The representative payee annual accounting, explained

If an envelope from Social Security just landed asking you to account for someone else's benefits, start here. This page describes what the report generally asks for and points you to SSA's own pages for the specifics. It is not legal or financial advice, and it can't tell you what your particular form requires. Read the instructions that came with your form, and call SSA if anything is unclear.

Quick answer: if you're a family member managing an adult's benefits, such as a brother's, a parent's or an adult child's, the form SSA mails you is usually the SSA-623. A few kinds of payee get a different form instead; check the table below against the form number printed on what you received.

Which form did you actually get?

Social Security's payee accounting reports aren't one form. SSA sends the version that matches the payee's situation:

Source: SSA POMS GN 00605.010, The Representative Payee Accounting Report Forms, and GN 00605.200
FormWho receives it
SSA-623 Most individual payees, including a sibling, an adult child, or another relative managing an adult's benefits. SSA sends it to every payee except the groups in the rows below.
SSA-6230 Stepparents and grandparents with custody of a minor child, and parents of a minor child who don't live in the same household as the child.
SSA-6233 Payees of an SSI recipient who has a dedicated account. Titled Representative Payee Report of Benefits and Dedicated Account, it's sent instead of the SSA-623 and adds questions about the dedicated account.
SSA-6234 Organizational payees (agencies, facilities, fee-for-service payees). PayeeKit is not built for organizational payee use. See the Terms of Use.

Not sure which one is in your hands? The form number is printed on the paperwork SSA mailed you. When in doubt, the safest move is to call the number on the notice.

The four things the accounting asks for

Whichever form arrives, it's built around the same four questions about the reporting period, which is usually the prior 12 months:

  1. Total benefits received on the beneficiary's behalf during the period.
  2. Food and housing: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, and related household costs. A facility's monthly charge for room and board generally belongs here too, since it's paying for the beneficiary's food and shelter.
  3. Everything else spent for the beneficiary: clothing, education, medical and dental care, recreation, and personal items. SSA's forms ask for these as one total.
  4. How much was saved or conserved for the beneficiary, and how those savings are held: which account, and whose name it's titled in.

Source: SSA, Representative Payee Accounting FAQ; Representative Payee Report FAQ; A Guide for Representative Payees (SSA Publication No. 05-10076).

How PayeeKit's categories line up

PayeeKit's ledger asks you to tag each expense with a specific category, such as groceries, utilities, clothing, prescriptions or recreation, and rolls every one of them up into exactly three totals that match the structure above: Food & Housing, Personal & Other, and Saved & Conserved, alongside total benefits received. When your reporting period closes, the app's Annual Report Pack turns those totals, a full transaction listing and a receipt appendix into a PDF and a spreadsheet you can review before you fill out whatever SSA actually sent you.

To be direct about what this is: PayeeKit does not produce an SSA-623, SSA-6230, SSA-6233 or SSA-6234 form, and it doesn't submit anything to Social Security. It organizes your own records around the same questions those forms ask, so you're copying numbers instead of reconstructing them from memory.

The reporting period and deadline

SSA assigns each payee a 12-month reporting period and mails the accounting form once that period ends. The completed report is generally due back within 30 days of when SSA sends it. Individual payees 18 or older can also complete it online, through their my Social Security account. Because PayeeKit has no way to know the exact day SSA mails your form, it doesn't guess at a due date. It counts down to the end of your reporting period, which you do know, and reminds you 60, 30 and 7 days before it ends, and again on the day it closes.

Keep the underlying records, such as bank statements, canceled checks and receipts, for at least two years after the report is completed. SSA can ask to see them.

Source: the instructions printed on the accounting form itself, in the SSA-6233-BK exhibit.

Some payees don't have to file. Everyone keeps records.

A few payee relationships are not required to complete the annual accounting report, for Social Security and SSI alike: a parent or legal guardian of a minor child who lives in the same household, a parent of a disabled adult who lives in the same household, and the beneficiary's spouse. Stepparents, grandparents and siblings are not on that list.

Source: 20 CFR 416.665 (SSI); 20 CFR 404.2065 (Social Security).

Even if you're exempt from filing, you're not exempt from keeping records. SSA can still check how benefits were used. And if the beneficiary has an SSI dedicated account, the payee still reports on that account every year, exempt or not.

Source: SSA POMS GN 00605.200.

The SSI resource limit, and why the 1st of the month matters

If the beneficiary receives SSI, there's a separate rule worth watching year-round, not just at accounting time: countable resources can't exceed $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for a couple. This has been the limit since 1989, and it isn't indexed to inflation.

The part that catches people off guard is when it's measured: at the first moment of the month. Money that arrives during a month counts as that month's income. Whatever is still in the account at the first moment of the next month counts as a resource. So a balance that looks fine on the 20th can be over the line on the 1st, and that costs the beneficiary SSI for that month. Some resources don't count toward the limit, such as an ABLE account (up to $100,000), a dedicated account, or the beneficiary's primary home, but the exact rules around what qualifies are specific enough that they're worth confirming with SSA rather than assuming from a general description like this one.

This is why PayeeKit's resource watch looks at a projected first-of-the-month figure as well as today's balance, and warns at $1,600 and again at $1,900, well before the line.

This page is general information, not advice about your situation. PayeeKit doesn't interpret your specific case, doesn't tell you what SSA will accept, and doesn't file anything on your behalf. For anything that depends on your particular circumstances, contact Social Security directly or speak with a qualified professional.

Sources

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