The Combined Account is the report most courts want as the estate's accounting. It shows an opening inventory, all income and expenses during the reporting period, and a closing inventory.

Watch the walkthrough: Creating a combined account, 6 minutes. The video predates some changes to the app. Where they differ, follow this page.

Steps

Open the matter, click the Reports tab, and choose Combined Account.
Set the Report Name to what your court calls this document.
Check the Report Subtitle. It is shared by every report in the matter.
Set the Opening Date and the Closing Date.
Choose whether to turn on Show zero value accounts. Keep Show summary on.
Expand or collapse sections and accounts until the report shows the detail you want.
Check the summary.
Click Export and choose a format.

To reuse a group of settings, save them under Saved Reports. See Customize and save report settings.

Name the report

The name varies by jurisdiction. In Wisconsin, an accounting that closes the estate is a final account. An accounting for an earlier period is an interim account.

Set the dates

Opening Date. The start of the reporting period. It defaults to the date of the matter's earliest transaction, which is normally the date of death. Change it when the period starts later, such as the first day of a calendar year.
Closing Date. The end of the period. It defaults to today.

Zero value accounts

Leave Show zero value accounts off for a clean report. Turn it on to list every account, including income and expense categories with no activity in the period, such as dividends or funeral expenses in an estate that had none. Seeing every account can also help when you are tracking down a problem.

Use the summary to confirm the account balances

The summary lists the opening inventory value, the income received, the expenses paid, and the closing inventory value. It confirms that everything that happened in the estate has been accounted for.

On a final account, the closing inventory value should be zero. That means every dollar has been paid out or distributed, and the account balances to the penny.

If opening value plus income minus expenses does not equal the closing value, the summary shows a note with the difference. It also lists the entries involving equity accounts that explain it. See Run a report.

If money is left in an account that should be empty, see Troubleshoot report totals.

Choose the level of detail

Assets. If the inventory has already been filed, the account may need only the total inventory value. Collapse the assets section of the opening inventory to show its total without the individual accounts.
Income and expenses. Accounts that have transactions but no subaccounts start collapsed to their totals. Click the arrow beside each account whose entries you want the reader to see.
Closing inventory. On a final account there is nothing left to list. Collapse it to show only its heading and total.

If an entry does not read well on the report, fix the transaction or the account structure, not the exported file. See Set up accounts so reports are ready to file.

Export

The export matches what is on screen, including which sections and accounts are collapsed. Excel is a good choice when you need to adjust page breaks. PDF and CSV are also available.

Prepare an interim or final account