Category: Bookkeeping
-
Skills That Build Wealth Can Sabotage Its Preservation
The qualities that help an entrepreneur build wealth are often easy to admire. Initiative, confidence, persistence, decisiveness, and a willingness to take calculated risks can turn an idea into a successful enterprise. Entrepreneurs learn to solve problems quickly, operate with incomplete information, challenge conventional thinking, and assume responsibility when outcomes are uncertain. These qualities are…
-
Family Office Checklist for Canadian Investors
A family office becomes useful when managing wealth begins to resemble managing an organization rather than a personal investment account. This does not necessarily mean that a family office manages an excessively complicated financial structure. The complexity may be relatively modest: an investment holding company, several investment accounts, a trust, some private market investments and…
-
What a True Family Office Does Beyond Investment Management
The term “family office” used to mean something quite specific: the organized people, processes, records, reporting, and decision-making structure that helped a wealthy family manage the complexity of its financial life. A family office was not simply an investment strategy, it was more like a CFO. It was the operating system around the family’s wealth.…
-
-
Why Your Private Equity Returns Don’t Match the Fund Statements
It’s a scenario every private equity fund investor faces. You compare your own return calculations to the official statement stamped with the fund company’s logo, and notice the numbers don’t match. Sometimes, they aren’t even close. Naturally, the knee-jerk reaction is to assume something is wrong. But as our colleague likes to remind us: “Don’t…
-
Life Insurance as a Strategic Asset for Real Estate Investors
Imagine a typical investor: 10 properties, a mix of residential and perhaps a small commercial building, generating steady income but requiring ongoing attention. On paper, they’re wealthy. In practice, most of that wealth cannot be accessed. Rather than relying solely on refinancing or asset sales to access capital, this investor begins allocating a portion of…
-
When Successful Investors Stop Doing Their Own Bookkeeping
Many successful investors spend decades building businesses, managing investments, and handling the administrative details of their financial life themselves. In the early years, that approach makes perfect sense. The systems are simple, the number of accounts is manageable, and doing things personally is usually the most efficient. But at a certain stage of life, often…
-
Three Ways to Get Unbiased Financial Planning Advice Before Selling Your Business
When someone is preparing to sell a business, financial complexity tends to spike all at once. A future liquidity event collides with legacy obligations from a prior divorce, questions about lifestyle and cash flow, the need to update an estate plan, high stakes investment decisions, and a big tax bill. At that moment, the most…
-
What Canada’s 2025 MFO Survey Really Reveals About “Family Offices”
The newly released Canadian Family Offices Multi-Family Office Landscape 2025 report provides a clear view into what Canadian Multi-Family Offices (“MFOs”) actually look like; who they serve, how they charge, and how they operate. But beneath the numbers lies a deeper story about what is and is not a true family office. Two findings stand…
-
Stage 1: Getting Started with a New Family
When a new family begins working with us, we know that the first stage of onboarding sets the tone for everything that follows. It’s not just about transferring data it’s about building trust, creating clarity, and laying the groundwork for a long-term partnership. At this beginning stage, we will be turning complexity into something manageable,…