Top 12 Trust Accountant Skills to Put on Your Resume

Trust accounting moves fast and carries high stakes. To stand out, your resume should spotlight the skills that prove you can protect client assets, stay compliant, and report with zero wobble. These 12 skills matter most when hiring managers scan for trust-savvy pros.

Trust Accountant Skills

1. QuickBooks
2. Excel
3. Fiduciary Accounting
4. Tax Preparation
5. Estate Planning
6. Financial Analysis
7. Risk Management
8. Portfolio Management
9. Compliance
10. Sage 50
11. Trust Administration
12. Wealth Management

1. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is widely used to record transactions, reconcile accounts, and produce reports. For trust work, it can track separate client ledgers, classify activity, and support clean audits when configured correctly.

Why It's Important

It streamlines daily bookkeeping and month-end closes while supporting fiduciary requirements like accurate segregation of funds, audit trails, and timely, clear reporting.

How to Improve QuickBooks Skills

1. Design a trust-ready chart of accounts: Separate bank, investment, receivable, payable, income, and expense accounts, with sub-accounts for granularity.

2. Tag every transaction by trust: Use classes or locations so you can report by individual trust without cross-contamination.

3. Do three-way reconciliations monthly: Bank balance, trust liability (client ledgers), and book balance must agree. Investigate breaks immediately.

4. Tighten bank feeds and rules: Build rules but require human review for high-risk vendors, transfers, and wires.

5. Harden controls: Close prior periods, lock with passwords, enable the audit log, and restrict user permissions.

6. Build custom reports: Trust ledger by client, receipts vs. disbursements, distributions by period, activity by class—save them to a monthly reporting pack.

7. Scale smartly: If managing many entities, use an accountant console and standardized templates; integrate with fiduciary systems where needed.

Configure once with care, and QuickBooks becomes a quiet workhorse that keeps your trust files crisp and compliant.

How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume

2. Excel

Excel is the backbone for models, reconciliations, and ad hoc analysis. PivotTables, formulas, and automation turn raw exports into reliable, repeatable insights.

Why It's Important

It lets you validate data, test scenarios, and build reporting that’s faster than waiting on system customizations. Flexible, powerful, indispensable.

How to Improve Excel Skills

1. Level up formulas: XLOOKUP, XMATCH, INDEX/MATCH, XIRR, XNPV, PMT, SUMIFS—the everyday trust toolkit.

2. Use dynamic arrays: FILTER, UNIQUE, SORT, and SEQUENCE keep models lean and self-updating.

3. Pivot like a pro: PivotTables and PivotCharts to summarize receipts, disbursements, and investment activity by trust, period, or category.

4. Automate workflows: Power Query for clean imports from banks/custodians; Power Pivot for multi-table data models; Macros or Office Scripts for repetitive tasks.

5. Control quality: Data Validation, conditional formatting, structured tables, named ranges, and check totals on every tab.

6. Protect sensitive data: Worksheet and workbook protection, passworded files, and clear versioning.

The result: fewer errors, faster closes, tighter analysis.

How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume

3. Fiduciary Accounting

Fiduciary accounting records, allocates, and reports trust activity in line with governing documents and applicable law, with explicit treatment of principal versus income.

Why It's Important

It preserves beneficiary rights, proves prudence, and withstands scrutiny. Precision here protects both assets and the trustee.

How to Improve Fiduciary Accounting Skills

Follow the rules and the document: Apply the trust instrument first, then state law (including the Uniform Principal and Income Act) and prudent investor standards.

Separate principal and income: Use clear accounts and consistent allocation policies; document every judgment call.

Standardize accountings: Produce schedules of receipts, disbursements, realized/unrealized gains, fees, and allocations at regular intervals.

Strengthen controls: Dual approval for disbursements, segregation of duties, and periodic independent reviews.

Use fit-for-purpose software: Systems that support beneficiary subledgers, three-way reconciliations, and fiduciary statements reduce risk.

Communicate early and often: Timely beneficiary statements and clear notes stave off confusion and disputes.

How to Display Fiduciary Accounting Skills on Your Resume

4. Tax Preparation

Trust tax work means compiling, reviewing, and filing accurate returns, tracking distributable income, and aligning distributions with the trust’s goals and tax posture.

Why It's Important

Good tax practice protects beneficiaries, minimizes penalties, and keeps distributions efficient. Sloppy work is costly.

How to Improve Tax Preparation Skills

1. Know the filings: Federal Form 1041, Schedules K-1, information returns (1099 series), estimated taxes, and state filings where required.

