1. Home
  2. Articles
  3. Clio Accounting

Clio Accounting: Manage Accounts and Journal Entries

What's New in Clio

Join our upcoming webinar to see the 25 newest features in action.

Register now

Once your chart of accounts is set up, you can connect additional bank accounts, edit and organize existing accounts, and use journal entries to record or adjust transactions directly in Clio Accounting. This article covers connecting operating and trust accounts to Clio Manage, editing and organizing accounts, viewing transactions and reports, and adding, editing, or reassigning journal entries.

 

Connect operating and trust ledger accounts to Clio Manage accounts

If you are using Clio Accounting for the first time and went through the setup wizard that was launched when you first opened the application, existing operating and trust ledger accounts should be connected to the corresponding accounts in Clio Manage. If you added additional Operating and Trust accounts after you have gone through the Clio Accounting setup, you still connect the new ledger accounts (i.e. those with Detail type of Bank - Operating and Bank - Trust) in Clio Accounting to those in Clio Manage.

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Optional: Use the Assets quick filter or the search box to find the account that you want to edit.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three horizontal dots (more icon) in the Actions column, then Edit.
  4. Click the Manage bank account field to reveal a list of relevant accounts (operating or trust) that have not been connected to a ledger account. Select the relevant account.
  5. Click Update account to save your changes.

 

Edit accounts

Once a ledger account is created in the chart of accounts, you can make changes to the account fields at any time.

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or the search box to find the account that you want to edit.
  3. Once you find the account, in the Actions column, click Edit, or click the three horizontal dots (more icon) then Edit from the list of options.
  4. Make your changes and then click Update account.

 

Make accounts active or inactive

Sometimes, you may no longer need to use an account permanently or temporarily. To remove the account from your main chart of accounts view, you can make the account inactive. You can also make an inactive account active again if you need to interact with it again. You can make accounts inactive and active one account at a time or in bulk.

Tip: Making accounts inactive is useful if your firm opened a new bank account and you stopped using the old one. You can also make accounts inactive and active cyclically depending on your firm's preferences. This is helpful if you only need some accounts during tax season: You can make them inactive most of the time to avoid seeing them and then make them active during tax season when you need to use them.

Make inactive

One account Multiple accounts in bulk
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Make inactive from the list of options.
  4. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

Make active

One account Multiple accounts in bulk
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Click Status: Active and then select Inactive to view inactivated accounts.
  3. Once you find the account, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Make Active from the list options.
  4. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

 

Filter, search, and sort accounts

When viewing your Chart of accounts tab, you can filter accounts using the general ledger quick filters or filter by active or inactive accounts, use a keyword search to find specific accounts by name, and sort columns in ascending or descending order.

Filter Keyword search Sort columns
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Select one of the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) to find a specific account. You can also click Status: active and then select either Active or Inactive to view accounts that are either active or inactive. 

 

View transactions in ledger accounts

You can view a list of transactions associated with a particular ledger account in your chart of accounts. If the account is not connected to a bank account and/or you have not manually entered journal entries, there will be no transactions in the account.

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Click the account's name.

 

View reports and reconcile accounts

For each account within your chart of accounts, you can generate a ledger report to view transactions with their beginning balances. If the account has a corresponding bank account or credit card account, you can also reconcile the account.

View report Reconcile
  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account.
  3. Once you find the account, click three dots under the Actions column, and select View Report.
    • The report will show transactions associated with the account you selected.
    • You also have the option to select additional accounts or view all accounts. You can do this by selecting the accounts under the Accounts field (the report will show transactions in those selected accounts) or leaving the field blank (the report will show transactions in all accounts), and then click Generate report. Learn more about the general ledger report and other Clio Accounting reports here.
  4. Optional: If you need a physical copy of the report or if you need to save a copy to your computer outside of Clio Accounting, click Print in the top right corner.

 

Add, view, edit, and delete journal entries

A journal entry is a record of a single business transaction that notes which accounts are affected. In double-entry bookkeeping, every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a different account (a debit and a credit). Clio Accounting creates journal entries from the data synced from Clio Manage and your bank feed. You can also manually create journal entries to make adjustments, such as correcting an error.

Important: Journal entries should not be commonly used. If your books do not balance, determine why they do not balance before creating a journal entry. Common reasons for books not balancing include a check that a firm user forgot to deposit, a payment that was not recorded, etc.

Note: You can edit journal entries manually created in Clio Accounting, but you cannot edit transactions (e.g. hard cost matter expenses) that synced from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting. The sync between the two applications is a one-way sync from Clio Manage to Clio Accounting, which means that changes made in Clio Accounting will not sync back to Clio Manage. If you need to make changes to any transactions created in Clio Manage, go to Clio Manage to make those changes. 

