CORE SERVICE
Legal Bookkeeping built for law firms. Only.
Your firm’s finances are more complex than a typical small business — and they deserve more than a general bookkeeper. Ethnum handles every aspect of your firm’s day-to-day financial records so your books are always accurate, tax-ready, and built specifically for a law firm.
What Ethnum delivers
What Is Legal Bookkeeping?
The financial foundation every law firm needs — and most get wrong.
Legal bookkeeping covers the complete financial records of your law firm itself — income, expenses, payroll, billing reconciliation, accounts receivable, and operating account reconciliation. It is entirely separate from trust accounting and requires a different set of skills, workflows, and law-firm-specific expertise.
The biggest mistake firms make is hiring a general bookkeeper who doesn’t understand law firm accounting. They miss matter-based expense tracking, miscategorize attorney draws, fail to reconcile billing to actual collections, and create records that are inaccurate when your CPA needs them most.
Ethnum handles legal bookkeeping exclusively for law firms. Our team understands the specific financial structure of a legal practice — from contingency fee accounting and evergreen retainer management to partner distributions and operating account reconciliation. Clean books, every month, without chasing.
Scope
Operating finances — separate from trust accounts
Expertise
100% law-firm-specific — not adapted from general bookkeeping
Reporting Frequency
Monthly — P&L and reports delivered on a fixed schedule
Tax Readiness
Always tax-ready — not scrambled together at year-end
Your Point of Contact
One dedicated accountant who knows your firm's finances
What's Included
Everything your firm's books need — handled completely.
Every line item below is performed by your dedicated Ethnum accountant, every month, without you asking. This is what law-firm-specific bookkeeping actually looks like.
Operating Account Reconciliation
Your firm's operating bank account reconciled every month — every transaction categorized, every balance confirmed, and every discrepancy identified and resolved before it compounds.
- Monthly bank statement reconciliation
- All transactions posted and categorized
- Discrepancies traced and resolved immediately
Income & Expense Tracking
Every dollar in and every dollar out, categorized correctly against a chart of accounts built specifically for law firms — not repurposed from a restaurant or retail template.
- Law-firm-specific chart of accounts
- Fee income, cost recoveries, and expenses tracked
- Matter-based and overhead expense separation
Accounts Receivable Management
Your billing and collections activity reconciled against your actual deposits — so you always know what's been billed, what's been collected, and what's still outstanding.
- Billing-to-collection reconciliation each month
- Outstanding invoice aging tracked
- Write-offs and adjustments documented properly
Payroll & Overhead Bookkeeping
Payroll, contractor payments, rent, insurance, and all other firm overhead expenses recorded accurately and consistently — so your P&L reflects the true cost of running your practice.
- Payroll entries posted and reconciled monthly
- Contractor and vendor payments categorized
- Partner draw and distribution tracking
Monthly Financial Reports
A clean, attorney-friendly profit and loss statement and balance sheet delivered monthly — giving you a clear view of your firm’s financial health.
- Monthly P&L statement with year-to-date comparison
- Balance sheet updated monthly
- Practice-area or attorney-level breakdowns available
Tax Preparation Support
Your books are maintained in a CPA-ready format — no year-end scramble or reconstructed records. We also coordinate directly with your tax preparer.
- Year-end financial package prepared and organized
- Direct coordination with your CPA
- 1099 preparation support for contractors and vendors
HOW IT WORKS
From your first month to every month after — here's the process.
Once onboarded, your legal bookkeeping runs automatically on a fixed monthly schedule. You receive clean financials — you don’t produce them.
The Problem We Solve
What goes wrong without legal bookkeeping specialists.
These aren’t hypothetical risks. These are the exact situations Ethnum clients came to us to escape.
Hiring a bookkeeper who doesn’t understand law firms
A bookkeeper trained on retail or service businesses may miscategorize legal income, mishandle partner draws, and create inaccurate financials.
- Every Ethnum bookkeeper is trained exclusively in law firm accounting — not adapted from a general practice.
Books falling behind with no clear financial picture
When bookkeeping slips, small errors build up over time. By the time you need accurate financials, you're rebuilding records from memory.
- Monthly bookkeeping on a fixed schedule keeps your books current and audit-ready.
Billing not reconciled to actual collections
Firms that don’t reconcile billing against deposits often overestimate revenue and may not catch the gap until year-end.
- Ethnum reconciles your billing and collections every month so you always know your true cash position.
Tax season with disorganized or incomplete records
Handing your CPA a pile of bank statements and a QuickBooks file full of uncategorized transactions costs you time, increases your accounting bill, and risks errors on your return.
- Every Ethnum client arrives at tax season with clean, organized, CPA-ready financials — every year, without exception.
Ethnum Bookkeeping Checklist
Operating account reconciled — every transaction posted, categorized, and confirmed
Billing reconciled to collections — invoiced revenue matched against actual bank deposits
Payroll and draws recorded correctly — all compensation entries posted and categorized
Trust and operating accounts fully separated — no commingling in your financial records
P&L and balance sheet updated — accurate financial reports delivered for the month
Outstanding receivables aged and reported — collections visibility maintained at all times
Before Ethnum: most new clients have at least 3–5 months of uncategorized or inaccurate transactions
96
Average Books Accuracy Score
After 90 days with Ethnum, clients average a 96/100 bookkeeping accuracy rating — up from an average of 58 at onboarding.
Who This Is For
Legal bookkeeping for every kind of law firm.
Whether you’re a solo practitioner or a growing multi-attorney firm, if your books need to be accurate and your finances need to be organized, this service is built for you.
