management is a more comprehensive set of services that includes enhanced versions of traditional bill payment services alongside white glove concierge services and enriched financial reporting.

Lastly, why do family offices seek to outsource this particular function? For most, it’s a matter of capacity.

Personal expense management is a time-consuming set of operations, especially for family offices serving multiple generations and/or clients. Adding more households increases complexity and, subsequently, the amount of time spent paying bills, reconciling transactions and compiling reports.

Further compounding the situation, some family offices don’t have dedicated accounts payable staff. As a result, the workload is spread across the team or performed by accountants that could be completing more value-added tasks.

To help keep staff focused on nurturing client relationships and growing their business, these firms look to partner with a trusted service organization like Archway Family Office Services, where a dedicated team of operations and accounting professionals are able to absorb the operational intricacies of the family office’s bill payment and expense reporting processes.

But what about your end-clients? How does an outsourced personal expense management service add value for them?

High-Touch Client Service Professionals

Client service is a critical component to any business relationship, especially when your end-clients expect direct access to the individuals delivering the service. When outsourcing bill payment functions to a dedicated personal expense management team, your clients gain access to a group of service professionals operating as a direct extension of your own team.

More importantly, your clients will have the opportunity to interact with individuals who are exclusively focused on the nuances of their expense trends, bill payment requirements and reporting expectations, allowing your own internal teams to concentrate on the strategic, relationship-building discussions and action items.

Turnkey Digital Engagement Tools

Over-the-phone approvals and checks signed by hand are functional, but is there a more efficient alternative? We believe so.

At Archway Family Office Services we’ve built proprietary, cutting-edge technology that automates and digitizes historically manual accounts payable functions. As a result, our personal expense management service includes access to a customizable workflow tool that notifies you and your end-clients when a bill is pending approval, and allows you to quickly and easily submit digital approvals through a secure client portal with the click of a button.

This ultimately translates to a modern, technology-based client experience that doesn’t require technical resources on your end.

Secure, Trusted Operational Processes

As with any type of outsourced service, your third-party partner needs to be dependable and proven. This has become more relevant than ever in the wake of COVID-19 and the remote work environment that followed.

At Archway Family Office Services, we put oversight and security at the forefront of our solutions. Featuring dedicated P.O. boxes, trained staff and a time-tested technology infrastructure, your clients will benefit from decades of bank-grade security assessments, product development and process refinement, taking the onus off of your firm to check these boxes.

Bespoke Cash Flow and Expense Reporting

Most bill payment services can guarantee that your client’s bills will be paid correctly and on time. However, we recommend looking for service organizations that go beyond issuing payments and reconciling transactions—organizations that provide meaningful insights into your client’s bill payment and expense data.

Through our personal expense management service, Archway Family Office Services offers online interactive dashboards and easy-to-access reporting that depicts spending habits, credit card activity, cash flow, payment details and vendor records so that you and your clients have full transparency into the inflows and outflows of their accounts.

Having this level of detail accessible at their fingertips ultimately puts your clients in total control of their spending and empowers you to have well-informed conversations about their complete financial picture.

While outsourcing your firm’s bill payment and expense reporting operations provides a degree of continuity, some firms prefer to manage these processes in-house.

Today, hundreds of family offices, CPA firms and private banks are using family office accounting software solutions like the Archway Platform to deliver a superior personal expense management experience to their clients. Through the platform’s purpose-built tools, users are able to store digital invoices, track bills, reconcile bank accounts, manage workflow, cut checks and deliver comprehensive expense and cash flow reporting.

And for those who are somewhere in the middle, our flexible suite of accounts payable technology and outsourced services enable us to offer a hybrid model that allows clients to manage key functions of the bill payment process while leveraging Archway resources to manage time-consuming, repetitive tasks like collecting invoices and entering bills.

Regardless of your operational preferences, Archway Family Office Services can tailor a personal expense management offering that is unique to your firm, your processes and your clients.

Learn more about our award-winning Personal Expense Management service and how Archway Family Office Services can help you offer a world-class bill payment and cash flow reporting solution to your sophisticated high-net-worth clients.

