Plain-English guides to the money and compliance side of running a law firm — the Accounts Rules, the client account, partner tax, lockup and structure. Written for the person who has to deal with it, not for a regulator.
Who must obtain one, the exemption that takes many firms out of it altogether, who is allowed to sign it, and what changes when the SRA's June 2026 rules take effect.
Read the guideEvery rule that matters, said once and said plainly — client money, the client account, billing before transfer, withdrawals, reconciliations, interest and records.
Read the guideThree figures, five weeks, one sign-off. What rule 8.3 requires, why two-way reconciliations fail, and what a difference usually turns out to be.
Read the guideApproval, the paragraph 9.2 duties, what counts as a serious breach, how quickly to report it, and the role separation the SRA has proposed for larger firms.
Read the guideThe £500 rule, the tracing you have to do first, the register you have to keep, and the hard timeframes the SRA has floated but not decided.
Read the guideThe eight conditions, HMRC's own list of what is and is not a solicitor's disbursement, and the property search position after Brabners and RCB 6 (2020).
Read the guideThe real arithmetic on 2026/27 rates, and the three SRA consequences — authorisation category, minimum PII and Accounts Rules 1.2 — that most comparisons leave out.
Read the guideWIP days plus debtor days, calculated properly, what a day of lockup costs in cash and interest, and why partners drawing against undrawn profit makes it worse.
Read the guideITTOIA 2005 ss.863A-863G explained: the three conditions, the 25% capital test, when to re-test, and what it costs the firm if a member is caught.
Read the guideAuthorisation category, the client money question, COLP and COFA, PII minimums, the Transparency Rules, VAT registration and what the SRA actually charges.
Read the guideWhat to demand before you sign: reconciliations, residual balances, the last Accountant's Report, WIP valuation, run-off, SRA approvals and the live 2026 consultation.
Read the guideEvery service caught, everything rule 1.5 requires, the digital badge and email rules, the fixed penalties, and a checklist that turns it into an afternoon's work.
Read the guideHow to use these
The guides fall into three groups, and most firm owners only ever need one of them at a time.
If the client account is the worry, start with the Accounts Rules in plain English, then the five-weekly three-way reconciliation, which is the single obligation a reporting accountant tests first and the one most firms are quietly doing two ways instead of three. If you are the COFA, the COFA guide sets out what the Code of Conduct for Firms actually puts on you, as opposed to what people assume it does. If money has been sitting on a closed matter for years, residual balances covers the £500 threshold and the conditions that come with it.
If the annual report is the worry, the Accountant's Report guide covers who must obtain one, the two-limb exemption that firms routinely read as an either/or, and the rule 12.5 test that decides who is legally permitted to sign it. It also covers the change the SRA submitted to the Legal Services Board on 2 June 2026, which — if approved — would require every firm holding client money to submit its report rather than only the firms whose reports are qualified.
If the firm's own economics are the worry, lockup explains why a profitable firm can have no cash, and LLP versus limited company gives the tax arithmetic alongside the two consequences most comparisons leave out: what incorporating does to your SRA authorisation category, and what it does to your minimum professional indemnity cover. The salaried members rules matter to any LLP with fixed-share partners, because failing all three conditions turns a member into an employee for income tax and puts employer National Insurance on their remuneration.
Two guides are for a moment rather than a worry: starting a firm and buying one. And the Transparency Rules guide is worth twenty minutes for any firm that publishes prices for conveyancing, probate, immigration, employment tribunal work, debt recovery or licensing — the SRA runs proactive web sweeps and the fixed penalties are real.
Every guide is written for the person who has to deal with the thing, not for a regulator, and every rule reference and figure on this site is checked against the SRA's own rules or GOV.UK before it is published. Prefer the short, topical reads? Browse the articles.
The guides cover the patterns; your firm is specific. A free conversation usually answers more than an afternoon of reading.
One short email: what has changed in the Accounts Rules, the dates coming up, and one number worth checking in your firm. No spam, unsubscribe any time.