RSMUS.comA family office’s value is measured in consistency. They must meet ordinary obligations with the same high levels of efficiency, accuracy, and accommodation – and the same standards apply when unexpected or unusual requests come in. In short, family offices must be able to rise to every occasion and excel at anytime.
Getting it right every time puts a strong emphasis on processes. It doesn’t matter how smart and service-oriented the staff are; consistency comes down to having processes in place that can deliver the same output no matter the input. The accounting and reporting processes are especially important since this is the substance of what a family offices does.
Given that importance, it’s somewhat surprising that so many family offices rely on a combination of Quickbooks, Excel, and various point solutions to handle their most important processes. These solutions may be accessible and capable, but those same qualities make them less-than-stellar when it comes to optimizing processes and enforcing consistency. In fact, they make it harder.
Running a family office with the perfect precision of a swiss clock starts by getting rid of basic, introductory, and unsatisfactory software solutions. But that raises the question of what to replace them with?
There are plenty of financial management solutions on the market. However, Sage Intacct has become a popular choice for family offices and a compelling upgrade over Quickbooks by taking important processes and making them easier and better than before. Plenty of alternatives do one or the other – Sage Intacct is the rare candidate to streamline important process while making them more productive, accurate, and transparent too. Here are some examples of particular relevance to family offices:
- Multi-Entity Accounting – High-net-worth families often have multiple entities (planes, properties, small business etc) to account for. Quickbooks forces users to treat each entity as a separate account, creating lots of waste and fragmentation. Sage Intacct, however, uses a dimensional accounting system. After creating a dimension once for each entity, that information is shared across systems and processes to eliminate huge amounts of redundancy.
- Inter-company Transactions – In a multi-entity environment like Sage Intacct, where everything happens on one platform, setting up inter-company transactions is as easy as a few clicks. Before, this was a time and labor-intensive process prone to error. Now, funds move effortless through the organization without errors, friction, or delays.
- User-Defined Books – Unlike lesser accounting solutions, Sage Intacct allows users to report on two (or more) sets of books at once. For example, one set for taxes and another for accruals. The ability to define and report on basically whatever the user wants to takes accounting to new heights of transparency.
- Consolidated Reporting – One of the stand-out features in Sage Intacct is the reporting tools, which are powerful enough to organize and consolidate huge amounts of data, flexible enough to report on almost anything, and simple enough that anyone (whether part of the family office or the family) can run reports in minutes. Every process related to reporting improves with Sage Intacct.
- Permission Management – Family offices must be consistent about who they do and do not allow to see what information. Sage Intacct comes with smart permission management tools that let family office staff carefully control access and privileges. Once those privileges are set, everyone can feel confident that sensitive information is available (on-demand) to those who need it and locked off to everyone else.
This list barely scratches the surface of what Sage Intacct can do to integrate, accelerate, automate, and improve upon every process a family office undertakes. More than just a financial management platform, Sage Intacct helps family offices exceed expectations, become more efficient and innovative, and achieve excellence every day. It’s hard to overstate the positive impact – especially for family offices used to the limitations and frustrations of Quickbooks and spreadsheets. See what a better way looks like by scheduling a demo of Sage Intacct with RSM.
