For Hong Kong firms of 1–5 lawyers

The legal ledger for Hong Kong law firms.

If your Peachtree is 2019 or older, it's retired — the upgrade is a repurchase either way. Move to books that cannot break the Solicitors' Accounts Rules, and get paid sooner.

15 minutes. We'll ask what you run today, and show you the ledger.

Central Ledger — billingChan-2411
Unbilled on matter HK$ 26,950.00
12 SepAttendance — client meeting6,300.00
14 SepDrafting — trust deed revision11,200.00
18 SepLand Registry search2,100.00
21 SepAttendance — court7,350.00
4 items · gathered as they happenedDraft the bill →
01

Your clients are filed as suppliers.

Peachtree has no idea what a client account is. So to get a balance per client, it has to be set up under Vendors, with the matter tagged as a Job — a field built for construction sites. It works. It's also the reason nothing can check it.

If you're on Peachtree, you'll recognise this
Clients → Vendors

The people whose money you hold, recorded as people you buy from. It's the only place Peachtree will give you a balance per party.

Matters → Jobs

A construction field, borrowed. It can't be attached to a journal entry at all, so anything posted as a journal drops out of the matter view.

Bills → Word

Peachtree never provided billing. Every bill is rebuilt by hand from the timesheet.

Commission, foreign currency → Excel

Outside the ledger entirely. The US edition has no multi-currency, so client accounts in other currencies are reconciled by hand.

The month-end check → memory

Nothing makes the supplier list agree with the client bank account. Someone proves it every month, by hand, in a spreadsheet.

What it should look like
Central Ledger

A client is a client. A matter is a matter. Every posting carries both — so one client's balance is a question the software can answer, not a spreadsheet you rebuild.

And a client's balance cannot go below zero. Peachtree would book that as a supplier you'd overpaid. Here, the ledger refuses the entry.

Nothing to re-key. Nothing to prove by hand at month-end.

None of this is your bookkeeper's fault. It's what the tool leaves them to hold together.

02

Record it, bill it, collect it, close it.

Record

Every cost lands on its matter, the day it happens.

Your bookkeeper keys it, or the fee earner does. Nothing waits for month-end to be remembered.

Time · disbursements · soft costs · counsel fees
Bill

The bill assembles itself from what's already there.

Write a line down if the partner says so — the reason is recorded, not buried in a new figure.

Write-downs recorded, never hidden
Collect

Money you already hold moves in one compliant step.

For matters funded on account, the delivered bill is the authority to transfer. Where no funds are held, chase.

Authority captured on every transfer
Close

A matter closes on four zeros, not on a feeling.

Client money, outstanding bills, unbilled work, unpaid suppliers. All four, or it doesn't close.

Four zeros, checked
Position — where does this matter stand?Chan-2411
Trust held
HK$ 60,000.00
Client money, on its own ledger
Work in progress
HK$ 26,950.00
Done, not yet billed
Outstanding bills
HK$ 18,400.00
Billed, not yet collected
03

The rules are enforced by the software, not by memory.

  • A client's balance cannot go below zero.

    The ledger refuses the entry. Not a warning, not a flag afterwards — it cannot be recorded.

  • Client money cannot leave the trust account without recorded authority.

    Every transfer out carries its authority — to the office account, to a third party, or back to the client.

New posting — client → officeTXN-9021
Matter
LAM-2402 · Lam
Amount
HK$ 45,000.00
Client balance
HK$ 12,000.00
Cannot be recorded

This would take the client's balance HK$ 33,000.00 below zero. The ledger refuses it.

Post entry

Ready to get off Peachtree?

We're choosing the first Hong Kong firms to build this with. What gets built next is decided by the ones we talk to.

Moving off Peachtree

We bring your opening balances and your matter list across. You don't re-key history, and your old records stay yours.

Where it is today

In development, with bank reconciliation next. We'll show you what runs, and tell you what doesn't.

Who you'd be dealing with

Built in Hong Kong, for the Hong Kong rules. Write, and you get a reply from the person building it.

Kelvin Luk
kelvin@paperlab.cc