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Payment Related Question

  • March 30, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 6 views
C

If we received an operating payment that was $2,000 more than the invoice amount, do we then apply it all into trust initially instead of operating and transfer the trust funds to the invoice? Or do we deposit it accordingly how the payment was received (in operating) and then transfer what is left to the trust account?

1 reply

J
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  • JKibler
  • Smokeball Genius
  • March 31, 2026

​@CindyLoo in order to comply with ethics for our practice in Illinois we use the first method with deposit to trust then payment of invoice so that we are not depositing unearned funds into the operating account. However, that only works for cash/check payments. If client overpays an operating payment via link using a credit card or selects the wrong link this will create an overage in the operating account which gets applied to the “operating retainer” account in SB. Then I think we do an EFT and SB balance transfer from the operating retainer to the trust retainer account.

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