How do I distribute to beneficiaries?

This article explains how to distribute cash and assets to beneficiaries and easily access summaries of all distributions made

Overview

• Once you start adding assets, liabilities, income and expenses to a case on the platform and start ingathering money for assets and settling liabilities, you’ll see what is available to distribute and how this changes when you add to and/or edit these areas
• In order to distribute, you must ensure you have someone to distribute to. Add beneficiaries to the case. How do I add beneficiaries?
• There are 3 categories of distribution available:
  • Specific legacy
  • Pecuniary legacy
  • Residuary legacy
• You can view summaries of all distributions made in the estate easily at any time

Page Contents:

How do I add a distribution? 

How do I add a specific legacy?

How do I add a pecuniary legacy?

How do I add a residuary legacy?

How do I select beneficiaries? 

How do I assign and share out distributions?

How do I view and manage distributions?

Adding distributions

• Click into Distributions

• Click Add distribution

• Choose between Specific legacy, Pecuniary legacy or Residue

Specific legacy

• Choose Specific legacy in Type of distribution 
• Choose the Asset type required. The list will show any asset you have added to the estate which you have not sold/received the cash value for 
• A list of all assets within that asset type will appear in the drop down, choose the specific asset required in Select asset/cash*
• Assets like life insurances/pensions etc. will be distributed using the auto calculated realised value  

Pecuniary legacy

• Choose Pecuniary legacy in Type of distribution 
• Choose if this is an interim or final distribution
• Choose where to distribute the money from in Select asset/cash 

Residuary legacy

• Choose if this is an interim or final distribution
• Choose what you’d like to distribute from the Select asset/cash drop down list

• If this is a final residual payment involving cash from the client cash account, the below question will appear and allow you to choose if you want to remove unsettled expenses and liabilities from the total available for distribution

  • If you select No, the Total available for distributions will include unsettled expenses and liabilities 
  • If you select Yes, you will see the overall Current cash balance with everything included and then the Total available for distribution will exclude the amount in Unsettled expenses and liabilities 

 

• If this is a final residual payment, the below question will appear asking if you would like to calculate the final distribution based on past distributions and beneficiaries entitlement:

• If you select No, you can carry on and manually select beneficiaries and assign entitlements 
• If you select Yes, beneficiaries and entitlements will be added based on the entitlements entered in to the People & beneficiary section
  • The people and/or organisations shown in the Beneficiaries area will be any person or organisation you have added as a beneficiary and assigned with a Residuary entitlement. How do I add a beneficiary? How do I assign their entitlement?
  • The option for How would you like to assign the distribution? will be automatically selected dependent on the Residuary type chosen when assigning the residuary entitlement to beneficiaries 
  • Value equals the amount due to the beneficiary, minus any Allocated amounts
  • Allocated equals the amount of any interim residual payments already made to that beneficiary
  • Total equals Value + Allocated 

Selecting beneficiaries

• Select the beneficiary you’d like to distribute to in Select beneficiary
• Choose if this legacy is subject to a trust or contingency
• If the distribution is subject to a trust or contingency, you will be asked to enter a description for the trust/contingency and confirm who the lead trustee/parent/guardian receiving the funds is. Within the People section of your case, you can update an existing person or add a new person with the Lead trustee, Parent / Guardian role and they will then appear in the list to select. How do I add people?

• Click Add beneficiary

• If more than one beneficiary is required, click Add new beneficiary and repeat as needed:

 

Assigning distributions

• Choose between Equally, Percentage, Shares or Manual entry £value for How would you like to assign the distribution?

Sole beneficiary

• This option will only show when there is only one beneficiary added and is available for all distribution types 
 

Equally

• Available where 2 or more beneficiaries have been added for specific or residuary distributions

Percentage

• Available where 2 or more beneficiaries have been added for specific or residuary distributions
• Use when you want flexibility to share assets or funds by a specific percentage to 2 decimal places

Shares

• Available where 2 or more beneficiaries have been added for specific or residuary distributions
• Use when you want flexibility to share assets or funds by shares or fractions, simply enter the total number of shares or the bottom number of your fraction (denominator) in the Total number of equal shares box

Manual entry £ value

• Available where 2 or more beneficiaries have been added for specific or residuary distributions and where 1 beneficiary has been added for pecuniary and interim residue distributions 
• Use when you need flexibility to add very specific amounts 

• Add the Date of distribution (or can be left blank if distribution hasn't been made yet)
• Click Save distribution

View and manage distributions

• In the case, click on Distributions in the left hand side menu

• You will then see a summary of distributions

• To edit, click View to open, make the required changes and click to save
• To delete, click on the three dots to the right of the relevant distribution and click Delete

• You can view the distributions within the estate accounts area and the output. click in to Estate accounts and from there you can view the full menu:

• Within Summary, once you have added distributions you will see information populate under Beneficiaries details
• Within Distributions, you will see all distributions you have added
• Within Reconciliation, you will see the total amount distributed and any amount left to be distributed
• Within Client cash account, you will see any distributions that have been made from the client cash account
• To view the full set of Estate Accounts, click Export
• If you click to export as PDF, on the first page you will see a Synopsis of will, including legacies:

• Scroll down to see the Distribution page which is listed at the end:

• If you click to export to excel, open the excel document when the download has completed and view distributions within the Distributions tab