2. Track DNI and UNI: Maintain clean ledgers for distributable net income and accumulation balances; apply the 65-day election when appropriate.

3. Mind asset basis: Lot-level basis, holding periods, and character tracking underpin accurate capital gain reporting.

4. Plan distributions: Coordinate timing to optimize tax outcomes across the trust and beneficiaries.

5. Handle special items: Inherited IRAs and the 10-year rule, foreign accounts (FBAR/FATCA), charitable deductions under the applicable rules.

6. Run tight QC: Use standardized checklists, peer review, e-file validations, and post-filing reconciliation to books.

Tax is not a year-end scramble—keep a living workpaper file all year.

How to Display Tax Preparation Skills on Your Resume

5. Estate Planning

Estate planning coordinates titling, beneficiary designations, trusts, and tax strategy so assets move as intended—during life and at death—with minimal friction.

Why It's Important

It reduces taxes, protects vulnerable beneficiaries, and ensures the plan actually works in practice, not just on paper.

How to Improve Estate Planning Skills

1. Bridge documents and dollars: Verify funding for every trust; match account titles and beneficiary forms to the plan.

2. Watch the horizon: Be mindful of the scheduled estate tax exemption sunset in 2026; model scenarios and timing.

3. Plan for retirement assets: Coordinate with SECURE Act rules (e.g., 10-year distribution framework) and trust language.

4. Mind specialty trusts: ILITs, charitable trusts, special needs, grantor vs. non-grantor—each has distinct tax and admin rhythms. Track things like Crummey notices.

5. Don’t forget digital assets: Include access instructions and custodial policies.

6. Review often: Update after life events, law changes, large liquidity events, or shifting goals.

Execution matters: a tidy funding checklist beats a gorgeous but unfunded plan.

How to Display Estate Planning Skills on Your Resume

6. Financial Analysis

Trust-focused financial analysis evaluates performance, liquidity, and risk against the trust’s mandate and beneficiary needs.

Why It's Important

It drives prudent decisions: invest, hold, rebalance, distribute—each choice should be supported by numbers and policy.

How to Improve Financial Analysis Skills

1. Forecast cash: Map taxes, fees, and distributions; set target cash buffers by trust.

2. Anchor to an IPS: Tie analysis to the investment policy statement and the trust instrument.

3. Measure risk and return: Track drawdowns, volatility, Sharpe, duration, credit exposure, and concentration limits.

4. Stress test: Shock rates, spreads, and equity markets; run what-ifs on distribution schedules.

5. Validate data: Reconcile custodian statements to the GL; investigate breaks before reporting.

6. Scrutinize fees: Expense ratios, advisory fees, trading costs—net matters to beneficiaries.

Clarity beats complexity. Clean inputs, repeatable methods, plain-language conclusions.

How to Display Financial Analysis Skills on Your Resume

7. Risk Management

Risk management for trusts spots threats—financial, operational, legal—and tames them with controls, monitoring, and swift remediation.

Why It's Important

It protects assets and credibility. Fewer surprises, fewer losses, better sleep.

How to Improve Risk Management Skills

1. Map the risks: Build a risk register covering market, liquidity, operational, cyber, legal, and vendor risks; assign owners and responses.

2. Tighten payment controls: Segregation of duties, dual approvals, callback verification for wires, positive pay, and vendor change management.

3. Fortify cybersecurity: MFA everywhere, least-privilege access, secure portals, and out-of-band verification for any payment instruction changes.

4. Test continuity: Business continuity and disaster recovery drills; offsite backups and test restores.

5. Audit regularly: Internal reviews, surprise reconciliations, and actioned findings—no shelfware reports.

6. Train the team: Short, frequent training beats annual marathons; simulate phishing and wire fraud scenarios.

Document, monitor, improve. Repeat.

How to Display Risk Management Skills on Your Resume

8. Portfolio Management

Portfolio management aligns investments with the trust’s purpose, time horizon, liquidity needs, and risk tolerance—always within fiduciary bounds.

Why It's Important

Because return without suitability isn’t success. The right mix supports beneficiaries today and tomorrow.

How to Improve Portfolio Management Skills

1. Codify policy: A clear IPS defines objectives, constraints, asset ranges, rebalancing rules, and benchmarks.

2. Allocate deliberately: Match allocation to liquidity needs and distribution cadence; reserve cash for near-term obligations.

3. Rebalance with intent: Use thresholds or calendar schedules; consider taxes and trading costs in trusts that pay them.

