Menu of services
Every service the office carries.
Eighty-four services, twenty-eight groups, six pillars. Filter by pillar, by cadence, or search across the menu.
- 01.01.01
Coordinate professional advisors (legal, tax, investment, banking, insurance)
Stendal holds the file on every external advisor relationship and convenes the team around the family's open questions, so the advice the family receives is all encompassing rather than siloed across disciplines.
- 01.01.02
Challenge specialist recommendations and hold single-point accountability for the family
Stendal brings a cross-disciplinary view and actively challenges each recommendation against alternative opinions.
- 01.02.01
Establish quarterly meeting schedule to review financial results and planning
Stendal sets the year's quarterly meeting calendar in advance, circulates the agenda template, and reserves principal and advisor time, so the office's work has a rhythm rather than running reactively.
- 01.02.02
Facilitate quarterly review meetings with consolidated agenda and minutes
Stendal runs each quarterly meeting from a single agenda covering performance, planning, and outstanding decisions, and produces written minutes the same week so decisions get made in the room and on the record.
- 01.02.03
Facilitate meetings of trustees
Stendal convenes and runs trustee meetings, documents decisions for the trust record, and ensures the trust's required formalities are observed across the year.
- 01.03.01
Refresh family mission and revise planning accordingly
Stendal revisits the family's stated mission, values, and priorities on an annual cadence, then updates the planning structure so it continues to fit the family it serves in the present.
- 01.03.02
Develop family constitution and review on annual cadence
Stendal helps the family put governance principles, decision rights, and shared expectations into a written constitution, then reviews it each year against the year's events to keep it current.
- 01.04.01
Provide general financial literacy education to children (budgeting, investing)
Stendal delivers structured financial literacy sessions to the next generation, covering personal budgeting, investing basics, and the mechanics of the family's holdco and trust structure at age-appropriate depth.
- 01.04.02
Educate family on use of trusts and family entities
Stendal walks family members through the purpose and operation of each trust and holding entity in the family's structure, so the next generation understands what they will inherit, when, and on what terms.
- 01.04.03
Advise children on financial matters at senior generation's invitation
Stendal advises adult next-generation members on personal financial questions when the senior generation invites the engagement, preserving the senior generation's primacy while building the next generation's confidence with the office.
- 02.01.01
Prepare cash flow and financial independence calculations, revised regularly
Stendal models the family's annual income, spending, and capital needs against the portfolio's expected return and confirms financial independence under different market scenarios, revised whenever circumstances change.
- 02.01.02
Prepare liquidity analysis, revised regularly
Stendal projects the family's cash requirements for the coming year and the next five years across taxes, distributions, capital calls, and lifestyle, then maps required liquidity against the portfolio's actual liquidity profile.
- 02.01.03
Prepare statement of net worth, changes in net worth, and cash flows
Stendal produces an annual personal financial statement covering assets, liabilities, year-over-year change in net worth, and total cash flows, consolidated across all entities in the family's structure.
- 02.02.01
Implementation of personal, corporate, trust, and estate tax strategies
Stendal designs and implements the tax strategy across the family's personal returns, holdcos, family trust, and estate plan, coordinating execution with the family's existing CPA where one is in place.
- 02.02.02
Design tax-efficient compensation strategies
Stendal designs how the family extracts compensation from holdcos and opcos (salary, dividends, management fees, shareholder loans), optimizing for combined personal and corporate tax across all jurisdictions.
- 02.02.03
Design holding-structure strategies for cross-border family members
Stendal designs holding structures that accommodate family members resident in different countries, balancing Canadian and U.S. corporate tax regimes and avoiding unintended double taxation.
- 02.03.01
Coordinate cross-border estate tax exposure across U.S. and Canadian regimes (treaty positions, unified credit)
Stendal maps the family's exposure to U.S. estate tax (for U.S. persons or U.S.-situs assets) against the Canada-U.S. treaty positions and the unified credit, identifying where planning must flex to avoid double taxation on death.
- 02.03.02
Design structures for U.S.-resident family owning Canadian holdcos (GILTI, Subpart F monitoring)
Stendal designs the holdco structure for U.S.-resident family members to manage GILTI and Subpart F exposure, monitors the annual calculations, and coordinates with U.S. counsel on the resulting filings.
- 02.03.03
Implement RRSP, RRIF, IRA, 401(k) treaty elections; coordinate annual filings that preserve them
Stendal implements the treaty-based deferral elections for the family's retirement accounts on both sides of the border and coordinates the annual filings that preserve them.
- 02.04.01
Review and revise wills and powers of attorney as required
Stendal coordinates the annual review of every family member's will and powers of attorney against changes in circumstances, asset structure, and law, and works with counsel on revisions.
