Importing a trust ledger
If you keep your trust ledger somewhere else, you can bring it into CaseFlow as a file rather than retyping it. This is what makes the monthly close usable by a firm that does not run the rest of its practice here: the bank side takes a statement file, and the ledger side takes an export from whatever you use now.
You need this once, when you arrive. After that, deposits and disbursements are recorded as they happen.
What the file needs
A CSV export of the trust ledger for one trust account. One row per entry. Between them the rows need to carry:
- The date the entry was made
- The client the entry belongs to, by name
- The amount, either in one column or split across a money out and a money in column
- What kind of entry it is, if your export says (optional)
- A reference or check number, and a description or memo (optional, but keep them if you have them: they are what the close matches against your bank statement). A column of its own for check numbers goes in each entry's Check number, which the close compares with the number the bank prints on a paid check
Every entry in a trust ledger belongs to one client. A row that does not name one cannot be recorded, because a trust balance that is not attributable to a client is the thing a bar examiner is looking for.
Up to 2,000 entries in one file. If your history is longer, split it into one file per year and import the earliest year first. That is better practice anyway: the balance check below then tells you which year a discrepancy is in.
Before you upload
Have two things to hand, both from the system you are leaving, not from the file:
- What this trust account should hold once the file is in. The import is refused unless the entries add up to it.
- The date your old system had reconciled this account against the bank through, if it had. Optional.
Step 1: Upload
Go to Trust Accounts and click Import a trust ledger on the account card. Choose your file.
Step 2: Say which column is which
CaseFlow shows you the first rows of your own file and proposes a column for each field, guessing from your headings. Correct anything it got wrong.
Use either a single amount column or a pair of money out and money in columns, not both.
The kind of entry is optional. If you map a column for it, the words in that column have to be ones CaseFlow recognises: deposit, disbursement, transfer, interest, fee and the ordinary synonyms for each. A word it does not know stops that row rather than being guessed at, because a row your export took the trouble to label is a row whose label means something. If you do not map the column, money in is recorded as a deposit and money out as a disbursement.
This is also where you type the closing balance and, if you have one, the reconciled through date.
Step 3: Read what the import would do
Nothing has been recorded yet. This screen tells you:
- How many entries would be recorded, what they come to in and out, and what the account would hold afterwards against what you said it should hold
- Which clients would be created, by name
- Which entries cannot be recorded, and why
- Which rows could not be read, and what was wrong with each
- The first entries as CaseFlow read them, to check against your own ledger
- Every entry your reconciled through date would mark cleared, if you gave one, so you can tick any that had not cleared the bank by then
Read the list of clients it would create. A name there that looks like a client you already have means the two are spelled differently in the two systems, and their money would be kept in two separate ledgers. CaseFlow matches a name only when it is the same name once capitals and punctuation are set aside. It will not decide that "Smith, John" and "John Smith" are one person, because deciding that wrongly puts one client's money in another client's ledger.
Why the import can be refused
| It says | What it means |
|---|---|
| The entries do not reach the balance you stated | The difference is shown. Usually a money out and money in column mapped the wrong way round, a wrong column read as the amount, or an export that lost a page. |
| Some rows could not be read | Each is listed with its row number. All of them are fixed before any of them is recorded: half a ledger is worse than none, because the account then balances against nothing and the entries that were dropped cannot be told from entries that never existed. |
| A client would be left holding less than nothing | A withdrawal larger than what that client holds at that point. If your history starts partway through, add an opening entry for that client before its first withdrawal. |
| More than one client is already called that | CaseFlow will not pick one. Rename one of them first. |
| An entry is dated behind entries that already exist | History has to be imported before the entries that follow it. Each entry carries the balance the client held at the time, and that column is on the statement you send the client. |
| An entry is dated on or before the end of a month you have signed | A signed close covers its month as it stood, and every month before it is carried into it. Entries from before then cannot be added now. |
| Every entry has already been imported | The file has been imported before. Nothing is recorded twice. |
Step 4: Record them
Once you are satisfied, Record these entries records them. That cannot be undone. If any of them falls inside a month whose close has been run but not yet signed, CaseFlow runs that close again once the import finishes and says so on the result page. A trust entry is corrected with a reversing entry, never by deleting it, which is what your bar expects to see.
Each entry is recorded exactly as if you had typed it: the same balance checks, the same refusal to overdraw a client, and the same line in the trust audit trail. Your clients are not emailed about any of it, because these entries are history.
If it stops partway
Very large files can be cut off by the connection before they finish. Everything recorded before that point is correct and stays. Upload the same file again: CaseFlow recognises the entries that are already there, leaves them alone, and adds only the rest. Tick Still outstanding again beside any of the rest you are keeping outstanding: ticks are not kept from one upload to the next, and the screen reminds you.
Entries already reconciled against the bank
If you gave a reconciled through date, entries on or before it are recorded as already cleared by the bank, and entries after it stay outstanding. That matters for your first close: an outstanding entry is one the close asks you about, and three years of history that nobody has ticked off would come back as three years of outstanding items.
A reconciliation on that date usually still had items outstanding: a check written a few days before it that the payee had not yet presented, or a deposit the bank had not yet credited. Step 3 lists every entry the date would mark cleared. Tick Still outstanding beside each one your last reconciliation listed as outstanding, and click Update the summary. Those entries are recorded outstanding, so your first close looks for them on the bank statement. Left unticked, a check that was really outstanding is recorded as cleared, never appears on the close, and the month opens with a difference nobody can explain. The trust audit trail records which entries you kept outstanding.
Leave the date empty if you are not sure. You can tick entries off later on the Reconciliation screen. You cannot untick them, which is why CaseFlow does not assume a date for you.
After the import
Open the ledger and check it against your own. Then upload the bank statement for the first month you want to close and run the monthly close.
Who can do what
| Action | Required permission |
|---|---|
| Import a trust ledger | Trust: Create, the same permission as recording a deposit by hand |
| Import a file that names clients not yet in CaseFlow | Trust: Create and Clients: Create, because the import adds those clients |
Importing is on the Trust Close plan and on the free trial, once CaseFlow has switched the monthly close on for your firm (Switching it on).