A law firm CPA team keeps the books accurate, keeps trust accounts compliant, and turns the numbers into decisions. Here is what that looks like at Law Firm Velocity.
Each week, we categorize transactions in QuickBooks Online, record advanced client costs to the right matters, and keep your trust ledger current. Each month, we reconcile every operating and trust account, run a three-way reconciliation on each IOLTA account, coordinate payroll entries, and close the books under CPA review. Your management reports are built around the Critical Four: Revenue, Contribution Margin, Profit Margin, and Cash.
You do not need to hire an accountant for your law firm, train them on trust rules, and hope they stay. Our team has done this work for more than 130 firms since 2009. Day-to-day transaction work is covered under law firm bookkeeping.
General accountants get attorneys in trouble. Legal accounting has rules that regular small business accounting does not.
Client money is not your money. Retainers and settlement funds sit in trust until they are earned or disbursed. Recording them as income overstates revenue and invites a bar complaint.
Advanced client costs are not expenses. In a contingency practice, the case costs you advance are recoverable. They belong on the balance sheet, not the P&L. Expensing them distorts profit and hides what each case actually costs.
Fees split. Co-counsel and referral arrangements need matter-level tracking. Gross fee, minus splits, minus costs is the number that tells you whether a case type is worth taking.
A legal accountant builds the books around these rules. That is the difference between accountants for lawyers who know the terrain and a generalist learning it on your file.
We do not make you change systems. QuickBooks Online stays the ledger, and we reconcile it against the billing, payment, and trust activity in Clio, MyCase, Filevine, PracticePanther, CASEpeer, Smokeball, Actionstep, CosmoLex, Soluno, and Caret.
Most accounting errors in law firms live in the gap between the practice management system and the ledger. Payments recorded in one and not the other. Trust transfers that never hit the books. We close that gap every month.
Accounting for a small law firm or solo attorney is where most relationships start.
As the firm grows, the books need more. Matter-level profitability. Contribution margin by case type. Cash forecasting against a contingency pipeline. Our controller and fractional CFO services sit on top of the same accounting foundation, so nothing gets rebuilt.
We serve more than 130 law firms nationally. Many are personal injury and plaintiff contingency practices between $1M and $70M in revenue.
A law firm CPA 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 for a CPA for lawyers, 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 CPA oversight. For the transaction layer on its own, see law firm bookkeeping services.
Most engagements run between $1,000 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 a full-time hire: salary, benefits, training, and coverage when they leave.
For monthly books, an experienced law firm accountant 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. We keep 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. We serve firms in all 50 states from a fully remote team.