Free Estate Accounting Template for Executors

An estate accounting is, underneath the vocabulary, one piece of arithmetic: what the estate started with, plus what came in, minus what went out, minus what was handed to the beneficiaries, has to equal what is on hand now. This template is that arithmetic laid out as a workbook — one sheet per schedule, and a reconciliation sheet that tells you, per account, whether it holds.

Download the template (.xlsx) Free · opens in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice · nothing to sign up for

What's in the workbook

Sheet	What goes on it	What it does for you
Read me	The identity above, how the sheets connect, three habits that keep an accounting from being rejected.	So the workbook explains itself to whoever opens it next — a co-executor, an attorney, a beneficiary.
Estate	Estate name, executor, date of death, closing date, state, court case number.	Defines the accounting period. Everything before the date of death is not the estate's.
Inventory	Every account and asset at its date-of-death value, how each is titled, and the document that proves the figure.	The opening balances. The titling column is there because joint and payable-on-death accounts usually don't belong in the accounting at all.
Receipts	Money in after the death: interest, refunds, sale proceeds, benefits received after death that must be repaid.	A drop-down category and a source column per line. Transfers between the estate's own accounts are deliberately not a category — they are not receipts.
Disbursements	Money out for the estate: funeral, debts, taxes, professional fees, your reimbursed expenses, any executor fee.	Includes a "receipt on file?" column and a category called Personal / not estate (should not be here) — so a payment that never belonged in the estate is flagged rather than buried.
Distributions	What each beneficiary received, when, and whether a signed receipt and release is on file.	The schedule beneficiaries read first.
Reconciliation	Type each account's closing balance from its latest statement. Everything else is calculated.	Per-account: opening + receipts − disbursements − distributions = computed closing, against the real closing. Then a charge-and-discharge summary in the form most court forms want. Every "Difference" must read 0.00.

How to fill it in, in the order that works

1. Get the date-of-death balance letter for every account before you enter anything. It is the only figure the whole workbook is anchored to, and banks issue it on request. Ask how each account is titled while you're there.
2. Fill the Inventory sheet and use one exact name per account — "Wells Fargo Checking •3318", say — because the reconciliation formulas match on that name across every sheet.
3. Work through the statements month by month, entering each post-death transaction on Receipts or Disbursements with its source: statement month, page, line. Skip transfers between estate accounts. Anything from before the date of death does not go in.
4. Enter distributions as they happen, not at the end, and get the signed receipt at the time you hand the money over — it is much harder to get later.
5. Type the closing balances on the Reconciliation sheet and read the Difference column. A non-zero difference is not a rounding problem; it is a missing statement, a wrong opening balance, a transaction you skipped, or a transfer entered as a receipt. Find it — here is how when records are missing.
6. Leave the loose ends visible. An open item with a note ("ATM withdrawal 5 May, no receipt, being investigated") is honest and survives scrutiny. A plugged number is what a beneficiary's attorney goes looking for.

What a finished one looks like

If you want to see the end state before you start, the sample accounting workbook is a completed accounting for a demonstration estate — four accounts, fourteen months of statements, $49,500 of distributions each traced to a statement row, and $568.21 of subscriptions that kept billing after the death, caught and disclosed. It was produced by the software rather than by hand, so it has more schedules than this template, but the logic is identical.

Frequently asked

Is this the format the probate court wants?

It's not a court form. Courts often publish their own — and for a formal or court-ordered accounting you may be required to use it. The template organises the same information in the same charge-and-discharge shape, so transferring it is copying, not reconstruction. Ask the court clerk what they expect before filing; it saves a rejected filing.

Can I use it in Google Sheets?

Yes. Upload it to Drive and open it with Sheets; the formulas are plain SUM and SUMIF and the drop-downs carry across. LibreOffice Calc opens it directly.

Do I need to give an email address?

No. The link downloads the file. Nothing on this site is gated, and there is no mailing list.

What if a beneficiary is demanding the accounting now?

Send them a filled-in version of this, with the reconciliation at zero, and most demands stop there. If it has become adversarial, this guide covers how to respond.

Sources

The structure of the template follows what fiduciary accountings are generally required to show. The sources below set out the general rules; they are not a statement of the law of your state.

• Uniform Probate Code, Cornell Legal Information Institute — the model most state probate rules derive from
• Probate statutes, state by state (Cornell Legal Information Institute) — for your state's accounting requirements and court forms
• IRS Publication 559 — Survivors, Executors, and Administrators — the executor's tax duties, which the disbursement categories reflect

Related: What is an estate accounting? · The final accounting: what to include · Informal vs. formal accounting · Executor fee calculator

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