Billing from a Lead

Question

We generally provide free initial consultations, but there are times that a client need an extended consultation or we may give some substantive suggestions during the consultation. On those occasions we will charge the (prospective) client for the time. However, in those situations the client is still prospective and hasn’t signed a legal service agreement yet.

We create leads for prospective clients but only convert them to matters once we are hired and have a signed legal services agreement. I recently realized, however, that Smokeball will not let us bill from a lead. We have to convert the lead to a matter in order to create an invoice. I’m not too happy about that limit in Smokeball’s functionality, but I want to know how other firms deal with the situation. How are you creating an invoice and billing for consultations?

I’d also like to request that Smokeball allow users to bill from a Lead (since you can attach time and expense entries to a Lead), but I’m not sure how to submit that as a formal request.

JG3 · Accepted Answer

You can indeed bill from a lead.The typical “billing” button is missing as you would see it on a matter (as below)…...but you need to go into SB Billing and find the client in the search button...….from there, you can then select the time, service, expense, etc. and create an invoice against which you can apply a payment.We do it all the time.

Trent Nichols · Answer

Thanks @JG3and @Sara Sultan, those answers are very helpful. We did not have the button selected to assign internal reference numbers to leads, which I guess is why we were not seeing the leads in Smokeball Billing to create an invoice. I greatly appreciate the help!