Accounts – Getting Started
Updated Oct 27th, 2026
Who is this guide for?
Accounts Users and Accounts Supervisors
Everyday Accounting Tasks in Osprey Approach
Before you begin: You should be familiar with navigating Osprey Approach and searching for the clients and matters you need to work with. Our guide Searching for data and Navigating around Osprey > may assist with this. You will also need access to the ledgers and to Banks & Journals. If you come across a term you are not sure of, our Osprey Glossary > explains it.
Understanding Accounts in Osprey Approach
Our accounting functions are designed to help your firm manage client money, office money, billing and financial reporting, whilst meeting the accounting requirements that apply to legal practices.
A Typical Month
Most accounts work in Osprey follows a regular routine. Each of the areas below is explained in more detail further down this page.
- Day to day: post receipts, payments and transfers on the client ledgers, bill clients, deal with requisitions from fee earners, and post supplier invoices and nominal entries
- Regularly through the month: reconcile your office and client banks to your bank statements
- Each VAT quarter: check your VAT figures and submit your VAT return to HMRC
- Each month end: run your period end checks and close the period
- Each year end: run the year end alongside your final period end
Client Ledger
The Client Ledger records all of the money relating to a specific client matter. It shows client money held on the client’s behalf and office money such as bills and disbursements, in separate columns.
This includes:
- Money received from the client or on their behalf
- Payments made on behalf of the client
- Bills and credit notes raised to the client
- Disbursements
- Transfers between matters, and between the client and office columns
Think of the Client Ledger as the financial history of an individual matter. Every client matter has its own ledger, so you can see exactly how much client money is being held, what has been billed and what the client still owes.
Related Guides
Billing
Bills are posted on the client ledger of the matter you are billing. Before you bill, it is best to make sure all of the time recordings and disbursements you want to include have been posted to the matter.
Within Osprey you can:
- Post a bill for your fee earner costs, disbursements and VAT
- Let Osprey number your bills automatically
- Allocate disbursements and recorded time to the bill
- Defer time ticking if time recordings are not yet up to date
- Print the bill using your firm’s bill template
Each bill updates the client ledger, your fees and VAT, and the amount the client owes, so accurate billing keeps your debtors and reports correct.
Related Guides
- Billing a Client >
- Accurate billing in Osprey: From Time Recording to Invoicing >
- Best practices for simplified billing in Osprey >
Requisitions
Requisitions allow users who are not in the accounts team, such as fee earners, to request postings on a client ledger. The accounts team then reviews each request before anything is posted.
Requisitions can be used to request:
- Payments, such as cheques or bank transfers
- Bills
- Other client ledger postings
Authorised accounts users can accept or reject each requisition. Once accepted, the posting is made on the client ledger, so fee earners can request what they need while the accounts team keeps control of what is posted.
Related Guides
Purchase Ledger
The Purchase Ledger records what your firm owes to its suppliers. Not every firm uses Purchase Ledgers, so check whether yours does.
Examples include:
- Supplier invoices
- Supplier credit notes
- Payments to suppliers
- Refunds from suppliers
Whilst the Client Ledger tracks the money for each matter, the Purchase Ledger tracks your firm’s own suppliers and what is still to be paid to them.
Related Guides
Nominals
Nominals are the accounting categories used to organise your firm’s income, expenditure, assets and liabilities.
For example:
- Professional Fees
- Bank Charges
- VAT Control
- Office Expenses
Postings update one or more nominals, which is what allows your reports to categorise and summarise your financial activity accurately. Nominals form the foundation of your firm’s Trial Balance and management accounts.
Related Guides
- Post entries on your Nominal Ledgers >
- Understand where Postings Appear on Nominal Ledgers >
- Managing Nominal Ledgers >
Banks & Journals and Petty Cash
Banks & Journals is where you see each of your office and client banks, along with journals such as the Fees, VAT, Petty Cash and Write Off journals, and their balances.
Within Osprey you can:
- View the balance and postings for each bank or journal
- Top up your petty cash from the bank, or pay petty cash back into the bank
- Reconcile your banks to your bank statements (see below)
Petty Cash records the cash your firm holds in the office, so its balance should always agree with what is in the petty cash tin.
Related Guides
- Understand where Postings Appear on Banks & Journals >
- Transfer Money Between Office Banks >
- Transfer money between Client Banks >
- Introducing Petty Cash from Bank >
Bank Reconciliation
Bank reconciliation compares the postings on each bank in Osprey with your bank statement, so you can confirm they agree.
Within Osprey you can:
- Tick off postings that appear on your bank statement
- Search for postings by reference or value
- Automatically reconcile using a CSV download from your online banking
- Print a Bank Reconciliation report showing any unpresented items
Reconciling your office and client banks regularly helps you spot banking errors or incorrect postings early. Only the current financial month can be reconciled, so it is worth checking the system posting date before you start.
Related Guides
VAT
Osprey records the VAT on your postings, so you can monitor and report the VAT your firm owes or can reclaim.
Within Osprey you can:
- Apply VAT to postings
- Review VAT transactions using the VAT reports
- Prepare your VAT return
- Submit your VAT return to HMRC under Making Tax Digital
Understanding how VAT is applied ensures transactions are recorded correctly and your VAT returns and financial reports remain accurate.
Related Guides
- Making Tax Digital (MTD) >
- Paying VAT to HMRC >
- Understand VAT Reports >
- Finding your VAT Liabilities Part Way through a Period >
Period End
Period end closes the current financial month, so new postings move into the next period. Before closing, you check that the figures across your ledgers, banks and journals agree with the Trial Balance.
Your period end checks include:
- Confirming the Trial Balance balances for this period and year to date
- Checking each office and client bank has been reconciled and agrees with your bank statement
- Checking the Fees, VAT, Petty Cash and Write Off journals agree with the Trial Balance
- Checking your debtors and Purchase Ledger creditors
- Looking for overdrawn client balances or credit office balances that need investigating
Once everything agrees, a supervisor runs the period end from Supervisor > Financial Periods. The period end reports are then available to print or reprint at any time.
At the end of your financial year, the same checks apply, and the final period end is run together with the year end.
Related Guides
Reports
Osprey includes a range of standard reports to help you check and understand your figures. The ones accounts users rely on most include:
- Trial Balance
- Ledger Balance
- Aged Debtors and Aged Creditors
- Audit Trail
- Bank Reconciliation
Our Standard Reports List explains every standard report, grouped by area, with a link to a guide for each one.
Related Guides