Court Accounting Services in California
A court accounting is the financial report a conservator, guardian, executor, or trustee files with the probate court. It has a summary of account and a set of supporting schedules, and the two sides of the summary balance. Streamline Bookkeeping prepares court accountings from the underlying records and keeps those records between filings.
What the document looks like
The work is in the schedules. Each one lists the individual items in a category, and the totals carry up to a summary that balances.
- Property on hand at the beginning, cash and non-cash listed separately
- Receipts
- Gains on sales
- Disbursements
- Losses on sales
- Property on hand at the end
In a conservatorship or guardianship these are the Judicial Council GC-400 and GC-405 forms, lettered A through E. A decedent’s estate uses different lettering.
Why it is not a financial statement
There is no profit and loss. The format is charges and credits, and nothing in it shows whether the estate made or lost money.
Money coming in gets sorted twice. Once by what it is, rent or a dividend or a benefit payment. Again by whether it belongs to principal or to income, because different beneficiaries can hold rights to different parts of the same estate. A business set of books only does the first sort.
Sales work differently. When an asset is sold, the return of its carry value is not a receipt. Only the gain or loss over carry value is entered, on its own schedule. The cash from the sale appears in property on hand at the end.
Where the work is
A court accounting and a QuickBooks file are two outputs of the same transactions. The QuickBooks file supports the fiduciary income tax return, Form 1041. The court accounting is a separate document built for the court.
If every transaction was classified by type and by principal or income when it happened, the schedules are a sorting exercise. If not, the whole period gets reconstructed from statements first. That difference is most of the cost.
Who we work with
- Conservators and guardians of the estate
- Executors and administrators
- Trustees preparing accountings for beneficiaries or for the court
- Estate planning, probate, and trust attorneys who need the accounting built
- Professional fiduciaries carrying multiple matters
- CPAs preparing Form 1041 who do not want to produce the schedules
Related: trust accounting, fiduciary accounting, conservatorship accounting
How the engagement runs
Monthly bookkeeping through the accounting period. Each transaction classified when it happens, anything unusual documented at the time. At period end the schedules come out of maintained data.
For matters already underway, the prior period gets reconstructed first and monthly work picks up from there.
Streamline Bookkeeping works with families, estate planning attorneys, and professional trustees in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, across California, and nationwide. Reach out to discuss a matter.
*Bookkeeping services only. Not legal or tax advice. Filing requirements and deadlines come from the court and the attorney on the matter.*