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If you require clarification or assistance regarding the submission of your Reporting Accountants report, please email your query to RAR@lawsociety.ie.
Frequently Asked Questions
The 2023 regulations commenced on 1 July 2023 and apply to firms whose accounting period commenced on or after 1 July 2023.
You can access the new Regulations on the Irish Statute Book site. Sections 26-34 deal with Reporting Accountants' reports.
Any solicitor’s practice in Ireland that holds clients’ monies must submit an annual Reporting Accountant's report.
It is your obligation to ensure that the report is submitted by the reporting deadline. However, your Reporting Accountant must submit the report to the Law Society with a covering letter attached.
The firm’s compliance partner signs the report. The compliance partner is a sole practitioner or solicitor who is a partner in a firm which is a partnership of solicitors who is nominated from time to time by the firm and notified in writing to the Law Society as the partner responsible for completing and signing on behalf of all the partners the Form of Acknowledgement
Yes, but you must notify the Law Society within fourteen days of any change in the compliance partner in the course of a practice year.
Your Reporting Accountants report should be submitted to the Law Society not later than five months after the practice’s accounting date (year-end date).
The 2023 Regulations allow for an application to be made in writing no later than 14 days before the accounting date for an extension of no longer than one month. This will be granted where the Law Society is satisfied that it is appropriate in all of the circumstances to do so.
You will find the report under Forms and checklist.
Please email the report to RAR@lawsociety.ie.
Yes, but you must notify the Law Society not later than one month prior to the current accounting date or in the case of a shorter accounting period, one month prior to the new accounting date. If the change would extend the accounting period to longer than one year the prior written consent of the Law Society is required.
In addition to the Law Society’s Reporting Accountant’s report you are required to furnish the Society with a copy of the accountant's report furnished to the Law Society of Northern Ireland. The accounting dates for the firms in respect of the reports furnished should be the same accounting date in both jurisdictions.
You will receive an arrears letter from the Law Society informing you that you are late in filing your annual Reporting Accountant’s report. If your report is still outstanding, you will receive a further letter from the Law Society calling you up to the next Law Society Regulation of Practice Committee meeting. If your report is received before the meeting, there is no need to attend before the committee.
No, if you do not hold any client’s monies you do not need to file an annual Reporting Accountant’s report. You must inform the Law Society that you do not hold any client’s monies and file a Statutory Declaration which is sworn and independently witnessed confirming this. If you start holding client’s monies at any stage, you must immediately inform the Law Society. For further information please email RAR@lawsociety.ie.
You must file an annual report with the Law Society. Your first report should be submitted five months after your first accounting date. This would normally mean that your first report will be submitted before you complete 17 months in practice.
Please email RAR@lawsociety.ie and a decision will be made based on the facts in your case.
A Reporting Accountant must be a member in practice of a Law Society approved body as per Regulation 26(4) of the Solicitors Account’s Regulations 2023 and they must apply to the Law Society for approval by submitting a copy of their current practicing certificate, copy confirmation of their current professional indemnity insurance details and a copy of their firms headed notepaper to the Society.
No, a spouse, co-habitee, parent, child, sibling, dependent, associate, partner, consultant, clerk or servant of the solicitor concerned or a person with whom the solicitor either directly or indirectly has a mutual business interest cannot act as a Reporting Accountant. It is the Law Society’s policy that, in the interest of objectivity, Reporting Accountants should be independent of the solicitor for whom they conduct the annual accountants report.
Yes, a Reporting Accountant should notify the Law Society in writing of their resignation or their cessation of operation as a Reporting Accountant, such notification to take place within 21 days of such resignation or cessation of operation. A Reporting Accountant shall provide the Law Society with reasons for such resignation or cessation unless the Reporting Accountant does not consider it appropriate to do so, in which case, the Reporting Accountant shall notify the Law Society accordingly.
Yes, you should notify the Law Society in writing of such change, resignation or cessation of operation, together with the reasons for same, not later than fourteen days after such change has taken place.
The Law Society requires that only funds lodged to the client account on or before the balancing date, which have not yet cleared the bank, should be reported to the Law Society as an outstanding lodgement. Where it is necessary to lodge monies to the client account after the balancing date or to correct a bookkeeping error, the existence of a deficit should be reported to the Law Society.
No, quarterly balancing statements must be completed but only the balancing statement for the accounting date and the balancing statement for the date six months before the accounting date are included in the report.
If, in the course of carrying out their examination of your accounting records, the Reporting Accountant forms an opinion or has reasonable ground to suspect that
- there is a deficit of clients' funds in the practice which cannot be rectified within seven days; or
- there are entries in the accounting records which have been made to conceal the existence of a deficit;
the Reporting Accountant may notify the Registrar of Solicitors directly of that opinion or those reasonable grounds.
You must list all client ledger balances outstanding two years or more as at the accounting date, disclosing the reason the balance is outstanding and, where appropriate, any action taken or proposed to clear the balances. This list will be provided at appendix 6 of the Reporting Accountants report.
Under current legislation there is no provision to allow a solicitor to pay client money to anyone other than the beneficial owner without the written consent of the beneficial owner.
