Law Firm Services · Dallas–Fort Worth
Accounting, Tax, and Advisory Services
for Law Firms and Attorneys
Law firms face financial issues that are different from those of most businesses. IOLTA accounts, client trust funds, advanced client costs, contingency fees, partner compensation, uneven cash flow, and ownership changes all require careful accounting and tax planning from a CPA who understands how a law practice actually operates.
Adan Ibarra, CPA · PFS · J.D. — Accounting and legal education combined
A CPA Who Understands Law
You Should Not Have to Explain
How a Law Firm Works to Your CPA
Adan Ibarra has completed law school and holds the CPA and Personal Financial Specialist credentials. His combined background gives him a deeper understanding of how law firms earn revenue, manage client funds, compensate attorneys, and plan for taxes than a general-practice CPA can offer. Law firm owners should not spend valuable time explaining basic legal-industry terminology before getting to the financial question that matters.
IOLTA and client trust accounts
Hourly, flat-fee, and contingency-fee arrangements
Advanced client costs and cost recovery
Earned and unearned legal fees
Partner and shareholder compensation
Associate and staff productivity tracking
Owner distributions and draws
Referral and co-counsel payments
Uneven collections and cash-flow timing
Work in process and accounts receivable
Partner admissions, redemptions, and buyouts
Firm growth, succession, and acquisition
IOLTA & Client Trust Accounting
Trust Account Reconciliation and IOLTA Accounting Support
IOLTA accounting requires careful separation of client funds from law firm operating funds. Errors involving deposits, transfers, disbursements, or client balances can create accounting and professional-responsibility concerns that are serious and avoidable.
Important: Our accounting support is designed to help law firms maintain accurate, complete, and organized trust-account records. The law firm remains responsible for compliance with applicable Texas disciplinary rules, State Bar requirements, and all professional obligations. We coordinate with the firm’s legal-ethics counsel when needed.
Reconciliation Services
- - Monthly IOLTA bank reconciliations
- - Three-way trust account reconciliations
- - Client ledger reconciliations
- - Comparison of bank balances to client trust balances
- - Identification of outstanding checks and deposits
- - Tracking of individual client fund balances
Review & Compliance Support
- - Review of transfers from trust to operating accounts
- - Identification of negative client balances
- - Review of stale or uncleared trust checks
- - Assistance correcting historical trust-account discrepancies
- - Development of recurring IOLTA accounting procedures
- - Coordination with legal-ethics counsel when needed
Core Services
Integrated Financial Services for Law Firm Owners
Solo attorneys and law firm owners can coordinate bookkeeping, IOLTA support, payroll, business and personal tax returns, tax planning, and financial advisory through one CPA firm — without managing separate relationships for each function.
Accounting
Law Firm Bookkeeping & Accounting
Monthly accounting services organized around how law firms actually record revenue, client costs, and operating expenses — not a generic chart of accounts adapted for a law firm.
- Monthly bookkeeping and reconciliations
- Financial statement preparation
- Client-cost tracking and recovery
- Accounts payable support
- Owner compensation reporting
- Practice-area profitability reporting
- Year-end accounting cleanup
- QuickBooks Online support
- IOLTA and operating-account reconciliation
- Client trust liability tracking
Tax
Tax Preparation & Planning for Attorneys
We prepare the law firm’s business tax return and coordinate it with the personal tax planning of its owners — so decisions are made with the complete financial picture in mind, not in isolation.
- Business tax return preparation
- Individual tax return preparation
- Quarterly estimated-tax calculations
- S corporation and reasonable compensation analysis
- Partner and shareholder tax planning
- Retirement-plan contribution planning
- Texas franchise tax filings
- Multistate tax coordination
- Tax planning for large contingency-fee receipts
- Partner admissions, redemptions, and buyout tax planning
Advisory
Fractional CFO & Financial Advisory
Growing law firms often need more than bookkeeping and tax preparation. We help turn the firm’s financial data into useful information for management decisions — not just a report that sits in a drawer.
- Revenue analysis by attorney and practice area
- Collections and accounts receivable management
- Work in process reporting
- Associate productivity analysis
- Payroll and staffing cost analysis
- Matter and case profitability
- Cash-flow forecasting and planning
- Owner distribution analysis
- Hiring and new-location financial modeling
- Law firm acquisition due diligence
Payroll
Payroll Services for Law Firms
Accurate, compliant payroll for law firms — handling attorney salary, staff wages, and the employer payroll tax obligations that apply regardless of the firm’s entity structure.
- Payroll processing — weekly, biweekly, or semimonthly
- Federal payroll tax deposits and filings
- Form 941 and Form 940 preparation
- W-2 and 1099 preparation
- New employee onboarding and I-9 coordination
- Benefits deduction processing
- Owner W-2 coordination for S corporation attorneys
- Texas Workforce Commission quarterly reporting
Who We Serve
Law Firm Types and Practice Areas We Work With
Our services are designed for Texas attorneys and law firms of all sizes and structures — from solo practitioners to multi-attorney firms with complex ownership and compensation arrangements.
Solo attorneys
Small and midsize law firms
Professional corporations (PC)
Professional limited liability companies (PLLC)
Partnerships and LLPs
S corporation law practices
Contingency-fee and personal injury firms
Litigation and trial practices
Estate planning and probate firms
Family law practices
Business and corporate law firms
Transactional and real estate law firms
Why Parr & Ibarra CPA
What Distinguishes This Engagement
From a General-Practice CPA
CPA and Legal Education
Adan Ibarra holds the CPA and Personal Financial Specialist credentials and has earned his Juris Doctor degree. His background in accounting, finance, tax, data analytics, and law provides a level of understanding of legal-industry financial issues that a general-practice CPA cannot replicate. You will not spend the first hour of every meeting explaining how your firm earns revenue or why your trust account is separate from your operating account.
IOLTA Accounting That Is Actually Understood
An IOLTA account is not simply another bank account. The accounting must identify how much of the trust balance belongs to each client, reconcile total client balances to the trust-account liability, and reconcile those records to the bank statement — a three-way reconciliation. We understand this requirement and provide accounting support designed around it, not adapted from a general-business bookkeeping template.
Integrated Services Under One Firm
Law firm owners can coordinate bookkeeping, IOLTA accounting support, payroll, business tax returns, personal tax returns, tax planning, and financial advisory through one engagement. This eliminates the coordination failures that occur when the firm’s accountant, the owner’s personal CPA, and the payroll provider are all working independently with no view of the complete picture.
Local DFW Presence With Remote Capability
Parr & Ibarra CPA serves attorneys and law firms throughout Keller, Hurst, Addison, Dallas, Fort Worth, Southlake, Grapevine, Colleyville, Plano, Frisco, Arlington, Irving, and the surrounding North Texas area. Most client work is handled remotely through our secure client portal — with in-person meetings available at our Hurst, Keller, Grapevine, and Addison offices when needed.
Get Started
Work With a CPA Who Understands How Law Firms Operate
Your CPA should understand how your firm earns revenue, manages IOLTA and client trust accounts, compensates attorneys, tracks client costs, and plans for taxes. If your current CPA does not, the gap is costing you time and money you are not aware of.
For urgent matters, call directly: 817-562-5375
