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IOLTA / Trust account reconciliation

Reconcile your IOLTA, or Trust account.

David S avatar
Written by David S
Updated over a week ago

True bank reconciliation is available in PracticePanther. Firms can easily manage and reconcile every payment made on an account by account basis. By using PracticePanther's Account Ledgers, you can mark transactions in your bank account as reconciled in order to keep up-to-date books and accurately track your trust account balances.

Watch the video tutorial or follow the steps below to reconcile your trust and operating accounts:

On the top of your screen, click "Payments", then click "Banks and Credit Cards", select "Bank Reconciliation" or click here.

From the dropdown list of accounts, select the account for which you wish to reconcile payments.

This is your Account Ledger page, where you will reconcile your payments. By using the Reconciled Status filter at the top of the page, you can navigate between your Payments that have been reconciled, and those not yet reconciled.

Based on the filters selected, the data bar at the top of the page will display the total amount of deposits and withdrawals.

The Total Amount Reconciled or Not Reconciled can be found at the bottom of the grid which includes the net sum of all Deposits and Withdrawals. This information can also be found on the Account Ledger grid.

Below is the full list of payments within this account. You can go item by item and reconcile these payments with your bank account.

  • Access an up-to-date version of your bank account ledger from your bank, and review your records in PracticePanther alongside them.

  • For each item that is in both PracticePanther and your Bank Account records, reconcile that record by clicking the 'Mark Reconciled' action button on the Account Ledger.

As items get reconciled they will move from the "Not Reconciled" to "Reconciled" filter views.


โ€‹Note: Reconciling a payment will lock this payment in PracticePanther, preventing it from being edited or deleted in the future. If you wish to edit or delete the payment after it's reconciled, be sure to filter to view Reconciled Payments, then click "Mark Not Reconciled" to unlock the payment for edit or deletion.

Trust Account Reconciliation Report

You can also click on "Trust Reconciliation Report" under the 'Print' options any time you want to see exactly where your trust account stands so far.

This is the Trust Account Reconciliation Page. You can choose between which trust account you'd like this report for through the filter at the top of the page.

  • Book Balance is the account's balance in PracticePanther

  • Uncleared Deposits are payments in this account that have not been reconciled yet

  • Uncleared Withdrawals are withdrawals from this account that haven't been reconciled yet

  • Bank Balance is the difference between the book balance and these un-reconciled amounts

You can scroll down to see a full list of all payments processed with this account with a full breakdown payment by payment.

Bank Account Ledgers Reports

To see a report of your Bank Account Ledger, simply click "Reports" on the top, or click here. Then click on either report depending on if you want to see your bank ledger by contact or matter as seen below.

This report will show you how much you've been paid in total and how much of that money is still sitting as retainer/credit as an "Unapplied Amount" in your contacts or matters.ย 

To see how much money you should currently have in your Trust account, select "Trust Account" in the "Payments In" filter found on the top left.

Above the list of payments, click "Choose Columns" found on the top right and make sure "Unapplied Amount" is enabled.

Scroll to the bottom of this report to see the total listed under the "Unapplied Amount" column. This total should be what you have in your trust account today.

Tip: To see what should have been in your trust account/escrow for a given month, make the date range on this report. This date range should start on any day before you started using PracticePanther, and the end date should be the end of the month you are interested in.
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For example, if you want to see how much money you should have had in your trust account for April 2025, the start date could be 4/1/2025 and the end date would be 4/30/25.ย 

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