Family Offices
Consolidated reporting, multi-entity tax compliance, and day-to-day accounting for families managing wealth across many entities, trusts, and generations.
Overview
A family office often manages dozens of entities: operating companies, holding LLCs, partnerships, trusts, foundations, and personal accounts for several generations. Each one has its own books, its own tax return, and its own reporting needs, yet the family wants one clear picture of what it owns and how it is performing. Pease Bell, a Top 200 U.S. CPA firm headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, helps single-family and multi-family offices bring order to that structure with consolidated reporting, tax compliance, and outsourced accounting.
We work alongside the family’s attorneys, investment advisors, and trustees so that entity decisions, tax filings, and estate plans move in the same direction. Our team can handle bill pay and bookkeeping, prepare the returns for each entity and family member, and help evaluate how new investments or entities should be structured. With audit, tax, and advisory under one roof, the family office has one accounting relationship that understands the full picture.
How We Help Family Offices
Consolidated Financial Reporting
Periodic reporting that rolls up holdings across entities, trusts, and investment accounts into a consolidated view of net worth, cash flow, and performance that family members and advisors can read easily.
Multi-Entity Tax Compliance
Preparation of individual, trust, partnership, corporate, and gift tax returns across the family’s structure, with K-1s from underlying investments tracked and coordinated so related returns stay consistent.
Entity Structuring
Analysis of how holding companies, partnerships, and trusts are organized, including the tax effects of adding entities, admitting family members, or restructuring ownership, in coordination with the family’s legal counsel.
Bill Pay and Bookkeeping
Outsourced accounting for the office and family members, including bill payment, cash management, household staff payroll coordination, and monthly reconciliations, all run with clear approval controls.
Estate Plan Coordination
Accounting and tax support for estate and gift planning, including trust accounting, gift tax returns, and modeling the tax effects of transfers, working directly with the family’s estate attorney.
Tax Planning and Projections
Year-round planning across the family’s entities, with projections that help the office time distributions, estimated payments, charitable gifts, and investment decisions with tax consequences in view.
Challenges We Help You Address
- ✓Getting one consolidated view across many entities, trusts, and accounts
- ✓Coordinating tax returns that depend on late-arriving investment K-1s
- ✓Keeping entity structures aligned with estate and succession plans
- ✓Controlling bill pay and cash movement across family members and entities
- ✓Keeping attorneys, advisors, and trustees working from the same numbers
Frequently Asked Questions
What accounting services does a family office need?
Most family offices need bookkeeping and bill pay, consolidated reporting across entities and accounts, tax compliance for every entity and family member, and planning support tied to investments and estate goals. Some also need trust accounting, financial statement audits or reviews for specific entities, and help with household payroll. The right mix depends on how many entities the family has and how much the office handles internally.
What is consolidated reporting for a family office?
Consolidated reporting combines the financial results and holdings of the family’s separate entities, trusts, and accounts into one report. It typically shows total net worth, asset allocation, cash flow, and performance, while still letting you see each entity on its own. It helps family members and advisors make decisions from a complete picture rather than piecing together separate statements.
Can a CPA firm work with our estate attorney and investment advisor?
Yes, and that coordination is a large part of the value. Estate plans, entity structures, and investment decisions all have tax and accounting consequences. We share information with the family’s attorneys, advisors, and trustees, with the family’s permission, so that planning documents, tax filings, and financial records stay consistent with one another.
Do family offices outsource their accounting?
Many do. Smaller single-family offices often outsource bookkeeping, bill pay, and tax work entirely, while larger offices keep a controller in-house and outsource specialized tax, reporting, or overflow work. Outsourcing can give the family access to a broader team and continuity when staff change, while the family keeps control over approvals and decisions.
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