For law firms in the United Kingdom (UK) that handle client funds and need to comply with legal client fund accounting regulations, effective client funds account management is crucial. Clio’s enhanced client funds accounting makes this easy.
If you are an existing Clio customer, you will soon be able to benefit from enhanced client funds accounting features. When Clio notifies you via email that you can upgrade to the enhanced client accounting experience, this article provides everything you need to know to proceed through the upgrade process. Once you receive this email, a banner will also appear in the main Accounts tab inviting you to schedule your migration.
If you are new to Clio, this feature will automatically be enabled for your Clio account. Refer to Client Funds Account Compliance for information about how to set up your client funds accounts and Client Funds Account Management to learn how to perform day-to-day tasks related to client funds accounts.
Important: Before you start the migration, you will first need to reconcile each client funds account. Take note of any uncleared ledger entries—you will have to manually enter them after the migration. If you have any funds held at the client level, you will have received an email from Clio informing you along with instructions about how find and transfer these funds to the matter-level. You can also refer to Find and move client-level funds to the matter level for these instructions.
Once you complete this process it cannot be reversed. Make sure to take note of all notes and information provided in the modals with regard to the process.
- Once you receive your email inviting you to upgrade to enhanced client accounting, go to the main Accounts tab.
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Click Schedule migration.
Note: Some firms may be eligible to receive help from a Clio migrations specialist. If your firm is eligible you will have the option to click Contact Clio for help with this process. You can still opt to proceed with the migration yourself. - Provide any missing account details and/or check the box for My office account details are correct.
- Click Schedule migration.
Your migration will be scheduled during non-working hours (2 a.m. local time for your region). During the migration, a new, compliant client funds account will be created for each of your existing client funds accounts. The end balance from each old account’s reconciliation is used to create a client fund receipt “transaction” in its corresponding new account. This way the previous account's balance moves forward to the new account. The receipt is dated using the end date of the old account’s last reconciliation, ensuring that the closing balance in your old accounts matches the opening balance in your new account. Finally, each old client fund account will be closed. You will still be able to view your old client funds accounts by going to your main Accounts tab where you can switch between your New and Old account subtabs.
Clio will send you an email notification when the internal migration was successfully completed.
Important: Make sure that you re-enter any uncleared items from your old account(s) to the corresponding new account(s) and perform a reconciliation in each new client account.
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Re-enter uncleared ledger entries from your old account
If there were any uncleared cheque or deposits at the time of your last reconciliation or if additional entries were added to Clio after your last reconciliation, enter the transaction in the corresponding new client account, using the original transaction date. This ensures that you are able to match your ledger entries when the transaction clears in your bank account. -
Complete your first reconciliation in your new client account
For each new client account, do a first reconciliation. The purpose of this reconciliation is to ensure that the migration and manually entered uncleared ledger entries are correctly captured to the new account. Use the same start and end date that you used for reconciling your old account. Doing it this way ensures that any uncleared transactions (with their original dates are accounted for in the new accounts first reconciliation.
Moving forward, you can create new client fund receipts and client fund payments in your new accounts and run your reconciliations according to your normal reconciliation schedule.
If there was an issue, Clio will send you an email notification that something went wrong. You can attempt the migration again, or reach out to Clio for help.
Find and move client-level funds to the matter level
To find and move client-level, generate a Client Account Management report. Then, transfer the funds from the client level to the matter level.
Find client-level funds
- In Clio Manage, click Reports from the navigation panel on the left.
- Additional step for firms using custom reports: Click the Classic reports subtab.
- Select Reports (from the Presets, Reports, and History subtabs).
- Find and select the Client Account Management report.
- Choose your filters. To generate a full report, select All originating solicitors, All accounts, All practice areas, All clients, and select All for the Matter Status field.
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Select an output format.
Tip: Choose Web to easily navigate to the client with funds held at the client level in order to transfer funds to the matter level in the next step. - Click Generate report.
Transfer funds from client to matter level
In your generated report, balances for a client without any matter information represent client-level funds. In the Matter column of your report, you will see "Client funds (Not linked to a matter)". You will have to transfer these funds to the matter level for each of these line items.
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Open the client (contact) page.
Tip: If you chose to generate a Web report, you can click on the contact/client's name to open the contact page in a new tab. - Go to the Transactions subtab, then click Transfer funds.
- Add the relevant details in the modal.
- Select the Between matters radio button.
- Under Source, choose Client Balance.
- Under Destination, select the relevant matter to transfer the client-level funds to.
- Enter the amount to transfer.
- Click Record transfer.
Once all client-level funds have been transferred to the matter level, you can continue with switching to Enhanced Client Funds Accounting.