Add journal entry

  1. In the Clio Accounting header, click the global Add transaction menu and then select Journal entry.
  2. Under Date and Description, enter the date of the transaction and a description. The information you enter in this Description field will appear under the Memo when you view the saved journal entry.
  3. Complete the details of the debit and credit and which accounts are affected. 
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, such as with Clio Accounting, you need to enter a credit and a debit (and select corresponding ledger accounts) for every journal entry/transaction that you record, and the values should be equal. For example, if you made a payment to an IT vendor from your credit card, select the credit card under the first Ledger account field and enter the amount you paid under Credit. Then, select the IT vendor under the second Ledger account field and the amount they received under Debit. The amount you paid and the amount they received should be the same.
    • The Description fields for each ledger account are optional and used to distinguish the credit and debit. You can view what is entered for these fields when viewing the journal entry after it is saved.
  4. Optional: Click Add item to add another debit or credit to another ledger account.
  5. Once the debit and credit are equal, click Save journal entry.

View journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, such as with Clio Accounting, every journal entry has a credit and a debit, which means you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into.
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click View.

Edit journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, every journal entry has a debit and a credit. This means that you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into. For example, if you selected a credit card as a ledger account when you created the journal entry, click Liability. This section will show accounts where money is withdrawn from. In the same journal entry, if you selected an IT vendor as a ledger account when you created the entry, click Expense. This section will show accounts where money is sent to external parties for firm expenses.
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Edit from the list of options.
  5. Make your edits and then click Save journal entry.

Delete journal entry

  1. Go to Chart of accounts.
  2. Use the general ledger quick filter (i.e. Assets, Liability, Equity, Income, or Expense) or search box to find the account that contains the journal entry.
    • In double-entry bookkeeping, every journal entry has a debit and a credit. This means that you can find the journal entry in the ledger account that the money was withdrawn from or the ledger account that the money was deposited into. For example, if you selected a credit card as a ledger account when you created the journal entry, click Liability. This section will show accounts where money is withdrawn from. In the same journal entry, if you selected an IT vendor as a ledger account when you created the entry, click Expense. This section will show accounts where money is sent to external parties for firm expenses.
  3. One you find the ledger account that contains the journal entry, click the account's name. The account will show all transactions for that ledger account.
  4. Once you find the journal entry, click the three dots under the Actions column, and select Delete from the list of option.
  5. Click Confirm to confirm the action.

 

Understand transaction statuses

When viewing a transaction in a ledger account within your chart of accounts, you will see one of three statuses for each transaction. This is what each one means:

  • Created: The record was created in Clio Accounting.
  • Matched: The record was matched to a bank feed transaction in Clio Accounting. This only applies to transactions linked to bank accounts or credit cards.
  • Reconciled: The record was included in a completed reconciliation cycle. This only applies to transactions linked to bank accounts and credit cards.

 

Move transactions between accounts

Note: Prior to Jan. 6, 20206, Clio Accounting allowed for a single, shared trust clearing and client trust funds liability ledger. If you had more than one trust bank account, Clio Accounting tracked these accounts’ transactions in these ledgers. As of January 6th, 2026 each trust ledger account previously created or newly created in Clio Accounting will have its own trust clearing account ledger. The shared trust clearing account will remain active but you may choose to reassign the entries in that account to the relevant new accounts.

To reassign transactions from the shared trust clearing and shared trust fund accounts to the relevant new account, follow the steps below.

Important: Repeat this process for both the shared trust clearing account and the shared trust account.
  1. In Clio Accounting, click Chart of accounts.
  2. Select the shared trust clearing account or the shared trust account.
  3. Use the checkboxes to select the transactions that you want to move into the new ledgers.
  4. Click Reassign.
    • Clio Accounting will identify which trust accounts to move each selected transaction into.
    • Relevant new ledger entries will be created for each moved transaction and the memo field will provide the relevant details.
  5. To review the list, click Show full list.
  6. Once reviewed, Click Confirm and reassign.
Note: Not all transactions can be reassigned using this method. For these transactions, you may have to create journal entries manually to reassign funds from one ledger account into another. Make sure to use the memo field to add details about the reassignment. Any journal entries made may show up during trust account reconciliation as $0 transactions and will therefore not impact any actual fund movement records.

Revert reassignment

If you need to revert any previously reassigned transactions, you can do so by following the instructions above and selecting the transactions to revert in step 3.

 

Need more help?

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful