Automated California Fiduciary Accounting Software

Balanced is web-based software that generates balanced, fully editable California fiduciary accounting workbooks in Excel, directly from your PDF bank and brokerage statements. Balanced converts and organizes your statement data exactly as the statements show it, using disclosed, standard accounting conventions you can change. Everything beyond that comes from your own instructions. There is nothing to install: your PDF files are processed in your own web browser, and Balanced’s proprietary technology automatically builds and generates the accounting workbook from statement-traceable data, with each entry cited to the statement and page from which it was drawn. Balanced does not prepare accountings manually. Customers pay $699 per accounting, with no subscription.

$699 per accounting, paid once when you place your order. There is no subscription, no account to create, and no software to install. If you have a discount code, enter it on the Review & pay step.

Most accounting workbooks are generated and delivered in under 4 hours, but generation times vary depending on the size and complexity of each accounting.

By email, to the address you enter. You will receive two emails from info@balanced.law. The first arrives right away and confirms your order with the details you entered. The second arrives when your accounting is complete, with your Excel workbook and a carry-forward file attached.

Keep the carry-forward file to prepare subsequent accountings.

Every accounting is one Excel workbook, organized by California Probate Code §§ 1061 through 1063, with a sheet for each of the following:

• Summary & Balance: Charges, credits and the balance
• Schedule A: Assets at beginning of period
• Schedule B: Receipts of principal
• Schedule C: Gains on sales
• Schedule D: Losses on sales
• Schedule E: Income received
• Schedule F: Disbursements of principal
• Schedule G: Disbursements of income
• Schedule H: Assets on hand at end of period
• Schedule I: Distributions to beneficiaries
• Changes in Form of Assets: Purchases, corporate actions and returns of capital
• Schedule M: Transfers between accounts
• Market Value: Carry value compared with market value
• Schedule Q: Proposed distributions
• Tax: Per-account, per-year income summary

Every schedule is linked to the Summary & Balance sheet, so it updates automatically when you edit any amount. Anonymized sheets from a real accounting are shown at the top of this page.

Yes. Conservatorship and guardianship accountings are prepared in the format of the Judicial Council’s standard account forms:

• The Summary of Account (GC-400(SUM))
• Receipts and disbursements grouped into the form’s subject-matter categories, each category subtotaled on its own schedule
• Cash and non-cash assets shown separately
• Columns for check numbers and the date of the order authorizing each fee or distribution

Trust administrations and probate estates use the schedules of California Probate Code §§ 1060–1064. Balanced identifies the type of accounting from the matter name you enter, for example “Conservatorship of Jane Doe.” You can also state it in a PDF memo in the Other Documents step.

Securities holdings are stated at carry value (Prob. Code §1061(a)(1)). Unless a prior accounting or carry-forward file is included or a different basis treatment is requested in a memo, each holding’s starting carry value is its value on the statements at the start of the accounting period.

From there, Balanced tracks each holding’s carry value through the entire period, lot by lot, on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis. Purchases add lots at cost, and sales and maturities draw down the oldest lots first. Gains and losses on Schedules C and D are calculated from the carry value, not the brokerage’s printed cost basis. Spin-offs, returns of capital and other corporate actions adjust the carry value and are shown on the Changes in Form schedule, and the ending carry values flow to Schedule H and into the carry-forward file for your next accounting for that matter.

Yes. Balanced is built for the accountings that take the longest to prepare by hand, including:

• Many accounts at many banks and brokerages in one accounting, each balanced on its own
• Securities tracked lot by lot, first-in, first-out, through purchases, sales, maturities, reinvested dividends, spin-offs, returns of capital and other corporate actions, each shown on the Changes in Form schedule
• Accounting periods that begin or end mid-month, and subsequent accountings that continue from a prior Balanced accounting
• Allocation of receipts and disbursements between principal and income under California’s Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act when a trust or estate has an income beneficiary, with the code section on each line and every allocation editable
• A rental property or business operated by the fiduciary, shown as net income or loss on its own profit-and-loss schedule
• Sales of real property from the settlement statement, with each cost of sale itemized and the gain or loss calculated from carry value
• Assets that appear on no statement, such as vehicles, household furnishings and promissory notes
• Liabilities, creditor claims, specifically devised property, interest on general pecuniary gifts, and the statutory fee calculation, when they apply
• Transfers between accounts flagged for your review
• Market values at the beginning and end of the period

Anything the statements cannot show can be described in a PDF memo in the Other Documents step.

Yes. The workbook is a standard Excel file, and every schedule is fully editable, so you can review, adjust, and add to it as you see fit.

Yes. You may re-process your accounting by saving the entire Excel workbook as a PDF file and adding it as the only statement. Then, in the Other Documents step, add a PDF memo describing your requested edits or modifications, or provide additional files or documents, and process again.

Email support@balanced.law with your Order Number and we will send you a 50% off code for the re-processed accounting.

No. Your PDF files are processed in your own web browser, on your own computer, and the PDF files themselves are never uploaded, shared, or transmitted.

Any PDF file that helps explain how you want your accounting prepared or provides other relevant information. For example:

• Settlement statements for the sale of real property
• A PDF memo describing transactions, payees, descriptions, schedule and transaction grouping and/or organizational preferences for receipts and disbursements, income vs. principal distributions, business-related income, etc.
• A request to carry securities on Schedule A at cost basis instead of the default starting carry value from the statements
• Prior accountings
• Assets or activity that do not appear on the statements
• Other statements and ledgers
• Whether the trust or estate has an income beneficiary, and any principal and income provisions in the trust instrument
• Information about a business or rental property the fiduciary operates
• Liabilities, creditor claims, specific gifts and cash gifts
• Any document that provides or describes relevant accounting information, requests, or preferences

For a memo, you can use the optional one-page memo template (see sample memos).

Other documents are optional. If you have none, press Next to skip that step.

No. Balanced Legal Technology does one thing: fiduciary accounting technology. There is no suite of other products or services, just a single, highly specialized focus on California fiduciary accounting automation technology and setting a new state-of-the-art for accounting accuracy.

Balanced reconciles each account to its own statements and traces each line to its source, with a citation on each data row of the schedules to the statement and page it came from. Balanced accountings are impartial and verifiable, and represent a new standard for fiduciary accounting accuracy.

However, every accounting is a preliminary draft for your review, and we must insist that you always carefully review and verify all data before relying on or filing the accounting.

We recommend having every accounting reviewed by a licensed attorney or professional accounting firm before it is used or relied on for any purpose.

Balanced was founded and developed by Marc Joyce, a practicing California trusts and estates attorney with a passion for computers and technology.