IOLTA trust ledgers, matters, conflict checks, and the three-way reconciliation — in the same software as your operating books. Built for solo attorneys and small firms who don't want to pay $100+ per seat per month for a practice-management suite just to get compliant trust accounting.
Free 30-Day TrialQB will happily let you spend Client A's retainer on Client B's invoice, overdraw a client's trust balance, or edit a trust entry after the fact. Every one of those is a disciplinary referral. The standard answer — bolt on Clio, CosmoLex, or PracticePanther at $40–$200 per user per month — means two subscriptions, two logins, and a sync that breaks.
Trust violations are the leading cause of attorney discipline in most states. The rules aren't complicated — never commingle, never overdraw a client, reconcile three ways, notify the client on withdrawals — but spreadsheet-and-memory enforcement fails exactly once, and once is enough.
Deposit lands in the flagged IOLTA account; the client's trust ledger starts tracking.
Unbilled time becomes a draft invoice — one line per time entry.
Earned fees move to operating, the invoice is paid, and the client notice prints — one action.
A drawdown can only pay an invoice belonging to the same client whose trust money is being drawn. No client balance can ever go below zero — even when the bank account holds plenty of other clients' funds. Trust entries can't be edited or deleted, only voided with a recorded reason. These checks run at the database layer, where a hurried Friday afternoon can't talk them out of it.
Flag your IOLTA bank account once and BizBooks Pro auto-creates the offsetting "Funds Held in Trust" liability. From then on, a per-client subledger answers the bar's core question continuously: whose money is in this account?
Bank statement, book balance, and the sum of all client ledgers must agree — and BizBooks Pro computes the verdict itself rather than letting anyone self-certify. Each run is stored permanently as your compliance record.
New matters open behind a conflict search, not in front of one. Searches sweep your clients, their recorded related parties, all matter names, and the opposing parties and counsel on every prior matter.
Cases get real structure: numbering (auto per-year or your own scheme), billing method, responsible attorney, opposing party, status history, and a statute-of-limitations date that powers deadline alerts.
Time entries on a matter pick up the right rate automatically — matter override first, then the timekeeper's effective-dated rate table. One click pulls all unbilled time into a draft invoice, one line per entry, so every line on the bill traces to a time record.
NY, CA, TX, and other bars require notifying the client every time their trust money moves to your operating account. BizBooks Pro generates the notice PDF as part of the transfer itself — it can't be forgotten, because it isn't a separate step.
Practice-management suites are excellent at what they do — but if what your firm actually needs is compliant books, paying $50–$200 per seat per month for case management you won't use is an expensive way to get a trust ledger. BizBooks Pro puts the trust accounting in the same double-entry system as your operating books: one annual price, one app, one audit trail.
Everything else in BizBooks Pro sits under the legal-specific layer: bank feeds and reconciliation, AI-assisted categorization, invoicing with online payments, 1099 tracking for expert witnesses and court reporters, custom reports, audit logging, and multi-company support. The Law Firm Edition is a workflow built on top of a serious accounting platform — not a side module.
Neither. The Law Firm Edition is a feature flag inside standard BizBooks Pro, active on the Pro tier and above. Same installer, same database, same license — the ⚖️ Law Firm section simply appears in the sidebar.
Three server-enforced rules. First, a trust drawdown can only be applied to an invoice belonging to the same client whose balance is being drawn — the invoice picker won't even show other clients' bills. Second, any outflow that would push a client's balance below zero is rejected outright, regardless of how much money the bank account holds in total. Third, trust entries are write-once: the only correction mechanism is a void that leaves the original visible with a recorded reason.
One atomic action posts four lines: Debit Funds Held in Trust (releasing the liability), Credit the IOLTA bank account, Debit your operating bank account, and Credit Accounts Receivable — plus the payment application on the invoice and the subledger entry. Your books, the client's ledger, and the invoice all move together or not at all.
Both. Leave the matter blank on a deposit and the balance is held at client level across all their matters. Pick a matter and the funds are segregated per case, with outflows checked against that matter's balance specifically. Mix the two approaches freely — whatever your engagement letters specify.
You enter the bank statement balance plus deposits in transit and outstanding checks. BizBooks Pro computes the other two sides itself — the IOLTA general-ledger balance and the sum of every client's subledger — and renders BALANCED or OUT OF BALANCE before you save. Out-of-balance runs can only be saved with a written variance explanation, and every run is stored permanently with the reconciler's name.
Yes, and that's supported directly: flag each bank account as its own trust account with its own state bar code. Ledgers, balances, and reconciliations stay completely separate per account.
Fully supported. The settlement worksheet computes the standard waterfall — gross recovery, case costs reimbursed off the top, contingency fee on the remainder, client net — with every figure editable to match the negotiated deal. Distribution posts one atomic journal (fee to income, costs reimbursed, firm share to operating, client net from trust) under the same balance guards as every trust outflow, and the signable settlement statement PDF prints from the recovery record. Hard costs the settlement paid back are automatically marked non-billable so the client is never charged twice.
Enter the vendor bill normally, then tag it to the matter as a hard cost (filing fees, experts — passes at cost) or a soft cost (copies, postage — your firm's default markup applies, overridable per cost). Bill WIP pulls unbilled costs onto the draft invoice next to the time, with the vendor and bill number on each line.
Yes. Under the hood it's standard double-entry: a bank asset, a matching trust liability, and ordinary journal entries. The General Ledger, Balance Sheet, and Income Statement read like any accounting platform's. The legal layer adds enforcement and reporting on top without inventing new financial structures.
Nothing beyond the Pro tier you'd already buy. There is no per-seat legal surcharge, no per-matter fee, and no separate trust-accounting subscription — which is the point, given what the legal-specific suites charge.
Free for 30 days. Full Law Firm Edition. Your trust ledger will thank you.