SRA Accounts Rules - 2024 Virtual Conference

Introduction

Chaired by Trevor Hellawell, this online conference with a panel of leading experts offers a comprehensive update as to the current hot topics in this fast-moving area.

Each session will provide a full opportunity for questions and answers.

Conference Agenda

This 5 hour conference will cover the following:

10:00am-11:00am: Relations with Our Reporting Accountants - Checklists for Success

Chair: Trevor Hellawell, Exl Practice Development

An Accountants’ report is required within 6 months of the end of your accounting period. So far, so familiar. But, what the accountants and auditors have to look for has changed and with it, your relationship with them.

Gone is the old tick-box approach to a list of things to look out for; it has been replaced by a professional scrutiny of everything we do to see if we have done it right or wrong and whether you should already have reported yourselves to the SRA some months previously. They are the experts in how you should be dealing with matters and if they can think of a better way of doing things then you need to be hearing their suggestions.

You will be audited against your own measures whatever they may be.

This session will cover:

• Rule 12 of the SAR and associated Resources
• Relations with your Accountants
• Management reports on how you could improve your systems
• Checklists against which you can benchmark yourself
• When should you self-report?
• When should the accountants qualify their report?

Morning Break

11:10am-12:10pm: Anti-Money Laundering Report

Joanna Morris, Consultant

A requirement from the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) is that all the professional supervisory bodies (the SRA) complete and publish an annual Anti-Money Laundering Report.

This report for 2022/23 will look back over the last year and give you the SRA’s findings and is full of interesting facts and figures. It will also look at emerging risks for the future and what you can do to be prepared for them.

This session will cover:

• Why the SRA produce this report
• Where the SRA get their information from
• What are the key risk areas identified in our firms?
• What more can you do in the Finance Team to ensure compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations?

12:10pm-1:10pm: SRA Accounts Rules Compliance

Ian Johnson, Hazlewoods LLP

This session will cover:

• A look back over the last year of compliance from the point of view of the auditor
• An update on our work as auditors and key areas of focus
• How firms have fared this year with SRA Accounts Rules compliance - the good, the bad and the ugly
• Any new guidance and how this has impacted on recent findings

Break for lunch

2:00pm-3:00pm: The Importance of Understanding the Banking Prohibition

Tracey Calvert, Oakalls Consultancy Ltd

Law firms are not banks and they must not provide banking facilities. The SRA Accounts Rules contains this prohibition, and the SRA is quick to discipline individuals and law firms who are in breach of this restriction.

This session will cover:

• Why you cannot use your client bank account for banking
• A brief history of the restriction
• The meaning of the language of the restriction
• Case studies from the disciplinary archives of the SRA and the SDT
• How to demonstrate compliance in practice

Afternoon break

3:15pm-4:15pm: Costs & Disbursements - Or Are They?

Trevor Hellawell, Exl Practice Development

The age-old linguistic debate about what is a ‘disbursement’ has been going on for long enough.

The Accounts Rules themselves only distinguish between costs and disbursements, but that would seem to be at odds with the view of the VAT Tribunal who expressed a rather different view in the Brabners case some years ago. Nor is it the view expressed by the Law Society in its treatises on the subject.

The critical question is - on what do you have to charge VAT?

This session will cover:

• The ‘new’ Rules on cost and disbursements
• The Law Society view
• The VAT Tribunal view
• What should you be doing now?
• How do you construct your bills?