How often must a licensed conveyancer reconcile the client account?

Under the CLC Accounts Code (England and Wales), bank reconciliation statements must be produced within seven days of each calendar month end. They compare the bank and cash book balances, list the reconciling items and reconcile the client bank accounts to the client account listing. Reconciling items must be reviewed and cleared promptly and any shortfall made good without delay. More frequent checks are a useful internal control, and in conveyancing most firms reconcile more often than the Code requires.

These answers provide general information, not advice tailored to your circumstances. Rules can change and exceptions may apply — speak to the CASS team before making a tax, accounting or financial decision.

What the Code asks for

Three things, in order. A bank reconciliation statement comparing the client cash account balance with the client bank statements and passbooks. A listing of every client and office ledger balance, with the total of the client ledger credit balances compared to that reconciliation. And a statement explaining the cause of any difference the comparison throws up.

The third one is the one firms skip. A difference without an explanation is not a reconciliation — it is a note that something is wrong.

The timing, precisely

Within seven days of each calendar month end. A reconciliation for the month ending 31 March is produced by 7 April.

Monthly is the regulatory floor, not a target. In conveyancing, where completion money arrives and leaves in the same week, weekly or daily checking is how a misposted receipt gets found before it becomes a shortfall.

Who signs it off

Review and sign-off arrangements are a firm control: in an ABS that is usually the Head of Finance and Administration, and in other practices an authorised person. We set the arrangement up to match your own compliance framework and the current Code rather than assuming a single model.

The principle behind it does not change: the person doing the posting should not be the only person who looks at the result. Under the CLC Accounts Code, managers are jointly and severally responsible for compliance, and outsourcing the cashiering does not move that responsibility.

How this differs from the SRA Accounts Rules

An SRA-regulated firm works to the SRA Accounts Rules: a reconciliation at least every five weeks, signed off by the COFA or a manager of the firm.

The CLC Accounts Code ties production to the calendar month: reconciliation statements within seven days of each month end.

If your firm does conveyancing under SRA regulation, the SRA Accounts Rules are the ones that apply to you. The CLC Accounts Code only binds CLC-regulated practices.