- 02.04.02
Design and maintain estate freezes; re-freeze as valuation and circumstances change
Stendal designs the family's estate freeze structure to lock in the senior generation's tax exposure while transferring future growth to the next generation, and coordinates re-freeze events when valuations or family circumstances change.
- 02.04.03
Coordinate with counsel on trust drafting and review of trust deeds against family objectives
Stendal works with the family's chosen counsel on trust drafting, ensures the trust deed reflects the family's stated objectives, and tracks amendments against the original intent.
- 02.04.04
Map multi-jurisdictional estate exposure across provinces and any U.S./non-Canadian residency
Stendal maintains a current map of each family member's residency-based estate exposure across the provinces and any foreign residency, flagging where probate, succession, or estate tax regimes interact unexpectedly.
- 02.04.05
Maintain a post-mortem tax planning framework (pipeline strategies, loss-carryback positions)
Stendal documents and maintains the post-mortem tax framework (pipeline strategies, loss carryback elections, capital-gains planning) so the framework is execution-ready when needed.
- 02.04.06
Maintain the executor playbook; review on annual cadence
Stendal maintains a current executor playbook covering account access, key contacts, document locations, and step-by-step execution sequence, reviewed annually so the executor is not improvising on the day.
- 02.04.07
Estate administration on death
Stendal coordinates the estate administration on the family's death, executing the playbook prepared in advance with counsel and the executor, and managing tax filings, asset transfers, and beneficiary distributions cleanly.
- 02.05.01
Prepare a shareholders' agreement for holding companies
Stendal coordinates the preparation of the shareholders' agreement covering decision rights, transfer restrictions, valuation mechanism, and exit provisions for each holding company, working with counsel on the legal draft.
- 02.05.02
Develop plan to utilize lifetime capital gains exemption for each family member
Stendal develops the plan to utilize each family member's lifetime capital gains exemption against qualifying small-business or farm property, coordinating with counsel and tax on the structuring required.
- 02.05.03
Coordinate establishment of self-interest or spousal trusts with counsel where appropriate
Stendal evaluates whether self-interest trusts (alter-ego, joint-spousal) fit the family's circumstances and coordinates their establishment with counsel where the case is right.
- 03.01.01
Prepare a life insurance needs analysis, revised regularly
Stendal models the family's life insurance need against the liquidity required at death (taxes, distributions, replacement income), revised whenever assets, structure, or beneficiaries change.
- 03.01.02
Review existing property and casualty insurance coverages
Stendal annually audits the family's property and casualty coverage (homes, vehicles, art, jewellery, umbrella) against current values and risk exposure, flagging gaps and over-insurance.
- 03.01.03
Review existing disability and medical insurance coverages
Stendal annually reviews disability and medical coverage across the family, including any group plans through opcos and individual policies, against current circumstances.
- 03.01.04
Conduct annual risk assessment across the family's exposures
Stendal runs a structured annual risk assessment covering insurance, cybersecurity, key-person, regulatory, and concentration risks, producing a one-page risk register for the quarterly meeting.
- 03.02.01
Review and negotiate custody and management fees on existing manager relationships
Stendal annually reviews the family's custody and investment management fees against current market rates and renegotiates where the family's relationship strength warrants better pricing.
- 03.03.01
Calculate liquidity required to pay taxes upon death; ensure liquidity exists
Stendal calculates the liquidity the estate will need to pay terminal taxes (deemed disposition, U.S. estate tax exposure, probate fees) and confirms the source is in place, whether insurance, retained earnings, or a designated portfolio sleeve.
- 04.01.01
Define appropriate asset classes for the family's mandate
Stendal defines the asset classes appropriate for the family's mandate, return target, liquidity needs, and time horizon, including any allocation to alternatives the family wishes to consider.
- 04.01.02
Oversee asset allocation across managers and strategies
Stendal monitors the family's actual asset allocation against the target across all managers and strategies, surfacing drift for rebalancing decisions at the quarterly meeting.
- 04.01.03
Review and challenge tactical shifts proposed by the family's managers
Stendal evaluates tactical shifts proposed by the family's investment managers against the IPS and the cross-portfolio picture, then signs off or pushes back on the manager's behalf.
- 04.02.01
Assess most appropriate structure in which to hold assets (trust, corporation, personal)
Stendal assesses where each asset should sit (trust, holdco, personally) for combined tax, creditor-protection, and succession purposes, then coordinates movement of assets with counsel and accountants.
- 04.02.02
Assess most appropriate jurisdiction in which to hold assets
Stendal assesses jurisdiction-of-holding decisions for the family's investment assets, balancing Canadian, U.S., and any other jurisdiction's tax and reporting regimes.
- 04.03.01
Align portfolio liquidity with the family's spending plan
Stendal aligns the portfolio's liquidity profile with the family's annual spending and planned capital outflows, ensuring sufficient near-cash to cover 12 months without forced selling.
