What is Trust Accounting?
The short answer
Trust accounting is the practice of holding and tracking money that belongs to someone else — security deposits and owner funds in property management — separately from the manager's operating cash, with a per-beneficiary ledger that can always show whose money is whose. In many states it's legally required and regulated by the real-estate commission.
Why is trust accounting required?
Security deposits and rent collected on an owner's behalf are not the property manager's money. Trust-accounting rules (which vary by state) require those funds to sit in a designated trust/escrow account, never be commingled with operating funds, and be reconcilable down to each tenant and owner at any time.
What does compliant trust accounting require?
A separate trust bank account, a three-way reconciliation (bank balance = trust ledger = sum of all beneficiary balances), no negative beneficiary balances, and an audit trail. Failing these is one of the most common reasons property managers lose their license.
Trust Accounting — FAQ
Is trust accounting the same as a general ledger?
No. The general ledger is the overall books; trust accounting is a specific discipline for other-people's-money that sits on top of it, requiring per-beneficiary sub-ledgers and three-way reconciliation.
Related terms
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