CRM11 and Court Duty Claims

Each month, you will receive your Monthly Contract Payment from the LAA on account of the Claims you should produce that month. This payment should be paid into the Legal Services Client re Criminal Standard Monthly Payment matter.

To post the payment, you should post an Office Bill Payment credit to this Matter for the amount received from the LAA. The double entry for this posting will be to one of your Office Bank Accounts

The latest legislation from H M Customs & Excise is that you do not need to pay the VAT on your Contract payments in advance. The “Tax Point” for these receipts is the end of your VAT Quarter. All that is needed is a simple posting at the end of each VAT Quarter to pay the VAT on the amount of funds not yet allocated to ledgers (similar to your Road Fuel Scale Charge Posting). This posting will be covered in detail at the end of this Chapter.

Once you have produced your CRM6, you can then Post and Pay any Claims that are shown on it.

It is easiest to Post and Pay all the Claims in one go at the end of the month, because if you Posted and Paid them as you went along and then discovered at the end of the month that there was a discrepancy, it is not possible to cancel a Claim and re-produce it once it has been Posted.

We have one Posting, which deals with posting a Bill and Bill receipt onto each matter at the same time. This Posting will then leave an outstanding entry on the Office bank, to counteract this you will need to post a debit entry to the LAA Criminal Standard Monthly Payment matter. We suggest that you post one Office Bill Payment Debit for the total amount of the Bills on the CRM6.

To make your Bank Reconciliation easier, we recommend that all postings (both those to the ledgers themselves and the contra entry to your LAA Criminal Standard Monthly Payment matter) should be posted with the same date and reference.

Follow the steps described below: -

1. Go into the ALB Accounts System and then into the Postings menu. Select Office and Legal Aid Bill and Payment.
2. Using your Internal Summary Report as guidance for which matters have claims that need posting, enter your first Crime Client number in the “Ref” field and select the relevant matter number from the drop-down.
   • Date: This will default to today’s date; amend as applicable.
   • Description: Enter the receipt description.
   • Reference: Enter the receipt reference.
   • Office Bank: This will default to the office bank set up in Utilities.
   • Payment Amount: Enter the bill payment amount due here. This should not be more than the ‘Max Payment’ amount.
3. Click Post to save the receipt posting. If you wish to cancel the claim, click on the Cancel cross. A claim can only be cancelled if the CRM6 has not been submitted.
4. Once you have clicked on Post you will then see the Bill Posting screen.
   • Date: This will default to today’s date – amend if applicable
   • Description: Enter bill description
   • Bill Number: Enter the bill number unless automatic bill numbering is switched on
5. The profit costs and disbursement details should be filled in by the system, select Save & Exit to save the posting.

You now need to post your Contra entry on the LAA Client matter.

1. From the Office Postings menu select Office Bill Payment.
• Ref. Enter the LAA Criminal Standard Monthly Payments matter.
• Date. This will default to today’s date; amend as applicable. Don’t forget, to make your Bank Reconciliation easier, give all postings the same date and reference.
• Description. Enter an appropriate description.
• Reference. Enter as applicable. Don’t forget, to make your Bank Reconciliation easier, give all postings the same date and reference.
• Bank. This should be your default Office Bank.
• Debit / Credit. Amend credit to debit.
• Amount. Enter the total of all the bills you have paid and posted.
2. Click on Save & Exit - The Monthly Postings are now complete.