You inherited the trust. You did not inherit a clean set of books.
Successor trustees usually arrive after something broke. The prior trustee died, resigned, or stopped keeping anything a beneficiary could follow. The statements are in a box. The last accounting, if there is one, ends years ago. Beneficiaries are already asking where the money went.
You are allowed to start from that box. You are not allowed, practically, to answer beneficiaries from memory of what the prior trustee "probably did." Estate and trust accounting is the work of rebuilding the records from the bank and brokerage statements, then preparing the accounting in the format you specify. A licensed CPA reviews it before it reaches you.
What you can tell the beneficiaries on day one
You can tell them you have the statements you have, and you are having the activity reconstructed from those statements. You can tell them that months without a statement will be identified, not filled in.
You should not tell them the trust is "basically fine" because the house is still there and the brokerage still has a balance. A balance today does not explain the withdrawals since the last accounting. That explanation is the accounting.
You also should not promise a form you have not confirmed. Trust-report requirements differ. We publish sample trustee formats, with fictitious figures, including the Oregon sample, the Missouri sample, and the Indiana sample. Each page names the authority the sample was prepared against. They are samples. Confirm the report your trust and your state actually require with your attorney. Do not treat a sample as the filing.
Separate the prior trustee's period from yours
The mess is often the prior period. Your own period may be short and documented, because you just took over and the statements are still arriving. Those are two scopes.
A diagnostic should say so. It is $499, read-only, and it credits toward the reconstruction if you approve a fixed quote. The findings should mark what the prior period supports, what is missing, and what your period already has. You approve the price for the scope you accept. You do not have to buy a reconstruction of years that have no paper.
Where a statement is gone, the month stays a gap. Missing records and gap reports is the same rule we use on business files. Estimating a prior trustee's spending so the report looks complete is how a beneficiary fight starts. A named gap is something your attorney can work with. A guessed total is something you may have to defend.
What the accounting needs to show
For the period you are reporting, receipts, disbursements, distributions, and what remains should be traceable to statements. Principal and income should be kept apart if the format you were told to use keeps them apart. If you do not know whether your report must separate them, ask counsel before the accounting is drafted. We will follow the format you specify. We will not invent one.
Transfers between the trust's own accounts should not look like income. Payments to a beneficiary should not look like an expense of running the house, unless they are. Those are the lines people argue about. The written reasoning should say why a line was treated the way it was.
A licensed CPA reviews the package before you send it on. You still sign as trustee. We do not replace you, and we do not speak to the beneficiaries for you.
What to do with the box this week
Put the statements in date order, as far as you can, without trying to categorize them. Note the last accounting anyone signed, and the date you became trustee. That is enough to scope the diagnostic.
Then read the findings before you promise anyone a finished report. The promise you can keep is the one on estate and trust accounting: records from the statements, an accounting in the format you name, and a review by a licensed CPA before the file leaves.