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Billing for matters that involve petitioning for fees

G
Userlevel 2

I’m wondering how to best utilize Smokeball billing for differentiating between invoices that need to be paid by the clients within the specified due date, versus ones that we can’t collect for that are subject to petitioning for fees.  We currently have no way of tracking that in Smokeball from what I see.  We use matter tags “Pay Now” or “Petition for Fees” and run reports each cycle for all matters, separate which can be sent to clients to collect, and which cannot until court approved.  For invoice cover sheets, we also have resorted to using spreadsheets with manually entering customer addresses, as Smokeball does not allow us to choose between two separate billing cover sheets that would either request clients to pay now ,or let them know what they owe, but not until the court approves the fees.  Are there more intuitive, and less time consuming ways of doing this each monthly billing cycle?

 

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Best answer by JKibler 22 April 2023, 18:02

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11 replies

J
Userlevel 6
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There is not a good way to do what you are wanting which is to separate matters by whether they are to be routinely billed/payment demanded or wait until fee petitioned. I’m sure that’s why you have arrived at the method you are using. You can comment on invoices when generated as opposed to this separate cover sheet method. You can also comment in invoice emails if you are emailing them. This sounds like it would be a good feature request to submit. 

Sara Sultan
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Userlevel 7
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Hello Jackie,

I do have one suggestion that may help.  If all invoices per matter are subject to a fee petition, some possible workarounds are as follows:

  • set the matter status to pending.  There is a filter in Smokeball Billing for matter status.
  • Manually add to the front of the Internal Reference something like “PET”.  This will also show in Smokeball Billing.

 

Sara Sultan (she/her)
G
Userlevel 2

Hi Sara,

We haven’t used the Pending status as we don’t know what if affects within matter capabilities.  Would all matter functions be available?  What exactly does setting it to “pending” do?  We would still be working on all of these matters per business as usual, and do finalize the bills, we just don’t want there to be any confusion that they are on the hook for paying now.  Unfortunately, there is also no way to get rid of the PAY NOW green button on the invoices themselves for just some of the invoices, correct?

Is Smokeball working on the ability to have more than one invoice email template to choose from, and more than one cover letter template to choose from?  This would be a HUGE UX selling point, and not having those capabilities is costing us in man-hours each month.  Even if it were an add-on feature, it would be worth it!

Thank you for your help!

Sara Sultan
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Hello Jackie,

Setting a matter status to pending will simply allow you to filter the matters that you view in both Smokeball and Smokeball Billing.  All of the functionality is the same.  

As to separate email templates, as far as I know we are not actively working on it, but we have received this suggestion before regarding separate email templates.  Please add your name to the list of people requesting as more requests will help bump the priority.

I have not had many requests for different cover letter options, but please put in that suggestion as well here.

You are also correct in that there is not an option currently to disable the LawPay link for certain invoices.  

Sara Sultan (she/her)
G
Userlevel 2

I’ve made my requests.  Thank you Sara for your help, and speedy responses.

B
Userlevel 2

Jackie,


I also recommend creating a special invoice in Billing for fees that need to be approved by the Court.  I call mine “Guardianship” since it is usually in Guardianship matters that this is required.  I have the Guardianship form invoice include language that says that the invoice must be preapproved by the Court before payment.  I also have an email form that explains the same to the Client - that the invoice is for their review only and no payment is due until after Court approval. I think the due date can also be changed.  I realize this does not provide a way to search through the invoices to figure out which are due and which need to be approved by the Court first, but it might help a bit.​​​​​​

G
Userlevel 2

Thank you BridgetW,

Are you saying it is possible to have have different invoice templates for different matter types within the Smokeball billing interface?  I haven’t been able to find that feature though I think it would benefit our firm greatly.

B
Userlevel 2

Jackie,


Yes!  in Smokeball Billing, go to your name, then “Firm Settings”.  The person who does this will need to have the permission to do it.

It will bring another page that has the option for “Invoice Settings”  and “Email Templates”.

Click “Invoice Settings” and create and name templates.   Same can be done with emails to be sent with the invoice.

G
Userlevel 2

Hi BridgetW,

Thank you for your reply.  I was able to create invoice templates, but I am not seeing the ability to create different “Email" templates to include with my invoices.  If this is available, could you please give me more insight on how to do this?

B
Userlevel 2

Jackie,

That’s great!  Yes, you can make form emails to send with your invoices.  In the same section (Billing - Firm Settings), there is a tab on the left side (under Invoice) called “Email Templates”.  You can create email templates for different types of invoices.

G
Userlevel 2

Hi BridgetW,

Okay, I’m here, but I’m only seeing this.  Am I possibly missing something?  I don’t see the option to have multiple Email templates.  Just the one for invoices.  Do you enter here and change it based on what type you’re sending each time?  Thank you for all of your help.

 

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