Accounts, tax, client account bookkeeping and partner drawings for Liverpool law firms — from a practice that acts for law firms and nothing else.
The short version. Liverpool is in England. 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 UK income tax rates and bands, and property transactions attract Stamp Duty Land Tax. We work with Liverpool law firms remotely, and only with law firms.
Liverpool has a distinct regional profile: a large independent and high-street market, a long history in volume claims and personal injury work, and a Business and Property Courts district registry added after the original five.
Volume claims work produces a financial pattern you do not see in a commercial firm. The lockup is disbursement-heavy rather than work-in-progress-heavy — medical reports, court fees and experts paid out long before any recovery — so the firm is effectively lending money to its own caseload. Funding that properly, and knowing which case types actually return the outlay, is the difference between growth and a cash crisis dressed up as growth.
Alongside that sits a deep high-street market doing conveyancing, family, crime and private client. Publicly funded work brings its own accounting: rule 12.2(a) exempts a firm from the Accountant's Report where all the client money it holds is money received from the Legal Aid Agency, which is a genuinely useful exemption and one that very few mixed practices actually satisfy.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority regulates solicitors and law firms in England and Wales, and the SRA Accounts Rules are the rulebook for your client account. Everything else on this site applies to you without translation: the rule 12 Accountant's Report, the rule 12.2 exemption at an average of £10,000 and a maximum of £250,000, the five-weekly three-way reconciliation in rule 8.3, and the rule 4.3 requirement to deliver a bill or other written notification of costs before transferring client money to pay your own fees.
One change is coming. On 2 June 2026 the SRA announced that it has submitted a package of client money rule changes to the Legal Services Board and said that, subject to approval, it expects the new rules in force by early 2027. Under that package every firm holding client money would submit its report to the SRA rather than only firms whose report is qualified, with an annual declaration alongside it and the reporting accountant filing directly. It is not law yet. It is close enough to plan for.
A personal injury practice's client account moves in large, irregular amounts — damages in, deductions and disbursements out — and both the rule 12.2 thresholds are usually passed. Rule 5.3 matters here more than most places: you may only withdraw client money if you hold sufficient funds for that specific client, so a shortfall on one file can never be covered from another.
Liverpool gained a Business and Property Courts district registry on 9 February 2018, after the original five, so High Court chancery, commercial and insolvency work for Merseyside is heard locally. The city's civil and family court work sits alongside it.
Liverpool Law School, part of the University of Liverpool's School of Law and Social Justice, and the law school at Liverpool John Moores University both recruit into the local market. Firms here often grow their own fee earners from paralegal level up, which is cheaper than lateral hiring and considerably slower to show in fee income.
In a Liverpool claims practice the first thing we look at is unrecovered disbursements by case type and by age, because that is where the firm's cash has gone. Money paid out for medical reports, court fees and experts is money lent to the caseload, and the return on it arrives long after the outlay. A practice can grow its case volume, grow its outlay and shrink its bank balance at the same time, and the profit and loss will not show it. The disbursement ledger will.
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. Liverpool is in England, 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 Liverpool 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.
As what it is: money the firm has lent to its own caseload. Disbursements the firm is itself liable for are the firm's cost, not client money, and money held for them can fall within the rule 2.2 route rather than the client account, provided the client has been told in advance where it is held. In management terms the number to watch is unrecovered disbursements by case type and by age, because that is where the cash has gone. A practice can be genuinely profitable and still run out of money if the outlay per case is growing faster than the recovery cycle.
The ones rule 8 requires you to keep anyway. Client ledgers by client name and matter description, showing the client side and business side separately; a list of all client ledger balances with a running total; a cash book with a running total; bank statements obtained at least every five weeks for client and business accounts; and the five-weekly three-way reconciliation signed off by the COFA or a manager. Rule 8.4 adds a readily accessible central record of all bills and other written notifications of costs, which is what evidences your rule 4.3 transfers. Rule 13 requires all of it kept for at least six years.
No. We work remotely with law firms across England 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 England 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.
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.