What the picture already shows.
A settlement deposit posted to fee income. The trust liability for that matter sits at zero. The trust bank still shows the money. Interest from that account posted to the firm. A list of matters in a spreadsheet matches neither total.
No journal entry is taught on this page. The picture stops while the deposit is still in the wrong place, because the stop is the lesson. Moving it without naming the filed year is a second problem, and it waits.
Form 4562 on this page is a reminder that a return has its own lines. The trust deposit is not one of them until the fee is earned.
Why a zero liability is not a comfort.
A zero liability next to a bank that still holds the money means the file has forgotten the clients. It does not mean the clients were paid. The spreadsheet of matters, if it will not foot to either total, is a third witness and it disagrees with both.
We would rather see the disagreement than a forced match. A forced match is how the picture gets harder to unwind next quarter.
Cover the client names and the amounts if you want. Leave the account names visible. The account that received the settlement is the sentence. The account that received the interest is the next sentence.
What we ask you to say in one line.
If the fee was truly earned on the day of the deposit, say so in one line. If that day is not clear, write that the day is not clear. The item in the file should match that answer, and until it does the fee waits.
Bring one month of the statement, the balance sheet, and the liability detail. If one of them will not print, bring that fact instead.
A partner can sit in. We do not need the whole firm. We need the person who can open the file and the person who decides when a fee is earned.
The evening after the deposit.
The scene we picture is the office after close, the statement still on the table, and a fee line that got ahead of the work. That is a common afternoon, and it is fixable once the account has a name.
We do not celebrate a finished month while the liability is empty and the bank is not. The next month can still be honest if this one is named.
Intuit owns the QuickBooks name. This site is not part of Intuit. The picture is the account, not a tour of the software.
Name the account.
The account name is enough for a first note.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.