Estate Checklist & Beneficiaries - RightCapital Help Center

Studies show that only about 33% of adults in the US have begun preparing estate planning documents. For many people, even basic estate plan components like wills, trusts, POAs, and beneficiary designations can seem daunting. Thankfully, with a tool like RightCapital, estate planning doesn't have to be overwhelming.

To help simplify this process, RightCapital provides you and your clients with:

An Estate Checklist to track progress and catalog important information for critical estate planning documents
A Beneficiary page where clients can list the primary and contingent beneficiaries for all of the accounts within their financial plan

These valuable tools can be found within the Estate module of each and every client plan:

Looking for the Estate Analysis?

If you are looking for more details on the Estate Analysis flow chart, please see the article linked below:

Estate Analysis - Module Overview

Checklist

The Checklist module empowers you to help clients keep track of crucial estate planning tasks, all within a living, breathing financial plan. Here, clients can indicate if they've created important legal documents like a will, power of attorney, living will, healthcare proxy, and living trust.

In joint plans, the checklist will be split into two columns for the client and co-client. When a document has been created, check the box next to that item. This will cause additional fields to populate, allowing you to enter the details for that document:

For example...

Once a client has created their will, you will find additional fields to:

Enter the 'Name of Executor'
Enter the 'Name of Guardian'
Indicate when the document was last updated

You can make updates to the checklist by clicking the pencil and paper icon next to a particular field. Be sure to click the blue checkmark to the far right of each field to save your changes!

Action Items

The Action Items at the bottom of the estate checklist allow you to leave notes, and/or customize the checklist. To leave notes, open the action items and click the Notes button in the lower left:

When entering a note, you'll see an eye-shaped toggle beneath the text box. You can use this toggle to choose if a note should be shared with the client, or not shared. Shared notes will be visible to invited clients, and will be included in any PDF reports that you generate. Notes that are not shared will only be visible to you, and will not be included in reports.

You can also click the Edit button in the lower right of the action items to add or remove items from the Estate Checklist. This can be useful in situations where certain documents might not be relevant for certain clients. Do note that removing items is not permanent; they can be added back at any point in the future:

Beneficiary

The Beneficiary module can help provide clients with the peace of mind that comes with knowing their assets will end up in the right hands. Here, clients can enter the primary and contingent beneficiary designations for all bank accounts, investment accounts, and life insurance policies within the plan.

When a beneficiary has been assigned, click on that asset and choose a beneficiary from the dropdown menu:

The beneficiary dropdown will include the other members of the client household, charity, trust, all children, all grandchildren, or custom. The custom option will provide you with a text box to type in whatever you'd like, which can be useful for naming one or more individuals outside of the client household. Please note that the custom option has a 255 character limit.

For example...

You can use the 'Custom' field to indicate that two or more individuals will receive specific percentages of an investment:

Action Items

The Action Items at the bottom of the beneficiary tab allow you to leave notes, and/or customize the list. To leave notes, open the action items and click the Notes button in the lower left:

You can also click the Edit button in the lower right of the action items to add or remove items from the beneficiary list. Do note that removing items is not permanent; they can be added back at any point in the future:

Important Note:

Please note that the beneficiary designations entered within the Beneficiary module are purely categorical in nature. This information will not feed into the Estate Analysis.