New partners
Just funded a capital account, income has stepped up, and nothing about the personal finances has caught up. The review sets the structure before habits do.
For partners in professional firms
The Partner Wealth Review
A fixed-scope engagement that reads your partnership the way an adviser should: the capital account, the buyout, the plan room you are not using, the estate that the agreement, not your will, decides. Three meetings. One written review. A flat fee, agreed before we begin.
Why a partner needs a different review
Well paid, and under-planned for reasons that are structural, not personal.
A partner's income arrives as a share of profits rather than a salary, so the reserve has to be bigger and the taxes are paid in estimates. The largest asset is an interest in the firm that cannot be sold. The retirement depends on a buyout formula written by other partners. And the firm's own retirement plan can shelter far more than a 401(k), if anyone has looked at it. A standard financial plan treats none of this; it starts from a salary and a brokerage account that do not exist.
- K-1 incomeLumpy cash flow, quarterly estimates, no employer match. The reserve and the tax calendar come first.
- The capital accountMoney in the firm, often borrowed, earning what the agreement says, exposed to the firm's fortunes alongside your income.
- Plan roomA cash-balance plan layered on profit-sharing can shelter well into six figures a year for a partner in their fifties. Most firms have not set it up that way.
- The buyoutReturn of capital, unbilled work, a formula paid over years. It depends on the firm still being there and the remaining partners being willing.
What is in the review
Three meetings, one document you keep.
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Meeting one · Discover
The whole balance sheet, including the firm
We read the partnership agreement as a financial document and map every asset and obligation: capital account and how it was funded, draw history, the retirement plans and what you have used, concentrated real estate, debts, insurance, and what the money is for and who it must outlast. You bring documents; we bring the questions.
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Meeting two · Design
The written review, draft
A plain-language document in six parts: the reserve and tax calendar; the retirement-plan room and what using it would mean for you and the firm; the capital account and buyout modelled as the illiquid position they are; the rest of the portfolio built to look nothing like the firm; the estate structure around the partnership interest; and a one-page list of decisions in order. We walk through it together and you change what is wrong.
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Meeting three · Decide
The final review and the next steps
The finished document, the decisions you have made, and who does what: your attorney, your accountant, the firm's plan administrator, you. If some of it is work we would do as your adviser, we say so and quote it separately. If none of it is, the review is still yours and complete.
The review is financial planning on your own circumstances and is provided under a written agreement. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and it does not change your firm's plans or agreements; those decisions sit with you, the firm and your professional advisers.
Who it is for
Partners with more to decide than time to decide it.
Mid-career partners
Fifteen years in, the 401(k) full every year and still far behind what the income suggests. The plan-room and tax sections usually pay for the review on their own.
Partners within ten years of leaving
The buyout is close enough to model and far enough to plan around. The review turns the agreement's formula into a number you can retire on, or a conversation to have with the firm now.
Start the review
Tell us about the partnership.
Ten questions, none of them a number you need to look up. Ranges are fine. We read it, and within two business days you hear from us with a proposed first meeting and the fee in writing. Nothing you enter here is shared with your firm or anyone else; see our privacy policy.
Prefer to talk first? Call (415) 692-0863 or write to contact@inherentwealthfund.com.