Why Client Service is a Differentiator among Family Office Software Solutions

When assessing financial technology solutions, it’s easy to focus solely on functionality. After all, a thorough technology evaluation involves several rounds of system-specific questions and detailed technology proofs-of-concept, making it easy for the ongoing service function to drift out of focus.

But when you exclusively assess features and capabilities, you miss the opportunity to evaluate the long-term service component of your relationship with your new fintech partner.

Even if you were to find the ideal family office software solution, if the client service doesn’t match the quality of the technology platform, the long-term viability of the solution becomes murky.

So, ask yourself, when the software is implemented, and you’re off and running on your own, who will support you? Can you rely on them to help you work through complex financial scenarios using the technology? To respond quickly to your important questions? To be knowledgeable on both the software and your unique usage of the system?

To help you avoid a preventable client service mishap down the road, we recommend evaluating the competency and reliability of the client services teams with as much vigor as you use to evaluate the solution’s capabilities.

As a firm that has built an elite client service team to support hundreds of family offices and high-net-worth families, we’ve identified five starter questions to help you navigate the client service evaluation and set the stage for a more detailed assessment.

How is your customer support organization structured?

Your client service team should be able to do more than just reset your password. They should be able to problem solve on the fly and lead you through nuanced scenarios – like entering data or running a report – as well as less common scenarios – like how to perform equity transfers or validate performance calculations using the technology.

The composition and experience of your support team are important factors as you evaluate the client service team.

Is customer support performed in-house or does the technology firm outsource this business function? Will you have a dedicated support staff or will you be funneled into a large-scale call center? What are the client service specialists’ qualifications? Are they accounting and finance professionals? Do they have a background in service operations? Is there a manager or team lead that is responsible for inquiries that require escalation? Are there designated subject matter experts (SMEs) for specific topics or functions within the technology?

Digging into these questions helps you assess the value your technology firm places on client service, and can create an image of how you might interact with the customer service team as a client.

Where are the client service operations located?

Although not necessarily a deal breaker, geographic location can affect the quality of your service. Depending on where your family office is located and where your technology vendor houses its client service operations, you may experience impacts to availability and turnaround time for support cases and client service inquiries due to differences in time zones.

Furthermore, if the client service operations are based offshore, you may need to review your risk compliance policies and perform additional due diligence related to data security to confirm that your data can be accessed from other countries.

What communication channels and tools are available for customer support?

A good client service organization will utilize an omni-channel service model that allows clients to engage with the client service team in multiple ways. In a best case scenario, you should be able to reach a client service representative via phone, email, or online client support portal depending on the urgency of your request.

It’s worth noting that some technology providers use a tiered support system, so it’s important to understand what type of support is available at each level. For example, certain channels like phone or direct email may only be available to customers paying for the top tier of support.

We also recommend asking about the technology provider’s support case system. Is it automated and easy to use? Does it offer templates or pre-defined issues to expedite the ticket submission process? Does the system log your inquiry directly to a client service representative? What happens if your case requires involvement from additional teams like product development? What is the typical turnaround time for requests submitted through the system?

Internally, you should consider the volume of anticipated requests, the size of your organization and the amount of product knowledge your team possesses to help you determine whether or not the available communication channels will be suitable for your family office.

Do you offer ongoing training?

Family office fintech providers regularly introduce new versions of their products and services. Finding a technology firm that offers educational resources, online training courses and live user conferences helps your family office stay in-tune with updates to the solution.

Simply put, ongoing training is core to excellent client service and is crucial for family offices that want to make the most out of their technology investment.

Do you facilitate user groups or peer networks?

Your client service experience isn’t limited to the interactions between you and the technology provider. In fact, there are some questions that can be better answered by those who are in the daily throes of the system: other platform users. A technology firm that recognizes this opportunity and facilitates secure client exchanges clearly has their clients’ success at the top of the list.

By posing questions to other users, you have the benefit of learning from system power users who have likely dealt with similar situations in the past.

These peer-to-peer interactions help you brainstorm creative solutions for complex problems, establish best practices for common family office accounting and reporting scenarios, hear different perspectives on the effects of industry trends and regulations, and develop a sense of community among other family offices – all of which should be equally important factors when selecting a technology vendor.

Interested in learning about Archway’s customer-first approach to client service?

