A legal accountant keeps the books accurate, keeps trust accounts compliant, and turns the numbers into pricing, compensation, hiring, and cash decisions. IOLTA rules, advanced client costs, and contingency fee timing are daily work, not annual surprises.
A bookkeeper records transactions. An accountant closes the books and produces financial statements. A CPA is licensed, which matters for judgment calls like advanced cost capitalization and revenue recognition. Our engagements combine all three under law firm CPA oversight. For the transaction layer on its own, see law firm bookkeeping services.
Most engagements run between $1,200+ per month for bookkeeping and $6,000 per month for fractional CFO work. The exact number moves with transaction volume, the number of operating and trust accounts, and the level of oversight you add. Compare that to hiring one in-house accountant for law firm work: salary, benefits, training, and coverage when they leave.
For monthly books, an experienced accountant for law firms is enough. You want CPA oversight when the judgment calls carry risk: advanced client cost treatment, revenue recognition on flat fees, entity and compensation structure. Our model gives you both without hiring either.
No. We run the monthly accounting, controller reviews, and CFO work, then hand your tax preparer a clean, reconciled file at year end.
Yes. QuickBooks Online stays the ledger, and we reconcile it against Clio, MyCase, or any of the systems listed above. You keep your billing workflow. Your law firm accountant keeps the books tied to it.
Three-way reconciliation on every trust account, every month: the bank balance, the trust ledger, and the sum of individual client ledgers must match to the penny. Differences are corrected before the month closes, and the reports are kept for your audit trail. State-by-state rules live in our IOLTA resource hub.
Yes. Attorneys often search for an accounting lawyer near me, but this work does not require someone down the street. We give law firms accounting support in all 50 states from a fully remote team, inside the software your firm already uses.