We have been on your side of the desk
Most trust accounting providers have never had to answer to an auditor about their own agency's books. We have — every year from 2013 to 2021, on a rent roll we grew past 600 managements.
Built by principals, for principals
Trust Account Solutions did not start as an accounting firm looking for a niche. It started as a real estate agency.
For eight years we owned and operated Ray White Lane Cove in Sydney, and ran its trust account ourselves — receipting daily, reconciling monthly, and fronting up to the annual audit with our own licence on the line. We learned what actually goes wrong in a rent roll, and how expensive it is to find out at audit rather than in March.
When we sold the agency in 2021, we kept the part we were best at. Every process we now run for clients was built for our own portfolio first, under real deadlines, with real consequences. That is a different starting point from a bookkeeping practice that added trust accounting as a service line — and it is the reason principals tend to find the conversation short.
From one rent roll to 60+ agency portfolios
We grew the way we would want a supplier to grow — one referral at a time.
- 2013
We opened Ray White Lane Cove
Trust Account Solutions began on the other side of the desk. We opened and ran our own Sydney agency, Ray White Lane Cove, and ran its trust account ourselves — receipting, reconciling and fronting up to the annual audit.
- 2013–2021
Grown to 600+ managements
Over eight years the rent roll passed 600 managements. Every process we now run for clients was first stress-tested on our own portfolio, at scale, with our own licence on the line.
- 2021
Sold the agency, founded the firm
We sold Ray White Lane Cove to focus entirely on the part we were best at. Trust Account Solutions was founded to give other principals the trust accounting we had built for ourselves.
- 2022
PropertyMe partner
We became a PropertyMe partner, and now handle many of the difficult portfolio reconciliations and software migrations referred to us — the jobs that need untangling rather than processing.
- 2024
Across the Tasman
We took on our first New Zealand agencies, adding REA’s three-examinations-a-year rhythm and a 31 March balance date to the eight Australian regimes we already worked across.
Our first client was in Western Australia, a long way from our Sydney desk. We grew from there state by state, almost entirely on word-of-mouth referral — which remains how most of our clients find us, and why we have never been in a hurry to be the biggest.
Paul Nees, Founder & Principal
Sixteen years in financial services and consulting, then a decade inside real estate.
Paul spent his career in top-tier global banks and consulting firms before opening a real estate agency in 2013, bringing institutional-grade financial discipline to an industry that does not usually get it. He holds a Master of Finance and a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) — a combination that turns out to matter, because modern trust accounting is as much a software problem as an accounting one.
He still holds his NSW Class 1 real estate licence no. 20051898, first issued in 2013, and reviews the accounts the firm runs.
"Precision, integrity and full compliance — that's the standard I hold every account to, personally."
— Paul Nees, Founder & Principal
A team of eight specialists
We deliberately do not put a photo wall of staff on this page. What matters when someone else is running your trust account is not a name — it is whether the work survives that person being on leave.
Our team of eight is post-graduate qualified and based in Australia. There are no offshore processing centres and no handoffs to a call queue. Every portfolio is documented so that cover is routine rather than a scramble, which means the key-person risk that makes in-house trust accounting fragile does not transfer to us when you outsource it.
What you are actually handing over
The most common question we are asked is whether outsourcing means giving up control of client money. It does not.
Your funds never pass through us
We work inside your existing trust account, at your existing bank. We are not a payment intermediary and we never hold your clients’ money — control and signing authority stay entirely with you.
We work in your software, not ours
No migration to a proprietary system, no learning a new platform. We operate in PropertyMe, Property Tree, REST, Console Cloud and the other major platforms you already run.
Residential and commercial, sales and property management
Trust accounting for rent rolls, commercial portfolios and sales trust accounts — including the reconciliations and migrations other providers pass on.
Everything documented as we go
Reconciliations, adjustments and the reasoning behind them are recorded as they happen, so an auditor’s question has an answer before it is asked.
The details, on the record
If you are about to let someone else near your trust account, you are entitled to check who they are.
| Founded | 2021, after 8 years running our own agency |
|---|---|
| Working in trust accounts since | 2013 — 13 years |
| ABN | 92 648 686 346 |
| Licensing | NSW Class 1 real estate licence no. 20051898, held since 2013 |
| Professional indemnity | $1 million cover, insured with AIG and arranged through Marsh |
| Data handling | Encrypted access, with off-site backups |
| Software partner | PropertyMe partner since 2022 |
| Based in | Sydney, NSW |
| Serving | All Australian states and territories, and New Zealand |
Find out what outsourcing would cost your agency.
Two minutes. No obligation. A clear estimate based on your portfolio and software.