Florida professional-services accounting that shows which work pays.

Project and matter profitability tracking, Florida Bar trust-account records with the monthly reconciliation and comparison Rule 5-1.2 requires, partner-draw and capital-account tracking, clean PA corporate-tax figures, and contractor 1099 records — in your own QuickBooks file. Nobody on the engagement holds client trust funds; your CPA files.

No — this is a firm boundary. On law-firm engagements, the signed trust-accounting specialist practice prepares what Rule 5-1.2 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar requires: the receipts and disbursements journal, a ledger for each client or matter, the monthly reconciliation of each trust account, the monthly comparison of the reconciled total with the client ledgers, and the annual list of each client’s balance. A Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor reviews every close before it reaches you. Trust (IOLTA) reconciliations are also checked by the signed trust specialist. Nobody on the engagement takes custody of, holds, signs on, or disburses client trust funds — those stay in the firm’s trust account (or its IOTA account) under the firm’s control and its bank. The custody, the annual trust accounting certificate and Bar compliance stay with the lawyer.

We tie time, costs, and billing to each project or matter so you see real profitability per engagement and per client, rather than a blended firm-wide number. That surfaces which work, clients, and service lines actually make money and which quietly run at a loss — pulling from your practice-management and time-tracking tools.

Florida has no personal income tax. A firm organized and taxed as a professional association (PA) or C-corporation owes Florida’s 5.5% corporate income tax; a pass-through election generally avoids it. The entity election determines it, so your CPA confirms how it applies. We keep the revenue and expense figures clean so the computation is straightforward; your CPA computes and files.

We track partner draws, guaranteed payments, and capital accounts cleanly and distinctly, so distributions, equity, and the figures behind the corporate tax are all clear. That keeps both the partners’ economics and the tax accurate, instead of tangled in a single owner-equity catch-all.

Yes — your file, your data, in QuickBooks Online or hosted Desktop, with a senior bookkeeper assigned to your file, and every close reviewed by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor before it reaches you, connected to your practice-management and time-tracking tools rather than proprietary software.

Not a true retainer. The comment to Rule 5-1.1 separates the two: advances for fees and costs, billed against as work is done, are the client’s property and must be kept in trust; a retainer paid to guarantee the lawyer’s future availability is earned on receipt and, being the lawyer’s funds, may not be placed in the client’s trust account (Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, Chapter 5). The books code each incoming payment as an advance or a retainer on the day it arrives, so it lands in the right bank account and the monthly comparison of trust balances to client ledgers still ties. Which label fits a fee agreement is the lawyer’s call.