Trust administration companies managing both corporate trustee functions and directed trust arrangements are contending with a growing operational challenge in 2026: the volume of billing, beneficiary communication, distribution processing, and regulatory reporting required to administer a growing book of trusts has outpaced the capacity of traditional staffing models. Virtual assistants are increasingly embedded in trust operations teams to handle the administrative layer of trust work — enabling trust officers to concentrate on the fiduciary judgments that require their expertise.
Trustee Billing Across Multiple Trust Accounts Requires Structured Administration
Trust companies charge fees for trustee services based on a combination of asset-based percentages, flat annual fees, and hourly rates for extraordinary services. Billing across a book of hundreds or thousands of individual trust accounts requires precise administrative management: calculating fee schedules against current asset values, generating invoices for each trust account, processing fee deductions, and reconciling fee income against account ledgers.
According to the American Bankers Association's 2024 Trust Operations Survey, trust departments at mid-sized banks and trust companies spent an average of 8.5 hours per month per 100 accounts on fee billing administration. As assets under management grow, this administrative burden scales directly with the book size.
Virtual assistants trained in trust accounting platforms — including Innotrust, SEI, and Fiserv Trust Solutions — can assist with fee calculation review, invoice generation, and billing reconciliation, reducing the per-account administrative burden for trust operations teams and allowing trust officers to focus on client relationships.
Beneficiary Communication and Distribution Administration Demand Consistent Follow-Through
Beneficiaries of trusts — particularly discretionary trusts — have regular needs for information, distribution requests, and account reporting that require prompt, accurate responses. Mishandled beneficiary communications are among the leading causes of trustee liability claims. The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) has consistently highlighted responsive beneficiary administration as a core fiduciary obligation.
Distribution requests require a defined workflow: logging the request, gathering supporting documentation, preparing a distribution recommendation for trust officer review, processing approved distributions, and documenting the decision in the trust file. Across a large book of trusts with multiple active beneficiaries, this workflow generates substantial administrative volume daily.
Virtual assistants manage the intake and processing workflow for distribution requests, maintain beneficiary communication logs, draft standard correspondence, and ensure that documentation requirements are met before distributions proceed to trust officer approval.
Annual Trust Accountings and Regulatory Reporting Create Sustained Administrative Peaks
Trust companies are required to produce annual accountings for most trusts under their administration — comprehensive statements of trust assets, income, distributions, and fees that must be delivered to beneficiaries within statutory deadlines. These accountings also feed into the trust company's own regulatory reporting obligations with state banking regulators and, for national trust charters, the OCC.
A 2025 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of trust operations found that 68 percent of trust companies identified annual accounting preparation as the highest-volume administrative bottleneck in their operations. Virtual assistants assist with data gathering, formatting, and quality review for annual accountings, helping trust operations teams meet accounting delivery deadlines without creating capacity crises.
Virtual Assistants Provide Scalable Support for Trust Operations Teams
Trust companies face the challenge of scaling operations cost-effectively as assets under administration grow. Full-time trust operations staff are expensive and difficult to find with the specific combination of trust accounting knowledge and administrative skills required. Virtual assistants with trust operations experience provide a cost-effective complement to in-house teams, handling high-volume administrative tasks without the overhead of additional full-time employees.
Trust companies seeking virtual assistant support for billing, beneficiary administration, and trust operations can find vetted professionals at Stealth Agents.
Looking Ahead
As trust assets under management continue to grow and beneficiary expectations for responsive, transparent administration rise, trust administration companies that build scalable virtual assistant capacity will be better positioned to serve their clients and manage fiduciary risk through 2026 and beyond.
Sources
- American Bankers Association, Trust Operations Survey, 2024
- American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Fiduciary Administration Best Practices, 2024
- PricewaterhouseCoopers, Trust Operations Efficiency Survey, 2025