Free Template for Law Firms
A chart of accounts that keeps your trust books clean and your revenue honest.
The QuickBooks-ready template we build for the law firms we serve — 59 accounts, operating and trust kept strictly apart, and a plain-English note on what every one is for.
Most firms start from QuickBooks’ generic account list, and it quietly works against them. Retainers get counted as income before they’re earned. Client costs you front get buried in expenses. Trust money blurs into operating. None of it looks wrong on the screen — until tax time, or a bar audit, when the numbers can’t back you up. The fix isn’t complicated. It’s structure, done right from the start.
What’s inside
✓Operating and trust, strictly separated — with the asset-and-liability pairing your three-way reconciliation depends on.
✓Retainers handled as unearned — so advance money sits as a liability until you’ve earned it, not as revenue you’ll owe tax on.
✓Advanced client costs as an asset — tracked and cleared the clean way, so fronting a filing fee never inflates your income.
✓A QuickBooks Online import file — plus a walkthrough tab that explains every account in plain English.
✓Sized for a real firm — 59 numbered, sectioned accounts: enough visibility, none of the clutter.
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From Cypress Books — bookkeeping & CFO-level reporting for law firms.