Law firms and advocates
Accounting software for law firms and advocates
Let fee notes, receipts, office expenses and payroll write their own journals, post anything your clients withhold with one entry, and hand your accountant a trial balance that already agrees.
In short
SimpleERP is accounting software for law firms and advocates. Fee notes, receipts, expenses and payroll post their own balanced journals, client advances wait on account, and tax withheld by clients is posted with a short journal.
Illustration: saving invoice INV-2026-0213 moves stock, posts the customer ledger, records tax and updates the dashboard in one step.
An accounting day at Hartley and Osei Solicitors
On the fifth of every month the accountant who comes in twice a week sits down with the partners of Hartley and Osei Solicitors. Her checklist is short but slow: match the bank statement, list the clients who owe money, work out what overseas clients withheld from their payments, and split the cash spent between client disbursements and the firm's own rent, power and copying charges.
Last month a client in Nairobi paid $9,000 against two fee notes after withholding $1,000 of tax, another paid an advance for an arbitration that has not started, and the senior clerk spent $1,840 on court fees, of which $1,690 is to be billed back.
With SimpleERP most of that is already done when she arrives. Each document wrote its journal when it was posted, the advance shows as money on account against that client, and her job shrinks to the withholding journal, the bank tick-off and a look at the reports.
Ledger
Which accounts does a law firm actually use?
Fewer than a trading business. The seeded chart of accounts covers them, and the documents you post choose the account, so the partners rarely see a ledger name unless they look.
- Fee income from every posted fee note, split by service if you add income accounts.
- Receivables per client, with advances shown as a credit until allocated.
- Office expenses by category: rent, power, copying, travel and subscriptions.
| What happened | Debit | Credit | Posted by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fee note to a company, $10,000 | Accounts receivable | Fee income | The fee note |
| Company pays $9,000 after withholding | Bank | Accounts receivable | The receipt |
| Tax of $1,000 withheld by the client | Tax receivable | Accounts receivable | A journal you post |
| Court fee paid in cash for a client | Expense or receivable, as your accountant prefers | Cash | The expense |
| Chamber rent for October | Rent | Bank | The expense |
Client advances
Where does a client's advance sit until the work is done?
On account, inside that client's receivable, as a receipt not yet allocated. The client's statement shows it as a credit, and when you raise the fee note you allocate the receipt to it. It is not a trust or escrow account, so a firm that must keep client money separate should keep a separate bank account for it.
- Money on account visible on the client, so an old advance is not forgotten.
- Allocation you can change before posting, oldest fee note first by default.
- Client statement with opening balance, running balance and ageing.
Illustration of a journal entry where debits and credits differ by 10, refused, and a posting into a locked month, refused with the lock date.
Month-end
What does month-end look like for the accountant?
A few checks instead of a rebuild. The bank register is reconciled by ticking the lines that cleared, tax withheld by clients is matched with their certificates outside the product, and the lock date closes the month so nobody posts into it by mistake.
- Bank reconciliation by entering the statement balance and ticking cleared lines.
- Trial balance, P&L and balance sheet for any date, exported to CSV.
- Lock date with any reopening approved and logged.
- Accountant role that sees the books without the partners' passwords.
One system
Where the books get their entries
Fee notes, receipts, expenses and payroll write the journals; the accountant adds only what no document covers.
Law firms and advocates
Fee notes with the right tax, client advances on account, disbursements at cost and payroll for clerks.
See howInventory for law offices
Most firms skip stock; those that track stationery, toner or file covers can, and the library is an asset.
See howPayroll for law firms
Monthly salaries for clerks, secretaries and salaried associates, with deductions, advances and payslips on the phone.
See howAccounting
A double-entry ledger with journals, bank registers, statements and a lock date.
See how
Honest limits
Limits for a law firm's books
- No bank feeds: bank entries are recorded and reconciled by hand
- No multi-currency; every document is in your base currency
- Tax returns are not filed and e-invoices are not issued from inside the product
- No client trust or escrow accounting; advances are ordinary receipts on account
- Tax withheld by clients is not computed; post it with a journal
Getting started
Start with accounting
Sign up with your email
Name, email and a password. No card for the seven-day trial.
Tell us about the business
Pick your country and, if you are registered, type your tax number. Accounts, tax rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for that country.
Enter opening balances
Enter bank and cash balances, what each client owes or has paid in advance, and the law library at its book value, all as at your start date.
Run the trial balance
Every posted document is already in the ledger; the trial balance and P&L are ready on any date.
FAQ
Questions, answered
How do partners' drawings get recorded?
With a journal from the bank to each partner's drawings or capital account. It is one of the few entries a firm posts by hand, and the database refuses it if the two sides differ.
Can the court fees we pay for clients be kept apart from our own expenses?
Yes. Give client costs their own expense category, or post them to a recoverable account if your accountant prefers. Either way the fee note that bills them back shows the client what was spent.
Can we see income per partner or per practice area?
Not as a report by partner or matter. You can split income by adding separate income accounts for areas such as litigation and advisory and mapping each saved service to one, which the P&L then shows apart.
Our accountant uses her own software for the year-end. Can she still work from SimpleERP?
Give her the Accountant role. She can read the ledgers and statements in SimpleERP and export the trial balance and registers to CSV for her own files.
Related
Keep reading
Law firms and advocates
Fee notes with the right tax, client advances on account, disbursements at cost and payroll for clerks.
Read moreInventory for law offices
Most firms skip stock; those that track stationery, toner or file covers can, and the library is an asset.
Read morePayroll for law firms
Monthly salaries for clerks, secretaries and salaried associates, with deductions, advances and payslips on the phone.
Read more
See how accounting works in SimpleERP for law firms and advocates
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