Download our mini ebook Our Commitment to Exceptional Client Service to find out how Archway Family Office Services has devised an approach to customer support that is valued and trusted by hundreds of family offices and financial institutions.

How Digital Bill Pay Tools Can Help You Remotely Manage Bill Approvals, Payments and Expense Reporting for UHNW Families

For many of us in the family office world, we’re no longer sitting in bustling offices or attending in-person boardroom meetings. We can’t request a physical signature on a check or hand our boss a packet of financial statements to review.

It goes without saying that COVID-19 has changed the way we do business and while there’s hope that many things will eventually get back to some version of normal, not everything should. As with any crisis situation, this global pandemic has exposed gaps in how businesses operate – even family offices.

As an award-winning accounting technology provider, one of the most disrupted processes we’ve learned about from our family office clients is their ability to manage the bill payment process.

The sentiment seems to be broadly shared across the family office space.

According to a recent blog published by Family Office Exchange addressing the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on family offices, family offices cited a need to improve their bill payment and document storage technology.

It’s apparent that with paper invoices still being sent to empty offices, verbal approvals still being required to pay bills and signatures still being handwritten on pre-printed check stock, there are multiple points of failure throughout the process. Pandemic aside, the inherent rigidity of manual processes can threaten operational efficiency, but it’s never been more apparent than in the absence of physical interaction.

Why You Should Already Be Using a Digital Bill Payment Tool

Digital tools – like the bill payment functionality embedded in Archway’s family office software, the Archway Platform^SM – can help family offices efficiently manage their operations regardless of physical location.

By leveraging the built-in features within our accounting technology solution, your family office can:

• Reduce the frequency of its manual bill pay processes
• Minimize required in-person contact like verbal or written approvals
• Execute quicker, more secure bill payments
• Produce accurate, timely expense and cash flow reporting

As you evaluate your technology infrastructure, it’s more important than ever to look for technology you can rely on. Technology that eases the duty of physical distance. Technology that modernizes rudimentary processes.

As for digital bill payment tools, we recommend the following considerations:

Automated Workflow

Workflow – or process management – is the series of steps that must be followed in accordance with your internal process mandates. Related to bill payment, this can include invoice review, accounts payable data entry, invoice approval, payment settlement and even expense and cash flow reporting.

Automated workflow tools enable you to implement pre-defined accounting controls that enforce separation of duties and require authorized parties to electronically provide approvals based on your family office’s unique bill pay process.

Client Portal

An interactive client portal enables family members and family office staff to participate in the AP process regardless of their geographic location.

As a result, family principals can remotely access their accounts payable information, approve bills and view expense, cash flow and other financial reporting via their mobile device – whether it be their PC, tablet or smartphone.

Digital Payment Approvals

Digitizing payment approval enables family members and family office staff to automate and execute those actions with no physical interaction.

Going beyond simple “approve” and “deny” functions, end-users of the Archway Platform can pre-approve and set dollar limits for specific vendors – like utility companies or credit card issuers – and set dollar limits to allow the payment process to continue fluidly by automating routine approvals.

Electronic Signatures

Electronic signatures, or e-sigs, are a simple image of a handwritten signature that can be applied to checks, documents or forms upon approval by a designated representative.

When it comes to the bill payment process, creating and securely storing e-signatures allow permissioned system users to apply e-sigs to checks which can be cut and printed directly from the platform. This means that family members don’t need to be physically present in order to sign checks and complete the payment cycle.

Document Management

Known by many names – document manager, document repository, document vault – this tool allows you to securely store and share digital files.

For bill payment, these files may range from vendor invoices and W-9 forms to bank statements, expense reports and other AP documents. Using the document repository, users can share, access and download relevant documents from a single, centralized location.

If you aren’t looking to invest in bill payment technology, but find the bill pay process cumbersome, consider evaluating outsourced bill pay services. At Archway, our financial administration team can assume the responsibilities of bill payment while still allowing approvals and oversight to come from your family office staff and end-clients.

Discover how your family office can leverage the Archway Platform’s accounts payable technology – whether it’s in-house, outsourced or some combination of both – in our Accounts Payable Functionality Overview.

