How to Classify Estate Distributions?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

rsbrux at yahoo.com wrote:

>Please excuse my posting this here.  It is really more a question about accounting rather than one about GnuCash, but I have searched the web diligently without finding an answer and hope that another GC user can give me a tip.
>I am preparing the accounting for my mother's estate using GC 2.29 and can't figure out what to do with the distributions to beneficiaries.  The forms I have found online treat distributions as a top level account........
>  
>

Maybe somebody here does know the answer but we shouldn't (not being 
accountants) be giving advice. What I will do is suggest that you surely 
CAN find out, possibly form the web but certainly from books (and the 
web can help you find those). It's a lot of work for you work in strange 
territory acting as executor of your mother's estate. And THAT is where 
you begin your search. Not trying to directly find the answer to this 
specific question but titles like "Accounting for Estates", "Accounting 
for Executors", etc.

And as a general point (for all of you out there who need to fill out 
reports). There is NO reason for you to expect 1:1 correspondences 
between what you have to fill in and your books. For example, two 
different reports (required by different agencies) might in effect 
require a different hierarchy of accounts and with traditional double 
entry bookkeeping you only can have one hierarchy (chart of accounts). 
The question isn't how to MATCH 1:1 but to have things set up so that 
the numbers you need for these reports can be easily obtained from your 
standard reports.

Michael D Novack, FLMI