Estate administration involves much more than probate filings and financial responsibilities. Executors may need to organize the estate, locate assets, notify institutions, open an estate account, maintain records, manage personal property, coordinate cleanout and liquidation, preserve family materials, and ultimately make distributions to beneficiaries.
Additional Resources helps executors see the tools, products, services, organizations, and educational resources that may intersect with those responsibilities. Resources are organized around the work an executor is trying to accomplish. The same resource may appear in more than one section when it has different applications to different parts of estate administration.
About Additional Resources
Executorium identifies companies, products, services, tools, organizations, and educational resources that may be relevant to executors and families. Inclusion is intended to promote awareness and does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, referral, or representation that a company, product, service, or provider has been vetted by Executorium.
Executorium does not receive compensation if you do business with any of these companies.
Getting Started & Managing the Estate
Most executors are doing the job for the first time. Establishing a workflow, understanding responsibilities, organizing documents, tracking tasks, and knowing when to bring in professional help can make the estate easier to manage from the beginning.
EstateExec
Executor-focused software for building a task plan, organizing estate information, maintaining an inventory, tracking financial activity, storing records, and producing reports.
Settled Estate
Probate education, state and county information, checklists, cost tools, and an optional workspace for organizing tasks, deadlines, assets, documents, transactions, and accounting.
P.A.L.S. – Professionals of After-Loss Services
A professional training organization and directory that can help executors identify after-loss professionals who provide administrative, logistical, and estate-project support.
Related Executorium articles:
Executor Road: Poof! You’re an Executor →
Executor Road: Managing the Estate Like a Business →
Finding the Will, Accounts & Estate Assets
Before an executor can administer an estate, the executor needs to understand what exists. Locating the will, identifying financial accounts, finding insurance and investments, determining debts, and building an estate inventory can require investigation when records are incomplete.
The U.S. Will Registry
A national will-location resource that may provide a starting point when an executor or family cannot locate the decedent’s original will.
Sunset
An estate-settlement platform with tools for discovering financial accounts, insurance, investments, debts, and other assets that may otherwise be difficult for an executor to locate.
Related Executorium articles:
Sunset – Decedent Account Search Tool →
Executor Road: Poof! You’re an Executor →
Notifications, Account Closures & Estate Protection
Executors may need to notify financial institutions, creditors, government agencies, utilities, subscription services, credit bureaus, and other organizations after a death. Timely notification can also help reduce the opportunity for deceased identity theft and other estate fraud.
ProtectHeir
Provides an executor-focused death-notification workflow with customized materials and contact information intended to help families close accounts and reduce deceased identity-theft risk.
NotifyNOW
A digital notification platform for reporting a death to participating creditors, utilities, subscription providers, banks, and other institutions from a centralized workflow.
Related Executorium articles:
Preventing Deceased Identity Theft: A First Step for Every Executor →
What Is The Estate Registry? →
Probate Court, Documents & Fiduciary Requirements
Probate requirements vary by jurisdiction and estate. Executors may encounter court forms, appointment documents, filing requirements, fiduciary bonds, notarization, and other procedural steps before they have authority to manage estate property.
ProbateCourtBond.com
An online resource for obtaining executor, administrator, and other probate-court surety bonds when a fiduciary bond is required.
National Notary Association – Surety Bonds
A source for probate and fiduciary surety bonds when an executor, administrator, or other court-appointed fiduciary is required to post a bond.
Settled Estate
State- and county-oriented probate information that can help executors understand local court contacts, filing information, forms, procedures, and possible estate-settlement paths.
Related Executorium article:
Being an Executor from Out of State: How to Handle Ancillary Probate →
Estate Banking, Accounting & Recordkeeping
Estate money should be organized and documented carefully. Executors may need a dedicated estate bank account, a record of receipts and expenses, documentation of creditor payments, transaction histories, accounting reports, and a clear record of distributions.
Quorum Probate Express
A digital estate banking platform for opening and managing a dedicated estate account, paying estate expenses, maintaining transaction records, and facilitating distributions.
EstateExec
Provides estate-specific accounting tools for tracking assets, income, expenses, debts, transactions, distributions, supporting documents, and reports.
Sunset
Combines estate asset discovery with estate banking and an auditable transaction record that can continue through beneficiary distributions.
Related Executorium articles:
Executor Road: Managing the Estate Like a Business →
Sunset – Decedent Account Search Tool →
Personal Property, Inventory, Value & Distribution
Furniture, jewelry, collectibles, household contents, heirlooms, artwork, tools, and keepsakes can create a major estate workload. Executors may need to inventory property, identify unfamiliar items, understand possible value, ask beneficiaries what they want, document decisions, and divide or dispose of the property fairly.
