The Financial Accounts Module
The full record of the family's banking, investment, and retirement accounts, the professionals who manage them, and a macro-level summary of what the family owes.
Where this Module fits
F-01 Module 1 of 6 in the Financial area — step 3 of 4 on the dependency ladder (System → At-Home → Financial → Estate).
First in Financial — establishes what exists and who to call; the base map the other five modules point back to.
Adds to The Secure Guide: Full account map — accounts, advisors, liabilities, beneficiary flags.
Adds to The Family Guide: Accounts by institution and type (no numbers), advisors to call first.
Every Module adds one section to each guide — that is how the two guides assemble as you work. See what you're building.
Text file — the flexible one. Use it as-is, paste it into a spreadsheet, open it in any editor, or paste it into an AI tool to reshape the blank form to fit your family: rename a field, add a row, drop one you don't need.
Print / PDF — the ready-to-use one. Print it and fill it in by hand, or choose Save as PDF and complete it in your own offline PDF app. Either way it stays with you — the finished Secure Guide template goes inside your Vault.
One rule: only ever give an AI tool the blank template. Never paste your real information — passwords, account numbers, anything you'd keep secret — into an AI tool, an online service, or anywhere outside your own Vault. Customizing an empty form is fine; filling it in happens privately, offline. That's the same rule this site follows: nothing sensitive ever leaves your hands.
Secure Guide Starter Template — Financial Accounts
This template belongs in The Secure Guide, stored within The Vault. It contains account identifiers and access details that should not be shared broadly.
You cannot protect what you cannot find — this record is the map: every account where money lives, the advisors who know the picture, and what the family owes, at a macro level. Completeness beats detail on the first pass. The account most likely to be lost is the one you rarely think about — the old Roth, the account at the bank you left years ago — so list everything first and fill in numbers later. Billions in bank deposits sit unclaimed for exactly this reason.
A request to move money can now arrive sounding exactly like a spouse, an adult child, or the advisor — correct account names, correct recent activity. So the discipline rides with the record: any request to transfer funds, change contact details, or add an authorized user is confirmed through a channel the family initiates — call back on the number recorded here, never the one the request supplies. Recovery and claims paths ("I'm locked out," "the account holder has died") are where accounts are actually lost — hardening each account's recovery options is part of documenting it. And fragmentation is the vulnerability this inventory fixes: when no one sees the whole picture, an unauthorized change on one account goes unnoticed. The completed map plus the review rhythm is the detection mechanism.
Bank Accounts
Repeat for each account.
Investment and Retirement Accounts
Repeat for each account.
Financial Advisors and Professional Contacts
Repeat for each advisor.
Liabilities Summary
Record what you owe at a macro level. For payment schedules and monthly cash flow, see the Budget Module. Repeat for each significant liability.
Family Guide Starter Template — Financial Accounts
This template belongs in The Family Guide. It provides orientation — what exists and who to contact — without exposing account numbers or credentials.
In the matching Secure Guide section: full account map — accounts, advisors, liabilities, beneficiary flags.
That detail is what makes recovery possible — and it is protected in the Vault, which opens with The Vault Key. The key is never written here, by design. The people listed on this page know how it is kept, and the steward's job is to keep that path current, so this page never leads to a locked door.
Account numbers and login credentials are not included here — those are documented in The Secure Guide and The Vault.
| Institution | Account Type | Account Holder(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Institution | Account Type | Account Holder(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Role | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creditor | Debt Type | Secured By | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Account numbers, login credentials, and detailed financial documentation are stored in The Secure Guide, located in The Vault. For cryptocurrency and digital assets, see the Digital Financial Assets Module. For real estate, precious metals, and other physical or private assets, see the Other Assets Module. For monthly payment schedules and household cash flow, see the Budget Module.
The advisor list above is the family's known-good callback sheet: any request to move money, change contact details, or add an authorized user — however familiar the voice — gets confirmed by calling back on a number on THIS page, never the number or link the request supplies.
Anything this page's reader should know that the sections above didn't ask for — the exceptions, the house quirks, the thing you would say out loud while handing this page over.
For more information on how to use these templates, see The Recoverable Family book.
Worked example — Frank's family
Settling his father's scattered estate taught Frank what unfound accounts and unreachable advisors cost a family. His own map took one afternoon: checking, two savings, the joint brokerage, two 401(k)s, the mortgage, one car loan — and the Roth IRA that almost didn't make the list. He also fixed the gap that worried him most: Sarah had never spoken with their financial advisor and didn't have her number. Account numbers are recorded in Frank's real entries — redacted in this published example.
All details are fictional and illustrative. The assembled example guides live at the example Secure Guide and the example Family Guide.
Secure Guide — Frank's entry
The Financial Accounts section of the Mercers' Secure Guide — the full map. Representative entries:
Bank Accounts — joint checking
Investment and Retirement — the almost-forgotten Roth
Financial Advisors and Professional Contacts
Liabilities Summary
Seven accounts, two advisors, two debts — the whole map fits on two pages, and the Roth proves why the first pass is about completeness, not detail.
Family Guide — Frank's entry
This entry sits in the household reference binder. Institutions and people — no numbers, no balances.
| Institution | Account Type | Account Holder(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westvale Savings | Checking (joint) | Frank + Sarah | The household hub |
| Westvale Savings | Savings × 2 | Frank + Sarah | Emergency fund; college overflow |
| Institution | Account Type | Account Holder(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summit Brokerage | Joint brokerage + Frank's Roth IRA | Joint / Frank | Elena manages the brokerage |
| ClearPath Retirement | 401(k) via Meridian Logistics | Frank | — |
| Horizon Retirement | Old 401(k) from Brightline Design | Sarah | Still there — don't assume it lapsed |
| Name | Role | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elena Vargas, CFP® | Financial planner — call her first | 555-0146 | evargas@alderwealth.example |
| Marcus Lee, CPA | Taxes — Lee & Tran | 555-0153 | mlee@leetran.example |
| Creditor | Debt Type | Secured By | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westvale Savings | Mortgage | The house | — |
| Lakeview Auto Credit | Auto loan | Sarah's car | — |
| Credit cards | Paid monthly | — | No revolving balance — stop looking |
House rule: any request to move money, change contact details, or add an authorized user — even in a familiar voice, even knowing our account names — gets a callback on Elena's or the bank's number on THIS page. Never the number or link the request supplies.