Business Insights

Client Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) for Alternative Investments

Recently, Jon Sharon and Helen Rasoul got together to discuss our Client Accounting & Advisory Services (CAAS) for Alternative Investments clients. Check out the video or read the transcript below.

Jon: Hi, I’m Jon Sharon, Tax Partner for the Alternative Investment Practice at Richey May. I’m here today with Helen Rasoul who is the Director of our Client Accounting and Advisory Services to talk a little bit about how our CAAS team works closely with our Alternative Investment team and different clients that we have. Many of our alternative investment clients aren’t necessarily aware of what our CAAS team can do and how Helen can help them and how they she and her team can assist our fund managers. So we’re going to discuss a few important items that our fund managers can look at to help grow and improve their businesses. Helen, thank you for being here and joining me. 

Helen: Thanks, glad to be here. 

Jon: So, Helen tell us a little bit about the CAAS team and what you guys do what you guys offer and just a little bit about it. 

Helen: Yeah. Our team offers full back-office support everything from managing accounts payable, assisting with payroll to produce a financial statement packages that are tailored to meet the owners needs so they can make better business decisions. We are not a replacement of fund administrators, but we are here to help with the accounting for the management companies and individual accounting needs. 

Jon: What type of fund managers do you work with? 

Helen: We’re working with all types from emerging managers all the way to established. 

Jon: Perfect. And for emerging managers, what are the most common ways that you’re able to help businesses? 

Helen: We really try to give them the right amount of assistance that they need our goal is to be there to answer all of their questions getting off the ground and to make sure that they are structured properly have the right systems and software is in place to meet their needs so that they can be successful. 

Jon: Excellent. And so in doing so, what’s the main benefit that a fund manager gains by you providing that support? 

Helen: It really saves them time so that they can focus on what they’re good at; growing their business. And a major benefit is that we work closely with the tax team to identify tax strategy and saving opportunities. 

Jon: Yeah, I completely agree I think by getting good books and having that extra transparency from the CAAS team it really does help us on the tax side to be able to identify things earlier than maybe we would be able to otherwise. And especially because on your CAAS team many of you have some sort of tax background or tax understanding and provide limited tax support but you’re able to identify things to help us then be able to help our clients. 

Helen: Absolutely. Another important thing to note is that it’s fairly common from our alternative investment clients to also benefit from our high net worth individual accounting services. We can take our services to scale up and down with their needs. 

Jon: Yeah that’s excellent. And that works very well with the type of clients we work with on our alternative investment side we work with clients from the emerging managers all the way up to the very large fund managers as well and so being able to help on the CAAS side and on the tax side with those fund managers is definitely beneficial. With the current state of affairs in the world with COVID and other things going on that may affect fund managers how do you think CAAS can help our fund managers with situations like this or future situations that could occur? 

Helen: Coronavirus definitely has had a huge impact on businesses, leaving managers to deal with crises all the time. We sit down with deeper knowledge of the stimulus programs and changes in the IRS as they happen. If we have familiarity with their financial statements and they have access to more accurate financial statements we can provide more timely and targeted consulting and support and they can make better business decisions and react more quickly. 

Jon: Excellent, that’s great information Helen. I appreciate you speaking with me today I think there’s a lot of good information here and things that we can do for our clients and more of a full well-rounded service so thank you for spending the time today. 

Helen: Thank you, Jon. 

Jon: For any fund managers or alternative investment professionals, please reach out to us to learn more about our audit, tax, and accounting services and how our teams work together to provide the best consulting and service offerings to help you grow.