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Transfer of Bank Institution For Trust Bank Accounts
Overview:
The transfer of bank institutions for trust bank accounts will require a physical transfer of funds (bank to bank) which can be negotiated by the affected bank institutions; however the options available to the organization on how to reflect the transfer within Acumin will depend on law-society requirements as well as firm policy.
Alternatives for Executing the Transfer of Funds:
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The Transfer Does Not Need to be Reflected in the Matter's Trust History:
If the firm is permitted to transfer the funds without keeping an audit trail of the bank institution transfer and associated cheque within the matters' trust history, then the funds would be physically transferred from one bank institution to the other in accordance with bank institution requirements, while keeping supporting physical information of the trust balances per matter per bank account as at the date of the transfer as prescribed by the permitting law-society.
In this case to conclude the process from a system perspective, the authorized user would modify the GL account properties of the trust accounts affected to reflect the new bank institution, new bank-account information and a new cheque number range. The latter facilitates the management of outstanding cheques and the bank reconciliation process which would be tied to two bank statements until the old cheques clear. With this option the trust history does not reflect any evidence of the transfer.
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The Transfer Needs to be Reflected in the Matter's Trust History
If the firm is required to transfer the funds leaving a clear audit trail of the transfer within the trust history, then the funds would need to be physically transferred from one bank institution to the other by cheque. In this case, the authorized user would need to prepare at a minimum one cheque per trust bank account (so that the correct bank account is listed on the MICR line) with the funds to be removed by matter in the distribution tab. We recommend that the distribution tab hold no more than 50 rows per cheque.
Each of these cheques would then need to be deposited into a new trust GL account for the new bank institution. The deposit should balance matter by matter to the corresponding cheque.
How to proceed:
