If a court or the beneficiaries have asked you for an accounting, take a breath: it is a more structured document than it sounds. It is not an essay and not a tax return — it is a set of organized lists showing everything that came into the estate and where every bit of it went. The names and forms vary by jurisdiction, but the skeleton underneath is nearly universal, and once you see it, the whole document stops being mysterious.
One side of the accounting — often called the charges — answers a single question: what did you, as executor or administrator, become responsible for? It commonly has three parts. First, the inventory: the assets that existed at death, at the values you reported when administration began — bank balances, the house, vehicles, investments. Second, receipts during administration: money that arrived after death, such as interest, dividends, rent, refunds, or a final paycheck. Third, gains on sale: if you sold an asset for more than its inventory value, the extra amount is a charge too, because it became estate money in your hands. Add those up and you have the total you are answerable for.
The other side — often called the credits — accounts for every dollar of that total. It commonly includes disbursements (funeral costs, the decedent's debts, taxes, and the expenses of administration like court fees, insurance, and professional help), losses on sale (an asset sold for less than its inventory value), distributions (what you have already paid or delivered to beneficiaries), and assets still on hand — whatever the estate still holds as of the accounting date. That last category surprises many first-timers: money you have not spent is not missing from the accounting; it appears as property remaining in your hands.
The core rule is arithmetic, not judgment: charges must equal credits. Everything you were responsible for must be shown as spent, distributed, lost on sale, or still held — with nothing left over and nothing unexplained. This is what a reviewer checks first, because a mismatch means the story is incomplete somewhere: a deposit you never wrote down, an expense recorded twice, an asset whose sale price was entered without a matching gain or loss entry. A difference between the sides almost never means money vanished; it means a line is missing or doubled, and finding it is a matter of working through the lists.
The body of the accounting is a set of schedules — typically one for each category above: inventory, receipts, gains, disbursements, losses, distributions, assets on hand. Each schedule is a plain list where every line carries a date, a description, and an amount, with a subtotal at the bottom. The descriptions matter more than people expect: “Check to Smith Funeral Home, funeral services” tells a reviewer everything, while “misc. expense” invites questions. Write each line so a stranger could understand who was paid or who paid the estate, and why, without asking you.
On top of the schedules sits a one-page summary: the subtotal of each schedule, the two sides added up, and the demonstration that they balance. It is usually the page a court examiner or beneficiary reads first, and sometimes the only page they read closely — the schedules exist to back it up. Behind the schedules, in turn, sit the vouchers: bank statements, receipts, canceled checks, closing statements. Many jurisdictions do not require you to file vouchers with the accounting but do expect you to produce them on request, so keep one piece of paper (or PDF) for every line, organized in the same order as your schedules. Check your local court's practice for what must be attached versus merely kept.
Your jurisdiction may call the sides something different, use its own form, or group the schedules differently — always let the local form and rules be the final word, and this guide is bookkeeping help, not legal advice. But the underlying structure — charges on one side, credits on the other, per-line schedules, a summary that balances — travels almost everywhere. EstateLedger is built around exactly this structure: you enter events as they happen, it keeps both sides in front of you, and it tells you the moment they diverge. Building the ledger and checking the balance is free — you can see every schedule, subtotal, and the balance verdict before paying anything. If you want the schedules as a spreadsheet, ready to transcribe onto your jurisdiction's form or attach as exhibits, the export is a one-time $12. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
It almost always means a line is missing or doubled, not that money is gone. Common culprits: a receipt (like interest or a refund) that was never recorded, an asset sold without a matching gain or loss entry, or an expense entered twice. Work schedule by schedule against your bank statements until the difference is explained.
In many places, no — you file the schedules and summary, and keep the vouchers to produce if the court or a beneficiary asks. Practices differ, so check your local court's requirements. Either way, keep one document for every line, filed in the same order as your schedules.
The labels, forms, and filing rules vary by jurisdiction, so the local form is always the final word. But the structure — everything received on one side, everything spent, distributed, or still held on the other, with the two sides equal — is near-universal, which is why a well-kept ledger transfers onto almost any form.
EstateLedger is a running ledger for executors: entries go in as they happen, charges and credits stay visible, and the balance check diagnoses what kind of entry is missing when they diverge. Free to build and check; $12 once to export the schedules. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing uploaded.
Open the ledger free