Starting Your Own Law Firm: Checklist

After being disappointed by other accounting programs such as Quickbooks and iBank, I was relieved to learn about a new online program designed specifically for trust accounts. Setting up my account into TrustBooks was a breeze.

TrustBooks is an intuitive accounting program that you access online but stands above other accounting programs because it is calibrated to the North Carolina State Bar rules for attorney trust accounts. Folks with no background in accounting can quickly get up to speed on how to use it. Small and solo law practices should absolutely try it out, but it would certainly handle large practices as well.

Making the move to TrustBooks was a great leap forward. The other options were too complex and expensive for our needs. I wanted something that was easy to use and would keep us out of trouble – TrustBooks works!

Trustbooks has helped simplify what was an incredibly complicated, frustrating, and time-consuming part of my practice. I was trying to keep track of so many different binders, sheets of paper, excel spreadsheets, and bank receipts; it was a nightmare.

Using spreadsheets, it was a painstaking process of trying to locate where errors originated when performing my monthly reconciliations. It isn’t easy nor perfect. However, using TrustBooks, my trust accounting is essentially error- and stress-free.

At least with the 3-part one write system, the transactions were visible and easy to find. Conversely, QuickBooks would make their own designated entries, making it much more difficult to find errors and balance the trust accounts.

I love helping our law firm clients get their accounting squared away and put everything on cruise control. I see how much of a relief this is for our clients. Developing those relationships and helping attorneys and their staff means the world to me.

When I started my own law firm my biggest concern was trust accounting. I studied the rules, watched CLEs, etc. but still didn’t want to go it alone. Then I found Trustbooks. It took me less than 15 minutes to learn how to use it and now I don’t sweat trust accounting. I highly recommend Trustbooks to any lawyer who is responsible for overseeing a trust account.

Ever since I started with Trust books my experience has been amazing. The customer service is above par. When there is an issue or “user” error (me), they are there to walk you through it. My trust accounting is now on point. I trust TrustBooks!

TrustBooks meets the needs of my growing solo practice. Where everyone else offers bulky, bloated, and overpriced products, Trustbooks is sleek, efficient, and reasonably priced.

TrustBooks makes it really easy to pull in whatever I need from my Clio account. Doing the accounting for my firm is simple with Clio and TrustBooks

We heard from our law firm customers how they wanted more support when it comes to their accounting. This is what we do. We are the experts here. We want to provide our expertise in helping law firms meet their accounting needs.

After having QuickBooks nightmares for years, TrustBooks is a lifesaver!

I used to keep my trust account ledger by hand, which was time-consuming and error-prone. I manually wrote checks out of my trust account. It took me forever to reconcile the account each month as I had to look at three different places to see whose money was whose. I love TrustBooks! No more handwritten letters. No more fear of overdrawing a client account.

I’m so glad TrustBooks exists!

Trustbooks has completely changed my view on trust accounting for my firm. It takes into account all of the trust accounting requirements of the State Bar and helps make sure you comply with them. Trustbooks has simplified the trust accounting for my firm and I no longer dread doing reconciliations or an audit from the State Bar.

Trustbooks has reduced my time spent on reconciliation from 4 or more hours per month, to 10 minutes or less. It has also eliminated mistakes in my trust accounting.

Trustbooks seamlessly systematizes required trust accounting processes to exacting Florida Bar standards, thus removing the need for an imperfect cobbling together of methodologies that, let’s be honest, many among us had failed to ever truly master. You don’t have to have a finance background or be an accountant to use Trustbooks. Bravo, Trustbooks, for modernizing trust accounting with a functional product that does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Meet the three-way reconciliation, and change your life!

Before TrustBooks, my monthly reconciliations were agonizing as I balanced accounts, used multiple spreadsheets, and numerous bank statements. That agony is gone.

The entire process is streamlined. If I have any questions about requirements or processes, TrustBooks support is extremely responsive. I now have complete peace of mind for my trust accounts.

TrustBooks is an affordable, intuitive trust account management solution. Monthly and quarterly trust account reconciliations are much easier with TrustBooks. We also love that they listen to our suggestions and are constantly improving their program to meet their clients’ needs, including recently adding several report features.

On my own, a trust accounting audit was a nightmare. There are just too many questions and uncertainties concerning ledgers, funds, and state requirements.

So thankful for this program! Just wish I had discovered TrustBooks sooner.

