Trust Regulations - Australia - Uniform Law (New South Wales/Victoria)

Modified on Mon, 14 Nov, 2022 at 12:59 AM

Actionstep has been examined by the Law Society of New South Wales (NSW) and has been certified to ensure compliance with the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) and the Legal Profession Unifrom General Rules 2015 (the Uniform Law). 

A public record of this can be found here: The Law Society of NSW - Compliant Software Packages

There are some differences in how the Uniform Law plug-in works to ensure compliance with the Uniform Regulations these are as below. 

Automatic holds placed on invoices

Uniform Law in New South Wales and Victoria requires that an invoice cannot be paid until 7 days after the invoice was presented to the client. This gives the client the ability to dispute any charges before their funds are applied to the invoice

Actionstep will automatically stop a user from making a payment to these invoices from trust to ensure that the firm is compliant with this requirement.

When you pay an invoice for a matter, you will see a notification beside any invoice with this restriction applied to it.

 

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Cost agreements to override the hold

Uniform Law allows you to remove a hold on an invoice when you have a cost agreement with the client. Actionstep will allow you to mark a matter as having a cost agreement in place so that you can apply funds from the trust to the matter immediately.

To show that you have a cost agreement for a matter go to the matter properties screen and click on the switch to show that the matter Has a cost agreement.

 

You can get to the matter properties screen by clicking on the little (i) next to the matter name in the matter screen.

 

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And then clicking the edit button 

 

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And then switching has cost agreement to on. 

 

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Trust Overdraw

In order for a system to accurately reflect the transactions in a Trust Account, there may be times when the account goes into Overdraw.

This could be the result of an error or a reversal. Actionstep will allow a Trust Overdraw (permission dictate who is able to process a reversal and who is not). 

 

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EFT Requisition Process

This is a Jurisdiction specific feature in order to comply with the new rules for New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. 

The requirement for a formal computerized EFT process

Electronic Funds Transfer Requisition Process - Sample one

This takes the scenario where a member of the firm raises a Requisition and the Payment links to the existing Requisition.

Create the EFT Requisition

Go to the EFT requisition (in this sample we have come from within the matter - this is also available in the main trust menu)

 

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Complete the fields (ensure the BSB and Account is in the account field)

 

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and hit save. 

 

This requisition can now be found under the main Trust Menu

 

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