Aquilance Chief Revenue Officer Kevin Reed contributed a thoughtful and timely perspective to Wealth Management’s (The Magazine of WealthManagement.com) 2025 Mid-Year Outlook. Kevin addresses how advisors can bridge the gap between traditional investment advisory roles and evolving client expectations for comprehensive, family office-style support.
AUM Growth Meets Elevated Client Expectations
Kevin opens by acknowledging a critical industry trend: pursuing higher‑AUM clients presents both opportunity and complexity. Clients now expect holistic support that mirrors family office services. What was once reserved for $100M+ clients, is now expected by $10M – $15M clients
Kevin asks a pivotal question: How can advisors deliver tailored services for wealthier clients, without getting bogged down by operations? For clients in the upper end of the HNW band, and especially for those on their way to UHNW status, ignoring their broader service expectations risks missed opportunities.
The Tactical to Strategic: Bill Payment as a Client Experience Indicator
Reed underscores a deceptively simple service, bill payment, as a powerful indicator of a client’s deeper need for holistic financial oversight. Clients juggling multiple residences, intricate investment entities, and diverse personal or business expenses often find this administrative burden overwhelming. When they ask their advisor to handle bill payment, it signals a desire for more streamlined, concierge-level support.
He also references an important insight from Campden Wealth, noting that 68% of UHNW heirs report feeling unprepared to manage family finances, highlighting an urgent need for advisors to step into broader governance roles.
Trends & Best Practices for Delivering Scalable, Holistic Service
Reed identifies two key strategies advisors can leverage to meet the evolving demands of affluent clients:
- Outsourcing Family Office Functions
Many advisors are turning to outsourced partners for help with operational burdens; like bill payment, household employee staffing, or health insurance selection; so they can offer expanded services without hiring costly in-house staff. The best practices include careful vetting and strong relationships with trusted outsourced providers.
- Enhanced, Consolidated Reporting
Clients now expect a unified view of their entire financial landscape, even across multiple accounts and entities. Best practice: using tools that deliver accounting-grade data in straightforward, digestible formats.
By combining these strategies, advisors can scale their services confidently and transition from reactive issue‑solving to proactive, supportive engagement.
The Upside of Proactive, Turnkey Solutions
Reed concludes that advisors who adopt turnkey outsourced solutions are best positioned to:
- Attract and service wealthier clients
- Tackle hiring challenges
- Enhance scalability
- Build a competitive edge in wealth management
This proactive approach enables practices to grow sustainably while delivering family office-level support, without undercutting core advisory operations.
Why This Matters for Aquilance, and Our Audience
Kevin’s contribution is a powerful reaffirmation of Aquilance’s mission: to empower financial advisors through scalable, advisor-branded services that mirror family office sophistication, without the infrastructure burden. His insights align perfectly with Aquilance’s focus on delivering outsourced, consolidated bill payment, entity accounting, and cash flow reporting tools.
About Aquilance:
Aquilance is run by a team of executives with deep financial industry expertise, as well as a dedicated employee base with 10+ years of experience on average, who are devoting their careers to the families and advisors whom we serve. The longevity of both client relationships and employee tenure underscores our dedication to client needs and commitment to their continued success. This is equally beneficial for asset managers and trusted professional advisors who rely on these services to advise clients.
Aquilance provides transparency into family finances through personal bookkeeping and securely managed bill pay using proprietary technology and best practices, multi-entity accounting across a family’s trusts, holdings, and investment entities, including complex partnerships, and may also include payroll services, assistance with insurance review, and much more.
Each client family is paired with a dedicated relationship manager and team to manage onboarding and design of a personalized roadmap for long-term success. This team-based, tech-enabled approach ensures nothing sis missed, offering clients and their professional advisors a comprehensive view of their financial matters. All of this is underpinned by a level of personalization that is deeply ingrained in the firm’s 37-year history.
