ClientTrustAccountingTheEasyWayWithQuickBooksBy.docVIP

Client Trust Accounting The Easy Way With QuickBooks (By Myer Sankary, Esquire and Dean Atkinson, CPA The purpose of this article is to make lawyers aware of one of the best software programs which can be designed to keep track of every client trust transaction, produce reports required by the standards adopted by the Board of Governors, and perform monthly bank reconciliations.? Suppose you receive a phone call from a California State Bar investigator who informs you that your bank has notified the State Bar that a check on your clients trust account has been returned because of insufficient funds. The investigator now wants to review the records of your client trust account to determine whether you are in compliance with the current rules. Will you be able to provide up-to-date reports for every penny of client funds for which you are personally responsible? The new Trust Account Record Keeping Standards for Client Trust Accounting which became effective January 1, 1993, need not create alarm or cause stress to the solo practitioner or to the small law firm who do not employ a full time bookkeeper to maintain their trust records. New accounting software is both affordable and relatively easy to learn and can be designed with a minimum of effort to produce the reports required by State Bar Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 4-100. The purpose of this article is to make lawyers aware of one of the best software programs which can be designed to keep track of every client trust transaction, produce reports required by the standards adopted by the Board of Governors, and perform monthly bank reconciliations. Maintaining these records in the computer and on backup medium provides the added assurance that this vital information will be available for the five year period of retention (from the date of the last disbursement) and can be reproduced on printed media within a matter of minutes. We recommend that every attorney who handles clients trust funds obtain a cop