Accounts, tax, client account bookkeeping and partner drawings for Cardiff law firms — from a practice that acts for law firms and nothing else.
The short version. Cardiff is in Wales. Your firm is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, your client account is governed by the SRA Accounts Rules, in force since 25 November 2019, and the annual obligation is an Accountant's Report under rule 12, obtained within six months of the accounting period end and delivered to the SRA only if it is qualified. Partners pay the Welsh Rates of Income Tax, set by the Senedd and held at 10p in each band for 2026/27, so the rates a Welsh partner pays are the same as an English partner's, and property transactions attract Land Transaction Tax. We work with Cardiff law firms remotely, and only with law firms.
Cardiff is the centre of the Welsh legal profession — national firm offices, a substantial independent commercial market, the SRA's Cardiff office, and a Business and Property Courts district registry serving Wales.
Cardiff firms are regulated exactly as English firms are, and that is the first thing to say plainly, because it is the part people get wrong in both directions. The SRA Accounts Rules apply in full. What is genuinely different sits beside them: devolved taxes, devolved law in housing, planning and social care, and a Welsh Government that legislates separately from Westminster in those areas.
For a conveyancing practice the devolved tax is not a curiosity. Land Transaction Tax has replaced SDLT in Wales since 1 April 2018, with its own rates, its own reliefs and the Welsh Revenue Authority as the filing authority. The money for it sits in your client account until it is paid, and a firm acting on English property as well is running two regimes through one account. Keeping them visibly separate in the ledger is what makes the reconciliation defensible.
England and Wales is one legal jurisdiction for this purpose, so a Welsh firm is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the SRA Accounts Rules apply in full. Nothing in rule 8.3, rule 4.3 or rule 12 reads differently in Cardiff than in Bristol. The SRA keeps an office in Cardiff alongside its Birmingham headquarters.
What is different sits one step away from the Accounts Rules and lands squarely on a conveyancing practice. Land Transaction Tax replaced Stamp Duty Land Tax in Wales on 1 April 2018. It has its own rates, its own reliefs and its own filing authority in the Welsh Revenue Authority, and the money for it passes through your client account on the way there. A firm acting on both sides of the Severn is running two property tax regimes, two sets of returns and two payees out of one client account, and the reconciliation has to keep them apart. The Senedd also legislates separately in devolved areas, so Welsh practice diverges from English practice in housing, planning and social care work.
A Welsh conveyancing practice's client account carries the same rule 12.2 test as an English one — an average of £10,000 and a maximum of £250,000 — and fails it for the same reasons. The Welsh difference is on the way out of the account: Land Transaction Tax goes to the Welsh Revenue Authority, SDLT goes to HMRC, and the ledger has to evidence which was which.
Cardiff was one of the first five Business and Property Courts district registries when the B&PCs came into operation on 2 October 2017, so High Court chancery, commercial and construction work for Wales is heard in the city. The SRA has an office in Cardiff alongside its Birmingham headquarters and its London office.
Cardiff University's School of Law and Politics is in the city, with the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at Swansea University and the law school at Aberystwyth University elsewhere in Wales. Welsh language capability is a genuine recruitment consideration for firms doing publicly facing work, and it is one of the few skills that reliably commands a premium in a regional market.
In a Cardiff practice the first thing we look at is how Land Transaction Tax money is handled in the client account and evidenced on the way out. It is the one operational difference between a Welsh and an English conveyancing file, it goes to a different authority on a different return, and a firm acting on both sides of the border is running two regimes through one account. After that the work is the same as anywhere in England and Wales: reconciliations, transfer evidence, lockup and the partner tax reserve.
Client account bookkeeping and the five-weekly three-way reconciliation. The firm's annual accounts, the partnership or corporation tax return, partner tax reserves and drawings, payroll, VAT and the management figures you run the firm on. All the preparation that decides whether the report is clean.
Buzz Accounting Ltd is licensed by the AAT and a member of the ICPA. It is not a chartered accountancy firm and not a registered auditor.