How Family Offices and Financial Institutions Can Use Digital Reporting to Engage the Next Generation of High-Net-Worth Clients

The world of high-net-worth private wealth management is changing rapidly. Over the next 25 years we will see a change of the guard as $68 trillion shift from current wealth owners to heirs and charities according to the 2018 Cerulli report on high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth markets. According to the same report, by the end of the 25 years, Gen Xers will replace Baby Boomers as the wealthiest generation.

With this transition of wealth will come a new wave of expectations that will force many family offices and financial institutions to evaluate how they deliver their private wealth management solutions.

Andrew Fay, Senior Vice President of Fidelity Family Office Services, addressed the importance of finding near-term solutions that bridge the gap between current and future wealth holders.

More than ever, single-family offices and their executives must ensure they are aligned with the evolving needs of the family and staying relevant in an ever-changing world. In our opinion, offices need to consider how to stay one step ahead, accelerate their pace of change and find creative solutions to help the current family and future generations fulfill their ambitions.

– Andrew Fay, Senior Vice President, Fidelity Family Office Services

Whether these solutions tackle how you communicate with your clients or how you manage and report on their assets, family offices and financial institutions will be forced to adapt to the next generation of wealth holders.

Our focus is on the latter: reporting – specifically digital reporting – for high-net-worth clients.

Here are some best practices to help you transition your legacy reports into modern, digital reporting tools.

Get Ahead of the Curve

While the Great Wealth Transfer is certainly underway, it’s important to note that it’s not going to happen overnight. So, for most, the introduction of digital technology is two-fold.

On one hand, digital reporting needs to be available today in order to retain the next generation of wealth holders tomorrow. According to Financial Advisor magazine, between 66% and 90% of next-generation heirs leave behind their parents’ financial advisor soon after receiving their inheritance. By developing a digital strategy ahead of time, you can build relationships with the next generation and avoid finding yourself somewhere behind the eight ball.

On the other hand, you will likely still have a cohort of clients that prefer their financial reporting right where they can feel it: in their hands. Quite frankly, sometimes that’s just the way it is. But with today’s array of reporting tools for family offices and financial institutions, you can more often than not serve both contingencies – the ones that embrace technology and the ones that rebuke it – using a single platform.

For instance, the Archway Platform℠ features an integrated batching and scheduling tool that offers multiple ways to deliver client reporting including:

• Printed, hard-copy reports
• Digital reports shared via email, FTP or document manager
• Interactive dashboard-style reporting delivered via a client portal

With a variety of flexible reporting options, family offices and financial institutions can implement the right solution for each individual client.

Understand Your Client's Digital Intelligence and Build Out

If you find yourself in a position where you’re dealing with both of the aforementioned mentalities, we recommend taking stock of each client's digital intelligence to better understand their relationship with technology. For many, what comes across as an aversion to technology is really just a lack of understanding.

That said, there will always be fear in the unknown. So, start simple and build out.

Leverage Your Client’s Existing Reporting

While some clients – like Gen Xers and Millennials – will happily jump on the digital bandwagon, it’s important to give wary family members and end-clients ample time to become comfortable with the new technology.

If some of your clients seem less than enthusiastic about accessing their financial reports on a tablet, the best thing to do is to mirror their existing reporting experience. While this may seem redundant to a tech-savvy individual, you have to keep in mind that not all generations inherently understand – or trust – technology. So, when you begin to introduce the digital reporting tool, be sure to do so with a hard copy of their reports on hand.

If the client shows signs of skepticism or seems disinterested, use the paper reports to tether the data to a familiar source.

By creating a parallel between the client’s existing report package and the digital reporting available via the client portal, you reduce the risk of overwhelming your client and potentially turning them off from the digital reporting tool.

Start with the Basics

One way to do this is to grant limited access off the start. At a high level, you'll want to mimic the existing level of reporting detail to maintain consistency across the two reporting mediums.

For example, many digital reporting tools allow users to drill through summary-level data groupings to access the underlying details. Be sure to ask yourself, does the client's current reporting provide security-level or transaction-level detail? If the answer is no, make an effort to restrict the amount of detail that can be accessed inside of the client portal to avoid confusion.