4. Mind concentrations: Set limits and a plan for low-basis or restricted positions; document decisions.

5. Measure what matters: Performance versus benchmarks, net of fees, risk-adjusted—not just point-to-point returns.

6. Honor the document: ESG or mission screens only where the trust permits and prudence supports.

Discipline over drama. Process over impulse.

How to Display Portfolio Management Skills on Your Resume

9. Compliance

Compliance keeps trust operations aligned with laws, regulations, the trust instrument, and internal policy—documented and demonstrable.

Why It's Important

It prevents fines, lawsuits, and reputational bruises while creating a predictable, auditable way of working.

How to Improve Compliance Skills

1. Know your framework: State trust codes, fiduciary accounting standards, prudent investor rules, privacy laws, record retention, and tax requirements.

2. Write it down: Clear procedures, checklists, and control matrices; versioned and accessible.

3. Test and monitor: Exception reports, periodic testing, and remediation tracking with owners and due dates.

4. Audit cadence: Internal self-assessments plus independent reviews; fix root causes, not just symptoms.

5. Train continuously: Short modules on updates, real cases, and practical do/don’t examples.

6. Vet vendors: Due diligence, data security reviews, and performance SLAs baked into contracts.

If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen. Build the paper trail as you work.

How to Display Compliance Skills on Your Resume

10. Sage 50

Sage 50 Accounting supports GL, AP, AR, payroll, and reporting for small to mid-sized entities. With the right setup, it can track trust activity cleanly and consistently.

Why It's Important

It offers robust accounting features, solid audit trails, and customizable reporting—useful for trust books that need tight control.

How to Improve Sage 50 Skills

1. Structure the ledger: Build a trust-centric chart of accounts and use departments or classes to tag each trust.

2. Reconcile relentlessly: Monthly bank recs plus three-way reconciliations to beneficiary subledgers.

3. Lock it down: Enable audit trails, restrict user roles, and require approvals for sensitive actions.

4. Automate the mundane: Bank imports, memorized transactions, and scheduled reports to cut cycle time.

5. Customize reports: Trust balance summaries, distribution registers, fee analyses—save sets for monthly packs.

6. Backup and test: Regular backups and periodic test restores so recovery isn’t theoretical.

7. Integrate carefully: Use CSV imports/exports or middleware to connect with custodians or fiduciary tools when appropriate.

Sage 50 can handle trust mechanics if you enforce structure and controls from day one.

How to Display Sage 50 Skills on Your Resume

11. Trust Administration

Administration turns the trust document into daily reality: onboarding, paying bills, investing, reporting, and distributing in line with terms.

Why It's Important

It keeps the trustee on mission—faithful to the instrument, responsive to beneficiaries, and fully compliant.

How to Improve Trust Administration Skills

1. Onboard methodically: Acceptance of trusteeship, new EINs if needed, account openings, funding verification, and initial valuations.

2. Calendar everything: Tax deadlines, RMDs for retirement assets, recurring distributions, review dates, and key anniversaries.

3. Document decisions: Minutes or memos for discretionary distributions, investment choices, and significant allocations.

4. Communicate clearly: Set expectations with beneficiaries; deliver periodic accountings with plain-language summaries.

5. Standardize payments: Checklists for disbursements, authority verification, and backup documentation stored centrally.

6. Track tax identity: Grantor vs. non-grantor status, correct TIN use, and proper 1099 name control.

Calm, consistent process beats heroics. Every time.

How to Display Trust Administration Skills on Your Resume

12. Wealth Management

Wealth management for trusts coordinates investments, taxes, estate goals, and cash needs—tailored to the beneficiaries and the trust’s purpose.

Why It's Important

It’s where strategy meets stewardship. Growth with guardrails, distributions without drift.

How to Improve Wealth Management Skills

1. Collaborate tightly: Sync plans across counsel, tax, and investment advisors; reflect decisions in the GL and reports.

2. Manage tax drag: Asset location where possible, tax-aware rebalancing, and loss harvesting consistent with trust rules.

3. Align to goals: Define spending policies, liquidity targets, and contingency reserves per trust.

4. Use the right vehicles: Index where suitable, add active where justified, and keep fee transparency front and center.

5. Plan distributions: Coordinate with DNI, state sourcing rules, and beneficiary tax profiles.

6. Review rhythmically: Quarterly performance, annual policy refresh, and event-driven updates.

Steady hands, documented choices, measurable outcomes.

How to Display Wealth Management Skills on Your Resume