Overview
The IHT form requires you to confirm the number of children and grandchildren who survived the deceased. This can be entered into Troika in a few ways, which are outlined below.
This guide will also outline how to record a general, 'non-specific' beneficiary, for accounting purposes. This is useful at the start of the administration of an estate if you do not have all details available and ensures they do not get forgotten when you get to the point of making distributions. An example might be a bequest for "£5,000 each to all my grandchildren". Its main use would be for pecuniary legacies.
IHT Form
The IHT Form requires you to confirm the number of children and grandchildren who survived the deceased.
For estates where perhaps a legacy has been left to every surviving child/grandchild, you will be required to enter each of them individually in the Family Details tab, within Estate Details - Edit. You will need to ensure the Total box is correctly adjusted.
Where you simply would like to record the number, not the individuals, you have the option of checking the ‘Surviving Deceased?’ check box manually, and entering the Total instead.
In addition, Troika is entirely flexible and in the event you would like to record specific details of only one/two grandchildren (those named in the will perhaps), but still record there was 20 surviving grandchildren in total, you can do this too.
Entering a 'Non-Specific' Beneficiary
Whenever you add a beneficiary record for a pecuniary legacy within Estate Details – Edit, Troika will automatically create a pseudo liability for the estate so that any distributions can comply with the statutory order in which they have to be made (in common with all estates).
In Troika you should always add a residuary beneficiary first (ideally a specific individual or corporate entity) before adding pecuniary legacies. In this example our residuary beneficiary is Mr Beneficiary A:
Once added, to a 'non-specific' beneficiary entry, use the same process as adding specific individuals as beneficiaries, with a couple of differences.
Within Estate Details - Edit, Beneficiaries tab, click the Add New Entry button.
In Step 1, select ‘Family Member?’.
In Step 2, do not make any selection from the drop-down list here, but select the Add New Entry button to create a new family member. Select ‘Grandchild’ and click OK to proceed. Again, do not make any selection from the drop-down list here, but select the Add New Entry button to create a new entity record for the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary in the New Entity Wizard.
Select the entity type as ‘Other’ and click Next to continue. ‘Other’ is used as we are adding (potentially) a collective of individuals in as one entity record. Enter within the Forename(s)/Surname fields a description which identifies this group of beneficiaries within Troika.
In this example we are adding the grandchildren of the deceased. We must also include the name of the deceased rather than just grandchildren so that you can identify the contact correctly within the entire Troika database:
Click Next to proceed to Step 3.
In Step 3, in this example, we have added a total cash amount that is to be distributed amongst the grandchildren, as per the will, of £50 each.
Select the Type of Bequest as ‘Pecuniary Legacy’, enter the amount/value, and a description, and use the down arrow to include the bequest in the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary’s record:
Click Next to continue.
Review the details you have entered and click Finish to complete the entry.
The Cash estimate report will show the beneficiary’s ‘liability’ as follows:
Amending the 'Non-Specific' Beneficiary, to a Single Beneficiary
What happens next depends on the individual circumstances of the estate.
If there was only one grandchild, you might wish to amend the general detail and turn the general contact into the individual (or corporation) if relevant.
Within Estate Details – Edit select the Beneficiaries tab, highlight the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary and then click on the Edit button. The Entity Details screen will open.
Amend the Type to Individual. You will be prompted to confirm you wish to make the change. Select Yes to save the change.
Amend the Title, Forenames, Surname, and File Name fields, to the correct name of the beneficiary. Click OK to save the changes, clicking Yes to keep the history of the change (if required).
No further amendments are required.
Amending the 'Non-Specific' Beneficiary, to Multiple Beneficiaries
Alternatively, you might need to amend this one ‘non-specific’ beneficiary entry to a number of beneficiaries, once you have all this information available to you.
To do this, you will need remove the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary entirely and add new beneficiary records for the individuals.
Firstly, access the Trial Balance menu option, and ensure the Date of Death period is selected. Double click on the nominal for the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary:
Then, highlight the date of death transaction for this ‘non-specific’ beneficiary, and click Edit Entry.
Once the transaction is open, click Delete to delete it.
To delete the beneficiary record from the estate’s records, access Estate Details – Edit, and the Beneficiaries tab. Select the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary and click on the Edit Beneficiary button. This will open the List of Bequests. Highlight the bequest you wish to delete then select the Delete button. Click Close to close the screen.
The Beneficiaries tab will now display the contact, but with no bequest. Again, highlight the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary entity and click the Delete button to remove it completely.
Then, continue to set up new individual beneficiaries as normal.
Alternatively, as you identify each individual grandchild, you may choose to adjust the amount payable to the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary and add the new individual beneficiary separately.
You can do this by editing the date of death transaction within the Trial Balance for the ‘non-specific’ beneficiary and adding your new individual beneficiary as normal.
In the event of any further queries on this matter, please do contact support.