By Deborah Witkiss, COO of Legal Futures’ Associates Insight Legal
Setting the scene
Staying compliant with accounting regulations is an imperative of legal service providers. Yet headlines abound in trade publications of law firms failing to do so. Each headline is a stark reminder of our financial management obligations which take the form of the SRA Accounts Rules, CLC Accounts Code or Scottish Accounts Rules, depending upon the specialisms and location of the practice in question.
There is no denying that these rules are complicated. You could say it is the nature of the beast. Such governance is in place to protect the money of consumers of legal services. The sums at stake are considerable. You only need to think about property sales, for example, to appreciate the volumes handled by practices in an average day.
Oftentimes, failure to comply is deliberate. Embezzling funds is an unfortunate reality, even amongst those we revere as icons of honesty. Sometimes, however, breaches occur because of flaws, or a lack of guidance, from your accounting software.
As a…
