FRACTIONAL CONTROLLER FOR LAW FIRMS
Have an In-House Team?
We Give
Your Team the Support They Need
Already have a bookkeeper or office manager handling your law firm's books?
We work alongside them providing the controller-level review and reporting that takes your financials from adequate to partner-ready.
See What's included →
THIS SERVICE IS FOR YOU IF...
You Have Someone Handling Your Books But No One Reviewing Their Work
Most law firms have someone handling the day-to-day. What they're missing is a second set of expert eyes.
We Give Your Team the
Support They Need.
You have an in-house bookkeeper or office manager
Nobody qualified is reviewing their monthly close
Your partners don’t fully trust the financials they receive
You’ve caught errors after the fact and wondered what else slipped through
You want expert oversight without replacing your current staff
The problem
Your bookkeeper or office manager may be doing a solid job day-to-day. But even capable, well-intentioned people make mistakes, and without someone qualified reviewing their work, those mistakes compound quietly until they become real problems.
A controller isn't a replacement for your in-house staff. A controller is the expert layer above them. The person who reviews the close, checks the reconciliations, flags anything that doesn't look right, and makes sure the financials your partners receive are accurate and compliant.
Most law firms at the 5–20 attorney level need this layer. Very few have it.
Good Accounting Without Oversight
Isn’t Enough.
THIS SERVICE (YOU’RE HERE)
Controller
Reviews the accounting work. Ensures accuracy. Delivers financials partners can trust. Catches issues before they become problems.
ABOVE THIS SERVICE
cfo
High-level strategy, financing, mergers. Usually overkill for small to mid-size firms.
YOUR IN-HOUSE STAFF
Bookkeeper / Office Manager
Records transactions, manages AP/AR, runs payroll, handles day-to-day financial tasks.
You're here
WHAT’S INCLUDED
What We Do Every Month
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Monthly Close Review
Every month we review your law firm's monthly close, checking for miscoded transactions, missing entries, account imbalances, and anything that doesn't reconcile correctly.
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Trust Account Oversight
We review your trust account reconciliations every month verifying three-way reconciliation is complete and that client funds are properly documented and accounted for.
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Partner Financial Reporting
We produce and deliver a clean monthly reporting package to your partners. P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, and AR aging. In a format they can read and act on.
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Error Detection & Flagging
When something doesn't look right we flag it immediately before it's compounded by another month of entries built on top of an error. Early detection is everything.
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Expert On-Call
You and your in-house staff have direct access to us when questions come up. When something looks off or a situation falls outside their experience, we're the resource they call.
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Year-End CPA Preparation
We review and organize your books at year end so your CPA receives clean, accurate financials reducing the time they spend cleaning up and the bill you receive.
WHO THIS SERVES
Law Firms That Benefit Most From Controller Oversight
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Growing Firms With Office Managers
Office managers are often the first person to take on bookkeeping duties as a law firm grows. They're capable and reliable, but they're not accountants, and no one is reviewing their work.
👨💼
Firms With Part-Time Bookkeepers
A part-time bookkeeper handles the day-to-day but may not have the expertise or bandwidth to catch everything. Controller oversight closes that gap without adding headcount.
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Mid-Size Firms Not Ready for a Full-Time Controller
Hiring a full-time controller costs $80,000–$120,000 per year. Controller oversight gives you the same function at a fraction of the cost. Right-sized for where your firm is now.
This service is built for law firms that have financial staff in place but recognize the gap between having someone do the books and having someone make sure the books are accurate and compliant.
common questions FROM LAW FIRMS
Controller Questions We Hear Most
Not in our experience. Most bookkeepers and office managers welcome having a qualified expert review their work. It takes pressure off them and gives them a resource to call when they run into something outside their expertise. We communicate findings directly to the managing partner and share correction guidance with your bookkeeper in a constructive, professional way.
We need access to your accounting software. QuickBooks, Xero, or whichever platform your law firm uses. Plus access to your bank and trust account statements for reconciliation review. We do not need write access to make entries. Our role is to review, not to do the day-to-day work, so our system access is intentionally limited.
We flag the error immediately, explain what the issue is and how it should be corrected, and communicate it to both the managing partner and your bookkeeper. For minor errors, your bookkeeper makes the correction. For more significant issues, especially anything touching trust accounts, we provide detailed correction guidance and follow up to confirm it's been resolved correctly.
Your CPA reviews your books once a year at tax time, and by then, errors that occurred in January have been sitting for 12 months and compounded across every subsequent entry. Controller oversight catches errors monthly, in real time, before they compound. We also handle ongoing trust account compliance review which your CPA typically does not touch.
If you are a full-service accounting client, controller-level review is already built into how we work. We do the books and we review our own work before delivering your monthly reports. The standalone controller service is specifically designed for law firms that have their own in-house staff doing the day-to-day work and need an outside expert reviewing it.