Fiduciary / trustee
A fiduciary keeps the books, annual accounts, payroll administration and tax returns for its clients; in many small businesses it is the fiduciary who works with the accounting software or accesses it.
Definition
From this follows a selection question that appears in no feature list: can the fiduciary access the same data, or does everything have to be exported and imported? Shared access with separate rights saves handing files back and forth and the queries that come with it.
Then there is adoption: a program your own fiduciary knows costs less learning and fewer misunderstandings. That is why this survey carries adoption among fiduciaries as a criterion of its own for each product.
What the software must be able to do
Three checks: shared access with separate rights, a complete export in case of a change, and whether the fiduciary needs a licence of their own for access. The third point often decides the total cost.
Checked Aug 2026
More terms under Mandates and professional duties: Conflict-of-interest check Deadline control Multi-client capability