Get the most out of Clio Accounting

Bad books are bad for business. Here’s how to set up your account for accurate bookkeeping:

• Banking data in Clio Accounting: You can connect your bank accounts using our secure Plaid integration or upload your bank files manually, whichever works best for your firm.
• Set user roles & permissions: Assign team members the right level of access by choosing Accountant/Bookkeeper for full financial access or Standard for limited visibility. You can always update these permissions as your team or workflows evolve.
• Your chart of accounts: Organize every transaction into clear categories. It lays the foundation for accurate financial reporting—set it up properly from the start to ensure everything is categorized correctly early on.
• Account opening balances: For accurate financial reporting and a smooth transition, manually enter opening balances for all relevant accounts. This ensures continuity, as historical data can’t be imported.

Keep finances accurate from the start

Invoices and payments, including trust transactions and hard cost expenses, created in Clio Manage automatically sync with Clio Accounting:

• Log your expenses as they happen in Clio Manage: To ensure accurate client billing, record expense activities—particularly hard costs—as they occur. Don’t have hard and soft costs enabled in Clio Manage? You can easily turn them on in your settings.
• Invoicing & matching transactions from Clio Manage: You should regularly review synced transactions and match them to your bank activity to keep your records accurate. Clio Accounting takes this a step further by automatically categorizing transactions based on rules you set and matching Clio Payments deposits in your bank feed when the Clio Payments automation is turned on.
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Tip: For transactions not affected by rules, Clio Accounting will automatically suggest a match when the amount and date align with a transaction from your bank account. All you need to do is confirm it.

Review suggested match transactions

Maintain trust compliance with routine reconciliation:

Regular three-way reconciliation is a key best practice for accurate trust accounting. Ensure your client trust ledgers, firm trust ledgers, and bank statements align. This helps you stay compliant with legal regulations and maintain clean, audit-ready records.

Learn more about trust reconciliation

Learn more about trust account management

Stay confident in every compliance check

Say goodbye to costly trust accounting mistakes

Use this checklist to ensure you tap into Clio Accounting’s compliance-based features:

Get insights into firm financing with specific reports

Ensure your books match your bank transactions

Stay on track at month’s end with proven tips

Tap into these tips to ensure your books are balanced:

• Understand transaction statuses: Transactions posted in Clio Accounting will display a Status of the transaction & shows what stage this transaction is in within Clio Accounting. 
• Reconcile operating accounts on a monthly basis: Perform a two-way bank reconciliation for your operating account, or a three-way reconciliation for your trust accounts.
• Ensure balance is always zero: To maintain accurate and reconciled records, the difference must always be zero. If the difference is anything other than zero, it indicates an error in one or more of the reconciled accounts.