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Trust Management Question

jtcrawf55

I manage a Trust for my brother. Right now it is in the same file as my personal finances but listed as 'Separate' so it doesn't affect my financials. Doing it this way does not let me generate reports. Is there a way to get it so I can generate reports? Do I need to move this trust into a separate file? If so, how do I do that?

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Jim_Harman

Generally a trust files its own tax return, and any entity that files a return should have a separate Quicken data file.

Are you the trustee and responsible for the trust's accounting and tax returns? Usually the Trustee must track the Trust's income and principal separately.

I use Quicken and TurboTax Business as a Trustee to track the finances and prepare tax returns for a trust that benefits a family member. Most of the necessary features are already in place as long as the investments are not too complex. It all depends on the provisions of the trust document.

I find that a customized version of Quicken's Banking Summary report provides most of the year-end information needed. One issue is that the Trustee is legally responsible for accurate accounting of the trust. If there is ever a dispute, Quicken's records might not be sufficient, because it does not keep an audit trail the way complete accounting software does.

The alternative of using a bank trust department as the trustee or co-trustee can be very expensive, costing more than 1% of the trust's assets per year.

I found the book "Estate and Trust Administration for Dummies" quite helpful in understanding the duties of Executors and Trustees.

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Someone else may be able to give you guidance on how best to export the trust's accounts to a separate file.

Sceptic

@jtcrawf55 before moving the trust account to a separate data file, check whether the report can be customized to include Separate accounts. Many Quicken reports exclude Separate accounts by default, but there is often an option to include them. Since you're only managing a single trust account, I would explore that first. Maintaining a separate data file is usually only necessary if you want the trust completely isolated from your personal records.

Sceptic

From a Quicken perspective, a trust account does not necessarily need to be in a separate data file in order to generate reports. Whether the trust should be maintained in a separate Quicken file for legal, fiduciary, accounting, or tax purposes is a question that would be best discussed with the trust's attorney or accountant, since those requirements can vary depending on the terms of the trust and applicable law.

Sceptic

@jtcrawf55 if you do decide to move the trust account to a separate data file, in my opinion, the best thing to do is create a new data file and then recreate the trust account in the new file. You can run reports in the original data file to help with this.

Create a new Quicken data file (File → New Quicken File).
Add the trust account to the new file.
Recreate or download the transaction history.
Verify balances and holdings.
Once satisfied, remove or archive the trust account from the original file.

I would not use a copy of the original data file to create the new one. If you use a Windows copy or a Quicken copy, the new data file is not systematically independent of the original data file. The only way to create a totally separate data file from the original data file is to create a new file.

q_lurker

I also would recommend a separate file for the trust, if for no other reason than to be able to pass on the file to a different trustee if something would happen to you.

Following after the comments from @Sceptic, you may be able to export the trust account transactions from the current Quicken file as a QIF file and then import the QIF file to the new trust Quicken file. You may be able to unearth more specifics on that process within this community.