Fiducia Trust Accounting

When a client deposits funds into your trust account, whether for a property transaction, litigation settlement, estate administration, or any other matter, those funds remain the client’s money until they are disbursed in accordance with authorised instructions.

Managing client funds carries significant professional and regulatory responsibilities. Your firm must be able to accurately track every transaction, maintain complete segregation of client balances, and demonstrate at any time exactly how much money is held for each client and matter.

Fiducia provides the controls and transparency needed to meet those obligations with confidence. From receipt to disbursement, every ringgit is recorded, approved, reconciled, and supported by a complete audit trail, helping your firm maintain compliance, strengthen client trust, and stay prepared for audits and regulatory reviews.

Many small firms still do this with spreadsheets and a cash book. It works until it doesn’t: a formula is overwritten, a cheque bounces after it has been spent, a fixed deposit matures unnoticed, or the month-end reconciliation won’t balance and nobody knows why. Fiducia replaces that with one system designed around a simple rule: client money must always be accounted for, and a client’s balance must never go below zero.

Why firms holding client funds need a dedicated system

Holding money in trust carries obligations a general accounting package or a spreadsheet was never designed for:

• Every matter is its own ledger. You must know what each client and matter holds, not just the total in the bank. One client’s money can never pay another client’s bills.
• A balance can’t go below zero. Paying out more than a matter holds, or paying against a cheque that hasn’t cleared, means using someone else’s money.
• The books must agree with the bank. Each month your cash book, your client ledgers and your bank statement should tell the same story.
• Fixed deposits must be watched. Client money placed on deposit has maturity dates, interest and tax to record, and that interest belongs to the client.
• Auditors and regulators expect a trail. Who received the money, who approved the payment, who changed what and when, all kept and never quietly altered.

Getting any of this wrong is not just an accounting error. It can be a breach of the accounts rules that apply to your firm, and a serious risk to your firm and its reputation.

How Fiducia helps

Fiducia is a Windows application for small law firms and professional practices that hold client money in trust. It keeps a separate ledger for every client matter and builds the trust rules into every step, so mistakes are stopped before they are made rather than found at audit.

• Prevents, not just reports. A payment, transfer or fixed deposit that would take a matter below its available balance simply can’t be saved.
• Controls without bureaucracy. Approvals, segregation of duties and locked months are there when you need them, and can be switched to suit a sole practitioner.
• Audit-ready every day. Every completed transaction is numbered, printed, kept and traceable. Mistakes are corrected by reversal, never by deleting history.
• Built for your practice. Set up for firms in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, with your country’s date format and currency, amounts in words on receipts and vouchers in your currency, and screens in English, Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Indonesia.

Features that keep client funds safe

Easy to set up, no IT department needed

• One installer. It sets up the database on your main office PC and connects the other PCs in the office, all using Microsoft SQL Server Express, at no extra licence cost.
• Bring your existing balances across. Fill in Excel templates with your clients, matters, balances and current fixed deposits. Fiducia checks everything and shows a preview before anything is posted.
• Automatic backups. A daily backup is checked after it is made, copied to a second place such as a NAS, USB drive or cloud-synced folder, and old copies are tidied up for you. A missed backup shows on the dashboard.
• Automatic updates. Your main PC installs updates overnight, and the other PCs pick them up the next time they start.
• Your client data stays in your office. Fiducia runs on your own PCs. Only your firm’s name and contact details are sent for licensing, never client, matter or money information.
• Your records are always available. Even if a licence lapses, you can still look up, print and export everything.

Take control of your trust account

Your clients trust you with their money. Fiducia helps you show, every day, that the trust is well placed: every ringgit accounted for, every payment approved, every month reconciled.

Try it free for 30 days, with up to 3 people using it at the same time and up to 20 matters. Trial reports carry a “Trial Version” mark.

Ready to see it in action? Contact Deltatech for a demonstration.

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