FairSplit
A personal-property inventory and division platform that can help executors photograph belongings, involve heirs, document preferences, and structure distribution decisions.
WorthPoint
Research tools for identifying antiques, art, collectibles, marks, and comparable sales when an executor needs more information before deciding how property should be valued or disposed of.
Artifcts
A tool for photographing belongings and attaching stories, history, details, and family context before items are distributed, sold, donated, stored, or otherwise separated.
Related Executorium articles:
Selling Estate Personal Property – Time Is Money →
The Estate Cleanout →
Estate Cleanout, Liquidation, Moving & Storage
Eventually, much of the physical estate has to move somewhere. Executors may need to determine what family members want, identify items that deserve additional research, hire an estate liquidator or cleanout company, arrange donations, pack property, ship distributions, or place belongings into temporary storage.
American Society of Estate Liquidators
Provides consumer education, professional standards, and a directory that can help an executor identify estate-sale and estate-liquidation professionals.
Artifcts
During an attic, basement, garage, or household cleanout, Artifcts may help document an item and involve family members before deciding whether it should be kept, distributed, sold, donated, or discarded.
WorthPoint
Can help an executor research unfamiliar household property before an item disappears into the ordinary cleanout, donation, or liquidation stream.
Related Executorium articles:
The Estate Cleanout →
How to Vet Estate Cleanout Companies →
Bring the Supplies for the Estate Cleanout →
Estate Storage, Preservation & Family Legacy
Photographs, albums, negatives, documents, letters, books, family records, keepsakes, and the stories attached to them can easily be lost when an estate is being emptied and distributed. Executors and families may need different resources for physical preservation, digitization, documentation, organization, and capturing family history.
Archival Methods
Preservation information and archival storage materials for photographs, documents, albums, negatives, books, family papers, and other materials that may need protection beyond an ordinary moving box.
The Photo Managers
A professional association and directory for photo managers who can help families organize, digitize, preserve, manage, and share large collections of photographs and legacy media.
IntoThePhoto
A guided photo-journal approach that can help families capture names, relationships, places, dates, and stories while people who recognize the photographs are still available to provide the context.
Artifcts
Can help preserve the information surrounding an object—the story, photograph, history, significance, and family context—even if the physical item is ultimately distributed or leaves the estate.
Related Executorium articles:
Estate Talks: Family Legacy: Photo Management →
A Practical Guide to Legacy Book Projects for Families →
Beneficiary Distributions & Inheritance Liquidity
Beneficiaries may wait months or longer before an estate can make final distributions. Executors may also face pressure for early distributions before debts, taxes, expenses, and other estate obligations are fully known. Understanding the resources that exist around inheritance liquidity can help executors and beneficiaries understand their options without confusing those services with estate distributions themselves.
InheritNOW
Provides inheritance advances for beneficiaries who want access to a portion of an expected inheritance before probate and estate administration are complete.
MyInheritanceCash
Provides inheritance and trust advances for beneficiaries seeking early access to part of an anticipated distribution while an estate or trust remains in administration.
Related Executorium articles:
Understanding Inheritance Advances and Inheritance Loans →
The Beneficiary Refunding Bond and Release →
Resources Can Cross the Executor Workflow
Estate administration does not divide neatly into categories. A personal-property tool may also help during a cleanout. A preservation resource may become important while packing a house. Estate software may support inventory, accounting, document management, and distributions at different points in the same estate.
For that reason, a company or resource may appear in several Additional Resources sections. The description may also change depending on the executor responsibility being discussed. The objective is to help executors understand where and how a resource may fit into the work of the estate.
More Executor Resource Topics
Additional Resources will continue to expand as Executorium identifies useful information, tools, products, organizations, and services that intersect with estate administration. Future areas may include:
- Real estate and property maintenance
- Vehicles and titled property
- Digital property and online accounts
- Insurance
- Estate tax and professional accounting
- Donations and charitable disposition
- Shipping and specialty packing
- Appraisal and specialty valuation
- Auctions and alternative liquidation methods
- Collections and specialty property
- Document management and secure records
- Working with attorneys and other estate professionals
Estate Solutions
Additional Resources focuses on where information, tools, products, and services may intersect with the executor workflow. Executorium’s Estate Solutions section provides a closer look at individual companies and organizations offering products, services, tools, and capabilities relevant to estates and executors.