Updated: February, 2023
In keeping with our commitment to transparency and sense of responsibility to our clients, Continuity Family Business Consulting (Continuity) strives to manage project-related expenses and operates with the following payment and reimbursement policies:
Payment
Payments to Continuity will be due at the beginning of each monthly billing cycle during the engagement. As part of our billing, Continuity submits expenses deemed “necessary and reasonable” in the performance of consulting engagements with clients. Expenses will be itemized and charged as part of the invoice in the month following when the expenses were incurred. If a cancellation is necessary, we request 30+ days’ notice.
Fees for chemistry meetings will be credited to the first month’s engagement fee if a contract for engagement is signed within 60 days of the meeting. Travel expenses for chemistry meetings will be billed to the client, are payable net 30 and not credited towards engagement fees.
Air Travel
For domestic air travel less than three hours, Continuity consultants travel coach class, with “extra space/extra speed,” as available. For travel beyond three hours, Continuity consultants travel business class.
Ground/Automobile Rental
Mileage for use of personal vehicles will be reimbursed at the current IRS rate. Auto rental arrangements are booked with national carriers for mid-size cars.
Meals
Continuity will cap daily meal expense reimbursements at $100/day per person.
Lodging
Continuity will book hotel accommodations based on client recommendation when possible. When recommended hotels are not available, business-standard hotels close to our meeting places are arranged. We report the actual room charges plus the applicable fees and taxes.
Placement Fees
If Continuity sources board members or new employees, either interim or permanent, we charge a modest placement fee of 15% of first year total remuneration – far less than a standard search firm would charge for similar services. The fee covers our help in on-boarding and performance monitoring or coaching the executive or director.
Privacy
Our work generally does not require access to sensitive personal identification information such as social security numbers, tax returns, passwords, or similarly sensitive information other than basic contact and summary financial data. We request that when information is sent to us, personal and sensitive identification information be redacted. This is an important step in protecting your privacy. We also have a robust process to protect confidentiality of received information, our notes, and collected data.
Confidentiality
We do not disclose the names of our clients. Exceptions are made for reference purposes (see below) or when clients would like to provide a testimonial to support our work and give us their approval to share this testimonial. Our conversations with individual stakeholders and groups of stakeholders are private, and we do not disclose that information to others outside the consulting team without approval. Our meeting notes and client correspondence are property of Continuity and are not disclosable to any stakeholder.
References
We are often asked to provide references: the names and contact information of other family enterprises with whom we have worked. In order to protect confidentiality, we only make introductions to references when a family is ready to hire us and only needs to confirm their impressions of us to make their final decision. This preserves our clients’ privacy and limits their involvement with families who are simply in the early stages of considering such work.
Collaborative Professionals
We often are asked to recommend collaborative professionals to complement our work with families. When we do, we aim to be as transparent as possible. We receive no referral fees or commissions for these engagements.
Shared Expenses
Sometimes our consultants travel from one family client to another family client, and this results in shared travel or lodging expense. We strive to allocate those expenses in a fair manner and never double-bill the same expense to two or more families. We look for such opportunities to save costs for our client families.
Responsiveness
We strive to answer all calls and correspondence within 24 hours – even if only to acknowledge receipt of the communication and to schedule a time to review and respond to the communication.
Methodology
Our consulting approach is designed to help client families find alignment on a path forward that they choose from a fully informed perspective. We take great care to lay out available options with associated pros, cons, and implementation paths, and to avoid taking positions of what a family should or shouldn’t do. We do not pick winners and losers but articulate objective ramifications of choices at hand.
