About EstateLedger
EstateLedger is a small independent software project. We make a desktop program that turns an estate's bank statements into a reconciled, traceable accounting, and we publish the guides on this site. Both are the work of the same one-person shop — not a law firm, not a marketing site for one, and not a venture-funded company with a content department.
Why these guides exist
They started as our own research. You cannot build software that produces an estate accounting without first understanding, in detail, what an accounting has to show, why an executor is personally on the hook for it, and what actually goes wrong — money still leaving a dead person's account, benefits that have to be repaid, a beneficiary who wants to see the bank statements.
Most of what we found written for executors was either a law firm's advertisement or so hedged it said nothing. So we wrote down what we had learned in plain language. The guides are free, they carry no ads, and they are not gated behind an email address.
Where the information comes from
Every guide is written from primary, public sources: state probate statutes and court rules, the fiduciary-accounting forms courts actually publish, Social Security Administration guidance, and IRS material where tax comes into it. Where a rule differs by state — and in probate a great many do — we say so rather than presenting one state's rule as the national one.
Two things we do not do. We do not invent statistics: if you see a number on this site, it either comes from a named public source or it is arithmetic you can check yourself. And we do not publish fake reviews or testimonials. At the time of writing this software has very few customers, and pretending otherwise would be the fastest way to deserve none.
What this is not
These guides are general information, not legal, tax, or accounting advice. We are not attorneys and we are not your attorney; reading this site creates no attorney-client relationship. Probate rules vary by state and change over time, and the facts of your estate matter enormously. Before you act on anything here, confirm it with the probate court handling your estate or with a qualified professional in your state.
For the same reason, we can't advise you on your own estate. If you write to us we're glad to help with anything about the software — importing statements, a reconciliation that won't balance, a licence key that hasn't arrived. But questions like "should I pay this beneficiary before the tax return is filed?" we will send to a lawyer, because that is a legal judgment about your specific situation and it would be wrong of us to guess at it.
When we get something wrong
Sometimes we will. If you find an error — a rule we've stated too broadly, a state where the practice is different, a figure that doesn't hold up — please tell us at swm.lee0294@gmail.com. We correct guides rather than quietly deleting them, and substantive corrections change the "last updated" date you see on the article.
The software
EstateLedger runs on your own Windows computer and makes no internet connections at all — no account, no uploads, no analytics inside the app. Importing your statements, reconciling every account and reviewing every flagged item are free; a one-time $59 licence, per estate, unlocks exporting the finished workbook. You can see the whole accounting on screen before you decide whether it's worth paying for.
Download it free, or read what an estate accounting is first — that guide is the hub for everything else here.
Contact
Software questions, corrections, licence trouble, or anything else: swm.lee0294@gmail.com. It's a real person reading, so please allow a day or two.