Ask what outsourced trust accounting costs in Australia and you won’t find a straight answer anywhere. Every provider in this market puts the number behind an enquiry form, and yes, that includes us. There’s a fair reason for it. A quote for 80 properties on one platform tells you very little about 600 properties across three states and two trust accounts. But it’s still unhelpful, because the principal asking usually isn’t shopping yet. They just want to know whether the conversation is worth having.
So here’s the arithmetic, with the working shown. It isn’t a rate card. Further down I’ll explain why a published rate would mislead more often than it helped. It’s the benchmark any quote should be measured against: the full cost of doing the job yourself.
The short version
- A trust accountant’s salary is only 70 to 80 per cent of what the role costs. Super, payroll tax, cover and replacement take a $90,000 salary to somewhere between $115,000 and $125,000 a year.
- That’s roughly $98 per property per month at 100 properties, $33 at 300 and $12 at 800.
- In-house is hard to beat above about 500 properties. Below about 250, you’re paying a full-time price for part-time work.
- Your bank, the scope you hand over, bill volume, the number of trust accounts and the state of your file are what drive the price of an outsourced arrangement.
- Your audit fee and your software subscription don’t change either way.
The comparison almost every principal gets wrong
When an agency compares in-house trust accounting with an outsourced provider, the number in their head is a salary. The provider quotes a monthly fee. The principal divides it by twelve, compares it with what they pay their trust accountant, and forms a view in about four seconds.
That comparison is wrong, and not by a little. The salary is somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent of what the role really costs, and it’s the only part that appears on a single line in your accounts. The rest is scattered across superannuation, payroll tax, workers compensation, software licences, recruitment, and the weeks each year when the seat is empty and the work isn’t getting done.
What a trust accountant costs in 2026
Start with the market rate. Advertised salaries for real estate trust accountants sit around $85,000 nationally: roughly $75,750 in Sydney, $92,500 in Melbourne and $90,000 in Western Australia. Trust accountant roles across all industries advertise closer to $90,000 to $100,000. Let’s take $90,000 as a working base for someone experienced enough to run a portfolio without supervision.
Superannuation. The superannuation guarantee is 12 per cent for 2026-27 and stays there. On $90,000 that’s $10,800, taking the package to $100,800. From 1 July 2026 the Payday Super rules also mean super is paid with every pay run rather than quarterly. That’s a cash flow change rather than a cost increase, but it takes away a quarterly float some agencies had quietly been leaning on.
Payroll tax. If your Australian wages are over your state’s threshold, every dollar of that package is taxed at the margin. The rates are 5.45 per cent in New South Wales above $1.2 million, 4.85 per cent in Victoria above $1 million, 4.75 per cent in Queensland above $1.3 million, 5.5 per cent in Western Australia above $1 million, and up to 4.95 per cent in South Australia above $1.5 million. On a $100,800 package in New South Wales, that’s roughly another $5,500. If you operate across state lines, each state’s threshold shrinks to your share of wages paid there, so multi-state agencies hit payroll tax earlier than they expect.
Workers compensation, leave loading and the desk. Small individually, not collectively. Budget a few thousand dollars.
Software and training. A seat in your platform, plus the time to keep someone current when the software changes, which it does.
Cover. This is the line nobody costs. Four weeks of annual leave plus a normal amount of sick leave means the seat is empty for about six weeks a year. Trust accounting doesn’t pause for six weeks. Either you pay for temporary cover, which is expensive and hardest to find at end of month and in audit season, or the work banks up and somebody else absorbs it badly.
Replacement. Trust accounting has real turnover, because it’s exacting work that’s easy to under-support. When the person leaves you pay a recruitment fee. You pay for a handover that often doesn’t happen properly. And you pay in errors while somebody new learns your ledgers.
Add it up honestly and a $90,000 base costs an agency somewhere between $115,000 and $125,000 a year, before a single day of disruption.
