Can CounselPro find accounts a client forgot to list?

Give it the whole stack the client gathered and every statement is resolved to its account and to the holder printed on it, voting across each source in the file. An account in the pile that the intake list never reached comes back with its holder of record and the page it was read from, so the picture you draft the plan on is the one the records support.

How do you track gifts a client made over the last few years?

Transfers out are read from every account in the file and grouped by who received them, including money paid straight to a lender or a school on someone else’s behalf. Each transfer keeps the statement page it came from, so a gift you carry into the plan can be shown to anyone who asks about it later.

Does CounselPro read a trust document or a will?

CounselPro reads bank statements, credit card statements and check images. On an estate planning file the useful thing it reads is the holder of record printed on each statement, which is what tells you the accounts a trust already holds. The drafting, and every judgment call inside it, stays with you.

Can it pull five years of transfers for a Medicaid lookback?

Yes. Set the report to a Medicaid matter, give it the care type and the lookback, and it lays out the transfers inside the window across every account in the file, grouped by who received them and cited to the page. Every cycle is balanced to the beginning and ending totals the bank printed, so the figures you file are the figures the statements show.

For estate planning · trusts, wills and gifting

Every account the plan covers

Your client writes the list from memory, and the plan can only be as good as the list. Send the statements they gathered and CounselPro reads every account in the pile, names the person, trust or company printed on each one, and lays out what has already been given away.

Schedule a demo See the report

Account directory · 9 accountsBrennecke family · the list named 8

Brennecke Family TrustTrust

Winslow Bank ····4120Checking
Winslow Bank ····4137Money market

Roland and Marguerite BrenneckeJoint

Winslow Bank ····6602Checking
Winslow Bank ····5140Credit card

Roland BrenneckeIndividual

Winslow Bank ····2288Checking
Ridgeway Credit Union ····8807Savings
Added from the records · four years of gifts to Roland’s sister were paid out of it (····8807, p. 3)

Marguerite BrenneckeIndividual

Northbridge Savings ····3391Savings

Brennecke Land Co LLCCompany

Winslow Bank ····7745Operating
Northbridge Savings ····7752Reserve

The questions

What a plan turns on

Five questions come up before a plan can be drafted. Each is answered on the records the client already has, and each answer keeps its page.

Which accounts does the client actually hold?

Every statement in the stack resolved to its account and to the person, trust or company named on it.

The account directory

Whose name is printed on each account?

The holder of record read off the statement itself, the same way from a bank, a credit union or a card issuer.

How a statement is read

What has the client given away, and to whom?

Transfers out grouped by who received them, including money paid straight to a lender on someone else’s behalf.

Transfers by recipient

Do the client’s accounts add up to what the bank printed?

Every cycle balanced to its own beginning and ending totals, and read again against the page image until the figures match.

Self-healing reconciliation

Did the client hand over every month?

A grid of account by month showing which cycles are held and which are still to collect.

Statement coverage

The gifting ledger

Four years of transfers out, by recipient and by year

Nobody keeps a running list of what they have handed to their children, and gifting is the part of the picture a client remembers worst. CounselPro reads the transfers out of every account in the file and lays them into one grid: who received money, in which year, and what it comes to.

Transfers out of the Brennecke family’s personal and joint accounts over the four calendar years 2022 through 2025, by who received them, with each recipient’s total and each year’s total.
Recipient	2022	2023	2024	2025	Four years
Nathaniel BrenneckeSon · transfers to his own checking account	$16,000	$17,000	$18,000	$19,000	$70,000
Adele Brennecke VogtDaughter · paid to her mortgage servicer	$16,000	$17,000	$18,000	$19,000	$70,000
Theodore VogtGrandson · into an account in his name	$0	$10,000	$10,000	$15,000	$35,000
Harriet BrenneckeSister · paid from Ridgeway ····8807	$0	$25,000	$25,000	$30,000	$80,000
Dunmore College FoundationOne gift, every December	$25,000	$25,000	$25,000	$25,000	$100,000
Five recipients, four calendar years	$57,000	$94,000	$96,000	$108,000	$355,000

Nathaniel Brennecke$70,000
Son · transfers to his own checking account
2022$16,0002023$17,0002024$18,0002025$19,000
Adele Brennecke Vogt$70,000
Daughter · paid to her mortgage servicer
2022$16,0002023$17,0002024$18,0002025$19,000
Theodore Vogt$35,000
Grandson · into an account in his name
2022$02023$10,0002024$10,0002025$15,000
Harriet Brennecke$80,000
Sister · paid from Ridgeway ····8807
2022$02023$25,0002024$25,0002025$30,000
Dunmore College Foundation$100,000
One gift, every December
2022$25,0002023$25,0002024$25,0002025$25,000
Five recipients, four calendar years$355,000

The same total, by the account it left

Winslow Bank ····2288Roland’s checking$105,000

Winslow Bank ····6602The joint checking$170,000

Ridgeway Credit Union ····8807Added from the records$80,000

A gift that prints as a loan payment

The $70,000 to the daughter went to her mortgage servicer, so the statement shows a lender and the servicer’s own reference (····6602, p. 34).

The same gift, four Decembers running

$25,000 to the foundation in the same week each December, out of the joint account every time (····6602, p. 61).

Out of the account the records added

$80,000 to Roland’s sister over four years, every payment out of Ridgeway ····8807 (····8807, p. 12).

These four years get read a second time after a death, when the question turns from what was given to what is left to distribute. That is a probate file, and it opens on the same accounts.

The report for a lookback

Five of its twelve sections read the transfers out

When a plan meets a care application, the same records answer a different question. Set the report to a Medicaid matter, give it the care type and the lookback, and it writes up every transfer inside the window, recipient by recipient, each one cited to its page.

