Executor Expense Spreadsheet and Reimbursement Log

What this is for

Settling an estate costs money before the estate has any to spend. Someone pays for death certificates, a court filing fee, postage, a locksmith for the house, gas to drive across the state, perhaps part of the funeral. Often it is the executor or a close relative, out of their own pocket, in the first weeks before an estate bank account exists. Later, those costs usually need to be shown to beneficiaries, and sometimes to the probate court, and anyone who paid should be repaid correctly.

This spreadsheet keeps every one of those costs in a single list. The Expenses tab has one row per payment, with columns for Date, Paid to, What for, Category, Amount, Paid from, Paid by (name), Receipt kept, Reimbursed on and Owed back. At the top are two totals: everything spent so far, and how much is still owed back to people who paid with their own money.

The Owed back column fills itself in. If a payment came from someone’s own money and has no Reimbursed on date yet, the full amount shows as owed; once you enter the date it was repaid, it drops to zero. Rows with no receipt turn amber, and so does any amount still owed, so neither is easy to overlook. How executors are repaid, and whether they may also be paid for their time, is decided by state law and sometimes the will, so ask the probate court or an attorney.

How to fill it in

1. Open the file, read the instructions tab, and delete the EXAMPLE row. If more than one person is paying for things, upload it to Google Sheets and share it so everyone logs their own costs in the same place.
2. Add a row for every payment, however small, starting with the earliest. Enter the Date, who it was Paid to, and a plain description in What for, such as “6 certified death certificates” or “Locksmith, change front door lock”.
3. Choose a Category from the dropdown: Funeral and burial, Court and filing fees, Legal and professional fees, Death certificates, Property upkeep, Utilities and insurance, Travel, Postage and copies, or Other. Categories make it easy to answer questions like “how much went on the house?” later.
4. Enter the Amount. In Paid from, choose Estate account, My own money or Someone else. In Paid by (name), write who actually paid, so the log still makes sense if several relatives chip in.
5. Set Receipt kept to Y or N. Put paper receipts in one envelope or folder, in date order, or photograph them and save them in a shared folder named by date. If a receipt is lost, say so in What for and keep whatever else shows the payment, such as a bank statement line.
6. When someone is repaid from the estate account, enter the date in Reimbursed on. Their Owed back figure goes to zero, and the total at the top falls. Log the reimbursement payment itself as a transfer in your estate account records, not as a new expense.
7. Once the estate account is open, pay costs from it wherever you can and choose Estate account in Paid from. Tick off the matching step in the estate task tracker, and use the totals when you prepare the final accounting for the beneficiaries.

A filled-in example

Common mistakes

• Paying the person’s debts from your own money. Debts are generally paid from the estate, and there may not be enough to cover them all. Family members are not usually responsible unless they shared the debt. Paying a creditor yourself can mean you never get that money back.
• Mixing estate costs with personal spending. Once there is an estate account, run estate costs through it. When you do pay yourself, log it the same day, while you still remember what it was for.
• Throwing away small receipts. Postage, parking and copying add up, and a beneficiary may reasonably ask about them. A quick photo on your phone, or a scan, is enough; many parking apps and toll roads can email a receipt too.
• Repaying yourself without writing it down. A reimbursement with no matching row looks like money taken from the estate. Enter the date in Reimbursed on so the record explains itself.
• Assuming every cost can be repaid. Some expenses may not count as estate costs under your state’s rules, such as travel that was mainly personal. If you are unsure, ask the probate court or an attorney before you reimburse yourself.