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How Does Protected Trust Work?

Use the Protected Trust option to effectively block trust funds from being able to be used unless for a specific reason - e.g. protect $6,000 from Trust to pay Barrister fees.

Protected Trust is only available to users on the Expert billing plan. More information on SILQ's pricing plans can be found here for Solicitors. This feature is not available for Barristers.

Protected Trust is a feature in SILQ that allows you to earmark or "protect" trust funds, ensuring they are reserved for specific, known future expenses — such as Barrister fees, your fees or known disbursements. This helps you avoid unintentionally using funds already committed and gives you clear visibility over available vs. allocated trust money.

What Does It Mean to “Protect” Funds?

When you protect funds, you're telling SILQ:

"This money is already spoken for — don’t treat it as available."

These protected amounts are typically based on:

  • Costs Agreements for your firm’s fees

  • Barristers’ fees if involved

  • Expected disbursements

Example Scenario

Let’s say a client has $10,000 held in trust.

  • A Barrister has advised their fees will be $6,000

  • Your firm has advised $3,000 for your professional fees

You use Protected Trust to reserve those amounts. That means $9,000 is now protected.

Later, a $2,000 disbursement comes in that needs to be paid from trust.

Because $9,000 was already protected, SILQ will indicate that the only unallocated funds available are $1,000. This allows you to proactively request an additional $1,000 from the client — ensuring there's always enough in trust to meet known obligations.

Why Use Protected Trust?

  • Prevents accidental use of funds already committed

  • Ensures sufficient trust balance for upcoming expenses

  • Supports compliance with trust accounting rules

  • Improves financial clarity for both clients and staff

Tip:

Protected Trust does not restrict your ability to process payments — but it acts as a visibility and forecasting tool to help you manage trust money responsibly.

How?

Creating a Protected Trust amount can be done in 3 ways:

From the Matter

1. From the Matters window, click on Matter Details

2. From the left hand side, click on Protected Trust

3. In this window, you fill find 3 buttons to either add, edit or remove a Protected Trust.

4. Click on New Protected Trust

5. The Matter Ledger should be pre-filled, however you will need to enter in the:

    a. Date

    b. Protection type - i.e. it is protected for any matter invoices, third party payments or for an      unknown reason.

    c. Amount to be protected (please note, you can only protect funds as long as the matter has that amount or more available in the trust ledger).

    d. Reason for protecting the funds.

From the Trust Money Window

1. From the Trust Money window, click on Protected Trust in the ribbon

2. From the left hand side, click on Protected Trust

Follow the remaining steps above, however in this instance you will need to choose the matter you are protecting trust for.

When creating an invoice

When preparing an invoice you will see a box down the bottom that gives you the opportunity to request protected trust to use for that invoice.

You will need to toggle this button on.

Once toggled on SILQ will give you 3 key pieces of information:

  1. Matter Ledger Balance - this is the full amount of money still available in the trust account (including any protect funds). Using the example above, that will be $10,000.
  2. Unprotected Funds - this is the amount of trust funds for this matter less any protected funds. Using the example above, that will be $1,000. 
  3. 'Any Matter Invoice' Protections - This is the amount you have allocated to 'Any Matter Invoices' at the time you protected trust. SILQ shows you this figure so you know how much of the protected trust has been reserved to pay for your firms invoices. By knowing this figure you can decide whether to apply some or all of this protected amount to this invoice.  

Use the above information to decide on how much to protect on this invoice (or perhaps it is a prompt to request additional funds).

SILQ then gives you the option to:

  1. Protect as much as possible – when toggled on this will allocate as much Trust funds as possible to protect on the invoice created. Using the example above, $10,000 in trust with $1,000 unprotected, however the invoice total is $1,600. In this instance SILQ will protect $1,000 against this invoice so that the amount protected is not able to be withdrawn. Please note however, this means that the remaining $600 is not protected as there are no further unprotected funds in trust. However, had you had $2,000 available, the whole $1,600 would be protected.

    If you toggle off the option to protect as much as possible you can type in an amount of your choosing to protect against the invoice. This allows you to choose how much in the Trust ledger you would like to apply to the invoice. For example, if you only wanted to apply $500 from Trust for whatever reason, then you would type in $500. 
  2. Utilise existing “Any Matter Invoice” Protections  - This option is on by default but will only be used if you have previously entered a protected trust amount in SILQ and selected the option "Any matter invoice".
    Using the above example, $3,000 would have been allocated to "Any Matter Invoice" as this figure was intended for your firm's fees. Given the invoice you are now trying to create is $1,600, if this toggle is on, SILQ will redirect the $1,600 to be protected specifically for this invoice and the 'Any Matter Invoice' protection will be reduced to $1,400. When creating another invoice for this matter, the balance for 'Any Matter Invoice Protections' would then show as $1,400 instead of the original $3,000. 

 

Whether SILQ allocates the amount, or you type in your own amount, that figure will show on the invoice when generated.
This is useful when wanting to show the client how much is applied from Trust to the invoice and the remaining outstanding amount they would need to pay.  

How do you use Protected Trust funds?

Protecting funds are helpful in managing 'spending', however what happens when invoices/expenses are due and you need to use those funds?

Releasing funds can be done in 1 of 2 ways, depending on what you are paying:

When paying an invoice for your firms fees

If, at the time of invoice creation, you specified an amount of protected trust to be used, you should process the payment via a Trust to Office withdrawal. SILQ will then automatically adjust the protected trust balance by reducing or removing the protected amount.

However, if you chose not to apply the full protected amount when paying the invoice (e.g. the invoice is $1,600, $1,600 is protected, but you decide to apply only $500), SILQ will not automatically know this. In this case, you’ll need to manually enter the correct amount during the Trust to Office transaction.

This step is important — on the invoice, you've already asked the client to pay the remaining $1,100 separately, therefore withdrawing the full $1,600 from trust would effectively result in double payment. Always refer back to the invoice to confirm the amount you're intending to transfer from trust.

When paying third party invoices

Third party invoice such as Barrister Fees, Disbursements etc should be paid from Trust using the Trust Withdrawal function.

Before paying a third party invoice, you will need to ensure you have deleted the protected trust amount from the protected trust window. If not deleted, SILQ will not let you withdraw those funds.

 

Permission for Protected Trust

Permission is on a per user basis. In system settings, under user, select the relevant user and ensure that if you want them to be able to access Protected Trust, the below are ticked (or vice versa)