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Sum CertainTrust Bookkeeping for Law Firms

The checklist

The Trust Account Self-Assessment

Fourteen questions. Answer from memory. Where you have to guess, that is the finding.

Your answers stay on this page. They are never sent or saved anywhere.

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  1. Can you produce, right now, a list of every client balance in your trust account by matter?
  2. Does the total of those client balances match your trust bank balance to the penny?
  3. Was a three-way reconciliation completed for each of the last three months?
  4. Could you show who performed it, and on what date?
  5. Do you know your state's required reconciliation frequency, and are you meeting it?
  6. Are trust funds ever deposited into the operating account, even temporarily?
  7. Are bank fees and card processing charges paid from operating, never from trust?
  8. When a matter closes, is the remaining client balance disbursed or refunded within your state's timeline?
  9. Are outstanding trust checks older than 90 days identified and resolved?
  10. Does any single person both move money and record it, with no second set of eyes?
  11. Could you reconstruct any single trust transaction from last year, end to end, with documents?
  12. Are retainers transferred to operating only as fees are earned, per your engagement terms?
  13. If the bar asked for your trust records tomorrow, would you hand them over without a cleanup project first?
  14. Do you know, today, whether your records would pass your state's self-assessment?

0 of 14 answered

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