Solo Practitioners
You're handling everything alone — and bookkeeping is one of the highest-risk tasks to manage without expertise. We take it completely off your plate so you can focus on practicing law, not accounting.
Small & Mid-Size Firms
Multiple attorneys, multiple income streams, and a financial structure that gets more complex every month. We maintain accurate books and give every partner a clear view of firm performance.
Firms Switching Bookkeepers
Left with inaccurate records from a general bookkeeper who didn't understand legal accounting? We audit what was done, correct what needs correcting, and rebuild your books on solid ground.
Firms with Messy or Behind Books
Behind on bookkeeping? Transactions piling up uncategorized? We clean everything up first — no matter how far behind — then maintain your accounts going forward. No judgment, just solutions.
Growing Firms
Adding attorneys, expanding practice areas, and scaling revenue? Your bookkeeping infrastructure needs to scale with you. We grow alongside your firm and keep your financials clean at every stage.
Firms Needing Tax-Ready Books
If your CPA spent more time cleaning up your records last year than preparing your return, something needs to change. We maintain books in exactly the format your tax preparer needs — month after month.
Why It's Different for Law Firms
Law firm finances aren't like any other business. Your bookkeeper shouldn't be either.
General bookkeepers are trained on standard small-business accounting. Law firms have unique structures, workflows, and compliance obligations that require specialized expertise.
100%
Law-firm-exclusive focus — no general business clients
48h
Typical onboarding time from signed agreement to live
Monthly
Fixed reporting cadence — P&L and reconciliation every month
0
Year-end tax scrambles for Ethnum-managed firms
Law-firm-specific bookkeeping areas we handle:
- Operating vs. trust account separation — firm finances and client funds tracked and reported with strict separation at all times
- Matter-based expense tracking — costs advanced on behalf of clients tracked per matter and reconciled against reimbursements
- Contingency fee accounting — contingency income recognized and recorded correctly when settlements are received and disbursed
- Partner draw and distribution recording — attorney compensation, equity draws, and profit distributions handled with precision across all firm structures
- Billing-to-collection reconciliation — invoiced revenue tracked against actual deposits so your revenue picture is always accurate, not just estimated
- Evergreen retainer accounting — retainer replenishment cycles tracked and recorded correctly to prevent revenue recognition errors
Your Monthly Deliverables
What lands in your inbox every month — without you asking.
Three deliverables. Fixed schedule. No chasing. Your dedicated Ethnum accountant prepares, reviews, and sends everything — you just receive it.
- Delivered by the 10th
Profit & Loss Statement
Your firm's income and expenses for the month — clearly categorized, compared to prior periods, and formatted so you can actually understand your financial position at a glance.
- Revenue by income type or practice area
- Operating expenses fully categorized
- Month-over-month and year-to-date comparisons
- Net income confirmed and reconciled to bank activity
- Delivered by the 10th
Operating Account Reconciliation
Your firm’s operating bank account fully reconciled — every transaction posted, every balance confirmed, and a report matching your books to the penny.
- All monthly transactions posted and categorized
- Outstanding items identified and aged
- Bank balance matched against book balance
- Updated Monthly
Accounts Receivable Summary
A complete picture of what's been billed, what's been collected, and what's still outstanding — so you always know your true collections position and where your follow-up effort should go.
- Total billed vs. total collected for the month
- Outstanding invoice aging by client
- Write-offs and adjustments documented
- Collection rate trend tracked month-over-month
Works With Your Stack
We plug into the software you already use.
No migration, no disruption. We connect directly to your existing practice management and accounting software—typically configured within 48 hours of onboarding.
What Attorneys Say
From attorneys who finally have books they can trust.
Common Questions
Legal bookkeeping — answered plainly.
Legal bookkeeping covers the financial records of your law firm itself — income, expenses, payroll, accounts receivable, and operating account reconciliation. IOLTA trust accounting covers client funds held in trust, which must be kept completely separate from firm finances. Ethnum handles both, and many clients use us for both services together.
Yes. A CPA typically handles tax preparation and year-end accounting — not monthly bookkeeping. Clean monthly books are what make your CPA's job accurate and efficient. Ethnum maintains your books monthly so your CPA has organized, accurate records at tax time. Most of our clients continue working with their existing CPA.
We work with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and most major legal practice management platforms including Clio, MyCase, Smokeball, and PracticePanther. We connect to the software you already use — no migration required. If you don't have accounting software configured, we can recommend and set up the right option for your firm.
Yes — this is one of our most common onboarding scenarios. We've cleaned up law firm books with backlogs of 2+ years. We work through the backlog systematically, reconcile every account to a clean baseline, and then maintain your books monthly going forward. Most clean-ups are completed within 2–6 weeks.
Significantly. Law firms have unique financial structures — the strict separation of operating and trust accounts, billing and collections workflows, matter-based expense tracking, contingency fee accounting, partner draw distributions, and bar-compliance considerations that a general bookkeeper is simply not trained to handle. Ethnum bookkeepers are trained exclusively in law firm accounting.
Pricing is customized by firm size, transaction volume, and the scope of services required. Most solo and small firm engagements range from $500–$1,500/month — typically 60–70% less than an in-house bookkeeper or office manager handling the books. Schedule a call for a firm-specific quote.
Ready for books that areclean, accurate, and done?
Schedule a free 20-minute discovery call. We’ll review your current bookkeeping setup, identify any gaps, and show you exactly what Ethnum will do differently — with no obligation.