Outsourced Legal Accounts
In the aftermath of pandemic, more law firms have turned to flexible working for their staff and reduced their office space. This means it is a perfect time to consider outsourcing your back office functions, in particular your legal accounts department.
The Law Factory provides an Outsourced Accounts service for Solicitors and Law Firms which is both efficient and cost effective. It allows our clients to maintain their accounts to a high standard without the need for a daily presence in their office.
Why outsource legal accounts?
Outsourcing comes with a number of benefits to law firms and other businesses. Having an external legal accounts team means that you will have cover all year long without having to manage during accounts staff holidays. It is also easy for law firms to increase or decrease the level of their outsourced work according to their needs, rather than having to recruit if business increases significantly or make back office staff redundant if work takes a downturn. Outsourcing your legal accounts is also a cost effective solution as there are no tax, NI or PAYE costs to bear for the accounts team.
The service operates in the following way:
- Initial discussions are carried out with the partners to decide the best way to provide us with the accounts information.
- The information is then posted onto your accounts package by one of our highly trained accounts assistants.
- They deal with reconciliations of the bank accounts, VAT, and month end procedures as well as sorting out any queries with you as they arise.
They will also deal with any historic issues you may have including residual balances on a solicitor’s client account ledger.
- Your accounts will be reviewed regularly to ensure your systems are running as efficiently as possible.
- The month end reports are securely stored digitally and emailed to the partners each month.
- We liaise closely with your accountants to ensure that audits run as smoothly as possible.
- As a legal accounts team, we are able to offer continuity of service during holiday and sickness periods.
In addition to the basic service outlined above, we are able to give you advice and assistance with the following matters:
- Choosing the right accounts software package. We are experienced in dealing with the majority of good legal accounts software packages
- Assisting you with migration from one software package to another, in some cases project managing this on your behalf.
- Choosing good reliable accountants with a strong legal team.
- Setting up budgets, cash-flows and management procedures tailor-made to your business to ensure your office runs as smoothly as possible.
- Organising payment of your suppliers, staff and tax authorities online to save you valuable fee earning time.
- Restructuring your business systems and pushing the firm forward
Choosing the Right Outsourced Accounts Team
It is important when choosing your outsourced accounts team to make sure that they are an established company whose staff have the necessary qualifications to be able to provide a high standard of work. Using a firm which has a full knowledge of the SRA Accounts Rules is vital if your business’ accounts are to be compliant. You should also choose a company who are prepared to adapt to your way of working so that managers and staff have confidence that the outsourced team are a true part of their firm.
The Law Factory has been providing outsourcing work for law firms for over twenty years and indeed were acting as a remote back office before it became popular. Our staff have therefore been brought up with the ethos that they must become part of the firms they work for. Our experience allows us to pick the right staff member or members for each firm as all our staff have different skills and areas of expertise.
Expertise in Legal Accounts
The Law Factory has an in-depth knowledge of the different computer accounts software packages available. This means we can take over the accounts without further training being needed and are also experienced in helping the firm migrate their data from one package to another.
At The Law Factory we are happy to tailor our service to your business needs. Some firms will only need a basic bookkeeping function where other firms will be looking for assistance with their cashflows, budgets and management accounts. Now is therefore a great time to consider moving to outsourcing with The Law Factory.