What Is Estate Administration Software?

When someone passes away, the estate administration process begins. Also called probate, it includes the steps needed to be taken to ensure beneficiaries receive their inheritance. Estate administration can be timely, complicated, and involve a lot of manual data entry. It is why estate administration software like Estateably is essential to modernize the estate and probate process. 

What is the probate process?

There are many steps to the estate administration or probate process. It begins with a filing of a petition to the correct court. 

The following steps include:

• Notice to heirs according to the will or statutory heirs if there was no will
• Petition to appoint executor or administrator for the estate
• Conducting an inventory and appraisal of items in the estate
• Estate debt paid to creditors
• Selling estate assets
• Pay estate taxes
• Distribution of inheritance to heirs
  

All of these tasks are regulated by laws that differ across Canada. 

Why use estate administration software?

The estate administration process can be complicated. There is a vast amount of data that needs to be collected and recorded. During this manual data entry process, the information must be entered accurately. However, it is also a time-consuming task. 

There are over 250,000 deaths each year, according to Statistic Canada. A majority of those estates will need to be documented, recorded, pass through probate, and settled. It's easy to see how the entire process can take months and sometimes even years to finish with a manual process. 

Estate software can reduce the manual workload for estate lawyers, accountants, and their staff. It speeds along the probate process while also allowing estate professionals to focus on more important tasks. 

Who should use estate administration software?

Trust and estate professionals can use Estateably to digitize their work. The platform was designed to bring the probate process into the 21st century. As technology has advanced, the estate administration process continues to remain highly manual and labour intensive. However, by using modern technology, estate administrators can save time and money. 

After someone has passed away, the estate goes through a court process known as probate or estate administration. During this process, the assets in the estate are recorded, managed, and distributed. 

It can take a long time for this process to move forward, depending on the size of the estate, local regulations, and probate court requirements. Using estate administration software, professionals can efficiently move through the administration process. 

Administration software simplifies many of the legally required tasks in estate administration, such as documenting details of assets, generating forms and letters, and distributing inheritance to beneficiaries. 

Estateably can increase staff productivity by reducing the time it takes to manually go through each piece of information in the estate. This allows staff to focus on more critical tasks for your firm. 

The software also automates the documentation often required for estate files to ensure compliance in audit or litigation.

What are the benefits of estate administration software?

‍

Estateably's administration software has several features that save estate administrators time and make the probate process smoother. These include:

• Form and letter automation: The platform can automate the generation of court forms and precedent letters to reduce manual effort, save time, and reduce the possibility of errors. 
  

• Instant report generation. Instantly generate dozens of court-formatted reports such as a Statement of Accounts and Estate Information Returns (EIR). 
  

• Collaborate with your team from anywhere. Work and communicate on the same file at the same time, anywhere you have an internet connection.
  

• Assign tasks. The platform allows you to assign tasks for other team members to complete. The program will curate a task list, and you can pick and choose which ones are designated for certain people to complete. 
  

• Notifications and reminders. Stay up to date on upcoming deadlines with configurable notifications in-app and via email. 
  

• Automatic ongoing calculation of estate value. As you work through creating an inventory, Estateably calculates the estate value at the top of the page for easy reference. It can also track distributions to beneficiaries. 
  

• Security. Estateably is SOC 2 compliant, which means all of your information in our cloud is secure. 
  

Why use Estateably?

Estateably is the first cloud-based platform for estate administrators in Canada. It improves settlement times and transparency into the process. 

We have created a solution for law and accounting professionals that is a secure, transparent, and cost-effective way to manage the probate process. Our goal is to simplify the probate process, ease the workload for estate professionals, enabling families to receive inheritances at a more timely pace. 

Let us show you how it works. Book a demo today.