Millions of Americans who get monthly Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits need help managing their money and may need a representative payee. A representative payee is a person or an organization we appoint to receive the Social Security or SSI benefits for beneficiaries who can’t manage or direct the management of their benefits.

Representative payees must know the beneficiary’s needs to decide the best use of benefits for care and well-being. To help with this responsibility, representative payees can now get, save, email and print a benefit verification letter for the person they represent using their own my Social Security account at www.ssa.gov/myaccount. There is no need to visit or call a field office.

Many representative payees are also responsible for completing an annual form to account for the benefit payments received. To complete this process, representative payees can either fill out the form and return it to Social Security or conveniently go online at www.ssa.gov/myaccount/rep-payee.html to file the report. It is important to know that a state Protection and Advocacy agency may contact the representative payee to review the receipts and records of income and expenses.

Visit www.ssa.gov/payee if you have questions about representative payees.

Jeri Fields is the manager of the district Social Security office in Ironton.