Account and Password Manager

Every account your family will need to find, and what to do with each one.

Planning your own farewell? This is the list your family will thank you for most. Bank, phone, email, streaming, the mortgage. Write down what exists and how to reach it, and they will not spend months guessing.

Planning for someone you love? Use this to track what you find as you go through mail, statements, and their phone. Mark what to keep, close, or transfer, and who is handling it.

Do not put passwords in a spreadsheet

Most "password organizer" templates ask you to type every password into a file. Do not. A file gets copied, emailed, backed up to places you forgot, and opened by whoever finds the laptop. This template is an inventory. It records what accounts exist, in whose name, how to reach the institution, whether autopay is on, and what your family should do with each one. Passwords live in exactly one of three places, and you choose which:

1. A password manager app. The best option. One master password unlocks everything, and most managers have an emergency access or family feature that hands the vault to someone you name.
2. A sealed envelope. The printed version of this template includes a one-page sheet for the master password, the phone passcode, and the safe combination. Handwritten, sealed, dated, in a safe or with your attorney.
3. One trusted person who already knows. Fine for a spouse. Write their name in the template so the rest of the family knows who to ask.

What to list

Start with money: checking, savings, credit cards, loans, the mortgage, investments, retirement, life insurance. Then phone, internet, and email, because verification codes for everything else arrive there. Then bills and utilities. Then the long tail: streaming, cloud photos, shopping, loyalty miles, the medical portal, the pharmacy, Social Security, the IRS, the DMV. The bank and credit card statements will show you most of the subscriptions you forgot.

For each one, the template asks one question most families never get answered in time: what should we do with it? Keep it open, close it, transfer it, memorialize it, or cancel it.

The locked phone

A locked phone is the first wall most families hit. Face and fingerprint unlock stop working after death. The passcode is what matters, and it belongs in the sealed envelope, not in a file. Keep the phone active for two or three months after a death. Verification codes for every other account still arrive there.

Name a legacy contact now

Apple, Google, and Facebook each let you name, in advance, the person who can access or memorialize your account. Ten minutes each. The template lists where each setting lives and gives you a box to check when it is done. Password managers have a similar feature, usually called emergency access. Almost nobody sets these up until it is too late. Do it this week.

For the family: the first thirty days

Order ten certified death certificates from the funeral home; nearly every institution wants one. Find the inventory, the will, and the envelope. Notify the bank and credit cards, then Social Security, life insurance, pensions, and the employer. Forward the mail, because the mail reveals accounts nobody knew about. Place a deceased alert with the three credit bureaus to stop identity theft. Ask the attorney before closing anything that might be part of the estate. The full checklist is in the template. It is general guidance, not legal advice, and estates differ by state.

Preview the template

Related resources

• Last Will Template
• Living Will Template
• Obituary Template

Find help near you

An estate and probate attorney can tell you which accounts are part of the estate and which pass outside it. Pre-need planners help you organize all of this ahead of time. Find Estate and Probate Attorneys or Find Pre-Need Planning Services