If something happens

If something happens is a page in the sidebar. It puts everything a husband, wife, partner or executor would need in one place: what the household has, where it is, who owns it, who it goes to, what is paid from it, and where the paperwork is kept.

It is a record. It is not legal advice, it is not a will, and nothing you write on it changes anything at a bank.

What is on the page

Most of it is already there before you type anything, because SageFin builds it from what it knows:

Accounts. Every account with its balance, where it is held, and when it last synced. An account you keep by hand says Entered by hand.
Debts. Cards, loans and the mortgage, with the rate, the minimum payment and the next due date where SageFin has them.
Bills to cancel or move. The recurring charges somebody has confirmed and not switched off, with which account pays each one.
Bank connections. Whose login each connection uses, and what happens to it if that person dies.

Each of those links to the page where that data is edited. On this page they are read-only.

The top of the page says when it was prepared and how recent the balances are. Print gives you a paper copy with those two dates on every sheet, because paper carries no other clue how old it is.

A balance SageFin does not have shows as a dash. It never shows as $0.00.

The beneficiary register

For each account you can write down three things:

How it is owned. In one person's name, joint with right of survivorship, in a trust, and so on.
Who owns it.
Who it goes to. One or more primary beneficiaries, and contingent ones behind them if you have named any. A beneficiary can be a person, a trust, a charity, an organization or the account holder's estate.

Open the account from Accounts and find Owners and beneficiaries. An owner of the household chooses Record the first time and Edit after that. Everyone in the household can read it.

Where there is more than one beneficiary, you can say they split equally or give each a share. You can also record what happens to someone's share if they die first.

SageFin does not read this from your bank

Everything in the register is what somebody in your household typed. SageFin cannot see who a bank has on file as an owner or a beneficiary, and writing a name here does not name anyone at the bank.

The bank's own form is what counts. The register is your note of what that form says, so the person who needs it does not have to ring six institutions to find out.

That is why there is a box that says I checked this against the institution's records today. Tick it when you have looked at the bank's own record and it matches. The account then shows the date you checked. If you change the entry later without ticking it again, the date is cleared, because it no longer describes what is written.

Not recorded is not the same as none

An account can give one of four answers about beneficiaries:

Beneficiary recorded. You have named who it goes to.
No beneficiary. Somebody has said this account has none.
Doesn't take one. Some accounts do not, such as a 529, an annuity or a custodial account.
Not recorded. Nobody has answered yet.

The last one means only that nobody has filled it in. It never means the account has no beneficiary. The top of the Accounts section counts how many accounts are in each state, and says the same thing about the ones still unanswered.

People named on accounts

Owners and beneficiaries are picked from one list of people, at the bottom of the page. Most of them will not use SageFin: a child, a sister, an aunt.

For each person you can keep a name, how they are related, and a way to reach them. If the person is also a member of your household, you can say which member they are.

You can record that a person on this list has died. That changes no account. The accounts naming them stay as they are, so somebody can go through them. A person cannot be removed from the list while an account still names them.

Where things are kept

A short list of documents: a will, a trust, a power of attorney, a healthcare directive, life insurance, and anything else you want to add.

SageFin does not store the documents. It stores where yours are. For each one you can record:

where the signed original is kept
who holds a copy
a link to a copy, if you keep one online

A link goes to a copy. An executor needs the signed original, so keep the location current.

Each document can say We have one, We don't have one, or be left unanswered. As with beneficiaries, unanswered means nobody has said. SageFin does not tell you which documents you ought to have.

It does not move money, close accounts or contact a bank.
It does not hand the household over to anybody. What happens to the household itself when someone dies, including the case where the only owner has died, is covered in sharing a household.
It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for an attorney.