The number that actually matters
Convert that into the unit every principal already thinks in: cost per property, per month. At an all-in cost of $118,000 a year, in-house trust accounting costs roughly:
- $98 per property per month at 100 properties
- $49 at 200 properties
- $33 at 300 properties
- $20 at 500 properties
- $12 at 800 properties
That curve is the whole argument, and it cuts both ways. A trust accountant costs the same whether they’re reconciling 100 properties or 500. In-house trust accounting is punishing at the bottom of that range and genuinely efficient at the top. Above roughly 500 properties, a well-run in-house function is hard to beat on cost alone.
Below about 250, you’re paying a full-time price for a part-time volume of work. The usual answer is to hand trust accounting to a property manager or office administrator who already has another job. That’s exactly how agencies end up with the audit findings and staff turnover we’ve written about before.
Why nobody publishes a rate, including us
This is the point where you’d reasonably expect a number, so let me be straight about why there isn’t one. It isn’t commercial coyness. Two agencies with identical portfolios can generate very different amounts of work, and the things that drive the difference aren’t the things principals expect.
Which bank you use. This one surprises people. How your trust account transactions arrive makes a real difference to how long reconciliation and receipting take: the statement format, how the feed behaves, how much detail comes through on each line, how payments are batched. Two identical rent rolls at two different banks are not the same job.
How much of the job you want done. Daily receipting, invoice processing, bond reconciliations, disbursements, owner statements and end of month is a different engagement from end-of-month processing alone. Most agencies land somewhere between the two, and where they land is the single biggest variable in any quote.
Whether bill processing is included. Creditor invoices are a volume question, not a portfolio question. An agency with a heavy maintenance load, water and council rates on-charged to owners, and a multi-step approval workflow generates far more processing than a portfolio the same size with light bills.
How many trust accounts. A sales trust alongside property management is a second set of obligations, a second reconciliation and a second audit.
What state the file is in. A well-configured platform is cheaper to run than one that needs fixing first. The fixing is usually a one-off rather than an ongoing cost.
How many jurisdictions. Operating across state lines means more than one rule set, more than one bond authority and more than one audit deadline. Our compliance calendar shows just how different they are.
That’s why every provider in this market quotes rather than lists, and why a published rate would be misleading more often than it was useful.
Getting an accurate number quickly
What you can do is bring the information that makes a quote fast and accurate rather than hedged. Have these to hand:
- the number of properties under management, split between residential and commercial
- whether there’s a sales trust as well, and roughly how many transactions it carries
- your software, and how confident you are in the state of the file
- your trust account bank
- rough creditor invoice volume per month
- which states you operate in
- which parts of the job you want to hand over, and which you want to keep
Our cost estimator asks for the first few of these and takes about two minutes. The rest are the questions we’d ask on a call.
Two costs that don’t change either way
Your audit. You pay for a trust account audit whether the work is done in-house or outside. Published fixed-fee quotes for real estate trust account audits currently start at around $550 to $900 plus GST per trust account. The variable isn’t who does your trust accounting. It’s how clean the file is when the auditor opens it. A messy account costs more to audit, and a qualified report costs far more than the audit fee. Our guides to preparing for a trust account audit and the red flags that trigger an adverse finding cover what that looks like in practice.
Your software. Your platform subscription doesn’t change because somebody else is driving it.
What the price doesn’t tell you
Two providers quoting the same rate can be running very different services. Before you compare on price, get an answer to each of these:
- Is the account reconciled daily or monthly? That decides whether you hear about a problem this morning or in five weeks.
- Who carries professional indemnity cover, and for how much?
- Is the work done onshore or offshore, and who’s accountable when something is missed?
- Do you get a named person who knows your portfolio, or a queue?
- What happens at audit time? Is pre-audit work included, or billed separately?
- What’s the exit? Notice period, and how quickly you get your data and your process back.
The honest summary
If you run 500 or more properties, have a capable trust accountant and have solved the cover problem, in-house is cost-competitive and you should keep it. If you’re under about 250 properties, or your trust accounting is being absorbed by someone whose real job is something else, then the number on your books isn’t the real number, and the gap between the two is usually bigger than the entire cost of outsourcing.
If you’d like the figure for your own portfolio rather than the benchmark, tell us what you’re running and we’ll work it out properly, against your bank, your software and the parts of the job you actually want done. No obligation attached.