Step 2 – If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Manage It
After setting a clear investment strategy with the family, the next question was straightforward, but daunting:
What exactly are we working with?
The family’s assets were spread across three different investment advisors, each using their own custodians, platforms, and reporting systems. There was no single dashboard, no consolidated statement, and no way to answer simple questions like:
- How much do we have in real estate?
- What’s our total income, after fees and taxes?
- What’s our actual asset allocation?
Everyone had their own spreadsheet, their own assumptions, and their own version of the truth.
The Problem of Fragmentation
This is something we see often. High-net-worth families build relationships with advisors over the years. Each one handles “their slice” of the portfolio but when it’s time to assess the whole, the puzzle pieces don’t fit together.
Fragmentation doesn’t just create administrative inefficiency. It introduces blind spots especially when it comes to fees, tax implications, and risk exposure.
Rebuilding the Portfolio in Addepar
Our solution was to centralize everything in Addepar, the institutional-grade reporting system we use for portfolio analysis.
The process wasn’t easy. We’ve written our own VBA macros that can read your PDFs, extract the right data, and map it into the proper format. This ensures consistency across accounts, custodians, and time periods without hours of manual entry or validation.
It took time, patience, and coordination but the result was worth it: a live, fully integrated portfolio view across all accounts and asset classes.
What We Discovered
With the full portfolio mapped, the picture became clear:
- The actual allocation deviated from the investment policy statement (IPS): Fixed income was underweight, while alternatives were significantly overweight.
- Cash was inefficient: Spread across five accounts earning anywhere from 0.5% to 3.5%, often with fees eating into returns.
- U.S. dividend stocks were creating unnecessary tax drag for Canadian entities.
- Real estate holdings were trapped in illiquid structures with low yield and limited flexibility.
None of this was apparent until everything was in one place.
The Takeaway: Visibility Drives Better Decisions
You can’t manage what you can’t see. Integration isn’t just a nice-to-have it’s essential. Once everything was in Addepar, the family could finally understand what they owned, how it was performing, and where change was needed.
This clarity allowed them to move from reacting to managing.
If your advisors are working in silos or if you’re still relying on spreadsheets it might be time to ask:
Is your portfolio telling you the full story?
Next up: Step 3 – Restructuring Fees and Aligning Incentives
For a full look at the transformation, see our case study: When Wealth Grows, Strategy Matters Even More
