LawAOS can handle much of the HR admin a solicitors' firm runs day to day: a people directory, leave with capped balances, staff requests including confidential grievance reports, versioned policies with acknowledgements, and pay runs that post to the firm's ledger. It sits in the same workspace as matters, time and billing, so a fee earner's leave and workload are visible in one place.
It is not a UK payroll bureau. LawAOS calculates no PAYE, National Insurance or pension auto-enrolment contributions, has no HMRC reporting, and produces payslips as CSV. Tax and NI are entered as deduction amounts the firm works out elsewhere.
For practice management, LawAOS bills in GBP, supports DD/MM/YYYY dates and the London time zone, and lets the firm rename legal terms. It makes no SRA or UK GDPR compliance claim, and data is hosted in Asia-Pacific (Sydney), so firms should check the SRA's rules and their data protection obligations before moving client data.
- Leave
- Leave types carry monthly or annual caps and a paid or unpaid flag. The database refuses an approval over the cap, and balances are shown to the member.
- Requests and confidential reports
- Ask Hub takes Help, IT support, Facilities, Leave, HR, Grievance, Harassment and Whistleblow requests. Grievance, harassment and whistleblowing reports are always confidential, and each request allows one appeal.
- Policies
- Office manuals and policies are versioned, published and restorable, with optional acknowledgement and counts of who has acknowledged.
- People records
- Member records hold Profile, Work, Requests and Leave, Payslips, Resources, Access and Activity tabs, with recruitment, review cycles and CLE tracking in the People module.
- Wellbeing
- Private check-ins that managers cannot see, with a firm pulse shown only for weeks with at least five respondents.
- Whether your payroll provider can keep calculating PAYE and NI while LawAOS records the pay run and posts it to the ledger.
- Whether hosting client data in Asia-Pacific (Sydney) fits your data protection assessment.
- How your client account rules map onto LawAOS trust ledgers and the guided reconciliation.
- Whether a single VAT percentage per invoice is enough for your billing.
| Need | Built into LawAOS | The firm handles |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll | Pay runs weekly, fortnightly, monthly or custom; pay components; ledger posting; CSV payslips | PAYE, NI, pension contributions, HMRC submissions and payment to staff |
| VAT | One tax percentage per invoice and a tax ID label the firm names | VAT treatment of disbursements and any invoice needing more than one rate |
| Client account | Client ledgers, cleared balances, guided three-way reconciliation, exports | SRA Accounts Rules and its accountant's report |
| Data location | Primary database in Asia-Pacific (Sydney) | Its UK data protection assessment |
| Currency and dates | GBP invoices, exchange-rate table, DD/MM/YYYY dates, London time zone | Nothing further |
Based on LawAOS payroll, people, invoicing and trust modules and the privacy, DPA and security pages as of September 2026.
Add people and departments
Invite members, set their roles and group them into departments.
See the modulePublish policies
Publish the office manual and policies and ask members to acknowledge them.
See the moduleHandle leave and requests
Members request leave and raise HR, IT or confidential requests in Ask Hub, and approvers act within caps.
See the moduleRecord the pay run
Create the run from each member's standing pay, enter tax and NI as deductions, approve it and mark it paid to post to the ledger.
See the moduleShare notices
Post to the notice board for the whole firm or one department, with read tracking.
See the module
Stated plainly, so you can decide before you sign up rather than after.
- Payroll calculates no PAYE, National Insurance or pension contributions and has no HMRC reporting or payroll-provider integration.
- Payslips are CSV, not PDF, and there is no direct payment of salaries or employee onboarding workflow.
- There is no VAT logic beyond one percentage per invoice, and no SRA Accounts Rules reports ship.
- Client data is hosted in Asia-Pacific (Sydney); there is no UK data residency, and LawAOS makes no UK GDPR or SRA compliance claim.
Anything the list leaves open, our team answers directly.