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Managing Trust (or Client) Bank Accounts

NOTE:  In the UK, trust accounts are called client accounts. Throughout this article, any reference to a trust account also means a client account.

In order to edit trust bank accounts, nominate document and email templates, set up statement settings and system numbering for items like trust receipts, trust payments, and trust transfers, you must first configure your trust bank accounts. You must configure at least one trust account that transactions can be made to/from. If you have an interest-bearing trust (or IBD trust account), you'll need to set this up as well (by following the same steps).

 

To do this:

  1. In Actionstep Practice Management, go to Admin > Trust accounting. The Trust Accounting page appears.
  2. Choose whether you want to add a new bank account or edit an existing bank account:
    • To add a new account, in the Bank accounts section, click Add Bank Account. Or if you already have a bank account set up, click Add Bank Account (plus icon) next to the Bank accounts heading. 
    • To edit an existing bank account, click its ellipses icon and choose Edit bank account.
  3. On the Add / Edit Trust Bank Account window, provide the following details in the Account setup section:
    • GL Account: Select (or review) the active bank account from your Accounts List. By default, your system will come with a GL account for a trust current account.
    • Account Type: Choose between Current Account, Investment Account, Controlled Account, or Statutory Account, depending on your legal jurisdiction.
    • Status: Choose Open if transactions can be actively made to/from the account, or choose Closed if you want to close the account. This means you cannot select this trust account for any transactions.
  4. Provide the following details in the Bank account section:
    • Bank contact record: Select the contact record of the banking provider that the trust account was opened under. (See Creating a Contact for help setting up contacts.)
    • Account number: Enter the account number of the trust account.
    • Account name: Enter the name of the account (e.g., Jones Law Trust Current Account).
  5. In the Document templates and Email templates sections, toggle the option to on to use the default templates provided by Practice Management. If you want to use your own custom templates, toggle these options to off and provide the required information. (See Customizing Your Trust Account Templates in Actionstep to learn more.)
  6. Under Statement settings, toggle Use default settings to on to use the default settings set by Actionstep. If you want to format your own statements, toggle this option off and provide the required information:
    • Exclude empty Matters: Choose to exclude matters for which there have been no transactions within the specified period.
    • Exclude new Matters: Choose to exclude new matters where a trust account has been opened but there have been no transactions to the period end.
    • Exclude recent statement days: Prevents a statement being generated if a statement was previously generated within the specified number of days.

  7. Under System numbering, toggle Start all numbers from 1 to on to number your transactions starting with 1. This includes receipt, payment, and transfer numbers. If you need to choose a different numbering scheme, toggle this option to off and make your changes.

    NOTE:  If you are migrating from a different system to Actionstep Practice Management and you would like to keep the same numbering as your old system, use this option to set these numbers here.

  8. Click Save to save your changes.

 

Additional Resources:

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