General Q&A

We have recently set our budgets for each fee earner for the next 12 months.Other than the Estimated Annual Cost field in the staff tab of the firm details which won’t work for what we want to do, is there a spot that we can enter each fee earner’s budget, for that to be used in reports for how each fee earner is tracking in meeting that budget?

How do I re-access account I opened last December?

I’ve told Smokeball about this issue so many times, and they still can’t fix it. At this point, I don’t know if they’re incompetent or just don’t care. Every time I try to copy folders from one matter to another, it either stalls or says it’s completed—but the folders never actually show up. I keep reporting this, and they keep telling me it’s fixed, yet the problem persists. It’s beyond frustrating, and I’m seriously considering switching to another case management software.

We are currently gathering feedback on an Intake Dashboard that we have been designing. The intention of this new feature is to provide a single location where you can manage and action all of your active intake forms and web enquiries.We welcome you to check out the attached prototype and let us know what you think!Specifically, we are looking to answer some of the following questions:What are your first impressions? How do you think you might use this dashboard? How might it change your workflow? Looking at each section, are all the columns useful? Would you remove or add any? Is there anything missing that would help in managing your intake forms? Any other feedback?If you would prefer to provide feedback via email or would like to set up a zoom meeting to go through all things intake, please feel free to reach out to me directly - michelle.jenkyns@smokeball.com.au.

We are brand new to smokeball and have a question. When we copy a document to another matter - if changes are made within the new document, the changes are saved back to the original matter’s document it was created from.  This is obviously problematic for data integrity. How can i avoid this occurring? Thanks

I am the new Account Manager at our law firm, and I am trying to put together a report to show what our firm’s Client Cost Advance balance is in Smokeball. I am not sure if there is an existing report that shows the amount owed to the firm for AR and unbilled.Can someone please help guide me to what reports I can use to calculate this, or would this be a custom report that we need to look into requesting?Thank you,

I shared a document with a client.  He had trouble opening the file.  He tried to reply to me--unsuccessfully, because the return email address was mail@signin.communicate.smokeball.com instead of something associated with my firm.Can the return email address be changed to match the email address of the Smokeball user who is sending the message?Micah

Is anyone else having issues with running SB on Mac via Parallels? While I can open it and it works fine, if I multitask with other programs and then come back to SB, hover over the icon to show the open SB pages, they’re all white and I can’t activate them. I have to close down SB and start over. This is happening quite frequently. This is occurring on two new M-based Macs. It does not happen on my PC.

Hello! I recently started setting up payment plans on smokeball billing for the contacts. So far, I have set up maybe 3. I was reviewing one particular contact and notice that a payment had failed for a past month (November) . I did not get an email notifying me of the failed payment. Does anyone know if there is a setting where I can get an email with the details of failed payments for scheduled payment plans? Thanks!

I am running into an issue where my email signature won’t show up if I try to share a document from a matter via email.  It will show up when I select a contacts email from the preview at the right.  So I’m wondering if there is an Outlook integration issue.  To further clarify, from the matter documents, I right click on an attachment and select Send, then Email.  I select multiple recipients, click Next, then a blank email with the attachment and recipients will pop up.  No email signature.  It’s a minor issue, but some users in our office can’t easily navigate Outlook.

How do you guys use the Closed, Cancelled and Pending Matter Status’ in Smokeball? I’m trying to figure out whether Canceled v. Closed impacts the way Smokeball spits out reports.Are closed matters just cases that are actually completed where as canceled matters are cases that I withdraw from, the client cancels, or for what ever reason I do not see the case through to completion - I don’t know.The help articles are of no help in explaining the difference between closed and cancelled or how they impact Smokeball matters and reporting. I understand that the client can still see documents after I close a matter. Can they still see documents and communications after I cancel a matter? That’s not clear. Is cancel more egregious than close - IDK?My pending is all over the place - those are clients I typically place in a holding pattern for whatever reason (missing information, failure to pay, pedning withdrawals, etc) … How do you guys use the three status’.I’m trying to get more organized

I see that I can add interest to an invoice - but I’d like to use a default interest setting. It looks like interest can be added on a matter-by-matter basis.