The intake

Matter typeCare typeLookback

The sections a lookback leans on

05Related party transactionsMoney moving to family and to connected entities.
07Asset tracingCash and property that left the accounts, traced to whoever received it.
08Transfer pattern analysisGifts and transfers out, month by month, across every account.
10Means test and eligibilityIncome and spending measured against the thresholds.
11Forensic timelineThe sequence of transfers around the date care began.

See the forensic report

Forensic accounting report · prepared for counselp. 24 of 51

Brennecke family · Medicaid eligibility

8. Transfer pattern analysis

Across the four calendar years 2022 through 2025 the personal and joint accounts paid $355,000.00 to five recipients: three family members, one sibling and one charitable foundation. Every payment was read from a statement in the production and carries the page it was read from.

The transfers section 8 rests on
Date	From	To	Amount	Cited
14 Mar 2025	Winslow ····2288	Nathaniel Brennecke	$19,000.00	····2288, p. 44
2 Jun 2025	Ridgeway ····8807	Harriet Brennecke	$30,000.00	····8807, p. 12
9 Sep 2025	Winslow ····6602	Mortgage servicer	$19,000.00	····6602, p. 34
18 Dec 2025	Winslow ····6602	Dunmore College Foundation	$25,000.00	····6602, p. 61

Transfers from an account added later. The payments to Harriet Brennecke were made from Ridgeway Credit Union ····8807, an account resolved from the statements themselves (····8807.pdf, p. 3).

The payments to Adele Brennecke Vogt were made to a mortgage servicer rather than to her directly, and print on the statement as a loan payment with the servicer’s own reference. They are grouped to her because the servicer’s reference is the same on all forty-eight of them.

11. Forensic timeline

The giving rises year on year, from $57,000.00 in 2022 to $108,000.00 in 2025. Two recipients are added in 2023, and each of the five appears in every year after their first.

The four payments to Theodore Vogt in 2025 total $15,000.00 and clear in the three weeks before the December gift to the foundation. Each of the four calendar years closes with that gift of $25,000.00.

12. Conclusion and recommendations

The transfers set out in sections 8 and 11 are listed with the statement page each was read from, so counsel can weigh them against the plan as drafted.

Recommended next steps. Add Ridgeway Credit Union ····8807 to the account list, with the $80,000.00 paid out of it to Harriet Brennecke from 2023 through 2025, so the gifts are set out from every account the statements name.

Keep the servicer’s statements for the forty-eight payments grouped to Adele Brennecke Vogt, $70,000.00 in all, so each can be shown as a gift to her when the lookback is reviewed.

Confirm the four December gifts to the Dunmore College Foundation, $100,000.00 in all, against the receipts the foundation issued for them.

The coverage summary lists every monthly cycle held for the nine accounts in the file, so the lookback can be read against the months the client gathered.

Both sides

A new plan or an old one

The same reading serves a plan being drafted and a plan signed years ago. One builds the picture the drafting sits on; the other checks that the accounts still match the plan in the file.

For a plan being drafted

The account pictureEvery account in the client’s stack, under the person, trust or company printed on it.

The gifts already madeTransfers out over four years, grouped by who received them and in which year.

Support the family relies onPayments made month after month to a child, a school or a lender, read out of the description the bank printed.

The months still to collectA grid of account by month, so the client’s next trip to the bank brings back the cycles you want.

For a plan already signed

Accounts the trust holdsThe holder of record on each statement, so the accounts already titled to the trust name it themselves.

Accounts opened after signingAn account whose first cycle lands after the plan was signed, with the month it starts.

Transfers between the accountsA transfer from one of the client’s own accounts to another is marked internal, so the month counts it once.

How the household spendsFour years of spending by category and merchant, so the plan sits on the way the money actually goes out.

One family, read end to end

An illustrative planning file, from the client’s box to the drafting notes

A trust, a family company, a joint account and the personal accounts underneath them. Four years of statements the client gathered from three institutions, every month balanced to what the bank printed, and a list written at intake to lay them against.

Accounts the statements name, across a trust, a company, a joint account and two people

$355,000

Transferred out to family and a foundation over four calendar years

$80,000

Of that, out of the account the records added to the list

The upshot

A directory the plan can be drafted from, with the holder of record on every account and the statement page behind every gift.

Estate planning analysis questions, answered

What estate planning attorneys ask first

Can CounselPro find accounts a client forgot to list?: Give it the whole stack the client gathered and every statement is resolved to its account and to the holder printed on it, voting across each source in the file. An account in the pile that the intake list never reached comes back with its holder of record and the page it was read from, so the picture you draft the plan on is the one the records support.
How do you track gifts a client made over the last few years?: Transfers out are read from every account in the file and grouped by who received them, including money paid straight to a lender or a school on someone else’s behalf. Each transfer keeps the statement page it came from, so a gift you carry into the plan can be shown to anyone who asks about it later.
Does CounselPro read a trust document or a will?: CounselPro reads bank statements, credit card statements and check images. On an estate planning file the useful thing it reads is the holder of record printed on each statement, which is what tells you the accounts a trust already holds. The drafting, and every judgment call inside it, stays with you.
Can it pull five years of transfers for a Medicaid lookback?: Yes. Set the report to a Medicaid matter, give it the care type and the lookback, and it lays out the transfers inside the window across every account in the file, grouped by who received them and cited to the page. Every cycle is balanced to the beginning and ending totals the bank printed, so the figures you file are the figures the statements show.

Bring the client’s statements

Send the stack the client gathered, whichever accounts it turns out to hold, and read the directory it comes back as.

Schedule a demo See pricing

Bank, card and check statements