Get Online Access To All Accounts

One of the most important and insanely tedious things I had to do when I took over all my mom’s finances was get online access to all her accounts. Like most elderly parents, my mom did not have online access to hardly any accounts. She paid all her bills the old-fashioned way – with checks. So to make my life easy in the long run, I knew I had to endure some pain upfront by setting up online access to all her accounts. The benefit of having online account access is that you can automate most of the bill paying and go paperless so all bills and paperwork stop getting mailed to your parent’s home, which will likely confuse them.

To get online access, you need to “register” or create an account on each of the websites — even though your parent may already have a regular offline account. For example, my mom has a Chase bank account and credit card but she never created an online account on their website. When you create an online account, you will need access to your parent’s email address and/or mobile phone so they can send you a verification code when you create the online account. Other sites, such as insurance policies may require a copy of the Power of Attorney documents to authorize you to have access. So make sure all this is in place before you start the process of getting online account access.

The types of accounts you will need access to may include but are not limited to:

  • Banks
  • Credit cards
  • Doctor/health network portals
  • Investments
  • Insurance (home, auto, life, etc.)
  • Medicare
  • Utilities (gas, electric, sewer, and water)
  • Garbage
  • Mobile phone
  • Home phone and Internet
  • Roadside assistance (AAA)
  • AARP
  • Store credit cards
  • EZ-Pass
  • Landscaper
  • At-home care
  • IRS
  • Pharmacy
  • Credit bureau
  • Airlines

All in all, I had to create 68 different online accounts for my mom.

Managing all the account access information in one place

If you have your own method of managing online account access information, use it. Otherwise, make a copy of this Google Sheet template, and start populating it. Then, share the spreadsheet with other family members so you are not the only one with the online access information.

The spreadsheet includes sections for Income (green rows) and Expenses (pink rows) so as you add new line items they will automatically total in the footer row of each section. This helps you see exactly how much money your parent should have coming in each month versus what needs to be paid out — and on what dates. I also include an INFO column that describes when and how money comes in or when and how it is paid. In addition, I seeded the first rows of the section with the most common income and expenses for an elderly parent — Social Security and Medicare.

The columns in the spreadsheet are:

  • ACCOUNT
  • ACCOUNT TYPE
  • WEB ADDRESS
  • USER ID
  • PASSWORD
  • ACCOUNT / MEMBERSHIP / POLICY #
  • MONTHLY AMOUNTS
  • STATUS
  • INFO
  • SECURITY ANSWERS