How do you create a financial map your family can use?
If you cannot manage the household’s money for a month, a helper needs the next payment, expected income and the right contact more urgently than a long asset list.
A financial map points to records and authorised people without reproducing statements or exposing credentials. Download the one-page financial map and adapt it to your household.
Begin with the next thirty days
List next month’s income and essential bills, with dates, amounts, payment methods and verified contacts. Note whether income comes from employment, a personal account or a business, and whether it continues after death.
Consider a household receiving R28,000 from an annuity on the 25th. Medical cover of R6,500 is due on the 1st and housing costs of R8,000 on the 3rd. If the annuity is interrupted, at least R14,500 is needed for those two early-month payments before food, utilities and other bills. That gives the helper a specific question to put to the bank or adviser: which lawfully accessible money can meet the next R14,500?
Identify manual transfers, spending that can wait and assets reserved for other purposes; not every bill or payment is automatic.
Use the page as an index
The template has space for:
- Income and urgent bills, with dates and verified contacts.
- Accessible reserves, their intended use and the approved access route.
- The location of wills, policy records, fund nominations and tax documents.
- The attorney, adviser, tax practitioner and person coordinating the household.
- Digital recovery arrangements and the next handover test.
Use provider names and partial account references. Keep statements separately, including business or trust records and the responsible directors or trustees.
Explain the authority to act in one sentence
Beside each institution, state whom to contact and which existing authority or appointment is relevant. Information about an account does not authorise a helper to operate it. An ordinary power of attorney should not be relied on as continuing authority after mental incapacity; the South African Law Reform Commission’s discussion explains the difficulty.
An executor named in a will still needs the appropriate appointment. The Master’s guidance explains the process. Use the map to locate the underlying records and attorney.
Prepare digital access before it becomes urgent
Record the password manager being used and where its recovery instructions are kept. If the service offers emergency access, appoint the intended trusted contact, choose the access level and waiting period, and check that the arrangement has been accepted. Bitwarden’s emergency-access documentation illustrates how service-specific permissions and a waiting period can work. Check your chosen provider’s own rules.
For a phone or cloud account, review the provider’s legacy or inactive-account feature. For example, Apple’s Legacy Contact process uses an access key and evidence of death; it does not give access to everything, including passwords stored in iCloud Keychain. A legacy contact therefore cannot replace a separate plan for passwords and records.
Keep passwords, PINs, one-time codes and recovery secrets off the map. Record their secure location. Technical access leaves legal authority requirements intact; helpers must use the bank’s official process.
Run a practical handover test
Give the intended helper the page and ask them to find the next incoming payment, the two most urgent bills, the attorney’s contact and the location of the original will. Ask whom they would call if the annuity did not arrive.
Agree the authority separately from the map
Use the bank’s approved authority process and Master’s estate guidance. Have an attorney confirm incapacity or estate arrangements. Record who arranges care and funds the first payment; test the handover and enter “Last tested”, “With” and “Next update”.
Your next step
Obtain a completed map and test whether your helper can locate the next payments and approved contacts; if the numbers cover urgent bills and lawful arrangements work, proceed with the handover; if not, adjust while you still can.