Who Needs a Virtual Family Office: The VFO Model Explained
If you find it difficult to manage, track, or stay on top of your family’s finances, you’re not alone! You may be someone who needs a virtual family office. This latest evolution of the ‘family office’ could be the answer you’re looking for to help you better manage your wealth. But what exactly is a virtual family office and who is it designed for?
The Family Office and Its Journey Through the Ages
Ever since the first family office emerged in the late 19th Century, wealthy families have been taking better control of their financial portfolio. But as the times have changed, variations of this model have become available. Understanding your options will give you a better idea of what services fit your family’s needs. Family offices cater specifically to wealthy families or individuals. Perhaps you don’t consider yourself to be wealthy enough? With the birth of virtual family offices, anyone with even a modest net worth can now benefit from boutique family bookkeeping services to gain a clearer picture of where their money is and what it’s doing.
But where did it all begin? Let’s take a look at the history of these services. By identifying the differences between a family, single, multi, and virtual family office, you can then evaluate what this actually means for you.
Historically, the wealthiest families required stewardship and management of their fortunes. To do so, they would employ the most educated and qualified individuals to control their wealth and provide guidance. These employees served as trusted advisors and counselors to the family. They developed a corporate like structure complete with divisions that rivaled large companies in scale. Single family offices would have departments for legal, accounting, taxation, investment and property maintenance.
When the Rockefeller’s employed a full office to handle their finances in 1882, they were the first to do so. While it wasn’t referred to this at the time, it is now viewed as the first modern, single-family office. From that point forward, the single-family office has been known to serve ultra-high-net-worth families ($500m+). These individuals can afford to have a complete in-house team of expert financial investment advisors, wealth management specialists, tax accountants, and personal bookkeepers. Not only do these employees manage a family’s wealth, but they also provide estate planning advice, private wealth management, and family governance services.
As time went on, the demand for more family offices increased and the multi-family office (MFO) was created. The MFO caters to those who are still considered to be high-net-worth individuals but don’t necessarily fall into the ultra-high-net-worth bracket. MFOs are organizations that serve multiple families. These companies recruit a number of individuals to assist them with day-to-day financial services. These include wealth management, accounting and governance, legal services, lifestyle management, and of course, family bookkeeping. The biggest difference of an MFO is that these families do not require an entire in-house staff of their own.
As the global increase in wealth continues to rise, so does the popularity of family office services. This, combined with the advancement of technology has brought about the birth of the virtual family office (VFO). The VFO caters to wealthy families ($3m-$100m) seeking relief from having to manage their own bookkeeping, learn new software, input data entries, or organize all of their financial files. The need for these types of services stems from a lack of time to handle, or even understand, all of the moving parts included in their portfolio.
What is a Virtual Family Office (VFO) and How Can It Help you Reach Your Financial Goals?
If you find it difficult to keep a close eye on all of your family’s finances, income, and expenses, the VFO model can help. The popularity of the Virtual family office has been growing exponentially. They are an ideal option for successful families looking to maintain their portfolio recordkeeping without the overhead or expense of employees or high fees.
Instead of having a whole payroll of legal advisors, wealth managers, and financial specialists under one roof, the virtual family office model is based on a network of professionals collaborating remotely. This cooperative structure ensures that your goals are being met and strengthens your financial picture, at a fraction of the cost.
If you’re hoping to better understand and monitor your family’s wealth, you’ll appreciate all of the benefits a VFO has to offer.
Advantages of Hiring Sundial as Your VFO
As your virtual family office, we’ll maintain your entire financial picture in one place. By turning to Sundial VFO, you’ll experience a few key advantages:
- Enjoy the benefits of an SFO or MFO without the hefty costs: Clients choose Sundial VFO because we join forces with your existing financial network. As captain of the team, we help preserve and increase your family’s wealth without the payroll of unnecessary departments that you don’t require.
- Complete flexibility and control: You decide which services to use. Build your virtual office exactly the way you’d like to match your family’s specific goals.
- Variation and technology: Combining our renowned expertise with the best-in-class suite of applications, we’ll monitor and track your money effectively. Equipped with accurate reporting, you can take better control of your finances.
The Services Offered by a VFO
The right VFO will tailor its services to your financial needs. At Sundial VFO (SVFO), our motto is: “Reconcile it!”
Through our exacting bookkeeping process we reconcile your accounting records with fanatical detail! Why the fuss? We believe that the ability to have accurate financial records determines the quality of your investing, business results, and ultimately your ability to achieve a higher level of success. If tax season is too stressful, monitoring your balance sheet is too time-consuming, or you’re simply wondering where your money is or what it’s doing, our experts can help! Using Quicken, Quickbooks, and other state-of-the-art tools, our team will help you organize, track, and understand your family’s financial picture clearly. Our core competencies include:
- Technology Stack and Software Selection & Implementation
- Bank & Credit Card Reconciliations
- Brokerage & Investment Reconciliations
- Financial Statement Preparation
- Year-End Tax Document Organization
- Payroll Services
- Cash Flow Management
- Budgeting
- Bill-Payment
- Real Estate Management
- Trust Accounting
- Foundation Accounting
- Small Business Accounting
At SVFO we’ll captain the ship and sail you towards financial success.
Take Control of Your Finances!
As you shift your financial priorities and make the commitment to thoroughly control your finances, the selection of your family office should match your objectives. Are you looking for first-class service, advice, and supervision of your finances at a fraction of the single or multi-family office cost? If so, you can stop asking yourself who needs a family office and start embracing the VFO model to reach your financial goals.