Accounting for Trusts & Estates - The Nuts & Bolts for Probate Professionals

Introduction

Are you unsure about angles of preparing the accounts of a trust or a deceased estate?

This virtual classroom seminar looks at the basic requirements and layout and will provide you with a broad understanding of accounting for trusts and estates in the context of the probate rules and trust deeds.

It will include how to identify when accounts are needed and therefore to review communication between executors/trustees and the accounts team.

The session will explain why executors and trustees need to keep accounts and the principles of trust and estate accounting. This will include the digital records that should be kept together with areas that can be open to questions by beneficiaries and need strong supporting working papers.

It will also include the interaction of the legal services and the client account.

You will learn who is entitled to receive accounts, and how to prepare a set of accounts from the cash book and other information (if any) provided by your clients and what information must be asked for at an early stage.

The session explains the requirement to distinguish between capital and income expenditure, and how to do so, including the areas of possible confusion on interpretation relating to the estates and trusts.

Finally, it will consider the restrictions on distribution and the associated recording.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive course will cover the following:

• Responsibilities of executors and trustees
• The starting point of the probate valuation and pressures on those values
• Users of the accounts
• Trust and estate double entry
• The main statements and how they interact with the following:
• Estate at death account
• Estate capital account
• Estate income account
• Investment schedule
• Distribution statement
• Balance sheet
• Estate cash account
• The distinction between capital and income
• Sale of estate assets - how to treat gains (and losses) on assets and investments from probate valuations
• Accounting for the death of the life tenant and the trust ends
• Accounting for the death of the life tenant when the assets are held on new trusts
• Accounting for a discretionary trust where the funds are distributed

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.