Transferring Balances Between Trust Accounts

Last reviewed: 04/03/2003
Article ID: R10808

The information in this article applies to:

TAS Version 10

Summary

This article provides instructions for transferring trust account balances between trust accounts.

More Information

From time to time, you may open a new bank account for trust funds (e.g., if the firm switches to a different bank). When this happens, it may be necessary to transfer the trust account balances in TAS from one bank account to another. You may, however, want to leave the history for the old bank account in place, and start the TAS new bank account fresh, with only the client's trust balances brought forward. The following procedures can be used to transfer the balance from an existing trust account to a new trust account with the same Trust ID but a different bank account. These procedures do not transfer the detailed transactions to the new account.

Step One: Back Up Your TAS Data

From the TAS menu, select File | Back Up Data Files.
Click OK to start the backup process.

Step Two: Print a Trust Account List

From the TAS menu, select Reports | Trust Account List.
In the Trust ID and corresponding Thru fields, enter the Trust ID of the trust account whose balance you want to transfer. Alternatively, you may want to leave these fields blank in order to print the Trust Account List for all trust accounts belonging to a certain bank account.
In the Bank Account # field, click the drop-down button to open the Bank Account Lookup window.
Select the bank account associated with the trust account(s) to be included on the report, and click OK.
Leave the rest of the fields on the Trust Accounts tab blank.
On the Options tab, make sure the Detail option is selected in the Report Type section and the Print Current Balance option is selected in the Trust Balance section.
On the Sort tab, select the desired options in the Report Order and Trust Order sections, and make sure the Totals Only check box is cleared in the Totals section.
Click OK.
In the Print Trust Account List window, select the Print option and click OK.

Step Three: Create a Payee Named "Transfer Balances".

Note: This step only needs to be performed once. The "Transfer Balances" payee can be used again for each trust account balance transfer.

From the TAS menu, select File | Open | Miscellaneous.
Click the Payee tab.
Select File | New.
In the Payee Name field, enter "Transfer Balances" (without the quotation marks).
Press the Tab key to advance to the next field and create a new record.
Select File | Save to save the new payee record.

Step Four: Create the New Account

From the TAS menu, select File | Open | Trust Account.
In the Trust ID field, click the drop-down button to access the Trust ID Lookup window.
Select the trust account whose balance you want to transfer and click OK.
Click the drop-down button in the Bank Account field to open the Bank Account Lookup window.
Select the bank account for the new trust account and click OK. The word New will appear next to the Trust ID field.
On the Balances tab, click the Date Opened field and enter the date on which the new trust account was created. (Note: This field has a default value of the current system date, but you may want to use this field to record the date on which the transfer to the new bank account occurred. Alternatively, you may want to enter the date on which the client's trust account was originally opened under the old bank account. Refer to the Trust Account List printed in Step Two if necessary.)
If integrating with TABS III, you may want to enter the optional TABS III Amount to Bill and Target Balance at this time. These amounts are included on the Trust Account List printed in Step Two.
Select File | Save to save the new trust account.

Step Five: Transfer the Balance Out of the Old Account

From the TAS menu, select File | Open | Transaction.
In the Trust ID field, click the drop-down button to open the Trust ID Lookup window.
Select the old trust account and click OK.
Select File | New to create a new trust transaction for the selected Trust ID.
Click the drop-down button next to the Type field and select EFT.
In the Date field, enter the date of the transfer from the old bank account to the new.
In the Amount field, enter the amount you want to transfer (i.e., the amount shown as the Balance below the Amount field).
In the Description field, enter a description of the transfer (e.g., "Transferring balance to new bank account").
Click the drop-down button next to Payee Name to open the Payee Lookup window.
Select the payee named Transfer Balances, and click OK.
Select File | Save to save the transaction record.

Step Six: Deposit the Balance in the New Account

From the TAS menu, select File | Open | Transaction.
In the Trust ID field, click the drop-down button to open the Trust ID Lookup window.
Select the new trust account created in Step Four and click OK.
Select File | New to create a new transaction record.
Click the drop-down button in the Type field, and select Deposit.
In the Date field, enter the date of the transfer from the old bank account to the new bank account.
In the Amount field, enter the amount being deposited to the new trust account (i.e., the amount transferred from the old trust account in Step Five).
In the Description field, enter a description of the deposit (e.g., "Balance brought forward from old bank account").

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