Trust bookkeeping for law firms
Your trust account, under control.
Monthly bookkeeping and three-way trust reconciliation for law firms of 2–10 attorneys, to a fixed standard, at a published flat price.
The situation
Three quiet problems one standard solves
Most small firms don't have a bookkeeping problem they can see. They have a trust-account process that quietly falls behind, until someone asks to see it.
The unreconciled IOLTA
The bank balance looks fine, but the trust ledger hasn't been tied to individual client ledgers in months. Nobody can say, matter by matter, whose money is where.
The February handoff
Every year the books go to the tax preparer in a shoebox state. Cleanup bills follow, filing waits, and the same scramble repeats next February.
The letter nobody wants
A bar inquiry, a CTAPP self-assessment, a renewal declaration. The questions are answerable, if the records are current. That is an if, not a plan.
The standard
The same close, every month, to the same standard
Careful is not a personality trait here. It is a calendar. Every client engagement runs on the same monthly cadence, documented on the methodology page.
Monthly close, on schedule
Your books are closed by a fixed business day each month, not when time allows. Transactions are categorized, documents matched, and open items listed.
Three-way reconciliation
The bank statement, the trust ledger, and every individual client ledger are tied to each other. If any one of the three disagrees, the month does not close quietly. Every reconciliation is personally reviewed and signed off by Josh Hsu before it reaches you.
A report in plain English
You receive a short monthly report: what tied out, what didn't, what needs your decision. No accounting-speak, no 40-tab exports.
Why a specialist
Trust bookkeeping is a narrow craft. We only do this.
You can hire a generalist, buy software, or hire a specialist operator. All three can work. They differ in who carries the standard.
A generalist bookkeeper
Good at many kinds of books, new to yours. Learns trust accounting rules on your engagement, and your IOLTA is where the learning happens.
Software alone
A capable tool, and we work in them daily. But software records what it is given; it does not chase a missing ledger entry or notice a pattern. Someone still has to operate it to a standard.
Sum Certain
One niche, one method. We operate the software for you, and Josh Hsu personally reviews and signs off on every reconciliation, every month. The standard is in writing, published pricing included.
Pricing
$1,000–$1,800/mo, flat
Engagements run $1,000–$1,800 per month depending on firm size and trust volume. Cleanup projects are quoted as a fixed price before work begins.
- Remote-first
- Built to serve US firms anywhere, on a predictable monthly rhythm.
- QBO-based
- We work in QuickBooks Online alongside Clio or LeanLaw.
- Insured
- Professional liability and cyber coverage, stated in the engagement letter.
- Security-forward
- Read-only access, MFA everywhere, encrypted document exchange. Our security posture
From the founder
“Sum Certain does one thing. I began my career testing controls and financial records at a Big Four firm, tracing transactions to evidence; now I apply that discipline to one niche, where every reconciliation carries my personal review and sign-off.”
Josh Hsu · Founder, Sum Certain
Questions
Asked before, answered plainly
Not ready to talk?
Start with the self-assessment
Fourteen questions, answered privately in ten minutes: the same ones behind state self-assessments and renewal declarations. See where your records stand first.
Talk it through in thirty minutes.
A readiness call is a working conversation: where your trust records stand, what a monthly standard would look like for your firm, and whether we are the right operator for it.