Transfer Trust Bank Accounts

Modified on Mon, 12 Feb at 6:45 PM

This module provides the facility to amend matter trust bank accounts in bulk where you have created a new trust bank account.

You should always seek authority from your clients to transfer their funds from one trust account to another as per Law Society regulations.

You will be able to transfer funds from one trust bank to another where there are no unreconciled items / unpresented items and no uncleared funds. If you are not able to sort out all of the unreconciled items, you can transfer the funds from the old bank to the new bank, leaving the amount for the unreconciled amounts. You will then transfer these residual matters manually once the unreconciled items get sorted out.

Step-by-step guide

Reconcile your current trust account.
Run the Transfer Trust Bank Accounts module (list only) so you can see the total amount that can be transferred to the new bank. Main Menu > Accounting > Trust Accounting > Trust > Transfer Trust Bank Accounts.

This will give you a listing of the total funds that can be transferred and also those matters where funds cannot be transferred (i.e. unreconciled items or uncleared funds).
When you are ready to do the transfer in the bank, you can run this with the Run Option as Update and List.

This will update the trust bank on the matters that are able to be updated.

This will create the payment voucher for bank 21 and the receipt for bank 22 so you know exactly what is to be transferred to the new bank and what is to remain in the old bank.

This is the amount that you will physically transfer from one bank to the other. (This may not be the whole bank balance amount if there items that you cannot transfer.)
Once you have transferred the funds from one bank to the other, mark the voucher as paid for bank 21 (if not printed via cheque) and print the receipt for bank 22.
For the residual matters, as each unreconciled item is sorted out, you can then process the transactions from the old bank to the new and update the Trust bank on the matter. You will need to pay the voucher so the trust balance is showing as zero, modify the matter to the new bank 22 and then enter a receipt and allocate it back to the matter.
Once all of the matters have been moved over, you will be able to close the old bank account.

Where you have run this module and a client has then deposited funds into your old trust account, you will need to create a sub-matter e.g. "Matter Description - Old Trust Bank matter" and select bank 21 as the trust bank. You will then be able to receipt the funds onto the matter. If you want to transfer these funds to your new trust bank, enter a payment voucher from bank 21 against the sub-matter and then enter a receipt to the master matter for bank 22. You should not run this module where you are utilising sub-matters as you are creating them where the client has deposited the funds into the old trust bank.