Collaborative estate administration

Sharing information

Executors are duty bound to keep the beneficiaries informed. Beneficiaries are entitled to know what the estate assets are, what distributions have been made, and what the administration is costing.

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Historically beneficiaries have been given very little information about the estate and their entitlements, and the information is often piecemeal and unstructured.

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Using Attestates' built-in reporting capabilities, executors are providing rich informative data  at the click of a button.  

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Beneficiaries

A beneficiary wants to know exactly what their entitlement is? Click Reports, Summary and a PDF report is generated instantly.

They want to know the detail of how their entitlement is calculated? Click 'Detail' report and a detailed report is generated with every transaction and allocation shown.

Want to filter it to just that beneficiary? No problem - with advanced filtering options you can select and report on just that beneficiary's account.

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And, because the report is generated in PDF format, you can email the report and they can read it without worrying about format compatibility.

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Even better, some executors are using Attestates' self-service read-only account capabilities to share read only log in access to the beneficiaries directly - allowing them to view the data and generate their own reports at will.

Lawyers

With Attestates, Executors and lawyers can collaborate on the same data. No need for unwieldy processes to compare reports, and version control them. Attestates is web-based, accessible from anywhere, and multi-user. Executors and their lawyers can see and report on the same data - and collaborate in real time.

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Progressive law firms are sharing their estate accounting data with their executor clients, who can see for themselves the up-to-the-minute information about the estate, its assets and liabilities and its income and expenses. They are also taking advantage of the multi-user capabilities to allow their admin staff to enter the base data from bank statements and vouchers, and their solicitors to see and action the administration with an up-to-date and accurate understanding of the estate and the entitlements of the beneficiaries.

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Bookkeepers

Most executors (and, indeed, lawyers) are not trained or experienced in bookkeeping - while bookkeepers generally lack the specialist legal knowledge an estate administration requires. Attestates' multi-user capabilities allows each expert to contribute their own skills the administration, where the result is greater than the sum of the parts.

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Alternatively, some choose to utilise Attestates' expertise.

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Attestates data entry service requires nothing more than providing the bank statements and vouchers (uploading via the Attestates app) and Attestates' bookkeepers enter that data. The estate accounts are always up-to-date and the executors always know the estate's financial position and every beneficiary's entitlement at any time.

Permissions

Executors can decide, when sharing access to their estate data, whether to allow a person 'view-only' access or 'edit' access.

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View-only users can see the data, generate and review reports and see the transactions making up the end result. They can freely review and analyse the information recorded - without power to alter the recorded information. An executor can share a read-only or view-only access to their family, their lawyer, or even a hostile beneficiary or their lawyer, without risk that the data can be changed. It's the ultimate 'self service' reporting for beneficiaries.

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Edit access allows a user to change and add to the estate's record. This is useful for the estate's lawyers and bookkeepers, and for co-executors where all executors may be undertaking transactions and need to record them. Subscriber firms use this capability to authorise their selected staff to enter data, and others to review it.

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Whether to share access, and whether to grant edit permission, is a decision is entirely up to the executor or firm operating the Attestates account - only an administrator can add users and set their permissions.

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Summary

With the rich collaboration capabilities available in Attestates, executors and beneficiaries are benefiiting from the ready availability of up-to-date estate information.

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