Solicitors Book-Keeping.

Evelyn Martina

Hi,

I've been asked to take over the book-keeping side of a Solicitors practice i work in.

I have been a Law Clerk for approximately 8 years. I have only been working for this firm for 5 months.

It is a small but busy company, just one Solicitor and me, its has only been running for 18 months.

While i am very flattered and relish a new challenge, i would like to know what i'm letting myself into before i accept.

I would handle most money coming into the business and send out invoices etc, however there is no proper book-keeping practice in place (which has been driving me crazy), i have been approached by the company's accountant to take same over.

Any advice help would be greatly appreciated.

Evelyn Martina

Evelyn Martina wrote: »

I would handle most money coming into the business and send out invoices etc, however there is no proper book-keeping practice in place (which has been driving me crazy), i have been approached by the company's accountant to take same over.

Alarm bells sounding. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055756259I don't know anything specifically about accounting for solicitors but I know it is a very specific area.

Alan Shore

You need to sit down with the accountants and design a plan for dealing with he accounts in some computerised system.

The accountants have to provide a report on the bank accounts each year, if there is an error in any client account it is very serious. It's not like doing the books for any other business.

viztopia

Alan Shore wrote: »

You need to sit down with the accountants and design a plan for dealing with he accounts in some computerised system.

The accountants have to provide a report on the bank accounts each year, if there is an error in any client account it is very serious. It's not like doing the books for any other business.

Alan shore is correct. The only advice that I can give is go for it. Your boss must have confidence in you and trust you to offer this role to you as it is important. From your point of view it will make you more employable in the future and you should be entitled to some kind of a raise at some stage!

Bobby1984

I am an accountant who has prepared many Law Society Reports and I have done the book keeping side of things as well so I know a bit about this.

Alarm bells would be ringing already from the fact that you say that there is no proper book keeping practice in place even though the practice has been going for 18 months. As others have mentioned, the accountant must submit a report for the Law Society within 6 months after the year end. I presume this hasn't been done!

The recording of the data is not a major problem as the payments have already been done at this stage. Its not like you can do a whole lot wrong if you are careful and diligent about how you record the data. However it is time consuming and you need to have the proper software. Harvest Law is the best package that I have used. Spreadsheets are a nightmare because it is almost impossible to unsure that ledger cards agree to the control account and bank accounts are the reporting periods.

You would also need to familiarise yourself with the 2001 Accounting Regulations (if you haven't already) so you know what the reporting accountant will be looking out for and also you will see what records you need to keep.

Hope I haven't put you off doing it but if you don't someone else really needs to.

Evelyn Martina

Thanks everybody for the very quick and helpful responses.

I think i will most likely accept. I was checking out the harvest and lex software so any advice on which people consider the best would be great.

I am pretty sure that the accountant managed to get report into Law Society but it is an extremely disorganised book-keeping system with too many people doing bits here and there.

A great solicitor not so good a business head. Well maybe she would have a better business head if she had the time but she is extremely busy never in the office in court everyday, we have a rather large client base for a small company, so its finding the time is the problem to keep things in order and up to date, rather chaotic, luckily our accountant is in the same building so i suppose i cant go to far wrong, its just taking the proper time to do it and one person doing it rather than family members or anyone who can help out.

Thanks everyone i'm sure i'll be back.

JAKE11

I would be very careful before accepting such responsibility. You really need to consider how it will be possible to keep proper records if the solicitor is chaotic and disorganised.

Paddy001

Evelyn Martina wrote: »

Thanks everybody for the very quick and helpful responses.

I think i will most likely accept. I was checking out the harvest and lex software so any advice on which people consider the best would be great.

I am pretty sure that the accountant managed to get report into Law Society but it is an extremely disorganised book-keeping system with too many people doing bits here and there.

A great solicitor not so good a business head. Well maybe she would have a better business head if she had the time but she is extremely busy never in the office in court everyday, we have a rather large client base for a small company, so its finding the time is the problem to keep things in order and up to date, rather chaotic, luckily our accountant is in the same building so i suppose i cant go to far wrong, its just taking the proper time to do it and one person doing it rather than family members or anyone who can help out.

Thanks everyone i'm sure i'll be back.

For your own sake, stay away from Lex, its terrible! Definitely go for Harvest law. The best advice is to get the accountant to train you into the role as you will definitely be expected to do bank reconciliations and keep proper records. You should also familiarise yourself with the solicitor regulations so you know when to transfer money from a client account, when not to, when to raise invoices etc

aidan.connolly

Hi,

I have only one word of advice. While I would encourage doing the Book-keeping, make sure that it does not cause you to change your career path.

Sometimes this type of work can be very time consuming and could take up a lot of your time.

Aidan