THE BARATELLI INSTITUTE
· Mentoring at Scale
THE BARATELLI INSTITUTE
· Mentoring at Scale
"Each advisor is strong. All advisors properly led are unstoppable. That is the power of the pack."
A family office isn't a department — it's an advisor pack. The estate attorney, the CPA, the wealth advisor, the trustee, the insurance broker, the art appraiser, the investment manager. Each one is excellent inside their own specialty. None of them, alone, delivers what the family actually needs. The Family Office CFO is the quarterback who runs the play — calling the meeting, setting the agenda, forcing the cross-discipline conversation the specialists wouldn't have on their own. This guide is the playbook for that seat. How a single-family or multi-family office actually operates — charter and governance, investment policy, bill-pay and cash management, insurance and risk, AI policy, family-meeting facilitation, the death of a principal. Ships with a 35-tab companion workbook covering the recurring operations a family office runs — consolidated balance sheet and cash flow, asset registers, gift and wire logs, estate checklist — plus the Vendor, Cyber Readiness, and AI Readiness scorecards.
Family Office · Pick the level that fits
Same practitioner voice at every tier — from the free cost estimator to the 487-page reference.
Related free tools & calculators
Every one of these is a working calculator or reference — no signup, no gate.
Instant SFO vs. MFO vs. fractional cost model with staffing scenarios.
Special needs trust funding sized to lifetime-care projections.
How ABLE accounts and third-party SNTs stack under Medicaid rules.
Asset-limit and income-cliff modeling for waiver-eligibility planning.
Itemized medical deduction sizing with AGI-floor sensitivity.
Required minimum distribution schedule under current law.
Claiming-age optimization across single, spousal, and survivor filings.
Corporate vs. individual trustee cost across asset sizes and complexity.
Trust-as-IRA-beneficiary decision tool for the 10-year-payout rules.
Fiduciary distributable net income and trust accounting income walk.
Section 663(b) worksheet for post-year-end fiduciary distributions.
Excess-liability coverage sized to household net worth and asset mix.
529 plan sizing with the SECURE 2.0 Roth-rollover overlay.
Composite readiness score across savings, income, and longevity.
If you’re a family evaluating whether a fractional family office makes sense — rather than a practitioner operating one — the free companion guide walks the decision from your side of the table. Power of the Pack framing, nine due-diligence questions, red flags, worked family example (the Sullivan household’s first twelve months), and how to fairly evaluate a bundled AUM relationship you’re already in. ~30 pages. Free. No signup.
Download the free PDF → Edición en español (Beta) →Written for the people inside the family office and the people serving it. The persona-routing table tells you where to start.
| You are… | Start with these chapters |
|---|---|
| SFO principal / family head considering structure | Ch 1 Governance & Family Charter · Ch 2 Building the Team & Compensation · Ch 3 The Outsourced Family Office Model · Ch 4 The Investment Function |
| MFO principal building the firm | Ch 2 Building the Team & Compensation · Ch 3 The Outsourced Family Office Model · Ch 5 Accounting, Reporting & Operations · Ch 8 Risk Management & Insurance · Ch 16 Technology, Controls & Continuity · Ch 17 Cybersecurity & Incident Response |
| FO COO / operations lead | Ch 5 Accounting, Reporting & Operations · Ch 10 Household Staff Employment & Retirement Plans · Ch 14 Travel, Transportation & Aviation Administration · Ch 16 Technology, Controls & Continuity · Ch 17 Cybersecurity & Incident Response · Ch 18 AI in the Family Office |
| FO CIO / investment lead | Ch 4 The Investment Function · Ch 8 Risk Management & Insurance · Ch 12 Art & Collectibles Administration · Ch 13 Real Estate Administration |
| Family-office trust ops lead | Ch 6 Estate Planning & Wealth Transfer · Ch 15 Philanthropic & Foundation Management · Ch 19 When a Senior Family Member Dies |
| RIA serving family-office clients | Ch 1 Governance & Family Charter · Ch 4 The Investment Function · Ch 5 Accounting, Reporting & Operations · Ch 11 Financial Education for the Next Generation |
| CPA serving family-office clients | Ch 5 Accounting, Reporting & Operations · Ch 7 Tax Coordination · Ch 9 Corporate Transparency Act & BOI Compliance · Ch 19 When a Senior Family Member Dies (§645 election) |
19 chapters plus back matter, including the Compliance Review, the Glossary of Key Terms, and the Index of Terms. Page numbers refer to the 487-page PDF.
13 sample pages from the actual guide. Real pages, not marketing renders.
19 chapters + back matter. Searchable, hyperlinked TOC and index. Single-user license for one practitioner or family office.
Sample IPS template, Asset-Allocation worksheet, Family-Office Cost Calculator (SFO vs MFO vs VFO), Bill-Pay tracker template, Reporting Pack template, Vendor Scorecard, Cyber Scorecard, AI Readiness Scorecard. Branded, formatted in thousands, formula-driven.
Step-by-step playbooks for the recurring operations a family office runs: bill-pay onboarding, new-vendor approval, annual IPS review, family meeting prep, death-of-principal protocol, trust distribution mechanics, K-1 chase, year-end gifting, foundation grant approval, and 14 more. Each workflow is 1-3 pages with roles, timing, deliverables, and the AI prompt that accelerates it.
A practitioner-grade walkthrough of how the Rockefeller family office structured trusts and governance across multiple generations — what's still relevant, what's not, and the specific provisions modern family offices have adopted from the model.
Free interactive tools at tools.baratelliinstitute.com run the math from the guide on your scenario.