General Q&A

Our office is required by one of our clients to use Bar Codes on Deeds we prepare. Our old software created those without issue but it doesn’t seem that Smokeball generates useable barcodes. I can create them with a font but that font is not readable by the scanners. It doesn’t appear that Smokeball has a system and my efforts at customer service and support isn’t generate nay movement.Does anyone know how to creates useable bar codes?

I can’t figure out how to do it. Seems like a basic functionality that would be incredibly useful, as I currently have to manually check if my assistant has shared a document with me for my review/edits, etc. 

It is Trust Account Auditing time again and I need to provide a client list to my Accountants to enable them to choose random files to examine to ensure that I am complying with my Trust Account obligations.I am able to do a matter list or a client list for the financial year but this is too many files.  I need to provide a list of clients/matters that used my Trust Account during the 2023/24 financial year to my Accountants.Can someone advise how this list can be produced?

Is there a way to create a task from an email?  95% of my tasks for myself and my staff come from email.  Going back and forth can be a bit of a pain.  There is a way to make tasks off of email for Outlook.  Is there a way to create a task from an email - i.e. draft response to email, create task, hit send.  Email goes to file and task created.   Along with finally doing something about a Service tab for more than one defendant (or, my practice, 10+), this would be life changing. 

Hi we are new to Smokeball and need help with “office” PEXA payments.    When these payments are automatically deducted from our office bank account they are deducted as 2 separate payments (1 for PEXA fees the other for the registration fees).   The 2 payments can be for multiple matters.   I am having trouble reconciling in Xero.   How do I reconcile 2 bank payments to multiple matters in Smokeball?

Hi,Is it possible to customise/add additional matter details fields in Matter Types?For example in the Criminal Law Matter Types I would like to add in a Police Area Command/Police Station field.Thanks 

Hello. Maybe I missed where this info is being displayed now or an option to change it, but on the Billing Portal, is there still a way to see the balance of funds in a Client Operating Retainer account? This used to display on the Overview screen but now it only has Trust balance (presumably IOLTA only).Thanks! 

hi, in SB Billing I finalise all the billing in our firm and sometimes I need to CC the person responsible into the email that sends out the bill to the client, it would be fantasitc to have a drop down list of employees in these fields so that I dont have to manually type out the email address for everyone i want to CC the bill to. Regards CHRISTINE ATL

I am looking to hire someone on short-term project basis that can create some smokeball templates for us. Anyone know of anybody that does this?

So, I have two somewhat annoying issues with the new smokeball billing:When trying to edit a matter it will stay on a continuous loading loop and not allow me to click anything other tabs in the sidebar. I have to search something random just to get out of it. When creating invoices, I cannot preview the draft anymore. It just says “Generating PDF” forever.Has anyone else had similar issues with the new update?

Hello - new Smokeball user.  I am trying to set up workflows for estate administration matters, and wanted to set due dates for tasks based on certain dates such as when probate was granted, date of death etc.I can't find a way to make these critical dates so they show up in the workflow creation drop down when setting due dates for additional tasks.Any help gratefully appreciated.

There was a feature that allowed you to pop out the folders in a matter in a file explorer view which meant you could easily navigate the folders in a matter (especially if a folder had sub-folders). This seems to have disappeared - will the feature be returning? (I hope so….) 

I need to compare the contents of two different folders that are in the same matter. Is it possible to have two windows of the same matter open somehow?

Does anyone else have this problem? I am able to replicate the issue easily.

Where can I find my invoices for subscribing to Smokeball?

Is there a way through Smokeball liens to let it know that a lien is to be reduce by attorney fees (%) and costs and have it calculate the amount to be paid and report that on the disbursement statement?

My smokeball needs to be updated but I didn’t receive a prompt. Where do I go to update it manually? 

Will SB ever deploy a report for the matters without activity widget? It would be super helpful if we could filter a max amount of days not touched, so as to clear the list of old/dormant matters. Or even if you could sort the widget from more recent to older. Currently, the files not touched for the longest time are at the top, and you have to scroll to see ones not touched in a few days. Also it would be very helpful to be able to filter by attorney to see which cases are not being touched.

Do the contact tags and or matter tags that are created - are they pulled into any documentation, correspondence that is sent out to our clients or other parties.Eg - we have some separated clients that we do no want to disclose contact information to other parties and in particular their ex partners - if we create a client tag named ‘separated’, will this show up in anywhere?

I have never been able to “Finalize” an invoice in Smokeball Billing and download it to the Matter.    Is there a way?  Right now, I download to my desktop and then email myself or the client with the bill and save the attachment into the matter, but it is about three extra steps. thanks  

I’m relatively new to Smokeball and just found the Discovery Details option that provides you a discovery deadline on your dashboard. Super cool! How do you all log your supplemental responses to discovery? As a new line? Add notes? Change the original answer date?  Thanks,Sandy KozeroSan Antonio, Texas

Is there a benefit to tagging the responsible attorney in the top left corner of the matter / lead along with the person assisting, if they are already associated with the case in the info matter details? 

How do I group the matters by person responsible on the matters tab?  Everyone at my firm had it set up this way before but now it has reverted back to just listing all the matters rather than grouping them and I cannot figure out how to set it up again.

Friends, When I try using the “open file location” in a search in a matter, nothing happens. I’m trying to figure out if this is user error, or a glitch in the system. Anyone else run into this?  Thanks!

Is there any way to have the responses/ answers on a form show up as bold or in a larger font so they stand out a bit when glancing at the form?