Sab CA Dekh Leta Hai

By Simi Agarwal, CFP®, QPFP® and Vivekh Pathak, CFP®, QPFP®

Why business families need an office, not just an accountant—and what that means for the planner sitting across the table

There is a sentence that ends most conversations about family wealth in India before they properly begin: “Sab CA dekh leta hai.” It is said with confidence, and usually with affection. The chartered accountant has been with the family for twenty years. He knows the business, tax returns, property papers, loan sanctions, and disputes that never went to court. He is trusted in a way few professionals are. All of that is true. And none of it makes him a family office.

What the CA does— and what nobody is doing

Ask a business family what their CA handles and you get a clear list: statutory audit, GST, income tax, TDS, loan files, and compliance. It is essential work.
Now ask a different set of questions:

• Who decides how much annual surplus stays in the business versus leaves permanently?
• Who monitors total family exposure to real estate as a percentage of net worth?
• Who reviews whether insurance cover matches today’s liabilities?
• Who prepares the next generation to become responsible owners rather than passive beneficiaries?
• Who has documented what happens to ownership if the founder is incapacitated tomorrow morning?

Across Indian business families with ₹50 crore to ₹500 crore of wealth, the answer to every one of those questions is the same: Nobody.

Or more precisely: the founder, in his head, without documentation, review cycles, or a successor. That is not a CA failure; it is a structural gap. The CA was hired to keep the family compliant. Nobody was hired to keep them wealthy.

You already run a family office. It just isn’t organised.

Every business family already performs family office functions. Capital is allocated. Risk is managed or ignored. Property is acquired. Money moves between business and household. The question is never whether these functions exist, but whether they are performed deliberately by someone accountable, on a schedule, with proper records. A family office is not an institution with a corner office in BKC and a Bloomberg terminal. It is simply the decision to make these responsibilities explicit and assign ownership.

The Four Essential Jobs

A family office worth building does four things:

1. Capital Allocation Across the Whole Balance Sheet

A single view of business equity, real estate, listed equity, debt, gold, and cash—updated quarterly—with a stated allocation policy. Most families discover 70–85% of net worth sits in just two assets: the operating business and property. That is a single bet placed twice.

2. Risk and Protection

Cataloguing personal guarantees on business debt, key-person exposure, health cover scaled to today’s medical inflation, and liquidity surviving twelve months of zero business income. Protection is deferred because nothing bad has happened yet—the precise logic that makes it urgent.

3. Governance

Documenting who owns what, who decides what, and what happens during death, disability, divorce, or disagreement. A family constitution is less about legal drafting than documenting conversations before a crisis forces interpretation.

4. Preparing the Next Generation

Teaching stewardship rather than mere inheritance—two entirely different capabilities, only one of which can be transferred by a WILL.

Two Families. Two Outcomes.

Consider two second-generation auto-component families, both at ₹90 crore turnover. The first family kept every decision inside the founder’s head and every rupee inside the business ecosystem. Surplus went back into land, factory units, and collateralized deposits. The CA filed everything flawlessly.

When the founder suffered a cardiac event at sixty-one, the family discovered personal liquidity was under ₹2 crore, working capital was tied to undocumented personal guarantees, and the sons held conflicting assumptions about leadership. The business survived; family stability took four years to recover.

The second family made one structural decision eleven years ago: they appointed an independent professional to oversee their non-business balance sheet. They enforced a rule: 40% of distributed profit reinvested, 20% to liquidity, and 40% into a diversified personal portfolio. They met quarterly with a written agenda, documented governance, and brought their children into reviews early.

Today, their non-business portfolio funds the family’s lifestyle. The business is something they own, not something they depend on. When approached by a strategic buyer, they negotiated from a position of indifference—the only position from which anyone negotiates well. The difference was not returns. It was architecture.

Where the Planner Sits

For the financial planner, these four jobs define your mandate and its boundaries:

• On Allocation: You are the natural owner. The CA sees compliance; the banker sees collateral; the broker sees product fit. You are the only professional paid to view the complete balance sheet.
• On Protection: Building a single guarantee register—every guarantee, bank, and loan in one place—is high-impact work a planner can deliver quickly that no other professional will initiate.
• On Governance: You are a convener, not an author. You structure conversations and bring in legal experts, but you do not draft trust deeds.
• On Next Gen: You are the educator. A planner known only to the founder has a practice with a mortality date.

The entry point is a single page: a consolidated family balance sheet showing total assets, liabilities, and concentration risks. Produce that page, and you cease being a product vendor. You become the architect.

Understanding the Tiers

• Sub-₹25 Crore (Non-Business Investable Assets): A full office is unnecessary. What works is a formal quarterly review, a written allocation policy, and one external adviser managing non-business wealth.
• ₹25 Crore to ₹150 Crore: A Multi-Family Office or fee-based RIA working alongside the family CA covers all four jobs cost-effectively. A flat retainer best reflects this work.
• Above ₹150–200 Crore: A dedicated Single Family Office with in-house staff becomes viable. Note: Segment by liquid, investable assets outside the business, not turnover or factory valuations. Unmovable capital cannot be managed by a family office structure.

Three Actions for Business Owners

• Produce a 1-Page Balance Sheet: Map total assets, liabilities, and personal guarantees at current value.
• Assign Clear Accountability: Name one person responsible for the non-business balance sheet. Shared accountability is no accountability.
• Lock in Four Dates: Schedule quarterly 2-hour family reviews covering allocation, protection, governance, and succession.

Three Actions for Financial Planners

• Build 1-Page Statements Unpaid: Create consolidated balance sheets for your three largest business clients before their next review.
• Re-Segment Your Client Book: Group clients by investable wealth outside the business rather than current AUM under your management.
• Lead with the Four Jobs: Send an agenda covering allocation, protection, governance, and succession ahead of reviews instead of just presenting portfolio performance.

The Real Objection

The ultimate resistance from business owners is identity, not cost. Building a family office requires admitting the business is an asset, not the entire universe. For a founder who spent decades building a enterprise, that can feel like a demotion. It is the exact opposite. A family with a functioning family office is the only family that can afford to take real business risks, because failure is no longer existential. Separation does not weaken the founder’s connection to the business—it is what preserves it. Sab CA dekh leta hai is not wrong. It is simply incomplete. The CA keeps the family compliant. Somebody still has to keep them wealthy.

Simi Agarwal, CFP®, QPFP®
Sikka Wealthness
Niche: SME Business Owners, based out of Bhubaneshwar, Odisha

Vivekh Pathak, CFP®, QPFP®
Vivekh Pathak: Finance and You
Niche: High Income Earning Professionals, based out of Gurgaon, Haryana