- 04.03.02
Forecast liquidity against manager redemption windows
Stendal forecasts the family's liquidity needs against each illiquid manager's redemption schedule and lock-up windows, so the family is never surprised by a redemption that cannot be funded on the timeline required.
- 04.04.01
Perform manager search, selection, and ongoing due diligence
Stendal sources, evaluates, and selects investment managers against the family's mandate, conducts ongoing due diligence on existing managers, and recommends terminations when conviction breaks.
- 04.04.02
Coordinate cash position monitoring across all entities
Stendal monitors cash positions across all entities in the family's structure weekly, surfaces idle balances for redeployment, and flags deficits before they become overdrafts.
- 04.04.03
Set fixed-income policy with appointed managers; monitor allocations, duration, credit exposures
Stendal sets the family's fixed-income policy with the appointed managers (allowable issuers, duration target, credit-quality floor), monitors exposures, and reviews against changing rate and credit environments.
- 04.04.04
Coordinate cross-border cash management and FX exposure across the family's entities
Stendal coordinates the family's cross-border cash positions and unhedged FX exposure across personal accounts, holdcos, and trusts, reducing transaction friction and unintended currency risk.
- 04.04.05
Set FX hedging policy with appointed managers; monitor exposures
Stendal sets the FX hedging policy with the family's appointed managers (which exposures to hedge, what instruments, what proportion), monitors the running exposures, and reviews policy against the family's risk appetite.
- 04.04.06
Manager and counterparty cost negotiation (GPs, asset managers, custodians, banks, insurance): secure alternative-product access on improved terms, reduce ongoing management + performance fees, capture institutional pricing
Stendal negotiates on the family's behalf with general partners, asset managers, custodians, banks, and insurance counterparties to secure access to alternative products on improved terms, reduce fees, and capture institutional pricing across recurring relationships. Reviews run on a defined annual cadence rather than reactively.
- 04.05.01
Structure the investment policy statement
Stendal drafts and maintains the family's Investment Policy Statement covering return objective, risk tolerance, asset-class ranges, manager-selection criteria, liquidity rules, and rebalancing discipline, reviewed annually.
- 04.05.02
Create quarterly capital market assumptions
Stendal produces quarterly capital market assumptions (expected returns, volatilities, correlations by asset class) to use as inputs for portfolio construction, rebalancing, and the family's financial-independence model.
- 04.06.01
Develop tax-efficient transition plan when changing strategies
When the family changes investment strategies or terminates a manager, Stendal develops the tax-efficient transition plan covering staged sales, harvest opportunities, and timing relative to year-end positions.
- 04.06.02
Design tax-minimization strategies for the portfolio annually; coordinate execution through family's licensed advisors
Stendal designs the year's tax-minimization strategies for the portfolio (loss harvesting, capital-gains planning, in-kind transfers between entities) and coordinates execution with the family's licensed investment advisors.
- 04.07.01
Analysis of investment managers
Stendal evaluates each investment manager against their stated benchmark, peer group, and the family's mandate quarterly, surfacing conviction-eroding patterns before they become losses.
- 04.07.02
Analysis of risk-adjusted returns
Stendal calculates risk-adjusted returns across the portfolio (Sharpe, Sortino, drawdown, volatility-adjusted return) so the family understands return quality, not just absolute return.
- 04.07.03
Comprehensive consolidated performance reporting
Stendal produces a consolidated quarterly performance report across all managers, accounts, and entities, presenting one number for the portfolio rather than fragmented per-manager statements.
- 05.01.01
Holdco #1: bookkeeping and maintenance of general ledger and trial balance
Stendal maintains the books for Holdco #1, recording transactions in the general ledger and producing a current trial balance ready for the annual financial statements and tax return.
- 05.01.02
Holdco #2: bookkeeping and maintenance of general ledger and trial balance
Stendal maintains the books for Holdco #2 on the same monthly cadence, ready for annual financial statements and the T2 tax return.
- 05.01.03
Family Trust: bookkeeping for capital and income receipts and disbursements
Stendal maintains the family trust books, tracking capital and income receipts and disbursements separately as required by trust law and ensuring distributions are properly characterized for the T3 return.
- 05.01.04
Family Trust: portfolio accounting via electronic feeds from custodian
Stendal ingests the family trust's portfolio activity directly from the custodian's electronic feed, eliminating manual reconciliation and producing real-time position reporting.
- 05.01.05
Asset Protection Trusts: bookkeeping for capital and income receipts and disbursements
Stendal maintains the books for each Asset Protection Trust on the same monthly cadence as the family trust, preserving the documentation required to defend the trust's status if challenged.
- 05.01.06
Compilation of income tax information for each holding company
Stendal compiles the annual income tax information package for each holding company (T2 working papers, supporting schedules, dividend tracking, ACB roll-forward) and hands it to the family's preparer.
