William R. Pirolli is director of the Bentley Consulting Group, where he provides consulting services to accounting firms, law firms and other businesses. His specialties include: firm governance, succession planning, service and client mix and staffing issues. Prior to joining the Bentley Group, he was the managing partner Pirolli, Deller & Conaty CPAs.
PBN: The Bentley Group has recently expanded the services it offers to individuals and families to include wealth preservation, estate management and beneficiary care. How did you see that these services were missing in the marketplace?
PIROLLI: We have been providing wealth management and personal financial planning for many years. The concept of family office services was developed in alignment with two of our core values as a firm. The first is to know our clients and anticipate their needs. The second is to provide real life solutions using integrated services through our accounting firm, our affiliates and our strategic partners. Our research indicated that these types of services, while available to many wealthy families, were not readily available for others.
PBN: How much extra training was required of your associates to serve your customers with these new services?
PIROLLI: Given that we are already offering wealth management, estate and financial planning services most if not all of our team members are already trained in the core areas related to family office. On the transactional side we are utilizing the talents of our Business Resource Center. The staff of our BRC has decades of experience in assisting clients with their transactional and bookkeeping needs. As services like property management expand beyond our scope, we will retain strategic partners to deliver those services while keeping the control centralized.
PBN: Some of the new services, including bill paying and property management, would be the things that in the past a personal secretary might provide. Are you trying to recast the relationship you have with your customers to make it a more personal one? Is this something that your customers came to you asking for?
PIROLLI: I wouldn’t say we are recasting our relationship as much as we are expanding services to an ever changing market. As our clients most trusted advisor, we are asked to help provide solutions to a variety ofour client’s challenges, not just tax and accounting matters. Family Office is a natural extension of what we do for them already.
PBN: How do you anticipate dealing with potential conflicts of interest among different family members when a family-owned business is involved? Are you going to include consulting that helps families deal with management and succession issues?
PIROLLI: Consulting with family-owned business is something we do every day. The vast majority of our clients are family owned and operated so we are adept at navigating through the varied interests of all of the stakeholders involved. We regularly consult with clients/families in the areas of business and wealth succession.
PBN: Do you anticipate that offering these services will bring you new clients from different parts of the country (or the world) as families splinter geographically? Have you seen more and more of this? How much more complex are the services you are providing made by this kind of physical separation of family members?
PIROLLI: Absolutely. In fact, one of the most common situations we see is that the family is separated by geography. Mom and Dad may need assistance is managing their affairs and the children are in other parts of the country or world. Children are appointed as trustees or executors of complicated estates without the experience necessary to understand their fiduciary responsibility. Artists, athletes and other busy professionals simply don’t have the time to manage their own affairs because they are always traveling. Technology allows us to communicate quickly and efficiently with all parties to keep things running smoothly. The use of cloud based solutions means there is access from anywhere. Our goal is to shrink the world and eliminate geographical boundaries.