Colin Ellis, ICAEW and a Responsible Individual, prepares and signs the SRA Accountant's Report itself. Rule 12.5 of the SRA Accounts Rules requires a member of ICAEW, ICAS, ACCA or ICAI who is, or works for, a registered auditor — and only that person can sign it.
Anstey Bond LLP is a separate firm, registered for audit by the ICAEW. Companies House OC360626.
No, and it is worth saying why rather than just asserting it. Everything runs remotely — video and phone around your court and client commitments, records and approvals handled securely online — which is how most firms prefer it once they have tried it. What you gain by widening the search past your postcode is a practice that already knows the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the SRA Accounts Rules and what a three-way reconciliation is, without being taught. Tell us where your firm stands and we will tell you honestly whether we can add anything.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority. Cardiff is in Wales, and the SRA regulates solicitors and law firms across England and Wales, so the SRA Accounts Rules govern your client account. If you held or received client money at any point in the accounting period, rule 12.1 requires you to obtain an Accountant's Report within six months of the period end, and to deliver it to the SRA only if it is qualified. Rule 12.5 requires that report to be prepared and signed by a member of ICAEW, ICAS, ACCA or ICAI who is, or works for, a registered auditor.
Only to the parts of your practice the SRA authorises. A Cardiff firm authorised by the SRA is subject to the SRA Accounts Rules for the client money it holds through that body. Opening in Scotland or Northern Ireland does not extend those rules to the new practice: solicitors in Scotland are regulated by the Law Society of Scotland under rule B6 of its Practice Rules 2011, and solicitors in Northern Ireland by the Law Society of Northern Ireland under the Solicitors' Accounts Regulations 2014. Two regulators means two rulebooks, two reporting deadlines and two sets of records, and the bookkeeping has to be built for that from the start rather than reverse-engineered at the year end.
No. England and Wales is a single jurisdiction for solicitor regulation, so a Cardiff firm is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the SRA Accounts Rules apply without modification — the same rule 8.3 five-weekly three-way reconciliation, the same rule 4.3 bill-before-transfer requirement, and the same rule 12 Accountant's Report. That is different from Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have their own regulators and their own accounts rules. Where Wales does diverge is in devolved taxes and devolved law: Land Transaction Tax instead of SDLT, and separate Welsh legislation in housing, planning and social care.
Not at the moment, though the power to change it exists and sits with the Senedd. The Welsh Rates of Income Tax work by reducing each UK rate by 10p and letting the Senedd set a Welsh rate in its place. For 2026/27 the Welsh rate has been held at 10p in each of the basic, higher and additional bands, so a Welsh partner pays exactly what an English partner pays: 20%, 40% and 45% on the same thresholds, with the personal allowance at £12,570 and the higher rate threshold at £50,270. That is a political decision taken each year, not a fixed feature, which is why it is worth restating rather than assuming.
No. We work remotely with law firms across Wales and the whole UK, by video, phone and email, with records and approvals handled securely online. That is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation: it means the people looking at your figures work only with law firms, so nobody has to be told what lockup is, why a client account reconciliation is three-way, or what a fixed-share partner is. A firm two hundred miles away that already understands the Wales position starts from a different place than the nearest general practice accountant, who will spend the first meeting being taught how a law firm works.
Not every firm does. Rule 12.2 exempts you if all the client money you held or received in the period came from the Legal Aid Agency, or if the statement or passbook balance of client money did not exceed both an average of £10,000 and a maximum of £250,000. Both limbs of that second test must be met, and the average is worked out by adding up all your reconciliation balances and dividing by the number of reconciliations. Rule 2.2 goes further: a firm whose only client money is money for its own fees and unpaid disbursements can operate without a client account at all, provided it tells the client in advance where and how the money will be held.
A free, no-obligation conversation about where your client account and your firm's numbers actually stand. If we cannot add anything, we will say so.
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