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Your books are behind. Your trust account is a mess. You have been avoiding this for a while. That ends here.
No lecture. No judgment. Just a team that has seen this exact situation hundreds of times and knows exactly how to fix it - cleanly, accurately, and without making you feel worse about it than you already do.
First - you are not the only one
Most of the attorneys who contact us about backwork have been sitting on it for months. Some for years. They know something is off. They are not sure how bad it is. And because they are not sure how bad it is, looking at it feels worse than not looking at it.
That is not a character flaw. That is a completely predictable response to being a highly trained professional in one field who was handed the financial responsibilities of a business owner with no instruction and told to figure it out.
The attorneys who had a bookkeeper who didn't understand legal trust accounting. The ones who did their own books in a spreadsheet until the spreadsheet stopped making sense. The ones who delegated to a staff member and never checked in. They are all here for the same reason you are.
The mess is fixable. The starting point is just knowing what we are working with.
We do two kinds of backwork. Here is the difference.
Accounting Backwork
Your books are behind
Accounting backwork is kind of like a financial reconstruction project. We go back through your transaction history - however far back is needed - and we categorize, reconcile, and organize everything until your books reflect what actually happened in your firm.
When we are done, you have accurate historical financial records, financial statements you can actually read and trust, and a clean foundation to hand to your CPA at tax time or move forward into monthly bookkeeping.
Who needs this:
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Your books are months or years behind
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Your CPA is asking for financials you cannot produce
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You switched bookkeepers and the handoff was messy
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You did your own bookkeeping and stopped trusting it
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You are not sure what your books say because you have not looked at them in a while
What you become on the other side: Someone who knows exactly what their financials say. Someone whose CPA is not frantically reconstructing history at tax time. Someone who can finally look at their numbers without dread because they know the foundation is clean.
IOLTA Backwork
Your trust account history is not clean
IOLTA backwork is kind of like auditing a specific account where the stakes are much higher than getting the math right. Your trust account holds client funds. The bar association has rules about how those funds must be tracked and documented.
When trust accounting has not been done correctly - or has been done by a bookkeeper who did not understand legal trust accounting requirements - there are errors in the historical record that create real compliance risk.
We go back through your trust account history, rebuild the client ledger balances, match trust deposits and withdrawals, identify every discrepancy, and reconstruct the records until your historical trust accounting is accurate and documentable.
Who needs this:
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Your trust account balances do not match your bank records
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Your previous bookkeeper handled trust funds the same way as operating funds - because they did not know the difference
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You are preparing for a bar audit or have received a notice
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You have a nagging sense that something is off in your IOLTA and you have been hoping it would sort itself out
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You are switching firms or cleaning up after a bookkeeper departure and you do not know what state the trust records are in
What you become on the other side: Someone whose license is not sitting on top of a historical error they do not know about. Someone who could face a bar audit without their stomach dropping. Someone who knows their trust account history is clean because a team that specializes in legal trust accounting went through it line by line.
What working through backwork actually looks like
We start with a conversation, not a quote. Before we can tell you what it will take to clean up your books or your trust account, we need to understand what we are working with - how far back, which accounts, what software you are in, and what the current state of the records is.
From there, our team does a full review and tells you exactly what we found, what needs to be addressed, and what the path forward looks like. You do not get a surprise invoice. You get a clear scope, a clear timeline, and a team that knows how to work through this without making you feel like you are being reprimanded.
We do not rush it. Backwork done quickly and inaccurately is not backwork - it is just moving the problem forward. We reconstruct carefully, verify as we go, and deliver financial records you can actually stand behind.
When we are done, you have two choices: we hand the clean records back to you or your current bookkeeper, or you move into monthly bookkeeping with us so the records never fall behind again.
This is the right service if...
For accounting backwork:
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Your books have not been touched in 3 months or more
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Your last bookkeeper left and the handoff was incomplete or nonexistent
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You did your own books until you couldn't and you haven't looked since
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Your CPA keeps asking for things you can't find or produce
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You're about to bring on a new bookkeeper and you want to start them on clean records
For IOLTA backwork:
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Your trust account has never been formally reconciled with a 3-way reconciliation
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Your previous bookkeeper handled your trust account but did not specialize in legal trust accounting
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Your trust balance and your client ledger do not match and you have been hoping it would resolve itself
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You received something from the bar that made you look at your trust records and you did not like what you found
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You are switching bookkeepers and neither of you is sure what state the trust records are in
If you read that list and felt recognized - that is the sign. Book the call.
What you walk away with
For accounting backwork:
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You become someone whose historical books can be handed to a CPA, a new bookkeeper, or a potential buyer of your firm without embarrassment or a correction conversation.
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You stop carrying the anxiety of not knowing what your financial records actually say.
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You become ready to actually use your financial data to make decisions, instead of avoiding it because you don't trust it.
For IOLTA backwork:
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You become someone who could open a bar audit notice and know their trust records will hold up.
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The historical errors that were silently compounding in your trust records are gone - replaced with accurate documentation you can actually stand behind.
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You stop practicing law on top of a compliance risk you can't see.
Real law firm owners. Real financial transformations.
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Answers before you book
The hardest part is making the call. Everything after that gets easier.
Book a conversation with our team. We will ask a few questions about your situation, tell you what we are likely looking at, and give you a clear picture of what it would take to get your books and your trust account records clean. No obligation. No judgment. Just clarity.
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Not ready to talk yet?
Start with the free Trust Account Guide to understand what compliant IOLTA records look like: