Family Office Services

When families describe what they want from a family office, they usually start with investment management. By the time the office is a year old, the conversation has shifted — the pieces that actually consume staff bandwidth turn out to be tax coordination, entity administration, and a thousand small decisions about bill-pay, household staff, insurance, and lifestyle logistics. The investment management ends up being the most visible 30% of the work.

This guide walks through the full service stack, which functions are typically in-house versus outsourced, and what "good" looks like for each.

1. Investment Management

The core function. What varies is depth. A thin investment function selects external managers, monitors performance, and rebalances. A deep one runs in-house teams that source direct private deals, manage a public-equities sleeve internally, and structure complex positions (options overlays, tax-loss harvesting, alternative credit).

Typical deliverables: asset allocation, manager due diligence, portfolio construction, performance reporting, cash management, risk monitoring, direct investing.

In-house or outsourced? Small offices outsource to an MFO or OCIO. Mid-size offices have a CIO and an analyst or two, with external managers for scale. Large offices (typically $500M+) build full internal teams and do direct investing alongside fund-of-funds exposure.

2. Tax Strategy and Compliance

Tax is where families often leave the most value on the table — and where a good family office creates quantifiable lift. Multi-jurisdictional tax planning, entity structure optimization, wealth-transfer timing, and capital-gains management can routinely add 100+ basis points to net returns.

Typical deliverables: federal and state return preparation, international tax coordination, entity structuring, wealth-transfer strategy, gift-tax returns, estate-tax planning.

In-house or outsourced? Most offices keep the strategy function in-house (a tax director or partner) and outsource preparation to a specialized firm. Some of the largest SFOs run full tax departments.

3. Estate and Trust Administration

Trusts are the plumbing of most UHNW estate plans. Someone has to administer them: keep the books, file the returns, send the distributions, maintain the relationships with corporate trustees. For families with dozens of trust structures across multiple jurisdictions, this is a full-time job.

Typical deliverables: trust accounting, beneficiary communications, trustee relationships, distribution management, trust strategy.

4. Accounting and Bill-Pay

The unglamorous backbone. Every transaction, every vendor invoice, every household expense runs through the family office. Good offices have a bulletproof accounting system, clear vendor-approval protocols, and consolidated monthly statements that give the principal a single dashboard.

Typical deliverables: consolidated reporting, cash management, accounts payable, payroll for household and personal staff, vendor management.

In-house or outsourced? In-house for SFOs. Often provided by the MFO as a standard service, though the pass-through of bill-pay authority is a sensitive governance point.

5. Insurance and Risk Management

UHNW families carry risk profiles that off-the-shelf insurance policies weren't designed for. Properly sized life, directors-and-officers, umbrella, flood, cyber, kidnap-and-ransom, aviation, and marine policies require a specialist broker and annual review.

Typical deliverables: full insurance audit, property risk management, cybersecurity oversight, physical security coordination, succession insurance (buy-sell, key-person).

6. Philanthropy

For families with charitable ambitions, the family office often administers the foundation, manages grant-making, and coordinates impact investing alongside traditional giving. This has grown as a distinct function — many large offices have dedicated philanthropy staff.

Typical deliverables: foundation administration, grant-making workflow, donor-advised fund management, impact investment sourcing, next-generation engagement.

7. Concierge and Lifestyle

Travel, aircraft operations, yacht management, multiple-home staffing, household payroll, personal logistics. This is where family offices earn their reputations for discretion. The best concierge services are invisible.

Typical deliverables: travel coordination, household staff management, aircraft and yacht operations, property management, personal errands, family-event logistics.

8. Governance and Family Services

The soft-skills functions that determine whether the office outlives the founder. Annual family meetings, formal family constitutions, next-generation financial education, family-council protocols, and dispute-resolution frameworks. Lightly staffed in most offices, but disproportionately important.

Typical deliverables: family meeting facilitation, governance document drafting, next-gen education programs, family-council support, succession planning.

Service Stack at Different Scales

Start by mapping your family's actual pain points — where are you spending time or missing opportunities today? Then build the stack against that map rather than installing a pre-set template.

More on structure: Single vs. Multi-Family Office. For investing specifics: Family Office Investing Strategies.