How to do a monthly trust reconciliation in under 20 minutes

Most RCIC firms dread the first of the month because that's when the trust reconciliation runs. What should be a 20-minute sanity check turns into a half-day of spreadsheets, bank logins, and anxious coffee. Here's the checklist that keeps it to 20 minutes — plus the order we recommend for hunting variance when the three totals don't match.

The three totals

A CICC-compliant trust reconciliation is always three numbers for the same date:

1. Bank. The closing balance on your trust account statement for the last day of the month.
2. General ledger. The trust-liability account total in your accounting system on the same date.
3. Client subledger. The sum of every client trust balance on the same date.

If the three numbers agree to the penny, you're done. If they don't, the order below finds the variance fast.

The 20-minute checklist

1. Pull the bank statement. 2 minutes. Download the PDF, note the closing balance.
2. Pull the GL balance. 2 minutes. In QuickBooks or Xero, run a balance sheet for the month-end date and read the trust-liability account.
3. Pull the subledger total. 1 minute. In AnyImmi, this is the Trust Reconciliation worksheet — the subledger sums automatically.
4. Compare. 30 seconds. All three equal? Done. Move on.
5. If variance exists: use the hunt order below.

The variance-hunt order

There are four common causes for a trust variance. Check them in this order because they're ordered from most to least likely.

1. Timing — transactions in flight

A client's retainer cheque hasn't cleared yet. A trust-to-operating transfer posted in the bank but not the GL. This is almost always the cause if the variance is small and recent.

Fix: list every transaction in the last 5 business days that hasn't cleared. Deduct them from the bank balance. Re-check. If balanced, you're done — note the timing items in the worksheet.

2. A transaction hit the wrong side

The bookkeeper coded a retainer to operating instead of trust. A refund posted to the wrong client. The GL thinks money went out; the subledger thinks it didn't.

Fix: compare the GL activity report to the bank statement line-by-line for the month. Every bank line should have exactly one GL line. Where a bank line is missing from the GL (or vice-versa), that's the culprit.

3. A subledger entry is missing or duplicated

This happens when case staff manually update trust balances instead of letting the CRM post them. If you're on AnyImmi, you can't edit a trust balance directly — but imports from a previous system can leave duplicates.

Fix: run the subledger activity report. Sort by client. Look for two transactions on the same day with the same amount — one is probably a duplicate. Or a missing transaction where a client's balance jumps without a corresponding posting.

4. Bank error

Rare, but it happens. Wire fees, reversed transactions, bank-side corrections. If you can't find the variance in steps 1-3, call the bank.

A worked example

Last month at a Toronto firm we helped:

• Bank: $184,302.10
• GL: $183,802.10
• Subledger: $184,302.10

Bank and subledger agreed. GL was $500 low. Timing? No — the variance was static over three days. GL-vs-bank line check revealed a $500 retainer was coded to operating-revenue instead of trust-liability. Bookkeeper fixed it in five minutes. Total reconciliation time: 18 minutes, including the fix.

What to document

Every month, for every reconciliation, keep:

• The three totals and the date they're computed as of.
• Any variance items and how they were resolved.
• The sign-off: who ran the reconciliation and when.

On AnyImmi, the Trust Reconciliation worksheet captures all three automatically. When balanced, it stamps the reconciliation as ready and exports a branded PDF for your records.

What not to do

• Don't reconcile quarterly. Variance compounds. A $200 mistake in month 1 becomes a $200 mistake to find in 90 days of transactions, not 30.
• Don't fix variance by moving money. If operating money is short $500, putting $500 in from operating “to balance” is a bylaw violation. Find the entry that's wrong and correct it.
• Don't skip a month. Even if there were no client transactions — even if the firm was closed for December — run the reconciliation. The record that it was done matters.

If trust reconciliation still eats half a day at your firm, book a 15-minute walkthrough — we'll show you how the worksheet lands in AnyImmi and answer the “but how do we handle X” questions live.