Hire or outsource? What it costs to keep your private investments on record
By David Franklin
At some point, a growing private portfolio needs an owner. Capital calls are arriving from a dozen managers, K-1s are late, and documents are spread across three inboxes. The natural response is to hire someone.
Sometimes that’s the right call. But it’s worth being precise about the job first, because what most families need here is a slice of a finance role, not a whole one.
Be precise about the job
The private-investment record involves a defined set of tasks:
- Keeping a list of every position, by owning entity
- Tracking commitments, contributions, distributions and what remains callable
- Recording the latest reported valuations, with their dates
- Knowing which K-1s have arrived and which haven’t
- Keeping subscription documents, statements and side letters filed where people can find them
- Flagging gaps: stale valuations, missing documents, managers who have gone quiet
That’s real, recurring work. But it doesn’t involve bookkeeping, bill pay, payroll, tax preparation, cash management or running an operating business. Those are the parts of the job that justify a full-time finance hire.
What the market charges for the seat
These are published 2026 figures. They are national unless stated otherwise, and they cover base salary only unless stated otherwise.
| Role | Benchmark | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Senior accountant | National midpoint starting salary $94,750 | Robert Half, 2026 Salary Guide |
| Family office controller | Median base $260,000; median total compensation $310,000–$420,000 | Talent Gurus / rouka, 2026 |
| Family office CFO | Median base $400,000 | Talent Gurus / rouka, 2026 |
Talent Gurus applies a regional multiplier to senior family office roles: 1.25x for Palm Beach and 1.225x for Miami.
Salary isn’t the cost
Employers pay for more than wages. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in March 2026, wages and salaries made up about 70% of private-sector employer compensation costs, and benefits made up the remaining 30%. As a rough rule of thumb, a salary understates the true cost of an employee by around 40%.
Finding the person costs money too
Search fees for family office roles typically run 25% to 33% of first-year compensation on a retained basis, and 25% to 35% on contingency.
Hiring is also slow and uncertain. Botoff Consulting’s 2026 survey found more than a third of family offices reported recruiting difficulties in the past year, with finance and accounting the most common problem area. For controller searches, Talent Gurus reports that 35% to 45% of candidates receive a counter-offer from their current employer.
A year-one comparison
The following is an illustration, not a quote. It uses national figures and the lowest published price points.
| In-house senior accountant | Franklin | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary or fees | $94,750 | Position Register from $7,500 |
| Benefits and employer costs (approx.) | ~$40,800 | none |
| Ongoing service | included | Quarterly Update from $7,800/yr, or Annual Update from $3,000/yr |
| Search fee (25–35% on contingency) | ~$23,700–$33,200 | none |
| Year one, approx. | ~$159,000–$169,000 | From ~$10,500–$15,300 |
| Years two onward, approx. | ~$136,000 plus raises | From ~$3,000–$7,800, re-priced on position count |
Our prices are starting points. A larger book, more owning entities or a long history costs more. Even so, the gap is wide.
What a hire gives you that we don’t
The comparison above isn’t like for like, and it would be misleading to pretend it is.
A good in-house hire is there every day. They can pay bills, run the books, reconcile bank accounts, prepare schedules for the CPA, manage vendors and pick up whatever else comes up. We do none of that. We build and keep the record of your private investments, and that’s all.
If you need that broader finance function anyway, hire. Several entities with daily transactions, an operating business, property and staff, or a family office in all but name all point towards an in-house team. In that case, a clean register makes the new hire productive faster and gives them a record to maintain rather than rebuild. If you later want to bring our work in-house, we’ll help with the hiring and handover.
If the private portfolio is the main reason you’re thinking about hiring, the numbers above are the conversation to have first.
The part that doesn’t show up in salary data
People leave, and when they do, the knowledge often goes with them. The spreadsheet they built is only half-understood by whoever comes next, and the portal logins were tied to their email. Everything turns on one person being in the seat.
A record that is built to a consistent standard and handed to you whenever an engagement ends doesn’t depend on any one person staying.
A common middle path
Many of the families we speak to already have capable people: an executive assistant, a household CFO, or an outsourced accountant. They don’t need to replace anyone. They want the private-investment record taken off those people’s plates, so everyone else can work from it.
Sources
- Robert Half, 2026 Salary Guide, senior accountant national midpoint
- Talent Gurus, Family Office Compensation 2026 (rouka dataset)
- Talent Gurus, Family Office Recruitment Fees 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation – March 2026
- Botoff Consulting, coverage of its 2026 Compensation & Talent Planning survey (Crain Currency, Aug 2026)
Illustrative figures. The benefits estimate applies the BLS private-industry average to the salary shown; actual costs vary by employer, location and seniority. Franklin Fund Services is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, law firm or accounting firm. This article is general information, not financial, legal or tax advice.