William Allan Wealth Management · Our Approach
Your Advisor and Your CPA, On the Same Team
A CPA financial advisor handles investment advice and tax work under one roof, so the person managing your portfolio can see the return those decisions land on. At William Allan, that is the structure, not an add-on: our tax work is done in-house by CPAs, and our Chief Executive Officer is one of them.
Most people assemble this arrangement themselves, with an advisor on one side and an accountant on the other. It usually works, right up until a decision carries a tax consequence nobody flagged in advance. One team on both sides is the difference between finding out in April and planning for it in September.
What Changes When One Team Handles Both
Decisions Get Priced After Tax
A gain, a rebalance, or a distribution looks different once the tax effect is included. When the same team sees both sides, that math happens before the trade rather than at filing season.
You Are Not the Messenger
Unaffiliated advisors and accountants coordinate through the client. Anything you do not think to relay does not get relayed. One team on both sides removes that dependency.
Planning Runs Year-Round
Tax preparation looks backward at a year that has already closed. Planning happens while the year is still open, when income timing, harvesting, and conversions are still decisions rather than history.
One Picture of Your Situation
Portfolio, return, estate documents, and business interests inform each other. Reviewing them together surfaces interactions that any single view would miss.
Credentials You Can Verify
William Allan has been registered with the SEC as an investment adviser since 2004. The firm's record, including Form ADV and Form CRS, is public under CRD 133147.
Fee-Only, and Fiduciary
William Allan is paid by its clients, not by commissions or third parties for recommending particular products, and acts as a fiduciary. That does not guarantee any outcome, but it does remove a common conflict.
How the Tax Side Is Billed
Tax planning and preparation is engaged and billed through Crawshaw CPAs, our affiliated CPA practice, under a separate agreement from investment management. The team doing the work is the same one you already know.
Where Tax and Investment Decisions Overlap
- Harvesting losses to offset realized capital gains
- Timing capital gains across tax years and rate brackets
- Roth conversion planning, including partial-year conversions
- Asset location: which holdings sit in taxable versus tax-deferred accounts
- Required Minimum Distribution planning and charitable alternatives (QCDs)
- Concentrated or low-basis stock positions and how to unwind them
- Equity compensation: incentive and non-qualified options, RSU vesting
- Business owner entity structure, retirement plans, and owner compensation
- Charitable giving vehicles, including donor-advised funds
- Estate and gift planning coordinated with the investment plan
Who This Structure Tends to Suit
Business Owners
Entity structure, owner compensation, retirement plan design, and eventual sale all cross the line between tax and investment planning. Splitting them across two firms means neither sees the whole transaction.
Concentrated Stock Holders
Unwinding a large low-basis position is a tax problem and a risk problem at once. The sequencing matters, and it is hard to sequence when the two advisors work from separate information.
Households Near or In Retirement
Withdrawal order, Social Security timing, Roth conversions, and RMDs interact with each other and with your bracket. These are planning decisions with a filing deadline attached.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a CPA financial advisor?
An advisor whose investment advice and tax work are handled by the same people, rather than split between an advisor and an accountant who never speak. The practical difference is that whoever manages the portfolio can see the tax return those decisions land on.
Do I need both a CPA and a financial advisor?
Most people with any complexity need both, and they are genuinely separate disciplines. The friction is coordination: each sees half the picture, so the tax consequences of investment decisions tend to surface after the fact. What matters is whether the two actually talk to each other.
Is William Allan Wealth Management CPA-led?
Yes. Tax planning and preparation is handled in-house by Certified Public Accountants, and the firm's Chief Executive Officer, Jason Crawshaw, is a CPA who works directly on client tax matters. The firm has been registered with the SEC as an investment adviser since 2004 (CRD 133147).
Can a CPA manage my investments?
Not on the strength of a CPA license alone. Investment management requires registration as an investment adviser, which is a separate authorization. William Allan is an SEC-registered investment adviser whose team also includes CPAs, which is what allows both sides of the work to happen in one place.
How are your services billed?
Investment management is fee-only, meaning William Allan is compensated by its clients rather than by commissions or third-party payments for recommending particular investments, and the firm acts as a fiduciary. Tax planning and preparation is engaged and billed separately through Crawshaw CPAs, our affiliated CPA practice.
Where is William Allan Wealth Management located?
William Allan has offices in Long Beach, California and Fort Collins, Colorado, and works with individuals, families, business owners, and institutions.
Bring your portfolio and your return into the same conversation.
Schedule a free consultation with our CPA-led team to review both together.