Article Contents
- Introduction
- Why Trusts Are Treated Differently in Hiro
- How to Enter a Trust Contact in Hiro
- What If My Client Only Gave Me the ABN?
- Can I Still Invoice a Trust Name Only?
Introduction
When you add a contact to Hiro’s Address Book and enter an ABN, Hiro automatically checks the contact’s details against the Australian Business Register (ABR). This helps you keep your records clean and consistent with official government data — which is especially helpful when issuing invoices.
This validation process plays a particularly important role when dealing with Trusts, which require additional handling to avoid legal and financial risk.
Why Trusts Are Treated Differently in Hiro
A trust in Australia isn’t a business or legal entity on its own — it’s a legal arrangement where one or more people or a company (known as the trustee) manage money or assets on behalf of others (the beneficiaries).
The key point is this: the trustee, not the trust, is the party with legal responsibility. Only the trustee can enter contracts, be sued, or be held liable. So if you issue an invoice to the name of the trust alone — for example:
The George Jetson Family Trust
— and the invoice isn’t paid, you may face difficulties recovering the money. That’s because the invoice hasn’t been issued to the entity legally responsible for payment.
To help avoid this issue, Hiro checks the ABN stored against each contact in your Address Book. If the ABN is registered as a trust, Hiro will prompt you to also enter the trustee’s name, so your invoicing is directed to the correct legal party.
🔎 Want to understand more about how trusts work in Australia?
See the ATO's guide: ato.gov.au/general/trusts
How to Enter a Trust Contact in Hiro
If the ABN you've entered on the contact is listed as a trust in the Australian Business Register, Hiro will require you to enter the contact name using the correct format.
Even though this is entered as a single name in Hiro, it should include three clear parts:
-
The Trustee – the person or company legally responsible
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ATF – short for as trustee for
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The Trust Name – the name of the trust as it appears in ABR records
🔹 Example 1 — Company Trustee
George Jetson Pty Ltd ATF The George Jetson Family Trust
🔹 Example 2 — Individual Trustee
Jane Smith ATF The Smith Family Trust
💡 In both cases, set the Contact Type to Company in Hiro — even when the trustee is an individual. This ensures invoicing and ABN validation behave as expected.
This format helps ensure your invoice is addressed to the correct legal party and aligns with how the entity is recorded in the ABR.
⚠️ These examples are fictional — you’ll need to use the actual trustee and trust names from your client’s ABN registration.
What If My Client Only Gave Me the ABN?
Sometimes, you’re only given the ABN — and when you look it up on the ABN Lookup website, it shows a trust name but no trustee name. That’s because the ABR typically lists just the trust’s name, not the individual or company acting as trustee.
Hiro picks this up and asks for the trustee name, which can feel like a roadblock — but it’s actually highlighting something important that often gets missed. If an invoice is issued to the trust name alone, it may not be legally enforceable. The trustee is the entity that carries the legal responsibility.
In these situations, it’s worth going back to your client and asking for the full details. A simple message like this usually does the trick:
“Hi [Client], I’ve looked up your ABN and it’s registered as a trust. Could you please confirm the full name of the trustee associated with this trust, so we can issue the invoice correctly?”
Once you have that information, enter it in Hiro using the correct format:
[Trustee name] ATF [Trust name]
(e.g. Jane Smith ATF The Smith Family Trust)
💡 Tip: If the client isn’t sure, their accountant will likely know, or it may appear on documents like the trust deed or previous invoices.
Can I Still Invoice a Trust Name Only?
Yes — but with caution.
If you still want to invoice just the trust name (without naming the trustee), Hiro allows this by using an ABN Checking Override Code.
Just be aware that invoicing the trust alone may reduce your ability to recover payment if something goes wrong. Hiro’s default behaviour is there to help reduce that risk.