How EisnerAmper’s Family Office Practice Builds Trust with BILL

EisnerAmper’s Family Office Services practice manages bill pay for ultra-high net worth families, where each payment carries risk and every process must withstand scrutiny. To support this work, the practice uses BILL to bring structure, security, and flexibility to a service that is both highly personal and constantly changing.

The practice supports clients, providing relationship-driven financial operations across multiple individuals, entities, and generations.

Each client’s engagement is different. For example, families may need:

• Fully outsourced financial operations
• Bill pay support for multiple homes
• Payment management for various entities that may own aircrafts, horses, and other specialized accounting needs
• Coordination across LLCs, trusts, and other entities

The constant across each engagement is trust. Families are entrusting EisnerAmper with the details of their financial lives and expect consistent, timely, and accurate execution.

Richard Root, a Director in EisnerAmper’s Family Office Services practice, and Melanie Satisky, Chief Operating Officer are part of the Family Office Services team that processes bill payments for clients. Their work spans everything from routine household expenses to complex, multi-entity payment workflows. As they describe it, they are the “boots on the ground,” serving as a trusted day-to-day partner while coordinating closely with attorneys, bankers, and other advisors.

EisnerAmper’s family office services practice is not a one size fits all platform, and each engagement is highly customized, from simple bill pay to complex multi-entity structures. This presents a host of challenges when it comes to standardizing processes. 

Limited visibility increased risk ‍

Without a centralized system of record, payment tracking was fragmented across folders, emails, and spreadsheets. That made it harder to confirm payment status quickly and increased the risk of duplicate payments.

Security controls were no longer sufficient ‍

Paper checks and email-based approvals exposed the process to growing fraud and security risks, including check washing, compromised email accounts, and fraudulent payment instructions. This allows team members to work efficiently on a remote basis while maintaining strong controls over processes.

Manual recurring work added complexity ‍

Recurring payments and collections were managed through manual workflows in accounting software platforms and other tools, creating administrative burden and increasing the risk of error.

A more scalable model was needed‍

The team needed a more centralized, secure, and efficient bill pay process—one that could reduce operational burden while preserving the high-touch service clients expect.

Solution: A centralized, secure bill pay operation built for complexity

To support a family office practice defined by nuance and variation, EisnerAmper implemented BILL as the foundation for a more centralized and scalable bill pay operation. The platform gave the team a way to bring consistency, control, and visibility to a process that had to remain flexible enough to reflect the unique preferences of each family they serve.

Using BILL’s console-level view, EisnerAmper can manage its family office clients from a single platform. That centralized model allows the team to oversee user access more efficiently, respond quickly to staffing changes, and adapt as client relationships evolve.

Workflows tailored to each family’s preferences‍

For EisnerAmper, one of BILL’s biggest advantages is the ability to customize approval workflows to match the needs of each client. Some families want a highly streamlined experience and treat forwarding an invoice as implicit approval. Others prefer a much more hands-on approach, reviewing and approving payments above a set dollar threshold.

That flexibility is supported by a structured internal process. Depending on the client’s needs, a junior team member enters the bill, an accountant reviews it, and a Director or Partner releases the payment. The client can also be intimately involved in this process to maintain direct control over their assets.  Backup coverage is built into each stage, helping ensure that vacations, absences, or staffing changes do not interrupt service. 

The cloud-based platform and mobile app support this workflow by allowing reviewers and approvers to act from anywhere. 

Centralized oversight across dozens of family relationships

The BILL console also gives EisnerAmper a single dashboard for managing dozens of family relationships at once. That visibility is especially valuable when user access needs to change quickly, whether because of internal staffing transitions or evolving client needs. 

A single repository for all payment activity

Many of the engagement teams use BILL as the central record for every bill, including payments made through bank portals and other channels. That approach gives the team a single, searchable source of truth for financial documentation. The team can also attach client approval emails directly to invoices in BILL, creating a clear audit trail with supporting documentation attached to each payment.

W-9 collection at scale

Collecting W-9s is a constant requirement in family office operations, especially for clients with large vendor networks. One client’s business operation alone generates more than 1,000 W-9 requests. Before BILL, January often meant weeks of chasing missing forms under deadline pressure. Now, W-9s are collected throughout the year as vendors are added, turning a tight filing deadline into a more manageable process.

Duplicate detection helps prevent overpayment

Because invoices often arrive through multiple channels, including direct from vendors, from multiple email accounts, assistants, and property managers, duplicate submissions are common. BILL flags potential duplicates automatically, helping the team catch issues before payments are released. 

Results: A more secure, scalable, client-ready practice

With BILL at the center of its bill pay operations, EisnerAmper has replaced a fragmented mix of bank portals, paper checks, and email approvals with a centralized model that is more secure, scalable, and easier to manage, without losing the high-touch service families expect.

The impact extends well beyond payment processing:

• Paper was removed from the core workflow, giving the team greater flexibility and reducing delays caused by absences.
• Approval workflows became more adaptable, allowing each family’s preferences to be reflected in the process.
• Duplicate detection reduced overpayment risk, catching invoices submitted through multiple channels.
• Automated W-9 collection eased compliance work, replacing a time-intensive annual scramble.
• A single document repository improved visibility, replacing multiple folders and inconsistent filing practices.
• Global team support improved scalability, with overnight bill entry ready for morning review.

The most meaningful change has been the flexibility the model creates for both clients and the internal team. The shift to BILL has also made it easier for the firm to onboard new clients and has become a standard part of the onboarding process.*

For EisnerAmper’s family office practice, BILL provides the structure, security, and flexibility needed to support complex, highly personalized financial operations while giving the firm a stronger foundation for scale.

^{‍*Based on EisnerAmper’s experience using BILL as of May, 2026. Results are not guaranteed and may vary by business.}

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