Good morning, Our firm is in the metro Atlanta area and we are looking for any trainers or training company’s to integrate Smokeball with our Quickbooks program.   Looking for any referrals, especially if you have used a company to assist with this.  Thank you!

How do I add an existing contact to a matter?  I am trying to add the Chief Clerk of the Court to my “Courthouse” contact card.  When I open the Courthouse contact card, the list of contacts comes up except for the one contact I need but yet, when i open the individuals contact card, and look at what matters he is associated with, it is empty.  Is there a way to open a contact and have a choice/tab to “add this contact to matters” 

Is anyone having difficulty opening PDFs saved in smokeball lately? For the past month when opening PDFs it takes an annoying amount of time for it finally to open. 

Have a situation where a lawyer is leaving the firm with a few files. How can that lawyer download the smokeball matter or send/transfer it to a separate smokeball account? Thank you. 

Any update on how Smokeball performs with a snapdragon processor? According to a previous thread here they were working on it a year ago….?

I am looking for a solution to an issue I am facing with an Application for Consent Orders (family law) I have set it up so our client's details and assets are on the form. I can't see a way to enter the other party's assets to fill into the form?

What is the process to making a trust payment (eft) to a client and also to general for invoice payment

Can we still submit form templates someplace to have them uploaded to have them programed/set up for our use in SB.   We have not submitted any new templates since we initially set up and are finally to a point in our operations where we feel comfortable enough that we want to have more of our forms uploaded for our use through SB to make our operations easier.   My problem is, I previously emailed our templates to a specific person, but do not know who our rep would be anymore and not sure if that is even the proper way to submit if we are still able to do this. Any assistance is helpful.Thank you. 

I’m hesitant to ask for other upgrades, as I’m still waiting for my number 1 request (please add the “paid” amount to the Billing widget), but here goes:Please add a special “invoice reminder” note section in invoicing, appearing in a draft invoice as below.Why? Some clients (esp. divorce) have special instructions on how to share invoices; some have some side deal, or special discount we owe them; some have asked we send the invoice to their summer house; some want invoices shared with some third party (who isn’t a debtor); some institutional clients want the subject heading for an invoice email to have specific (non-default) information; some require redacting of information; or whatever. This special notes thing is for internal eyes only, not appearing on the invoice.  Having it would help me /us eliminate all the sticky notes I’m tripping over around my desk.  It would also help with out of office continuity on billing.{Am I missing this option somewhere?  Yes, I’m aware of the ‘no

Hello!I reviewed the online tutorials and was unable to locate a description about how the Client and Debtor fields interact with each other. What I am specifically interested in is whether contact information from the Client field will be used to send invoices to the client if the Debtor field is left blank. It is my experience that the Client information does port over however there have been instances where that does not happen. If my experience is correct, is there any explanations for why the information would not port over in certain circumstances?

Is there a way to get a list of all tags used by all types of matters ideally listed by matter type. My practice is a little odd and I’d love to use tags that reflect my practice’s reality. What I’d like is a report that says, for example, for commercial contracts, these are the current tag options so I can delete some and add others. Is this possible?

Is anyone else experiencing errors when using Archie?I have had several instances where I will ask Archie to create an outline of a document, usually an intake form, and the information that Archie provides is incorrect. For example, it will list the correct date of birth but the age will be off, an it has even gone so far as to add a date of death to a client who is very much alive.When reviewing specific documents, the information that it will return is sometimes wrong or missing important parts. When I ask about the specific section of the document, it will sometimes tell me that the section does not exist.This seems like it could be a great tool, but I’m currently second guessing everything that it tells me.Charles

We have had a client pay $5,000.00 towards an outstanding invoice, we have barristers fee slips outstanding on this invoice and we paid one fee slip in full and part of another fee slip but there is nowhere that we can record a part payment of an anticipated disbursement.   Its either fully paid or not?  I have made a note in the ‘memo’ but that could easily be missed and the full fee slip paid at a future date.  Any suggestions?