We are permanent guardians for MIL in memory care facility and need to keep track of $ for annual report to court - any software suggestions?

Thank you! :-D

Yes, you can track multiple accounts in quicken, so you can have one file for mom, one for dad, one for you one for trust, quicken also allows investment tracking, which not all bookkeeping programs do.

Is it possible in Quicken to set up multiple accounts? Not being familiar with the current version, not sure if "accounts" is the right word or not. For example, we need to set it up to enter and wrap up everything from their financials from the point father-in-law passed away under husband's role as executor. Then, need a separate set of financial information and tracking beginning at the point the court appointed us as guardians and we had to set up different checking accounts, etc.

Thank you to everyone. We have some expertise with Excel and were looking at that but, in addition to tracking her expenses, my husband is also the executor for his father's estate and is in the process of getting all of the various pensions rearranged, insurances, bills, etc. Plus, they have a trust that he is the trustee of that has assets to manage. We used to use Quicken a lot back before our bank provided us with ways to do all of the simple bill pay, tracking, etc. that we used to use in that product. We really appreciate the input from those of you who've been in our shoes.

You can also print detailed reports that the court will accept for annual reporting, very easy and very detailed, the courts love simplicity, it equals transparency.

I am a full charge bookkeeper and I recommend that you use Quicken, very user friendly, you can download info from banks and credit cards, etc. Check with your local library to see if they offer free classes on using it or pay the small fee for tech support. You will be happy you did, once it is set up (hardest part) it is data input year after year, this would be something that your moms estate would pay for. Keep it simple.

One thing to remember about any packaged software is that it's already configured for various kinds of inputs, and there's not always the flexibility you might want. You could start though by making lists of all anticipated expenses by category: regularly occurring bills, house bills (repairs, household supplies), food, transportation, medical that isn't reimbursed, transportation, etc.

I used to use Excel to keep up to date records on income and expenses for tax returns. I had sheets for medical mileage, out of pocket medical expenses, transportation, premiums, etc. At that time Excel sheets could be linked, so each sheet was linked to either income or deductions, with the linking cell also linked to the corresponding item on federal tax returns.

I.e., medical premiums were in a sheet that was linked to total medical expenses, which was updated each time an entry was made. That, along with items such as real estate taxes, charitable deductions, were linked to a Schedule A sheet, which was linked to the federal 1040.

This resulted in a literal up to date tax return every time entries were made.

I don't know if there are other expenses that might be required for reporting to the court, but you could create any additional categories you need.

This does require some proficiency with Excel; you might want to test Excel first with just a smaller scale series of expenses to get started.

I haven't done this recently, so I don't know for sure if Excel still has this capacity. And right now MS Office was deleted when my hard drive had to be reformatted and it elusively is refusing to reinstall, so I can't check it for these kinds of links.

If this sounds interesting but confusing, just let me know and I'll elaborate more.

Jjariz is right though; it can all be done manually, and often might be easier. One of the keys of these kinds of accountings is to make it easier by recording the expenses as they occur, as you would when managing a checking account. In fact, I would first try it manually to get an idea how you would want to configure the package if you used your own through Excel.

You are looking for Personal Financial Software that focuses on the budgeting (income/expense) side versus the assets (investments). Quicken is the most well known software for most people. But if you want to try some of the free software, here is a Wall Street Journal article that lists them.
guides.wsj.com/personal-finance/managing-your-money/how-to-choose-and-use-financial-software/

Keep in mind that pencil and paper or a spreadsheet will also work in a simple situation like this.