Accounting for Law Firms: A Guide Including Best Practices

We recommend you hire a legal bookkeeper and accountant to help keep you and your firm on track. You now have all of the information and tools needed to get your law firm’s accounting where it ought to be. There are many reasons for this, one of which is poor accounting practices. Inadequately tracking your billable hours and mismanaging your invoices can cause you to lose track of what money is owed, and what’s going out. Remember that your trust account is your client’s money, not yours. Accrual accounting gives you an idea of what income and expenses you have during a period of time, but doesn’t give a good picture of your actual cash flow.

• Accrual accounting is a more sophisticated method that records revenue and expenses at the time they are earned or incurred, regardless of when you receive the money.
• Accounting for law firms lets you collect and analyze information, and make data-driven decisions based on what money comes in and leaves your firm, so it’s worth it to pay attention.
• The software will help your business collect payments through online invoicing.
• That’s why we recommend you should hire a professional legal account or law firm bookkeeping services.
• Having cash in your savings account can improve your chances of being approved for loans and other lines of credit in the future.

This type of accountancy gives you a clear look at your current financial situation. With cash accounting, you don’t have to pay taxes on earned money until it has been deposited into your account. This can help you defer tax liability until you are in an optimal position to address it. Here are five common law firm accounting obstacles and mistakes you should be aware of so you can avoid them. The accounting method you choose should be in place when your firm files its first tax return. It affects everything, including cash flow, bookkeeping, and tax filing.

Study Law Firm Accounting Reports Regularly

Accounting Seed provides users with management and financial reports in various formats, so you can keep a constant eye on your practice. These reports are available to users out-of-the-box and enable accountants to properly gauge the firm’s profitability. Choose an accounting solution that seamlessly assists you in monitoring the practices’ profit margins to continue growing. It’s no secret that the practice of law comes with a lot of stress, which makes this reason the most important of them all. As an attorney, you need systems in place that make your work life easier and promote a healthier work-life balance. Running a law practice takes a lot out of you but outsourcing your firm’s accounting and bookkeeping can lessen some of the stress you may feel about such an important part of your business.

• Accordingly, our managing partners and principal attorneys have a better visibility into the firm’s income capabilities.
• Law school doesn’t teach lawyers anything about accounting, including how to manage their IOLTA.
• Even if you master the basic principles of legal accounting, you’re still not an accountant or bookkeeper at the end of the day.
• This results in wasted time, mismatched records, billing complications, and even compliance violations.
• This type of accountancy gives you a clear look at your current financial situation.

It’s important to remember that a standard payment processor will keep a certain percentage of each transaction as a fee. Because of this, you run the risk of breaking certain trust accounting laws (those transaction fees need to be immediately paid back into the trust account). The act of “bookkeeping” produces financial statements, which your CPA then uses to file your taxes. But they also have all the information you need to understand your firm’s financial health month-to-month. When a business expense gets lost in your personal account and you don’t claim it on your tax return, that’s a tax deduction you’re missing out on. And if your CPA has to spend time separating your personal expenses from your business expenses, you’ll end up paying them more in accounting fees.

Top 5 Law Firm Bookkeeping Challenges and How to Overcome Them

This is why it’s essential to partner with legal tech providers that are cloud-based and offer ongoing support. Cloud-based software (as opposed to on premises) means you can use your solution from anywhere, and that you are always getting updates for the latest features. And while some technology providers help with setup, ongoing support ensures that if any problems do arise, you’ll be up and running again quickly. The most advanced accounting solution is worth next to nothing if it’s not convenient to use. Make sure when looking at attorney accounting software to not only look at the list of features but to actually see and demo them in action. Auditing your law firm probably isn’t something near the top of your to-do list.

They require meticulous accounting to keep clients’ funds separate. Many law firms use legal accounting software, which often comes with reports and other tools to assist you with planning for the future. Regardless of the size of your law firm — even if you’re a solopreneur — it’s important to know accounting and bookkeeping basics. By learning the fundamentals of accounting, you can make sure your firm is compliant with ethics rules while finding ways to optimize your cash flow. As owners of our own law firms, we’ve made our fair share of mistakes. Unfortunately, bookkeeping mistakes have consequences for your business, income taxes, and license.

Common legal accounting and bookkeeping mistakes

Your accounting solution should free your time while ensuring financial accuracy instead. For independent or small practices, inefficient law firm accounting processes can eventually lead to decreased revenue, increased compliance risk, and client satisfaction issues. But even for legal offices large enough to employ a dedicated accounting team, manual tasks or out-of-date financial software can barely keep up with the complexity of today’s legal accounting needs. Add to that the rapidly-changing landscape of digital payments and it’s no surprise that a growing number of law firms are looking for updated ways to accept and track payments. Lawyers often make common mistakes when bookkeeping for their law firms.

• We have created this guide to give you an overview of the fundamentals of bookkeeping and accounting for attorneys and help anyone who is a small law firm owner.
• Law firms need to ensure that their financial and accounting practices are up to par in order to grow their businesses.
• If you have never seen your general ledger or don’t look at it very often, it is time to change that.
• This is important for law firms because it helps them stay compliant with regulations and track their finances.
• Intermingling expenses isn’t a fatal mistake but it causes problems for your business when it comes to claiming expenses and tracking the financial health of your business.
• Legal bookkeeping takes place before any accounting can occur and is an important administrative task for any law firm.

That said, when considering features, it’s also important to think of your goals both in the short and long term. A cheaper solution might offer a quick fix for one problem, but you’ll be back to the drawing board when the business experiences unexpected changes law firm bookkeeping or growth. Lowers Compliance Risk
Handling paper checks and manually handling IOLTA accounts exponentially increases your compliance risk. The consequences of making even an innocent mistake that results in commingling funds can have dire consequences.