Accounting for family offices and investment groups.
Multi-entity structures, partner capital, capital calls, and land holdings, maintained by one accountant who knows every entity in the chart and signs a confidentiality agreement before seeing a single number.
Two mistakes, made early, that cost the most to undo.
Family offices rarely fail on the complicated matters. They lose money on two ordinary ones, usually set in motion in the first year and discovered several years later.
Funds are commingled early
One account pays for three entities. A personal card covers an entity expense. A distribution is taken but never recorded as one. None of it appears to be a problem at the time.
It becomes one later. Commingling erodes the liability separation the structure was built to provide, makes basis difficult to substantiate, and turns a routine diligence request into a forensic exercise. Untangling three years of it costs considerably more than maintaining it properly would have.
The structure is not earning its tax advantages
The entities exist. The elections were made. The bookkeeping underneath, however, does not track what makes the structure worth having: basis by partner, allocations that follow the operating agreement, expenses recorded at the entity that should bear them.
The advantage exists on paper and nowhere else. Your CPA can only optimize what the records actually show. When the detail is absent, the return is prepared conservatively and the benefit goes unclaimed.
We have worked inside the structures you are actually using.
Not a single general ledger with a few additional classes. Genuinely separate entities, each with its own books, rolling into a parent view that reconciles.
Single-member LLCs under a holding company
Each entity maintained separately, consolidated at the parent with intercompany eliminated.
LP and GP partnerships
Capital accounts by partner, allocations per the agreement, distributions tracked to the individual.
Series LLCs
Series level separation maintained properly, so the liability shield holds up under scrutiny.
Trusts and private foundations
Distinct books, restricted fund discipline, and reporting formatted for trustees.
The largest single consolidated structure maintained under one engagement: parent, subsidiaries, and intercompany.
Entity level books maintained across a career, which is the source of the pattern recognition.
What we handle, and where we hand off.
Sophisticated structures require clear lines. Below is precisely what sits with this firm, and what remains with your CPA and counsel.
Consolidation
OursFull consolidation with true intercompany eliminations, or combined reporting where that is the better fit. Every entity reconciles on its own before it rolls up, so the parent view is defensible rather than merely tidy.
Partner capital accounts
Ours to maintainRollforwards by partner covering contributions, allocations, distributions, and ending balances, maintained monthly rather than reconstructed in March. Allocation methodology is set by your CPA and counsel from the operating agreement. We encode it, apply it consistently, and flag when book and tax basis begin to diverge.
K-1 support packages
Ours to prepareYour CPA prepares the returns and files the K-1s. We prepare everything underneath them: capital rollforwards, allocation detail, distribution schedules, and income by partner, assembled and reconciled, so your CPA begins from clean support rather than billing hours to build it.
Capital calls and distributions
SharedWaterfalls and preferred returns are determined with counsel and your CPA, working from the governing documents. We record and track them, called, funded, outstanding, and distributed, so the position of every partner is current at any point in the year.
Investment schedules
CPA sets up, we maintainMark to market treatment, unrealized gain positions, and valuation policy are established by your CPA. We maintain the schedules against that policy month to month, so the year end conversation is a review rather than a rebuild.
Entity and family reporting
OursReporting at whatever level the reader requires: a single property, one entity, a segment, or the entire structure. Formatted for limited partners, trustees, or family members who are not accountants and should not have to be.
Most firms courting family offices cannot touch the farmland.
Land is where a significant share of family wealth actually sits, and it is where generalist bookkeeping tends to stop. Agricultural operations do not behave like the rest of the portfolio: revenue is seasonal, cost accounting is by enterprise rather than by month, and a meaningful portion of income arrives through programs and leases that never appear in a standard chart of accounts.
We maintain these books directly, certified in Ambrook alongside QuickBooks Online and Xero, so the agricultural entities are held to the same standard as the rest of the structure rather than handed to a separate provider who does not see the whole picture.
Handled at the land level
- Profit and loss by field, parcel, or enterprise
- Crop and livestock operations accounted separately
- Lease, rental, and easement income
- Government program payments
- Real estate reporting at the property level
- Roll-up into the parent alongside every other entity
We work alongside the advisors you already have.
The accountant in the room, not the loudest voice in it
Most family offices already retain a CPA, an attorney, and a wealth manager. This firm maintains the records those three rely on, which means the objective is to make their work easier rather than to compete with it.
In practice that means clean support delivered before it is requested, questions routed to whoever should properly answer them, and no attempt to opine on matters belonging to counsel or your CPA.
If a seat is empty, we can make introductions. You are never obligated to engage anyone we suggest, and we accept nothing for the referral.
Discretion is part of the engagement, not an addition to it
A confidentiality agreement is built into every engagement letter. It is not something you have to request or negotiate. It covers the family, the entities, the holdings, and everything discussed along the way.
If your counsel prefers their own agreement, we will sign it. If a specific transaction requires its own, we will sign that as well.
Practically, it also means a sole practitioner: no rotating staff, no offshore team, no junior with access to the file. The list of people who see your numbers is one name long.
Priced on the structure, not the headline number.
The minimum applies to the relationship, not to each entity.
Engagements begin at $1,500 per month and are scoped individually. Structures of this kind are most often scoped at the Fractional Controller level, from $2,500 per month. Where a parent entity is a client, connected entities under common ownership are priced as additions rather than as separate engagements. A family office with six single-member LLCs beneath it does not pay six minimums.
Scope is set by what actually drives the work: entity count, transaction volume, the number of accounts requiring reconciliation, and the reporting your partners and trustees require. Deal size does not determine fit. A $500M operating company running thousands of transactions each month belongs in house. A $500M family office closing a dozen deals a year is comfortably within scope.
Tell us the structure. We will price the whole of it.
A 30 minute engagement review covering the entities, where the books stand today, and what your advisors require from them.
Request an Engagement Review