Legal accounting software keeps a law firm's books: a chart of accounts, journal entries, and financial reports such as profit and loss, balance sheet and trial balance. What makes it legal accounting, rather than general bookkeeping, is that it understands law firm transactions: unbilled work, invoices per matter, client trust money that belongs to clients, reimbursable disbursements and matter-level profitability.
The main benefit over a general accounting package or a law firm accounting spreadsheet is that the books are fed by the same system that records billing and trust. There is no month-end export and re-entry, and the accounting reports can be read by matter.
LawAOS includes accounting with tabs for Overview, Chart of accounts, Journals, Reports and Reconciliation. A one-click 24-account legal chart of accounts gets a firm started, and journals post automatically from invoices, payments, credit notes, expenses, trust transactions, payroll and deposit batches.
- Profit and loss
- On an accrual or cash basis, for the firm's financial year, which starts in the month the firm chooses.
- Balance sheet and trial balance
- Including client money held in trust as a liability, because trust postings flow into the general ledger.
- Aged receivables
- Unpaid invoices grouped by age, so the firm can see what is overdue and by how long.
- Matter profitability
- Income and cost by matter, for deciding which work pays.
- Books integrity check
- A check that the ledger is internally consistent before you rely on the reports.
Many small firms run their books in a spreadsheet: one tab for invoices, one for payments, one for trust. It works until two people edit it, a formula breaks, or a regulator asks for client ledgers. Moving to legal bookkeeping software means entering opening balances once, then letting billing and trust activity post journals from that point on.
In LawAOS you set opening balances and can post manual journals for anything that does not come from billing. Bank reconciliation for the operating account works by importing a bank-statement CSV and matching each line to a journal; sign-off is refused while any line is unmatched.
- A chart of accounts that separates operating money from client money held in trust.
- Journals that post from invoices and payments without re-keying.
- Reimbursable expenses tracked as payables, and vendor payments recorded against them.
- Deposit batches that move payments from Undeposited Funds to the operating bank account.
- A clean export for the external accountant at year end.
Create the chart of accounts
Apply the one-click 24-account legal chart of accounts and edit it to suit the firm, then enter opening balances.
See the moduleBill and collect as normal
Invoices, payments and credit notes post their journals automatically, with exchange rates stamped at posting for other currencies.
See the moduleRecord expenses and trust activity
Approved expenses and trust transactions post to the ledger; reimbursable expenses post to accounts payable.
See the moduleReconcile the operating account
Import the bank statement CSV, match each line to a journal, and sign off once nothing is left unmatched.
See the moduleRead the reports
Run profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, aged receivables and matter profitability, and export journals as CSV.
See the module
Stated plainly, so you can decide before you sign up rather than after.
- LawAOS does not sync with QuickBooks or Xero.
- There are no live bank feeds; operating-account reconciliation works from an imported bank statement CSV.
- There are no period close or lock dates, so posting to a past period is not blocked by the system.
- There is no cash-flow statement report.
Anything the list leaves open, our team answers directly.