09/15/2026
We recently had a client contact us about bringing over an account she’s had on her own, not managed by us, for years. She had no special relationship with the custodian.
She wasn’t receiving financial planning services from them. The account had always been there, and so there seemed to be no reason to do something different.
That got us thinking about the benefits of consolidating accounts—both having fewer accounts and having all of your assets under the roof of one advisory firm.
While there might be more reasons to consolidate, we see five major benefits consolidation can bring. Come back for all five parts!
➡️ Part 1: The Creation of Investment Synergies ⬅️
When you’re a financial planning and investment management firm like we are, and you create personalized financial life plans for clients that encompass their entire net worth, making sure the investment assets all serve the purpose of achieving the client’s goals is important.
When an investment advisory is able to manage all of your assets, it allows them to see the whole picture and allocate tax-efficiently across the entire portfolio. This can avoid things like holding concentrated or duplicate stock positions, being over- or under-diversified, and misaligning your retirement goals or risk tolerance across accounts. It also allows rebalancing of a portfolio to be straightforward and efficient, as two different investment advisors are not going to easily coordinate strategies.
These benefits can be especially important when there are both pre-tax/qualified accounts (e.g., IRAs, Roth IRAs) and post-tax accounts (e.g., Trust, Joint) that need to be managed in synchrony.
Many people worry about one investment advisory firm having all their assets, in case something happens to the firm. But when you have a team approach, you know that risk is diminished since the whole team is working for you, not just one person. And when you call and need to speak to someone, you know the whole team is familiar with who you are and there’s no need to learn a new name every time you need assistance.
It is also important to keep in mind the distinction between the advisor (like IWC) and the custodian (like Schwab). Your accounts are held with the custodian—usually large firms like Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard. The advisor does not hold the assets, but instead has limited power granted to them to be able to use the custodian’s platform to manage your accounts.
If something happens to the advisor, your accounts are still secure with the custodian, and your access to your funds will not change.
