SRA Accounts Rules – The Essentials
Speaker: Darren Whelan
Length: 2.5 Hours
Published September 24, 2022
Last Updated on May 1, 2023
Who is this training for?
This on demand workshop is for Solicitors, Lawyers, Accountants, Compliance Officers, COFA’s, Legal Accounts Professionals, Legal Cashiers and anyone that has any involvement in working in legal finance and compliance.
Purpose of this training?
The current SRA Accounts rules allow more flexibility in how law firms operate and manage risk but also require firms to make their own professional judgements and decisions in how they protect client money and assets entrusted to them.
This on demand workshop will explore the technical and practical application of the accounts rules and best practice to ensure compliance. It will address issues that have emerged from the warning notices guidance that has been subsequently released and will look at conundrums, scenarios and recent Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal decisions.
- Introduction
- Client Money and Client Bank Accounts
- Legal Aid Money
- Client Account Exemption
- Management of Money and Timeframes
- Residual balances
- Banking Facilities
- Systems and Controls
- Client Bank Reconciliations
- Joint Accounts/Client Own Accounts
- Breaches
- Third Party Managed Accounts (TPMA’s)
- The Role of the Accountant and the Report
- SRA Additional Guidance
- Summary of the Changes 2011 -v- 2019
#1. Is it permissible to issue the client with a bill of costs for an unpaid, not yet incurred, disbursement?
#2. When dealing with residual balances, instead of recording the payment to the charity from the client’s ledger, your firm moves the residual balance to a ledger in the name of the charity. The payment is then recorded and made from that ledger every six months.
Is this a breach of the SRA Accounts Rules?
#3. You have instructed an interpreter in order for your client to be able to communicate with you or to enable your client to understand Court proceedings. The cost of the interpreter is being passed on to the client. When billed, the cost is:
#4. Your firm acted for a client in the sale of commercial premises. The transaction has been completed and the firm are in the process of accounting to the client for the net proceeds of sale. Independently of this retainer, the client’s son has instructed another solicitor in your firm to act for him in buying a flat.
The father has asked your firm to retain enough money to cover his son’s legal fees and to send the balance to him. Your firm is concerned that by transferring the money to the son you may be in breach of rule 3.3.
Is this providing banking facilities?
#5. When dealing with residual balances that are £500 or less that are to be paid to a charity, your firm posts a journal from the business side of the client’s ledger and credits a nominal ledger in the name of the charity. You then transfer the residual balance from the client account to the business account.
Once a month, the payment to the charity is made from the charity nominal ledger. Is this permissible under the SRA Accounts Rules?
#6. I no longer need to consider time frames when transferring costs (fees and disbursements) to the business account?
#7. Money received from the Legal Aid Agency on account of disbursements that are not yet incurred or paid is?
#8. If you receive notification of an SRA Forensic Investigation, does the SRA provide a reason?
#9. You operate various client’s own accounts. SRA Accounts Rule 10 appears to require you to carry out a bank reconciliation for these accounts.
Are you required to prepare a three way bank reconciliation every 5 weeks if you can’t obtain bank statements from the bank or building society?
#10. Double-entry bookkeeping refers to:
Further Information
Practice notes and training sessions represent the Association of Legal Compliance & Accounts’ view of good practice in a particular area. They are not intended to be the only standard of good practice that firms can follow.
Practice notes and training sessions are not legal advice, and do not necessarily provide a defence to complaints of misconduct or poor service. While we have taken care to ensure that they are accurate, up to date and useful, we will not accept any legal liability in relation to them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why On Demand
It’s really simple:
- Reduced cost
- Can be watched anywhere, anytime on any device – no travel time or cost
- Shorter and more efficient than face-to-face
- Recorded and can be replayed at your leisure
Online – the Cons
On Demand is not for everyone one. People learn differently and watching a pre-recorded training video can feel very lonely and isolated. It requires strong, self-motivation and time management skills. There is no opportunity to ask a question and receive an answer straight away as you would with an online or a face-to-face workshop.
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