Legal accounts your reporting accountant can follow.
ClearMatter runs a double-entry legal ledger built for regulated practice: entries that cannot be edited after the event, client money rules enforced at the point of posting, approval-gated transfers, reconciliation with sign-off, and Making Tax Digital VAT returns.
- Client and office balances visible on every matter
- Corrections made as reversing entries, never amendments
- Bank statement import, matching and signed-off reconciliation
- Aged work in progress, aged debt and profit and loss reporting
Every penny of client money, provable.
Nothing in the ledger can be edited after the event. A correction is a reversing entry, never a quiet amendment — so the history a reporting accountant asks for is the history that's there.
And at matter level, you see the whole position in one screen: client and office balances, disbursements, work in progress and what's left to bill. No running three reports to answer one question.
- Client money rules checked before a posting is accepted, not after
- Client-to-office transfers routed for approval — no self-approval
- Bank statements imported, matched, adjusted and signed off
- Completion statements, invoices, credit notes and write-offs from matter data
- SDLT and Land Registry fee calculators built in
- VAT returns prepared and submitted to HMRC under Making Tax Digital
- Purchase ledger for supplier bills, expenses and disbursements
The controls that make it defensible
Client money is not a reporting problem to solve at month end. These are enforced as the work happens.
Client money checked before posting
Client money rules are evaluated as part of accepting a posting. A posting that would breach them does not reach the ledger in the first place.
Nothing can be quietly amended
Journal entries, journal lines and postings are written once. Corrections are made as reversing entries, so the original and its correction are both visible.
Approval-gated transfers
Client-to-office transfers are raised as requests and routed to an approver. Nobody can approve their own, and the decision is recorded.
Reconciliation with sign-off
Import a statement, let ClearMatter match what it can, resolve the rest, then sign the reconciliation off. The sign-off is part of the record.
Billing that starts from the work
Invoices raised from work in progress for one matter or in bulk, with credit notes, write-offs, completion statements, and SDLT and Land Registry calculators.
VAT under Making Tax Digital
Connect to HMRC, retrieve your VAT obligations, prepare the return from ledger data and submit it — without rekeying figures into a portal.
Legal accounting questions
What cashiers, COFAs and reporting accountants ask first.
- How does ClearMatter protect client money?
- Client money rules are evaluated before a posting is accepted, not reported on afterwards. A posting that would breach them does not go on the ledger. Transfers from client account to office account are raised as requests and routed for approval, and nobody can approve their own request.
- Can an entry be changed or deleted after posting?
- No. Journal entries, journal lines and postings are written once and never amended or removed. A correction is made as a reversing entry, so the original transaction and its correction are both visible. The same applies to the audit record.
- How does bank reconciliation work?
- You import a bank statement, ClearMatter matches statement lines against ledger postings automatically, you confirm or adjust the matches it could not resolve, and then sign the reconciliation off. The sign-off is recorded and cannot be quietly rewritten.
- Can we submit VAT returns to HMRC?
- Yes. ClearMatter connects to HMRC under Making Tax Digital, retrieves your VAT obligations, prepares the return from ledger data and submits it.
- What financial reporting is included?
- Aged work in progress, aged debt, profit and loss, fee earner productivity, matters carrying work in progress, and VAT. Reports and exports are filtered to what the person requesting them is permitted to see.
- Does it handle supplier bills and disbursements?
- Yes. A purchase ledger covers suppliers, bills, direct expense payments and quick expenses, so disbursements are recorded against the matter as they are incurred rather than reconstructed at billing time.
Explore the rest of ClearMatter
Time recording
Time that gets recorded because nobody has to remember it.
AML & compliance
Screening, verification and source of funds recorded as you onboard.
Client portal
Quote, onboard, verify and get paid in one guided journey.
Outlook & Word
File email and draft documents without leaving Outlook or Word.
Matters & workflow
Design how your firm runs a matter type, then run every matter that way.
See it against your own matters
Click through the interactive demo now, or book a walkthrough and we'll run it on the kind of work your firm actually does.