Bin accounting errors and stop complaintsThe Office for the Supervision of Solicitors received 9,637 complaints about alleged inadequacies of service in 2000.

Mike Frith examines the fact that some 1,606 of these complaints concerned conveyancing and of these nearly half were about incorrect accountingIn cases of bad accounting it is often found that solicitors have not only overpaid the client, but that the error was not spotted until many weeks or months afterwards.

So when the solicitor has to ask the client to repay sums, amounting in some cases to many thousands of pounds, it inevitably causes a complaint.

Such complaints usually arise in conveyancing matters, but the same considerations apply to all disciplines.When responding to a complaint, it is no answer to argue that the client must have known he was getting more than he expected, or that he cannot have checked the completion statement.

It is the solicitor's job, for which he is being paid, to get things right.

It is not part of the client's responsibilities to check the completion statement.

All this ignores several important issues relating to a solicitor's duties under the accounts rules and the fact that, by adopting good practice standards, the whole problem could be easily overcome.Issues of adequacy of service apart, these complaints all involve breaches of the Solicitors' Accounts Rules, because the error will result in a shortage on the client bank account.

Only rarely does the shortage involve dishonesty.

Far more frequently it stems from carelessness and failing to follow good practice.

The causes of the errors - which range from mathematical errors to mis-information from third parties - matter little.

The point is, they would have been spotted either before the error was communicated to the client, or very soon after, when the effect would be far less dramatic, had basic 'best practice' precautions been taken.The first of these is to take the time to check the draft completion statement against the information on the ledger.

While the information being used on the completion statement may often be ahead of the figures on the ledger, it is still possible to check that what is on the ledger is reflected on the statement.

Many errors occur because search fees or other, usually one-off, items incurred well before the draft statement is compiled are forgotten.A few days after completion, when there has been time to enter all the relevant figures on the ledger, again take the time to check that the figures coincide with those on the statement and that there is, or will be when any known remaining payments are made, a 'nil' balance on both client account and office account.Then use could and should be made of monthly reconciliations.

bookkeepers carry out monthly reconciliations.

What happens to them? All too frequently they are simply ignored - just more paper gathering dust on the accounts office shelving.

Why?It is appreciated that it may have been easier before computerisation to be able to pinpoint where any anomalies arose.

It is also true that the 'old school' accountant might have been far more likely to bring those anomalies to the attention of the fee-earner or a partner and to have insisted that something be done about it.It is now often the case that it is the solicitor who does not want to know and who therefore does not encourage the bookkeeper to report such errors and omissions.

The opposite should be the standard practice.

bookkeepers should be instructed to inform the relevant fee-earner if they discover an outstanding balance on any ledger account that they know, or suspect, should not be there.Fee-earners should be instructed that, if such a balance is brought to their attention, it is expected that they will find out why and take the appropriate action to remove it.

If nothing is done, the appropriate partner should be told by the bookkeeper.

It can be difficult for the untrained eye to spot the source of an unwanted balance which is revealed on a monthly reconciliation produced by a computerised accounts system, but it should be relatively easy for a solicitor's trained bookkeeper.Three things are indisputable.

First, no matter how much time it takes, it is quicker and easier to work out what is wrong when the matter is reasonably fresh in the memory.

Second, if a solicitor leaves it for an unacceptable length of time, the chances of a complaint being made are seriously enhanced - and that can mean more expense in the form of lost fee-earning time taken in discovering the error, not to mention the probability of some compensatory payment having to be made.

Third, a solicitor is going to have to do it anyway sooner or later, so it makes sense to do it sooner when there is a far greater chance of doing it at less expense in every sense.Accounting errors cause a substantial proportion of the complaints that reach the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors.

It should also be the easiest class of complaint too eliminate.

If proper procedures are followed, even if errors are made, complaints which are caused by accounting errors should never arise.Mike Frith is the client care and compliance officer at the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors