Clio's Trust Ledger Report is designed to give firms a detailed breakdown of client and matter transactions, including payments, disbursements, and transfers, across trust accounts. This report is categorized by client trust account, date, source/recipient, reference, matter, funds out and in, and balance.
Note: This report is available on all of Clio's plans. UK and EMEA customers should see Client Account Ledger.
Generate the report
To generate this report:
- In Clio Manage, select Reports in the left navigation menu.
- Click Client or scroll down to Client reports and select Trust ledger.
- Choose from several settings within the report options page to get the information you need for your report.
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- Trust accounts: select All accounts to view trust information for all trust accounts, or select Specific account to view trust information for one specific trust account.
- Select client:
- Select All clients to view data for all firm clients.
- Select Specific client to view data for a specific client.
- Show clients with zero balance: if you select this option, the report will show all clients with trust accounts regardless of the balance in their account.
Note: Selecting this option may result in closed matters appearing in the report since closed matters may have a $0.00 balance.
- Select practice area: the default setting for sorting by practice area is all practice areas. You also have the option to choose a specific practice area.
Note: If you sort this report by practice area, only data from the client's matters that have practice areas assigned will appear in the report. Learn more about practice areas by taking a look at this article.
- Select date range: you can filter your report results by choosing to see data in a specific date range. If a date range is specified, you will see transaction data specific to that date range.
- Breakdown detail level:
- Selecting Client will sort results by client and group all matter transactions in chronological order.
- Selecting Matter will sort results by matter. Matter transactions will have their own chronological order.
- Include opening balance: if you select this option, each trust account will include the opening balance.
Note: If you sort results by specific date range, selecting this option will help balance your figures since you will see a balance outside of the specified date range. If you select all date ranges and include this option, you will see a $0.00 opening balance to represent the beginning of the ledger.
- Display bank account summary: if you select this option, the report will show a Balance Summary section at the end that displays the account's current balance. If you sort results by specific date range, this section will show an opening balance that summarizes the transactions prior to the selected range and a closing balance that summarizes the account balance at the end of the date range.
- Display matter to matter transfer transactions: if you select this option, the report will show transactions that were transferred between a client's matters or transactions that were transferred from the client level funds to the client's matter. If you do not select this option, the report may show a negative matter balance.
- Output format: you can generate this report as a Web, PDF, or CSV version. The Web report will display in your Clio Manage browser window. Both the PDF and CSV file can be downloaded and printed.
What is a CSV file? A comma-separated values (CSV) file is a plain-text file that contains a list of data separated by commas. You an open a CSV file in almost any text editor or spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or Mac's built-in spreadsheet program Numbers.
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Click Generate report.
Report categories
When this report is generated, it will show all full and partial payments applied to invoices from trust accounts and transfers and deposits.
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- Date: this column displays the date that the transaction occurred in the account. Transactions include deposits, withdrawals, and transfer. Transactions that occur on the same day will appear in random order.
- Source/Recipient: this column displays the payment type. This is gathered from the Source/Recipient field in the new transaction window.
- Reference: this column displays data entered in the Reference field in the new transaction window.
- Matter: this column displays the matter that is linked to the transaction.
- Funds Out: this column lists withdrawals or payments from the account.
- Funds In: this column lists payments deposited into the account.
- Balance: this column displays the amount of money left in the account after each listed transaction.
- Matter/Client Total: these columns display the tally of Funds Out followed by Funds In. If you have transactions that are not linked to a client or matter this may account for discrepancies between your report total and your account total.
PDF/Web
The PDF and Web versions of the report have a separate Balance Summary section at the bottom of the report. This section lists the current balances of your accounts.
CSV
You can sort or remove columns and rows if you generate the report as a CSV, including sorting by matter number. Learn more about filtering and sorting reports in Excel by reading this article.
Frequently asked questions
What do I do if the total in my report is different from the total reflected in Accounts?
Go to your Accounts page and select the appropriate trust account. Click the matter or client header to sort the columns. This will show transactions that have no client or matter attached. These are floating balances that will not get accounted for in this report.
Is it possible to generate this report to only reflect client balances?
Not at this time. Please contact Clio Support if you would like to submit a feature request for this functionality.
Why does the balance at the bottom of the report not add up to the balance under each client or matter?
The Trust Ledger Report show client and/or matter transactions and balances. There is no information on transactions that might not belong to a matter or client (this includes transactions that have a matter, but no client. There must be a client associated with the transaction for the report to pull it up. As a result, adding up the balances on this report will not match the balance reported at the bottom of the report if there are any of these transactions. The balance on this report is simply reporting the balance of the account.
The Bank Account Activity Report is the better report for this as it will show all the transactions chronologically and the balance at the bottom should match the balance of the account. This is also a better report for comparing with a bank account statement to see where there could be a discrepancy.