Regulation 2831.2 requires that the total of all Separate Beneficiary or Transaction Records maintained pursuant to Regulation 2831.1 be reconciled with the balance of the Record of All Trust Funds Received and Paid Out required by Regulation 2831, at least once a month except when the bank account did not have any activities. The requirement is that the accounting records be reconciled to each other. This is not only a legal requirement, this is also part of a sound internal control for trust fund handling.
In order for this procedure to have a reliable result, the Record of All Trust Funds Received and Paid Out must be reconciled first with the bank account statements as of a certain cut-off date. This procedure is commonly known as bank reconciliation and is performed basically to determine the accuracy of the records. A cut-off date is the calendar date (usually end of the month), when no transaction or activity thereafter is considered. This process is completed once all adjustments and corrections of any reconciling items have been made to the ending balance on each record to arrive at an adjusted cash balance. In other words, the balance of the record of all trust funds received and paid out has to equal the adjusted cash balance.
The next step is to compare and reconcile the total of all beneficiary or transaction records with the adjusted cash balance as of the cut-off date of the bank reconciliation. The main objective of this procedure is to determine, based on the records, whether all trust funds held on behalf of others are on deposit in the corresponding trust account. Another purpose of this procedure is to ascertain that there is no unidentified overage or broker’s funds in excess of $200 in the trust account. Any discrepancy must be corrected accordingly. The broker is required to maintain a record of the trust account reconciliation showing the name of the bank account and number, date of the reconciliation, account number or name of the principals, beneficiaries or transactions and the amount of trust funds held by the broker for each of the principals, beneficiaries or transactions. Failure to comply with this Regulation could result in substantial loss of trust funds and disciplinary action against the broker by the Department.