When it comes to our platform, we typically recommend that family offices and financial institutions give their high-net-worth clients access to a subset of the available reporting tabs within the Archway Platform's client portal. We like to start with the Financial Overview Dashboard and the Document Manager tabs.

Financial Overview Dashboard. This screen provides clear visualizations of your client’s investment data in a comfortable, easy-to-consume format. Featuring dynamic charts, graphs and tables, this screen can be configured to show basic holdings and entity ownership or more sophisticated analytics like target-to-actual asset allocation and top performing investments.

Document Manager. This screen simply allows clients to download traditional PDF report packages that have been put together by their financial advisor or a member of their family office. In most cases, these report packages are the exact same reports that historically would have been printed, instead of provided digitally.

Since this feature represents nothing more than a new way of delivering your client’s reports and third-party documents, it’s easy to portray the client portal as a seamless extension of the existing reporting construct.

As your clients become more comfortable with the platform, you can begin granting access to other features upon request. By acknowledging that some clients may be less willing to adopt new technology, you can create a personalized transition plan to ultimately deliver a compelling reporting experience.

Become a Technology Advocate

Technology can be challenging for everyone, but that doesn’t mean learning new technology platforms should be made less of a priority. In fact, we often see that the family offices and financial institutions that fail to embrace client training largely undermine their technology investment.

If you’re well-versed in the platform and regularly position it as a solution to your clients’ problems, buy-in becomes organic. Here are a few scenarios where you can promote technology for the win through subtle client training:

On Available Cash

Client: I need to know how much cash is sitting in my accounts. We may need to liquidate some investments, I’m not sure yet. I have a meeting with a fund manager tomorrow afternoon, so I need an answer before then.

You: I can do you one better. Remember the Archway Client Portal we implemented? Let’s log into it and I’ll show you where to find that information right now.

On Reporting Customization

Client: I’m thinking about diversifying abroad through some foreign mutual funds. Where do we stand right now on our global allocation?

You: Let’s go through it in the client portal. All of your investments are tied to a security class called Region and you can toggle between the other security classes we set up like Asset Class and Sector. What percentage of assets were you thinking of allocating to foreign markets? We can create an asset allocation model so that you can compare your target to actual allocation from the portal’s dashboard as time goes on.

On Last Month’s Reports

Client: I met with my old business partner and he was asking if I’d invested in any interesting deals lately. Can you send me recent performance for all of my venture capital deals?

You: Sure. I’ll put together a report showing VC fund performance and drop it out in the portal’s Document Manager with some commentary on the investments. You’ll get a notification on your phone when it’s ready.

On Approving Bills

Client: I’m traveling to London for a few weeks and I don’t want to get behind on any of the expenses for the SoHo remodel. You’ll need my signature on the checks. What should we do?

You: Not a problem. As the invoices come in, we can set up notifications to go to you when I add new bills to the portal. Just log in on your phone, review the documents and approve them electronically. Alternatively, you can set up pre-approvals for the vendors working on the SoHo apartment so that we can auto-pay those expenses while you're out of the country.

On Data Security

Client: Why does Archway make me enter my password and a special code? This seems like a lot of work.

You: The special code is called multi-factor authentication and it’s there to protect your information. That feature is optional, so we can turn it off if you’d like but I would recommend keeping it in place to prevent your account from being compromised.

While not every issue can be solved by on-demand reporting and client portal technology, digital tools certainly lend themselves in your favor when it comes to being a reliable, timely resource for your affluent clients. As the transfer of wealth continues, make sure that your family office or financial institution is taking the necessary steps to remain relevant in the age of digital reporting.

Find out how Archway Family Office Services can help redefine the way your next generation of end-clients access and analyze their financial information using the Archway Platform's mobile client portal.

How Family Offices Can Get the Most Out of Their Technology Solution

You know how to prepare your family office for a technology implementation project, but do you know what comes after your organization is up and running on the new system?

For many family offices, successfully implementing a financial technology solution is a welcome boost to their operational efficiency.

Saddled with modern, integrated tools and automated processes, family office teams can be more productive and more accurate. But while financial technology is an incredible tool, it’s only as good as your ongoing commitment to maintain the solution.

In other words, it’s simply not enough to implement a fintech platform for your family office.

