One equation. Three independent sources.
Every month, your bank statement, trust journal, and client ledgers must agree to the cent. TriBalance computes each side independently from your uploaded records, shows its work, and blocks the close when they disagree. This page walks through exactly what happens between upload and attorney sign-off.
Illustrative figures. Real closes run on your own uploaded records.
The three sources, and what each one proves.
Bank statement
A CSV export of your trust account statement. It is the outside record: what the bank says moved and what the bank says remains. The software checks the statement period, the opening balance against your prior close, and line completeness before any math runs.
Trust journal
Your firm's own record of every trust receipt and disbursement, exported from your accounting or practice-management system. It is the inside record: what you say happened, matter by matter, with payees and purposes.
Client ledger balances
Per-matter balances for every client with funds in trust. Their sum must equal the other two sides, and no individual client ledger may ever be negative. One client's money can never paper over another's shortfall.
Before any math: the preflight.
Completeness
All three sources must be present and parseable. A missing file, an empty export, or an unreadable format stops intake with a named reason and the exact file to fix.
Period alignment
All three sources must cover the same close period. A statement from March and a journal from April never reconcile silently.
Opening-balance continuity
This month's opening balances must match last month's approved close. A gap means something changed outside the record, and the software will not pretend otherwise.
Fail closed is the design principle: when input is missing, conflicting, or uncertain, the close stops with a specific reason and a safe way to recover. Nothing is guessed, defaulted, or silently posted.
The math is deterministic,
and it shows its work.
Money is stored and computed as integer cents. No floating-point arithmetic ever touches a balance, so the same inputs produce the same result, every time, to the cent.
Classification of routine transactions follows deterministic rules with recorded provenance. Where assistance proposes a category, it is only a proposal: no model approves, posts, reconciles, or changes a financial record. Anything unresolved is flagged for a person.
- 01Adjusted bank balanceStatement balance, plus deposits in transit, minus outstanding disbursements. Every adjustment references a source line.
- 02Journal closing balanceOpening balance plus the period's receipts and disbursements from your own journal.
- 03Client-ledger totalThe sum of every per-matter balance, computed independently of the journal side.
Why three ways, not one
What blocks a close, and why.
Three-way mismatch
The three computed balances disagree. The period is blocked until the difference is explained by evidence, not adjusted away. The pack shows each side's computation so you can see where they diverge.
Negative client ledger
Any individual matter below zero blocks the close, even when the account total looks fine. A positive balance on one matter can never offset a shortfall on another.
Charges against trust principal
Bank fees or charges hitting the trust account are surfaced with the exact statement line, so they can be reimbursed from operating and documented.
Stale and unclassified items
Outstanding checks that never cleared and transactions that no rule could classify are flagged with severity and evidence links. A person resolves each one, with notes that stay in the record.
The software describes conditions. It never makes the legal judgment. Every exception names the affected source, the responsible role, and a safe next action.
Three people, three different jobs.
Operator prepares
Your bookkeeper, administrator, or outside legal-bookkeeping partner assembles the three exports, runs intake, and resolves data-level exceptions with notes.
Independent reviewer checks
Someone who did not prepare the close walks the pack: balances, exceptions, resolutions, and schedules. Independent review comes before attorney approval, not after.
Attorney approves
The supervising attorney signs the exact report version, identified by its content hash. If any source changes afterward, the prior review and approval are invalidated and the close re-runs.
A review-ready pack, every month.
Reconciliation summary, supporting schedules, the exception register with its resolutions, and the sign-off record. Versioned, hash-referenced, and exportable as PDF and CSV. Your record, portable and inspectable.