The trust bank reconciliation should be performed after all transactions have been entered and all bank deposits are completed. An overview of completing a trust bank reconciliation:

1. Ensure that all receipts, banking and payments are entered into LEAP.
2. Obtain the month end bank statements.
3. Prepare the bank reconciliation.

Any trust transaction from LEAP that doesn't appear on the bank statement are outstanding.

Any transactions on the bank statement that aren't in LEAP are unprocessed.

If you're up-to-date processing trust transactions, then the balance from the bank statement plus outstanding deposits less unpresented payments should equal the closing cash report balance in LEAP.

If every trust transaction processed through the cash reports appeared on the bank statement for the correct amount, with the correct cheque number, after being posted through LEAP, then all that needs to be done is to reconcile in LEAP, reconcile accounts for all entries that appear on that bank statement.

In practice, often receipts appear on the statement before they are processed in LEAP, incorrect transactions like bank charges appear on the trust statement, cheques written up manually are processed in LEAP for the wrong amount, and a myriad of other anomalies occur. For this reason, LEAP has a section to capture these mismatched items.

Reconcile accounts is the means by which LEAP helps you to maintain your bank reconciliation. You'll be able to enter the period for which the reconciliation is being maintained, match entries on your bank statement to transactions processed in LEAP, record entries from the bank statement that don't match entries in the cash reports, and match recorded items as they are resolved.

There are 2 sections in the Reconcile Trust Account window:

• Additions / Errors section - which lists all unresolved transactions. To enter items for missing transactions in this section, click New Addition on the toolbar. Entries here are from the bank statement and are either not processed or not correctly processed in LEAP. These can include:
  • deposits not processed in LEAP
  • deposits processed in LEAP for a different amount to the bank statement
  • cheques not entered into LEAP
  • cheques processed in LEAP for a different amount to the bank statement
  • reversal of the cheque not appearing in the Trust Bank Reconciliation
  • bank charges incorrectly processed to the trust account
  • dishonoured receipts not yet recorded in LEAP
  • bank corrections to any of the above
• Transactions section - which is the main area of the window and ultimately all transactions processed in LEAP through the Trust Cash Reports will need to be ticked off when ready to be matched. Transactions here are ticked if the exact transaction and amount appear on the bank statement.

You may have a variance due to the following inconsistencies between your bank statement and your trust account reconciliation:

• Difference between the transaction amount recorded on the bank statement and in LEAP.
• Trust transactions recorded on the bank statement were not recorded in LEAP.
• Trust transactions recorded on the bank statement were entered in LEAP after the statement date (including bank deposit slips).

LEAP's Trust Reconciliation works off the entry date. If there are missing transactions in your reconciliation, you should check that their entry date is within the month that you are reconciling. If they are outside the month that you are reconciling, you will need to create an addition to balance your reconciliation.

In the following month when the transaction is visible, users can tick the transaction and delete the addition. 

• Make sure all bank transactions are recorded in LEAP before you begin the Trust Reconciliation. 
• Click Save For Later to save a reconciliation before completion and return to it later to continue with reconciliation.
• If you are working within the Trust Reconciliation window for an extended period of time, ensure you are clicking Save For Later periodically to prevent losing any progress due to unexpected timeouts or lockouts to the Trust Reconciliation window. 
• Never place an amount as an addition that isn’t directly related to an actual transaction on the bank statement to clear the variance.
• For any unknown/unidentified deposits, do not post the transaction to a matter called ‘Unknown Deposits’ (or similar). Instead, you can add the transaction as an addition until the deposit is identified and then you can match the deposit or create it on the relevant matter that you can reconcile later.
• Always review the transactions on the trust reconciliation to ensure that any outstanding entries are handled accordingly.
• When dealing with reversals of trust transactions, the reversal date should be the original date of when the transaction was made, rather than when the reversal was completed.
• Always have a partner review your month-end final reconciliation and sign it off.
• Where possible, print all trust cheques and receipts directly from LEAP. This will mitigate the possibility of mismatching errors due to hand-written transactions.
• It is possible to reprint your trust reconciliation from the LEAP Reports > Trust > Trust Bank Reconciliation window after it has been reconciled. 
• The Last Reconciled Date shown on the right-hand side of the  reconciliation page indicates the most recent reconciliation completed. This date can be used to verify whether a reconciliation was successfully completed in LEAP.
• Once a trust reconciliation has been finalized, it cannot be reversed or undone. If an error is identified after the reconciliation is completed, or if it was conducted for the wrong month and a prior month was inadvertently skipped, you must contact the Law Society/Legal Practice Board of the state for further advice.
• You can log out of the reconciliation page by clicking the power icon  located in the top-right corner of the browser window.