Legal (Law Firm) Bookkeeper / Accounting SME

DemandPulse is a consulting firm that acts as one partner for the systems and operations law firms run on. We move firms off legacy practice-management and accounting systems onto modern SaaS platforms — and increasingly, we stay on afterward to run their books. That creates two lines of work, and we need one person who can do both: 1. Migration and cutover accounting. When a firm migrates, someone has to prove the numbers survived the trip. Opening balances have to tie. Trust balances have to tie — per matter, not just in aggregate. Time-and-billing has to reconcile to the general ledger. When something doesn't line up, we need someone who can go find out why, not just flag it. 2. Bookkeeping as a service. Ongoing monthly close, trust accounting, reconciliations, and financial reporting for law firm clients who don't have (or don't want) an in-house finance team. The common thread: this is law firm accounting. Trust liability, cost advances on contingency matters, fee splits, matter-level ledgers, and the reporting a managing partner actually asks for. General commercial bookkeeping experience does not transfer cleanly here, and we're not going to pretend it does. What you'll do: Migration and cutover support 1) Validate opening balances and cutover data against source-system balancing reports — WIP, A/R, unapplied cash, trust, GL trial balance 2) Perform and document subledger-to-GL tie-outs (time & billing to general ledger, cost subledger to GL) before cutoff 3) Investigate and resolve variances: trace back to source, identify root cause, propose the correcting entries 4) Map and stand up chart of accounts between legacy and target systems, including multi-office segmentation where firms report by office or entity 5) Review trust/IOLTA data pre- and post-migration: per-matter balances, stale checks, unreconciled items 6) Produce clean, reviewable balancing workpapers a client and a partner PM can both sign off on Ongoing bookkeeping and trust accounting: 1) Monthly close: bank and credit card reconciliations, AP/AR, journal entries, accruals 2) Three-way trust reconciliation (bank statement ↔ trust ledger ↔ client/matter ledgers) on a defined monthly cadence, with documentation that survives a bar audit 3) Trust transaction handling: receipts, disbursements, transfers, settlement distributions, stale check remediation 4) Contingency-practice mechanics: client cost advances, cost recovery at settlement, referral and co-counsel fee splits 5) Financial reporting: income statement, balance sheet, matter- and practice-level reporting, budget vs. actual 6) 1099 preparation and vendor management 7) Flag process and control weaknesses — you'll often be the first person to look closely at a firm's books in years Platforms: You don't need every one of these, but you need real depth in several and the ability to learn a new one fast. 1) Law firm billing & accounting systems: SurePoint (Pro or legacy), Coyote Analytics, Clio Manage + Clio Accounting, PCLaw, Tabs3, Centerbase, Actionstep, Litify, ProLaw, Orion, Elite/3E 2) Accounting and trust: QuickBooks Online and Desktop, TrustBooks, LeanLaw, Xero, Sage Intacct, Bill.com, Ramp/Expensify 3) General: Excel at a genuinely advanced level (pivot tables, lookups, reconciling large exports), plus comfort in Google Workspace If you've been the person who ran the books inside one of these systems — not just exported from it — say so up front. What we're looking for, Required: 1) 5+ years of bookkeeping or accounting work for law firms specifically 2) Hands-on ownership of trust/IOLTA accounting, including three-way reconciliation and state bar trust compliance 3) Demonstrated ability to reconcile a subledger to a general ledger and resolve the variances yourself 4) Fluency in at least two law firm billing & accounting systems plus QuickBooks 5) Strong written communication — you'll document findings for clients, partners, and our project teams 6) Strong verbal communication — you can explain financial concepts and reconciliation findings to a non-technical audience (attorneys, firm administrators, managing partners) in plain English, on a live call Strongly preferred 1) You've been through a system migration or conversion on the accounting side, in any direction 2) Contingency / plaintiff-side practice experience (cost advances behave nothing like hourly WIP) 3) Controller-level judgment: you can make a call on how something should be represented in the GL and defend it 4) Experience supporting multiple firms at once, in a fractional or outsourced capacity