To help you get the most out of your technology platform, we’ve come up with three tips to help you maximize your financial technology investment.

Embrace Change

To some degree, implementing a new technology solution means having to relearn how to do your job on a new system. And while no one likes a drastic learning curve, the benefits of modern family office technology generally outweigh the inconvenience of learning how to use the new tools.

Case in point, when it comes to reporting, family office financial technology can benefit both your internal accounting and investment teams as well as your end-clients. That said, we acknowledge that nearly every family office has its own version of reporting and it can be easy to get hung up on legacy reports. But when you’re transitioning to a new reporting tool, particularly if the old reporting tool was Excel, formatting and layouts are bound to change.

To soften this transition, we encourage our clients to take a step back and consider the data: do the new reports tell the same story as the old reports?

Most of the time, the answer is yes. But we also acknowledge how difficult it can be to abandon that old workbook in Excel. Now this is where the embrace change part comes in. New technology offers you a blank canvas and while you can spend your time repainting the same picture, you can also put that time-consuming, medley of Excel-based charts and graphs to rest and introduce a new package of clear, concise reports.

To help ease the shift from old to new, we recommend making time to sit down with both your internal staff and the family members you work with to discuss the benefits of the new reporting tool, address any concerns and introduce the new reporting. By establishing value early on, you can expect greater buy-in and a quicker adoption of the new technology.

Never Stop Learning

As a part of our implementation process, we like to ask our new clients to create a list of roles and responsibilities.

Who will be using the system? What functions do they need to perform inside of the platform? What types of reports do they need to generate?

This information helps us train our clients on the functionality that is pertinent to their role. But one of the most common mistakes we see in the technology space is abandonment. Once the technology solution is implemented and the users know how to perform their job functions inside of the system, they settle into their routines and they plateau.

We tend to see this manifest in two ways: failure to stay up-to-date on the system’s capabilities and reluctance to address small issues that require manual fixes or workarounds.

Let’s start with the workarounds. An example might be a bank fee that comes in automatically every month that gets posted to the wrong account. Instead of manually fixing the entry each month, most technology providers would rather you reach out to the support team to help you fix the issue once and for all.

Put it this way, if you spend two minutes per day manually correcting the issue this means that over the course of the year you’re spending an entire workday using a workaround.

2 minutes per day = 10 minutes per week

10 minutes per week x 52 weeks = 520 minutes

520 minutes / 60 minutes per hour = ~8.5 hours per year spent on a workaround

Whether you spend an hour reverting the books to fix a bad entry or dedicate an hour to learning a new tool that allows you to achieve the same result more quickly, you ultimately save yourself 7.5 hours that can be put towards a better use of your time.

That said, you may never know new tools exist if you don’t stay informed.

Ongoing product education is key to maximizing your technology investment, but it’s on you and your teammates to take full advantage of the education opportunities your technology provider offers. Read release notes and product documentation, attend user conferences and networking events and, by all means, ask for training when it’s needed. These educational resources are designed to help you succeed, which at the end of the day is the number one priority of any fintech firm worth its salt.

Leverage Supplemental Tools

It’s the job of a salesperson to sell you a solution that goes beyond satisfying your basic requirements, so when you first begin implementing a new fintech platform, it can be easy to get ahead of yourself. It’s only natural to want to test drive your shiny new toy, but it’s incredibly important to establish a solid foundation before you begin tinkering with the bells and whistles.

Start simple with the core tools. Using the Archway Platform℠ as an example, this includes defining your chart of accounts, learning how to use the investment and bank account information delivered via automated data feeds and establishing your reporting output. This may also include more specific types of functions like cutting checks or tracking intercompany loans, depending on the scope of your initial requirements.

Once you’ve become comfortable with the essential tools of the system, you can consider some of the nice-to-have features that you were originally sold on. Examples of supplemental tools to consider include:

• Asset modeling tools that define investment allocation models and allow you to produce target-to-actual reporting
• Automated fee billing capabilities that automatically calculate and bill client fees based on a variety of asset-based fee calculation methods
• Budgeting tools that allow you to create multiple budgets that can be used for budget-to-actual comparison
• Client portal technology that provides an interactive, mobile reporting dashboard for family members and end-clients
• Reconciliation screens that enable you to compare position-level and account-level activity within the system against an external data source to ensure data accuracy
• Report batching and scheduling functionality that allows you to save report configurations and establish recurring report schedules

In addition to supplemental tools, some technology firms also offer ad hoc services that can be leveraged to help your team be more efficient. If you find that your organization is spending an inordinate amount of time reconciling data, paying bills or processing partnership allocations, it may be worth considering whether business process outsourcing could be a good fit for your team.

