Changing Banks – Steps to Setup New Checking Accounts in ProLaw

• Add new accounts into ProLaw.
  • Add new operating account.
  • Add new trust accounts.
  • Add new trust liability account. [Each trust checking account should have its own dedicated trust liability account.]
• Statement Format Changes.
  • Auto Apply Unapplied – For Statement Formats with Auto Apply Unapplied Cash, update the Unapplied Tab and select the new checking account for the deposit.
  • Auto Apply Trust -For Statement Formats with Auto Apply Trust, update the Trust Tab and select the new checking for the deposit.
    • Also, make sure your new trust account is selected in the “Accounts to Use” grid and the old trust account is not checked, if you are using this feature.
• Journal Entries to Transfer Funds
  • Operating – To transfer funds from the operating account into the new checking account, you can use only one adjusting entry if both sides of the posting will clear in the same month. If there is some chance that one half would clear in one bank in one month and the other half will clear in the next month, then two entries would be needed. There is only one cleared checkbox in bank reconciliation per journal entry. When a bank transfer crosses months, a transfer account is used to make two entries in order to clear them independently.
  • Trust Transfer – In new versions of ProLaw, we have the transfer trust feature.

This process does this for us: transfers funds from the former trust account into the new trust account, making two adjustments per matter. The first entry is a credit to old trust checking asset account which posts a corresponding debit to the trust liability account. The second entry is a debit to the new trust checking asset account and its credit into the liability account. [See Validation below.]

• Validation – To validate this process, run a Matter Trust Balance Report before entry. Ensure the balance on this report ties to Journals as of the transfer date. When all balances have been transferred, run the Matter Trust Balance Report and verify that all matters have the same balances.
• Appearance on Statements – If you show trust activity on your statements, these transfers will appear in the trust section on the next bill you generate. To prevent these entries from showing on invoices, we have two options.
  • Put all transactions on hold for matters with a trust transfer, generate dummy bills, and then remove holds from the transactions.
  • Run statements in MS SQL Server Management Studio to set the flag in the database to indicate that these entries have appeared on a bill already. This syntax will include the limitation to update only these specific entries.