Your role
Accounts (law firm)
Your work in a law firm's accounts: the client account, payments out released at the bank, receipts, office books and reconciliations.
Kila describes the role: “Fee notes, receipts, office books and the client account: receipts, requests to pay out and monthly reconciliations. Approvals and sign-off stay with the partners.” At Wanjiru & Otieno Advocates, Grace Mwikali keeps the office and client accounts.
When you sign in
Link to this section: When you sign inKila opens Client money: “Money held for clients in the client accounts, kept apart from the firm’s own (Advocates (Accounts) Rules).” Each client account shows what is Held, what is Promised out, when it was Last reconciled and the Statement lines to match. Below are the Payments out, with those For you to release.
Your menu has My dashboard and Approvals, Clients, Billing and Client money, and under The firm, the Compliance calendar, Money and Settings. It has no Matters and no Court diary.
Your work
Link to this section: Your work- Release payments out once a partner has approved them and the bank has paid: Pay out of client money. Kila asks “Someone with the right to release payments, who neither approved it nor asked for it” to record it.
- Keep the client ledgers: Client money › Client ledgers shows “What is held for each client and matter.”
The law says
Client money stays apart from the firm’s own, as the page says, under the Advocates (Accounts) Rules: it is the clients’ until a fee note is delivered.
What you can do
Link to this section: What you can doEverything the role is allowed to do
- General
- View dashboard; Approve or reject requests
- Point of sale
- View sales; Review shifts and variances
- Catalog
- View products and services
- Stock
- View stock
- Purchasing
- View purchasing; Manage supplier invoices
- Customers
- View customers
- Legal practice
- Fee agreements, the billing workbench, disbursements and collections
- Credit
- View credit and agreements; Keep the cheque register: record, bank, clear and bounce customers’ cheques
- Finance
- View payments; Reconcile payments; View the books; Post manual journals; Close periods; View the fixed asset register and its custodians; Add and move fixed assets and post depreciation; Sell or write off fixed assets; View the client account: balances held per client and matter, and the client ledger; Receive client money, pay out of it and transfer fees to office against a fee note; Make approved payments out of client money (release to the bank or M-Pesa); Submit expenses
- Cash
- View cash: tills, safes, money on its way to the bank and the daily cash report; Prepare banking: cash to the bank with a deposit slip; Match deposits to the bank statement or confirm them banked
- Money
- View money accounts: cash, M-Pesa and bank balances and their checks; Add money accounts, move money between them and record actual balances; Record owner put in or took out, correct balances and change where a payment came from; Record cash deposited from the till to M-Pesa or the bank after trading (own branch)
- Reports
- View reports; Export reports
- Administration
- View audit log
- Statements
- View M-Pesa and bank statements and their analysis; Upload statements, classify and match lines and work their exceptions
- Staff
- View staff records, attendance and leave; Record, approve, pay out and recover salary advances and staff loans; Export payroll inputs
- Payments out
- View payment runs and payees; Prepare payment runs and send approved payments; Add payees and change their M-Pesa or bank details
- Compliance
- View the compliance calendar and its documents
- Distribution
- View principals, trade schemes, claims and secondary sales; Prepare, submit and settle claims to principals
- Delivery
- Settle drivers’ trips: count the cash, cheques and signed notes they hand in
Your limits
Link to this section: Your limits| Approval limit | Up to |
|---|---|
| Expenses | KES 300,000.00 |
| Refunds | KES 50,000.00 |
- Partner: who approves payments out of client money.
- Legal practice: how Kila works for a law firm.