What has to be on every trust ledger entry

An external examiner rarely finds a missing transaction. Trust money goes through a bank, and a bank leaves a trail on both sides. What they find is entries nobody described. A payment with no reason, an electronic transfer with no account number, a receipt naming nobody as the payer.

Each of those is a particular that rule 47 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015 requires. Nobody can reconstruct them a year later. The only workable answer is a form that refuses the entry at the counter.

A ledger for each person in each matter

A law practice that maintains a general trust account must keep a trust account ledger containing separate trust ledger accounts in relation to each person in each matter for which trust money has been received by the practice.

Each person in each matter. Two clients on one conveyance are two ledger accounts, and the same client on two matters is two more. A single running list per client, which is how a spreadsheet naturally grows, is not a trust ledger.

The title of the ledger, kept up to date

The following particulars must be recorded, and kept up to date, in the title of a trust ledger account: (a) the name of the person for or on behalf of whom the trust money was paid, (b) the person's address, (c) particulars sufficient to identify the matter in relation to which the trust money was received.

The address is the one most often missing, because nothing in the day to day work needs it. It is needed twice: here, and on the trust account statement the client gets after 30 June.

"Kept up to date" is doing real work in that sentence. A client who moved two years ago has a ledger title showing an address that is wrong now. The rule speaks in the present tense.

The particulars for each transaction

The following particulars must be recorded for each transaction in the trust ledger account: (a) the date of the transaction, (b) the appropriate reference number and transaction type, (c) particulars sufficient to identify the reason for the transaction, (d) the amount of money in the transaction.

Paragraph (c) is the one that gets skipped. Entering the transaction produces the date, the number and the amount on its own. The reason is the only particular somebody has to type. It is also the only one answering the examiner's real question, which is the purpose of the money.

"Settlement" is not particulars sufficient to identify the reason. "Balance of settlement funds, 12 Example Street" is.

Then a different set for each kind of transaction

Rule 47(3)(e) adds requirements that depend on what the transaction is. This is the part a general purpose accounting package usually cannot express, because it has one payment form for everything.

if the transaction type is: (i) a receipt: the provider of the amount and the date the amount was received if that date is different from the date of receipt

Two dates, not one. The day the money came in, and the day somebody made the receipt out, whenever they differ. A cheque handed over on Friday and receipted on Monday has to show both. A system with a single date field quietly loses one of them.

(ii) a payment by cheque: the payee or, in the case of a cheque made payable to an ADI, the name or BSB number of the ADI and the name of the person receiving the benefit of the payment

A bank cheque is two names. The bank it is made out to, and whoever actually gets the money. Recording only the bank tells a reader nothing about where the client's money went, which is the point of the entry.

(iii) a payment by electronic funds transfer: the account name and number and the relevant BSB number of the ADI and the name of the person receiving the benefit of the payment

The full destination account, on the ledger, not only in the banking app. Most electronic payments out of trust fail this one. The person entering it has already typed the account details into internet banking, and sees no reason to type them twice.

(iv) a journal entry: the appropriate ledger reference, the name of the person on whose behalf the transfer was made and the matter description

A transfer between matters is two entries that have to name each other. Either side, read on its own, still leads to the other.

Why this belongs in the form, not in a policy

Every one of these particulars is knowable at the moment of the transaction and unknowable afterwards. Nobody remembers in March which bank received an October bank cheque. A firm relying on training and a checklist is relying on the busiest person in the office, on the day a settlement moved.

The alternative is a form that will not complete without them. In Diract, a trust receipt needs its Reason, its Type and a Received from name. Every receipt and payment must also name a matter. The form asks a sender with no address on file for one then and there, because the receipt cannot go out without it.

A Bank Transfer payment asks for Account name, BSB and Account number, and will not save without the destination account. A Bank Cheque asks separately for Paid to, meaning who the money is for, and Cheque payable to (bank). A transfer between matters records both sides. A cheque takes its number from the practice's cheque book rather than from whoever is typing.

None of that is stricter than the rule. It is the rule, moved from a policy nobody reads onto the screen somebody already has open.

Checking your own ledgers

1. Three ledgers opened at random show the reason on every entry. The test is whether somebody who was not there would know the purpose of the money.
2. Find your last electronic payment out of trust. Is the destination account name, number and BSB on the ledger entry, or only in internet banking?
3. Find your last bank cheque. Does the entry name both the bank and the person who got the money?
4. Every ledger title needs a client address, and a current one rather than the address from the file opening form.
5. Any receipt made out on a different day from the money's arrival needs both dates on the ledger.

For the statement that comes next, the statements due after 30 June covers what rule 52 asks and which ledgers it exempts.

This article is general information about the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015, not legal advice, and does not take account of your practice's circumstances. It quotes rule 47 from the NSW version, current for 6 October 2023 to date, read on the NSW legislation website on 21 September 2026. The Uniform Law and these Rules apply in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia; other states and territories have their own legislation. Where the rule introduces a list with a dash, the quotes above show a colon. Rule 47(4) and the rules on controlled money records are not covered here. Current as at 21 September 2026.