Outsourcing your law firm's bookkeeping lets you focus on your practice and growing your firm, while reducing stress and securing compliance with Bar and IOLTA regulations. It is cost effective, strengthens client relationships by ensuring their funds are professionally managed, and brings more efficient bookkeeping and time-tracking systems to your firm. The result: more billable time and revenue, and less worry.

Yes. Each serves a different role. A CPA typically handles tax filing and high-level financial strategy, usually annually or quarterly. A bookkeeper manages your day-to-day records — reconciling accounts, tracking transactions, and keeping your books accurate all year so your CPA has clean, ready data at tax time. For law firms specifically, that also means someone actively managing IOLTA compliance month to month, not just once a year.

The State Bar of California defines client funds under Rule 1.15 of the Rules of Professional Conduct as all funds received or held by a lawyer or law firm for the benefit of a client or another person to whom the lawyer owes a legal, statutory, or contractual duty. Client funds include retainers/advances of legal fees, settlements, advances for costs and expenses, money held to pay court fees and funds belonging to third parties where a legal duty exists.

Your operating account holds your firm's own money. This includes the funds used to run your business and fees that have been earned. Your IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Account) holds client funds you're temporarily responsible for, like retainers, settlements and pre-paid expenses. Bar rules require these to be kept completely separate, with careful tracking of exactly whose money is in the trust account at all times. Commingling these funds, even accidentally, can lead to serious ethical and licensing consequences.

Three-way trust reconciliation compares three things every month: your bank statement, your trust account ledger, and your individual client ledgers. All three need to match exactly. Many state bars require this process specifically, and it's one of the most common areas where firms run into compliance trouble.

Basic bookkeeping that does not include trust account management typically costs $150 - $500 per month. Full legal bookkeeping that includes IOLTA compliance reporting, client ledger tracking, and monthly three-way reconciliations required by the State Bar of California typically costs $300 - $800 per month.

Yes. I help new and existing firms choose the right practice management platform for their needs and set it up correctly, including making sure it connects properly to your accounting software so billing, trust transactions, and reporting are accurate.

Yes. Historical clean-up is a core service. I'll review your existing records, identify and correct any errors (especially in trust accounting), and bring your books current so you have an accurate financial picture and a clean foundation going forward.

Yes. Since I work primarily through QuickBooks Online and cloud-based tools, I work with attorneys nationwide, though I have particular depth in California trust accounting rules.