Law Society of Alberta trust report
Law firms registered with the Law Society of Alberta that operate trust accounts are required to file a Trust Safety Accounting Upload as part of their annual reporting to the Law Society of Alberta. Annual reporting for each year is due by March 31st of the following year. As an approved vendor of the Law Society of Alberta, Clio makes it easy to fulfill the accounting and reporting requirements set forth by the Law Society of Alberta. Compliance remains a shared responsibility between Clio and your law firm, so refer to the Law Society Annual Reporting webpage for additional details about annual reporting.
Enable Law Society of Alberta reports
All law firms where the Clio account’s mailing address is in Canada should automatically have Law Society of Alberta reports enabled. Find your firm's mailing address in Settings > Account and Payment Info. If you operate in Alberta, but your account’s mailing address is not in Canada, the account’s Primary subscriber or an Administrator can contact Clio customer support to request for these reports to be enabled. Once enabled, the following information fields that were previously optional will now be required.
Institution
When creating a trust account in Clio Manage, enter the name of the institution (bank) where the actual funds are held. You can enter any institution name, but the Law Society of Alberta expects one of the following institutions:
▪️ Alberta Credit Union ▪️ ATB Financial ▪️ Bank of Nova Scotia ▪️ BMO ▪️ CIBC ▪️ Canadian Western Bank ▪️ Central 1 Credit Union ▪️ CIBC ▪️ Citibank ▪️ Fargo ▪️ Desjerdins Caisses ▪️ Calgary Financial ▪️ HSBC ▪️ ING Direct ▪️ Lakehead ▪️ Laurentian ▪️ Manulife ▪️ National Bank of Canada ▪️ President's Choice ▪️ RBC ▪️ Servus Credit Union ▪️ TD Canada Trust ▪️ Credit Union (other) ▪️ Other
Payment method
When disbursing trust funds, enter the payment method. The Law Society of Alberta expects one of the following payment methods:
▪️ Service Fee ▪️ Bank Draft ▪️ Cash ▪️ Cheque ▪️ Credit card ▪️ Debit card ▪️ Direct Deposit ▪️ Direct Withdrawal ▪️ Wire Transfer ▪️ Email Transfer ▪️ Transfer to General ▪️ Money Order ▪️ Other
Type
When depositing trust funds, enter the payment type. The Law Society of Alberta expects one of the following types:
▪️ Service Fee ▪️ Bank Draft ▪️ Cash ▪️ Cheque ▪️ Credit card ▪️ Debit card ▪️ Direct Deposit ▪️Direct Withdrawal ▪️ Wire Transfer ▪️ Email Transfer ▪️ Transfer to General ▪️ Money Order ▪️ Other
Practice area
When creating a new matter, select the practice area in the Matter details section. The Law Society of Alberta expects one of the following practice areas:
▪️ Aboriginal ▪️ Administrative/Boards/Tribunals ▪️ Arbitration ▪️ Bankruptcy/Insolvency/Receivership ▪️ Civil Litigation ▪️ Commercial ▪️ Corporate ▪️ Criminal ▪️ Employment/Labour ▪️ Entertainment ▪️ Environmental ▪️ Estate Planning and Administration ▪️ Immigration ▪️ Intellectual Property ▪️ International ▪️ Matrimonial/Family ▪️ Mediation ▪️ Mortgage ▪️ Personal Injury ▪️ Real Estate/Conveyancing ▪️ Tax ▪️ Other
Note: If your default list for Practice area does not include a list item that you need to use, add or edit practice areas via your Settings > Firm Preferences.
Tip: If you’ve recently enabled the Law Society of Alberta reports and want to know which of your matters do not have practice areas assigned, go to Matters and sort the table by Practice area. Matters without a practice area will show up at the top of the table. You can edit each matter until all matters have practice areas assigned.
Responsible attorney
When creating a new matter, select the responsible attorney from the list of practicing attorneys at your firm. To appear in the list of attorneys to select from, an attorney must be a Clio user on your firm’s account.
Note: Make sure that each attorney that operates a trust fund has their Law Society of Alberta Member ID entered in the Lawyer registered number field in their profile (Settings > Profile). When Law Society of Alberta reporting has been enabled, this field will be available in the profiles of all users who have their Subscriber Type field set as Attorney.
Tip: If you’ve recently enabled the Law Society of Alberta reports and want to know which of your matters do not have a responsible attorney, go to Matters and sort the table by Responsible attorney. Matters without a responsible attorney will show up at the top of the table. You can edit each matter until all matters have a responsible attorney.
To minimize the risk of reporting issues, make sure to consistently fill required fields with information expected by the Law Society of Alberta.
Disable Law Society of Alberta reports
The Primary subscriber or an Administrator on the Clio Manage account can disable these reports.
- Go to Settings > Firm Preferences.
- Select the Compliance subtab.
- Uncheck LSA report is enabled.
Generate a Law Society of Alberta report
- In Clio Manage, go to Reports > Reports.
- Select the report category Compliance.
- Click LSA reports.
- Select the relevant calendar year, then click Generate report. Four links will be generated. Click on each link to download the following CSV files:
- AL: This file summarizes the Accounts Receivables balances (by matter) as of December 31st. The file includes unpaid time, unpaid expenses, and taxes on a per-matter basis for the selected report year. A client will appear in this report if they have transactions in their trust account and at least one unpaid bill.
- TT: This file summarizes all trust account transactions for the specified report year. This includes receipts/deposits, withdrawals, and matter-to-matter transfers.
- BAR: This file summarizes the Billing Journal (by matter) for the reporting period. It includes all bill payments, credit notes, and outstanding amounts for the selected report year.
- TL: This section includes the opening trust balance for each matter for the selected report year.
Review each downloaded CSV file for any missing information, typos, or non-standard entries in the fields required by the Law Society of Alberta. To prevent mismatched information between data in Clio Manage and CSV files submitted to the Law Society of Alberta, update any problematic information in Clio Manage, then regenerate the Law Society of Alberta report. If you make any edits to your CSV files, make sure to save your changes and ensure that the file format is saved as a CSV file before submitting these files to the Law Society of Alberta.
Note: The Practice area, Payment method, and Responsible attorney fields in Clio Manage correspond to the Area of Law Description, Method of Payment, and Responsible Lawyer Name columns in the CSV files, respectively.
Other Law Society of Alberta best practices
Time Entries: The Law Society of Alberta recommends against using negative time entries to “add credit” to a client account. In Clio Manage, you can instead add a credit note to a user’s account.