Everything You Need to Know About Family Offices.
Learn what family offices are, how they work, and how to build one from the ground up — whether that means a lean micro family office or a full institutional organization.
Single, Multi, and Micro Family Offices
There is no single definition and no minimum net worth. Family offices range from one professional with good software to hundred-person institutions.
Single Family Office (SFO)
A single family office (SFO) is a private organization built and owned by one family to manage the full complexity of significant wealth, investments, taxes, legal structures…
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Multi-Family Office (MFO)
A multi-family office (MFO) is a professional firm that delivers family-office-level services, investment oversight, consolidated reporting, tax coordination, estate planning…
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Micro Family Office
A micro family office is an informal term for a deliberately lean family office structure built around a principal and a small core team, typically one investment or asset…
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Virtual Family Office (VFO)
A virtual family office (VFO) is a coordinated network of outside specialists. Accountants, attorneys, investment advisors, and others. Assembled around a family's wealth without…
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The flagship tool
Family Office Builder
Answer twelve questions about your assets, entities, and priorities — get an example structure, org chart, function matrix, and illustrative cost band. Educational, not advice.
Build your example structure →The Family Office Maturity Model
Personal accounts, one advisor, taxes once a year, documents in email.
Consolidated statements, a written plan, an estate binder, a team of advisors who talk to each other.
First dedicated hire or fractional team, real reporting software, documented processes.
A real organization: investment function, finance function, governance calendar.
Teams by asset class, in-house legal/tax, audited financials, multi-generational governance.
Take the two-minute self-assessment →
Featured Guides
How to Build a Family Office From the Ground Up
Building a family office follows five sequential steps: define the office's purpose, inventory the family's assets, create an organizational…
Family Office Accounting
Family office accounting is the financial recordkeeping infrastructure that tracks every entity, investment, expense, and transfer inside a family's…
Family Office Roles & Staffing, Mapped
A family office staffing map covers every role from CEO to bookkeeper, explains what each person does, when that role typically becomes necessary…
Family Governance
Family governance is the set of structures, rules, and habits that help a family make decisions together. About money, employment, distributions, and…
How Family Offices Invest
Family offices invest differently from most institutions because they combine long time horizons, significant tax sensitivity, concentrated legacy…
Careers in Family Offices
Family offices hire across a wide range of disciplines. Investment management, accounting, tax, legal, technology, estate operations, and executive…
Do You Need a Family Office?
Whether you need a family office depends far more on the complexity of your financial life than on a specific dollar threshold. A family with $30…
Family Office Technology
Family office technology is the software stack that connects every operational function. From portfolio reporting and accounting to document storage…
Built Around Real Complexity
Operating businesses, properties, vessels, aircraft, collections — a family office exists because wealth rarely sits still in one account.
Wealth & Family Office News
Real headlines from named outlets — every item links to the original article.
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From the Glossary
A distribution waterfall is the contractual order in which a private fund returns money to investors and pays…
An Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is a written document that defines how a family's capital will be…
A software application that generates, encrypts, and stores unique passwords for every account in a single…
A family office is the organizational infrastructure a family builds around significant wealth to manage…
A co-investment is a direct stake in a single deal made alongside a lead sponsor. Typically a private equity…
The ease and speed with which an asset can be converted into cash at or near its fair value, without…
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