Part 1: Preparing for Migration · Part 2: Preparing for Conversion Day · Part 4: Your Go-Live Week
Before Your First Day in Law App
Your conversion happens on a Friday afternoon (or the last business day of the month for end-of-month go-lives). Your last working day in the old system is that day, and you go live in Law App the next business day. What you need to do depends on whether your go-live falls mid-month or at the end of the month.
Standard Go-Live (Mid-Month)
This is the most common scenario. Your conversion day is a Friday, and you go live in Law App the following Monday. Complete your bank reconciliation as at that Friday — you can do this over the weekend or first thing Monday morning. On your first morning, do a final check to make sure nothing came in after the conversion cut-off, then send us your Trust Trial Balance and bank reconciliation.
End-of-Month Go-Live
If your go-live is timed to the end of the month, the conversion cut-off is 3pm on the last business day of the month. This might be a Friday, but it could also be a Wednesday or Thursday — it depends on the calendar.
Your next working day after cut-off is your first day in Law App. If the last business day is mid-week, that means you go live the very next day. If it falls on a Friday, you go live Monday as usual.
Don’t run your end of month until after the last calendar day of the month. If the last calendar day falls on a weekend, complete your end-of-month reconciliations on the next business day — there’s no need to come in on a Saturday or Sunday. If anything comes in after the 3pm cut-off, treat it normally in your legacy system and replicate it in Law App.
The bank reconciliation — whether it’s a mid-month cut-over or an end-of-month — captures everything through to the reconciliation date. It is not cut off at 3pm. The 3pm cut-off on conversion day applies only to outstanding disbursements and WIP, which is what we carry forward into Law App.
What’s Available in Law App on Day One
Law App will be available from start of business on your first day. There will still be some clean-up work on our end from the conversion, but that doesn’t stop you from processing.
However, not everything is available immediately — some functions depend on take-up data that we can only enter once we receive your end-of-month figures. Here’s what you can and can’t do:
Trust Receipts
Available once we’ve entered your trust carry-forward. For end-of-month go-lives, this happens on your first day once we receive your figures. For mid-month go-lives where the end of month was completed earlier, trust balances will already be in the system and you can start straight away — including any catch-up transactions between the end of month and go-live.
Trust Payments
Available once we’ve entered your trust carry-forward. Same timing as trust receipts above — if your end of month has already been processed, trust is ready to go from day one.
General Receipts and Payments
You can enter any receipt or payment into the general account straight away. However, there won’t be a take-up bank balance until we process your bank reconciliation. Once we receive it, we’ll get that entered very quickly.
Receipt Allocation to Invoices
You won’t be able to allocate a receipt to an outstanding invoice until we enter the take-up debtors, which we’ll do on Day 2. In the meantime, just leave any receipts unallocated.
The Take-Up Order of Operations
The take-up process has a specific order — each step depends on the one before it. Think of it like a recipe where all the ingredients can go in, they just have to go in the right order.
| When | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Day 1 — AM | End-of-month go-lives: You send us your Trust Trial Balance and Trust Bank Reconciliation. These are the most important day-one items — everything else flows from here. Mid-month go-lives: If your end of month was processed earlier, trust balances are already in the system. You can begin trust transactions — including any catch-up from between end of month and go-live — straight away. |
| Day 1 — AM/PM | We enter the trust carry-forward (if end-of-month go-live) and general bank balance. You can start entering general transactions while we work. |
| Day 1 — PM | Trust receipts and payments become available once the trust take-up is complete (end-of-month go-lives). For mid-month go-lives, these are already available. |
| Day 2 | We enter the take-up debtors. You can now allocate receipts to outstanding invoices. |
| Within first week | Remaining General Ledger balances (P&L, Balance Sheet) are entered once we receive your reports. |
Getting your Trust Trial Balance and bank reconciliation to us as early as possible on your first day will get everything moving. Send to accounts@lawsupport.com.au and CC support@lawsupport.com.au.
Using Your Legacy System Alongside Law App
InfoTrack Searches
Run any InfoTrack searches in your legacy system from first thing on your first day. Reconciling InfoTrack after the fact is a headache you don’t need. That said, if you have to run a search and can’t do it in Law App, it’s not the end of the world — just be aware you’ll need to reconcile it.
Replicating Transactions
If you can hold off on entering trust or general receipts and payments in your legacy system on day one, do so — but don’t let it hold you up. If you need to process something in your old system to keep things running, just replicate the transaction in Law App afterwards.
Issue Date Flexibility
For the first few days after go-live, the issue date on transactions is relaxed. This means you can enter a transaction in Law App with the original date from your legacy system, so your replicated transactions match.
Once we confirm you’re caught up in Law App, we’ll email you to let you know that issue date locks are back in place from that day forward.
These first few days also give you breathing space to get transactions right. It won’t feel as natural as your old system for a little while — and that’s completely normal. Transitioning to new software is difficult purely because our brains resist change, but if you trust the process, it comes together quickly.
Things to Watch in Your First Few Days
- Cheque and receipt number sequencing — keep an eye on these in your first few transactions. If the numbers aren’t right, you can manually adjust them in the transaction itself.
- Anything entered in your legacy system must be replicated in Law App — outstanding disbursements and WIP carried forward from Friday are the cut-off point. Anything new goes into Law App.
- Keep your legacy system accessible — you may need to refer back to it for historical information or to reprint old invoices.
Questions? Email support@lawsupport.com.au or call 07 3040 3036.
