Assets Under Administration (AUAdmin)
Last updated 17 July 2026
Assets under administration (AUAdmin) is the total value of assets for which a firm provides administrative services, such as custody, safekeeping, bookkeeping, fund accounting, and reporting, without making investment decisions on those assets. It measures operational scale rather than advisory influence. A fund administrator, custodian bank, or outsourced accounting provider quotes assets under administration to show how much wealth flows through its operational machinery.
The figure sits alongside two related measures. Assets under management (AUM) counts assets a firm invests with discretion, and assets under advisement (AUA) counts assets on which it gives advice without holding discretion. The same unit of wealth can appear in all three measures at different firms at once: managed by one, advised on by another, administered by a third.
Why it matters for family offices
Family offices are steady buyers of administrative services. Many outsource bookkeeping, custody, fund accounting for their investment entities, or the preparation of consolidated reports, and assets under administration is one of the first indicators of whether a provider has genuine experience at the relevant scale. A firm administering large volumes across many clients has usually seen the awkward cases: multi-currency portfolios, layered entity structures, and alternative assets that produce no clean custodial feed. The number says nothing about service quality on its own, but it does separate firms with industrial processes from firms improvising, and it gives an office a basis for asking sharper questions during selection.
How it shows up in practice
Suppose a family office is selecting an administrator for its private investment vehicles and asks three candidates for their assets under administration, broken down by client type. One administers mostly retail mutual funds, another mostly institutional pension mandates, and the third a meaningful book of family office and private wealth structures. The headline totals may be similar, but the third firm's figure represents work closest to the family's actual needs. Offices that dig one level deeper, asking what share of administered assets involves alternatives, multiple entities, or several currencies, get a far better read on fit than the headline number alone provides.
Related terms
Assets Under Management (AUM)
The total market value of assets that a family office, wealth manager, or fund manages on behalf of its clients or family. AUM is a standard measure of scale and often determines fee levels, access to institutional products, and regulatory obligations. For family offices, consolidated AUM across all entities and custodians is the starting point for meaningful oversight.
Assets Under Advisement (AUA)
The total value of client assets on which a firm provides advice, including assets it does not directly manage or hold. AUA is broader than AUM and is often quoted by multi-family offices and consultants whose role is advisory rather than discretionary. When comparing providers, families should ask precisely what a quoted figure includes.
Custodian
A financial institution, typically a bank, that holds securities and cash on behalf of investors for safekeeping. UHNW families commonly spread assets across several custodians for diversification and access to different capabilities. Aggregating positions and transactions from multiple custodians into a single view is one of the biggest operational challenges family offices face.
Consolidated Reporting
The aggregation of all of a family's assets, liabilities, and performance, across every custodian, entity, currency, and asset class, into a single coherent set of reports. It answers the deceptively simple questions of what the family owns, what it is worth, and how it is performing. Consolidated reporting is the core deliverable of most family offices and the primary function of family office software.
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