TrustBooks has helped ease the pain of trust accounting for our firm. I love the Dashboard feature enabling me to see the latest transactions up front.  Editing transactions is super easy as well. The reconciliations are fabulous! Three-way reconciliations make my accounting so much easier on a monthly basis.  TrustBooks really took the worries away and made our trust accounting simpler and more efficient. The team at TrustBooks is always super friendly and helpful. I always feel like I am talking to a trusted friend. Thank you TrustBooks!

I went from spending 4 hours every month combing through and balancing spreadsheets, trust ledgers, checks, and bank statements to just 4 minutes a month using TrustBooks.

If you are managing a law firm, you can’t mess this up. The consequences can be career-ending. With TrustBooks, my stress level is non-existent. I don’t dread the reconciliations, and I have control of the Trust Account. I used to be anxious about a Bar audit, and now I have zero anxiety about that.

The reality is that my accountant does not know the rules for the state bar. QuickBooks doesn’t know the rules either. I alone had to know all the rules – the current requirements and the new requirements when they come out.

Trust accounting is usually a source of anxiety for most attorneys. We want to be in compliance and serve our clients well. After participating in Trustbooks webinar on the new trust accounting amendments, I felt confident that I understand the new requirements and can rely on the highly knowledgeable TrustBooks staff for any questions I have.

I love TrustBooks! No more handwritten letters. No more fear of overdrawing a client account. TrustBooks makes it simple to keep track of each client’s money, allows me to print checks directly from the program, makes reconciling the account easy (about 5 minutes tops!), and best of all, I know my trust account is in order and state bar compliant. I’m so glad TrustBooks exists!

My staff and I found the program to be incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. I have not found any other system that comes close to combining practicality, accessibility, and dedication to trust accounts.

I love that TrustBooks keeps me reconciled and on track – and I don’t have to worry about the state bar coming after me for trust accounting errors!

I never thought we’d get audited when I opened Bull City Lawyer in 2016, but on the advice of a veteran lawyer, I got Trustbooks anyway. In 2019 the audit notice came, and though I was nervous I was also ready. We’d had our Trustbooks subscription for three years, and the ease of use is hard to oversell. With just a few clicks every couple of months we kept our accounts perfectly balanced and all of our money accounted for. The short story is that we scored a perfect on our audit in August, and were told we were one of a few North Carolina firms each round of audits to do that. We felt accomplished, but the reality is that we just logged into Trustbooks.com before our audit, printed off all the reports, labeled them, put them in a folder along with our bank account statements, and boom, perfect score. It’s also the easiest subscription cost I pay every month as a result. We may ultimately ditch our IOLTA account (oh how I wish!) but until then, Trustbooks is a no brainer for any size firm in North Carolina.

TrustBooks is life altering! I have no questions about what I’m doing or how I’m doing it. The entire process is clear, streamlined, and balanced.

My wife is the office manager and accountant for the law firm. The last few days of every month, when we balance the trust accounts, our relationship isn’t the best. Trying to fix discrepancies by chasing down every last transaction added unnecessary stress to our lives.

TrustBooks has simplified the intricacies of trust accounting such that I can focus more on my client’s needs and less on law firm administration. The software is extremely user-friendly and accessible, and support is just an email or phone call away. As a litigator and manager of a busy divorce practice, I cannot imagine practicing law without such a brilliantly executed piece of software.

QuickBooks simply doesn’t have trust accounting knowledge. I had to have the knowledge and force QuickBooks to do what I believed my state’s bar required of my firm for our trust accounts.

Our monthly reconciliations take less than a minute to do. The 3-Way Reconciliations are as easy as pushing a button. Writing checks and ledger management are a breeze and we can find any errors very quickly.

The main benefit I have experienced with using TrustBooks is knowing that my trust account is 100% accurate – no more handwritten ledgers and trying to figure out which money belongs to which client each month.

Running a law firm is hard enough. Handling your trust accounting is even harder. That’s why I love TrustBooks. They make it easy so you can get things done and take your trust accounting off your to-do list.

TrustBooks has been wildly successful in designing an intuitive product. This is so much better than trying to balance my trust account in Quickbooks!

With TrustBooks, it just works! The steps are simple and less involved. I can see an individuals’ client account up front. It shows if I took a fee, gave a refund, everything. It’s perfectly transparent and everything we need.

Trustbooks is customized specifically to comply with your state bar’s trust accounting rules, so you don’t have to worry about anything.

The TrustBooks integration with Clio is a total game-changer.
Accounting that took me hours each month is now cut in half. I love how seamlessly TrustBooks works with Clio.