- 05.02.01
Holdco #1: preparation of annual financial statements
Stendal prepares the annual financial statements for Holdco #1 in accordance with ASPE or other appropriate framework, ready for tax filing and bank reporting.
- 05.02.02
Holdco #2: preparation of annual financial statements
Stendal prepares the annual financial statements for Holdco #2 to the same standard.
- 05.02.03
Family Trust: preparation of annual financial statements
Stendal prepares the family trust's annual financial statements covering opening balance, receipts, disbursements, and closing balance by capital and income.
- 05.02.04
Asset Protection Trusts: preparation of annual financial statements
Stendal prepares annual financial statements for each Asset Protection Trust on the same framework, documenting the trust's transactions for trustee, beneficiary, and regulatory purposes.
- 05.03.01
Reconciliation of bank account balances for all entities
Stendal reconciles bank account balances for every entity in the family's structure monthly, catching errors, missed transactions, and unauthorized activity within the month rather than at year-end.
- 05.03.02
Verification of outside statements, bills, and reports
Stendal verifies the family's outside statements, bills, and reports (custodian, insurance, utility, professional fees) against expected charges and contracted rates, flagging anomalies.
- 05.04.01
Bookkeeping and tracking of actual vs. budgeted personal expenses
Stendal maintains a personal household bookkeeping ledger and tracks monthly spending against the family's annual budget, surfacing variances for the quarterly review.
- 05.05.01
Preparation of Canadian personal tax returns (T1) for the family
Stendal prepares and files Canadian personal tax returns (T1) for each adult family member, integrating the year's tax-planning decisions into the filing.
- 05.05.02
Handling CRA personal tax audits and requests for information
Stendal manages CRA personal tax audits and information requests on behalf of family members, drafting responses and coordinating with counsel for any escalation.
- 05.06.01
Preparation of Canadian corporate tax returns (T2) for holding and operating companies
Stendal prepares the T2 corporate tax return for each holding and operating company, integrating the year's compensation, dividend, and inter-company strategies.
- 05.06.02
Handling CRA corporate tax audits and requests for information
Stendal manages CRA corporate audits and information requests on behalf of each entity, defending the planned positions and coordinating with counsel as needed.
- 05.06.03
Preparation of GST/HST returns for operating companies (where applicable)
Stendal prepares and files GST/HST returns for operating companies on the filing schedule CRA has assigned (monthly, quarterly, or annual), tracking input tax credits and net remittances.
Family AdministrationCorporate Income Tax Compliance (Holdco / Opco)Per CRA-assigned filing frequency (monthly / quarterly / annual) - 05.06.04
Preparation of T4 and T5 slips and information returns for holding and operating companies
Stendal prepares the annual T4 (employment) and T5 (investment income) slips and the related information returns, delivered to recipients by the February 28 CRA deadline.
- 05.07.01
Preparation of trust income tax returns (T3) for the family trust
Stendal prepares and files the family trust T3 return within the 90-day deadline, allocating income properly between the trust and beneficiaries to minimize combined tax.
- 05.07.02
Preparation of trust income tax returns for Asset Protection Trusts
Stendal prepares and files the T3 return for each Asset Protection Trust on the same 90-day deadline relative to that trust's year-end, preserving the trust's planned tax treatment.
- 05.07.03
Preparation of T3 slips for beneficiaries
Stendal prepares the T3 slips for each beneficiary by the same 90-day deadline so beneficiaries can integrate the trust income into their personal T1 returns on time.
- 05.07.04
Handling CRA trust tax audits and requests for information
Stendal manages CRA trust audits and information requests, defending the trust's planned positions and coordinating with counsel for any escalation.
- 06.01.01
Facilitate determination of family's charitable goals and areas of interest
Stendal facilitates structured conversations across the family to surface charitable goals and areas of interest, producing a written statement that anchors all subsequent gift-planning decisions.
- 06.01.02
Develop and review a philanthropic mission statement
Stendal helps the family articulate a philanthropic mission statement and reviews it annually against giving experience and family evolution.
- 06.02.01
Assist in evaluating charitable opportunities
Stendal evaluates charitable opportunities the family is considering against the family's mission, the recipient organization's effectiveness, and the tax efficiency of the proposed gift.
- 06.02.02
Create a strategic gifting plan
Stendal develops the family's annual gifting plan, optimizing across cash, in-kind securities, and donor-advised-fund disbursements for combined tax and impact.
- 06.02.03
Maximize tax benefits of gifting strategies
Stendal structures each gift to capture the maximum available tax benefit (donation tax credit, capital gains exemption on appreciated securities, corporate vs personal donation positioning), revised annually as rules change.
- 06.02.04
Establish private foundation or Donor-Advised Fund
Stendal evaluates whether a Private Foundation or Donor-Advised Fund fits the family's giving size and complexity, and coordinates establishment with counsel and the chosen administrator.