There are three ways to add a Red Flag of type ‘Suspicion’ in OnePractice. A receipt or payment can be flagged as potentially suspicious by ticking the box on the posting dialogue, see figure 1. If this is done either during posting or added later by editing the transaction, then a Red Flag is added to the appropriate client.
One method of laundering money through a law firm that has been reported is via the use of a property transaction that doesn’t proceed. Funds from a dubious source are deposited in a solicitor’s trust account, ostensibly for the purchase of a property, then the transaction is abandoned or allowed to ‘fall over’ on purpose, and the solicitor is instructed by the client to pay the funds out to a third party. The third party can claim that the funds were from the sale of a property and without a more thorough inspection, the funds look clean.
A Red Flag can be added to the client manually by going to the Red Flags tab of the appropriate client, clicking the green plus icon then filling in the details of the red flag, see figure 2.
Figure 1
Figure 2