In our case, Archway Family Office Services offers a variety of outsourced services that our clients can use on a standalone basis or in conjunction with their in-house operations teams.

What’s Next?

Regardless of what technology solution you choose to implement, remembering these tips can help you and your team get the most out of your new fintech platform and ensure that your investment doesn’t go to waste.

Haven’t made a decision yet?

Get in front of your technology investment by understanding the full suite of technology and service solutions offered by Archway Family Office Services.

Why Family Offices and Financial Institutions are Partnering with Outsourced Bill Pay Providers

For a high-net-worth family, managing expenses is not always black and white. In many cases, families pay taxes on an array of domestic and international properties. They use local contractors and vendors to maintain these homes and they engage various accountants, attorneys, financial advisors and administrative staff to support them – all of which requires a sophisticated expense management process to track and pay for these complex expenses.

For financial institutions tasked with handling these activities on behalf of high-net-worth families and individuals, the process can be even more complex, the list of merchants can be exceedingly long and the amount of transactions can be overwhelming.

As a result, these institutions are looking to outsource parts – if not the entirety – of the bill payment process.

Why Outsource Bill Payment?

Outsourced bill pay providers typically offer a variety of bespoke products and services that oftentimes don’t exist inside of financial institutions today.

Ranging from invoice collection and electronic document storage to high-tech accounting software, mobile client portals and comprehensive expense reporting, these products and services allow private banks to enhance their suite of concierge services and deliver a bill payment offering that helps their clients better manage their expenses. Here are five ways outsourced bill pay providers add value to your HNW service offering.

#1 - Streamlined Automation

To facilitate the bill payment process, many outsourced bill pay providers leverage sophisticated technology specifically designed for wealthy families. The most sophisticated providers are able to offer electronic payment approvals, automated payment initiation and on-demand mobile expense reporting. This degree of automation eliminates the need to seek verbal or written approvals from your clients resulting in a quicker, more secure bill payment process.

#2 - Broadened Accessibility

Through advanced client portal technology, advisors and their clients can securely access their electronic accounts payable information and documents anytime, anywhere. Acting as a central repository for their aggregated bill payment details and important billing documents, end-clients gain a quicker view of their consolidated spending behavior.

#3 - Extended Scalability

Reputable outsourced bill payment providers employ teams of highly-trained accounting professionals. Ideally, wealth advisors get access to a dedicated team of subject matter experts that operate as a seamless extension of your organization. By allowing a team of industry professionals to manage the end-to-end bill payment process for you, you can put time back in your day to focus on your clients.

#4 - Improved Consolidation

Trying to manage and track all of your client’s expenses across bank and credit card accounts can be difficult. Through purpose-built tools and electronic data feeds, outsourced bill providers not only collect expense and payment information from an array of sources, but they aggregate and reconcile the expense activity to ultimately deliver clear, insightful reporting.

#5 - Enhanced Analysis and Reporting

Given the inherently complex expenses of wealthy families, it’s important to stay in tune with the frequency and magnitude of your client’s spending. After all, preserving their wealth is one of your primary responsibilities. Outsourced bill pay providers maintain a sole focus on measuring and reporting on cash inflows and outflows, which ultimately gives you the tools to perform sophisticated cash analysis and gain insight into your end-client’s spending behavior.

Outsourcing bill payment gives financial institutions the opportunity to differentiate their service offering to their HNW clients through purpose-built technology and a dedicated team of accounting professionals. More importantly, it helps financial advisors deliver clear, meaningful insight into their client’s spending behaviors and provide better cash management advice.

Are you ready to build a customized bill payment solution with an experienced service provider?

Find out how our outsourced bill pay service can help you and your financial institution streamline your bill payment process so that you can refocus efforts on what really matters: servicing your clients.