By Jerilyn Klein Bier

Growing a national wealth management practice isn't easy even in the best economy, but for Abacus Wealth Partners LLC, a fee-only registered investment advisory firm that expanded into New York City last month, the timing feels right.

Abacus, which has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia, decided to open a small office in New York because it's the top spot for visitors to its Web site, says managing director J.D. Bruce.

The firm, which was founded as Sherman Financial in 1987, manages approximately $700 million in assets for more than 570 clients in roughly 35 states. Abacus wants to hire more financial advisors for all of its offices. It's also experimenting with growing a financial planning practice for folks with assets in the $50,000 to $1 million range, a group it previously limited to asset management work.

Abacus says it's looking for advisors who've had previous success landing clients and who want to build a book of business. The firm is also seeking advisors who are comfortable with its philosophy--impact investing with a passive management bent.

Abacus, which uses a diversified buy-and-hold investment strategy, does almost all its investing through Dimensional Fund Advisors. Although just 5% to 10% of its clients are diehard environmental investors, almost all its clients are invested in DFA's sustainability funds.

Abacus says it helped seed fund DFA's U.S and international sustainability funds. "They asked us how the SRI market thinks," says Brent Kessel, an Abacus co-founder and principal. "We've dealt with environmentally sensitive investing for most of our 20-year history."

Abacus also participates in philanthropic causes and donates a minimum of 5% of annual profits to charity.

"We have kind of superhero dreams," says Bruce.

Kessel and Abacus co-founder and principal Spencer Sherman, authors and frequent industry speakers who've been ranked among the nation's top advisors by various financial publications, also bring a spiritual perspective to wealth management. Kessel, a yogi, is the money columnist for the Yoga Journal.

"We're looking for people who are cool with our culture but not necessarily those who have done it before," Bruce says. "Advisors don't have to meditate every day."

But Abacus wants to hire more than just seasoned advisors. It's also looking for motivated CFP candidates to staff its new financial planning services practice aimed at smaller clients who need low-cost investments but not necessarily in-depth insurance and estate planning.

"We're badly in need of young CFPs in the industry," says Bruce. Indeed, Cerulli Associates last year issued a report that found less than 25% of all advisors are ages 40 or younger and just 5.6% are ages 30 or younger.

Abacus would rather offer CFP candidates a career path and relationship-based advisory experience than hire advisors who've cut their teeth on commission-based selling at insurance companies and wire houses, Bruce says.

Meanwhile, Abacus has been leveraging technology to bring a more unified approach to its distant offices. It uses Salesforce CRM to monitor work performed by advisors in different locations, and employs iRebal's rebalancing system to centralize trading and save the firm about 100 hours a week in productivity. Bruce says Abacus's centralized financial plan process has added consistency and enables advisors to share their areas of expertise with each other and with clients.

Abacus has also moved to an outsourced IT model and uses a centralized data center in New Jersey. "With our multiple offices, it was critical," Bruce says. "We had three silos before." The firm uses Fuze Meeting for Web conferencing and online meetings.

While socially responsible and environmental investing have become buzzwords, for Abacus the most important thing is making an impact, says Bruce. And that's what it's trying to bring for both big and small investors.