Let's face it. Most bankers have no idea what an IOLTA account is. These types of accounts are an afterthought - one of those banking products that gets little attention. We hear horror stories of banks regularly debiting fees from IOLTA accounts or sending erroneous overdraft notifications to the Bar. We recently spoke to a firm that had to call their bank to speak with a real live human being every time they wanted to check their IOLTA balance.
There are banks that do a great job supporting IOLTA accounts. Take M&T bank for example that launched the NOTA platform, specifically designed for lawyers and law firms. But there are many reasons to choose a bank. Perhaps finding a financial institution savvy about IOLTA accounts isn't a priority, or maybe you don't want to go through the hassle of switching.
At Gravity Legal, we can't save you from an IOLTA-unfriendly bank, but there is one way we may be able to make life a little easier.
Firm-Internal Bank Transfers in Gravity Legal
Are you having to write yourself checks to move money between your firm's bank accounts? Here are three scenarios where we see this happen:
- A firm keeps their IOLTA and operating accounts at two different financial institutions.
- A firm expands into a new state where their existing financial institution doesn't operate. They need to setup a new IOLTA account, so they find themselves with that account at a different financial institution.
- A firm's financial institution doesn't support online banking services for IOLTA accounts.
Whether or not you fit into the categories above, if you find yourself writing checks...to yourself, consider using Gravity Legal's free bank account transfer feature to move money electronically with a few clicks.
Here's how it works:
- Select a client, matter, amount to transfer and the bank accounts to credit and debit.
- Comply with standard trust accounting rules by recording a reason for the transfer in Gravity Legal.
- The money will move into the destination bank account with the normal client payment deposits.
The days of writing yourself checks are over. To learn more about this feature or to schedule a time to talk with our team about how you can use Gravity Legal to accept, track and transfer money in accordance with the rules of professional conduct, click the demo link below.
PS - Did you know you can use Gravity Legal to perform your trust accounting?
PPS - Are you a legal tech company interested in building bank-to-bank transfers into your platform? See our Developer Center.
