Checklist · Trust accounting & handling client money
Unidentified trust money register and enquiry
Register for money in the trust account that cannot yet be matched to a person or matter, an enquiry to the sender, and a prompt to consider an irregularity notice.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- New South Wales, Western Australia
- AI use
- Yellow You and the tool draft together, with you directing. You check every statement you rely on.
- Law stated as at
- 22 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 22 October 2026 against the 6 authorities it cites, for New South Wales and Western Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a deposit appears on the trust bank statement and the practice cannot tell, from the reference and the file, whose money it is. Do not use it to pay the money out or to treat it as unclaimed money.
Used for these tasks
- Build an unmatched and unidentified trust-money list
- Reconcile the trust ledger to the bank and the matter files
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
AI may list unmatched deposits from a bank export the principal supplies. The principal decides what is unidentified and whether it must be notified.
AI may
- List deposits on the supplied bank statement that have no matching trust receipt
- Draft the enquiry letter once the principal has named the sender and the amount
AI must not
- Must not post the amount to a matter because the name looks similar
- Must not decide that the receipt is or is not an irregularity
- Must not draft a payment out of the unidentified amount
The lawyer checks
- Each line is still unmatched after the receipts, the ledger and the file are checked
- The amount is not sitting in a client ledger under a guessed name
- The principal has considered the Law Society's examples and has notified the regulator if the receipt is an irregularity
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
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- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Trust accounting & handling client money
- Client authority to withdraw trust money for legal costs, with notice of withdrawal and pre-transfer checklist (Uniform Law)
- Direction to pay money into the law practice trust account
- Client direction for an IOLTA or separate trust deposit (United States)
- Written direction to pay trust money to a third party
- Payment-redirection and deepfake call-back verification protocol for trust disbursements
- Check before a trust-to-operating transfer (United States)
- Review checklist for AI-assisted monthly trust reconciliation (Uniform General Rules r 48)
- Notice that funds were received into trust (United States)
- Client notice: our bank details will never change by email (payment fraud and deepfake warning)
- Trust account statement to the person for whom money is held
- File note when trust funds are disputed (United States)
- Controls standard: AI tools and trust records (read-only access, no payment functions, audit trail)
- Trust irregularity briefing note for the principal
- Index for a trust investigation or external examination
All precedents for Trust accounting & handling client money · Tasks and AI use in this area