General Q&A

Did I miss the ‘heads up’ that the EPOA form was changing? What a mess!

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 su

Does anyone know if a client receives any sort of confirmation or notification when they make a payment towards their payment plan? We were billing recently and decided not to send bills to clients on a payment plan who have no new activity, but then we were wondering when they would be receiving communications from us about their balance and what that communication would look like. 

Is there a way to generate invoices for when a client has a balance due, but no new work is done?  Besides using the “reminders” tab?? 

Our office created an Estates Dispute General Smokeball matter, and our client was initially both the sole Executor of the Estate and a beneficiary. She has now been removed as per Court orders and is now a just beneficiary. A new Executor has been appointed. We have changed the Matter details to reflect this, but now Smokeball seems to think the new Executor is our client. I am unsure how to edit our matter settings so that our client is correctly listed both as the beneficiary and as our client. 

I really like the idea of the Court Date and Deadlines line (it’s not a tab) but I need additional “dates” like Sentencing Date, or be able to edit the ones that are currently set up. Even more helpful would be to include dates that are set up upside this line, i.e. regular “Add Event” here. There are just not enough options right now.  Jim

Hello,We are a PI law firm and often have huge discovery files.  We are new to Smokeball and have encountered an issue transferring all documents to a matter due to the limit being reached.  Has anyone else had this issue?  We are not storing imaging files and are trying to eliminate duplicate documents, but for some matters, we are unable to transfer all documents to Smokeball.  This is disappointing because one of the big reasons for switching to Smokeball was to use Archie for discovery.  Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and solutions to this limitation. Thank you,Tracy

how to totally get rid of “deleted” files or clear them out??  when you are in a Matter and you search on open, or closed, or deleted, can you remove all the “deleted” so we don’t see them our put them into a folder?

I dont know if there is a feature for this already but when I assign someone a task I have no way of knowing if it has been completed or not unless I go into the file to check - is there a way I can be notified once that person marks the task as completed?

Many of my payments in Smokeball payments are not linked to a matter. How do I link the payments to a matter so that it is applied correctly?

Smokeball’s customer support is absolutely garbage. It takes days for them to respond, they definitely don’t seem to care about their customers or their happiness, and circumvent the questions presented. I’m not sure I could be more disappointed with Smokeball--despite really liking their product. 

Why is there no way to set up a non- trust account?

We have different hourly rates for different corporate clients.  Is there a way to set up our own billing types so we can configure matters using that set of rates?  For example… Instead of Fixed Fee or Contingency, we would use a Billing Type of DCE Liquor so that all billing on that file would be at the specific negotiated hourly rate with them?  Then, another case, we could chose Star Service so their, different, hourly rates are applied?

I see that you can automatically surcharge time and fees, and time fees and expenses, but is there a way to automatically surcharge expenses only?

Is there a way that when a workflow is updated, it will update in the cases that workflow has already been applied to?  We are restructuring our workflow and have over 300 cases with prior workflows.

Hi, We are exploring options for payment plans for some clients. Previously when we had Leap we used RapidPay payment plans, and I am wondering if Smokeball has something simialr - Ie. a plan that is set up (similar to Afterpay) to deduct payments from a clients account in regular increments. 

Is there a way for Smokeball to automatically insert templates into a matter after an automated precedent has been selected?  Trying to have smokeball automatically insert my 3 client intake docs into all of my files under one precendent. 

Since installing the Smokeball bar in Word, our client has been getting this error when saving documents.I made some adjustments, renaming and moving that template and updating 365 apps so it recreated the file with default permissions.  I created a few more test documents and saved them without it popping back up, but I want to future proof against this issue.  Has anyone else run into this, and is there more that needs to be done, or is this just a permissions issue with the Word templates on a new Smokeball setup?Thanks

Can I send an SMS to a client without activating the client portal? Very confusing for clients when just sending them a SMS reminder about their appointment.

Does anyone have SSO? This was a feature SB has said is available and from the start of being a customer, I have wanted to get SSO. Not once was it ever advertised for an “add-on” fee. But now that I’m doing it, they want an ANNUAL fee of $800. Absurd.

There is an ability to slide the documents window to make it larger, there is a narrow range in which the slider icon appears and using a trackpad makes it difficult. Does that make sense? When I'm trying to enlarge my view of the documents I have a difficult time. Grabbing the spot that allows me to drag the document window up or down is really hard.There is also a feature that is intended to expand the documents to a full separate window, but it doesn’t work. When I click it, the documents disappear and that section is replaced with “Show file View”, but I can’t see the documents any longer  

Our Firm currently uses the Microsoft 365 suite family and Smokeball. In the past my attorney has been able to synchronize his Outlook calendar with his calendar on Smokeball. Recently, in scheduling meetings for him using Smokeball, his Outlook calendar has not been syncing properly with Smokeball causing him to miss meetings with clients. Can you please advise as to how we can fix this issue? Thanks,Dorian Coehins

Folks:I prefer to avoid using my mouse because it is much more efficient to use the keyboard.  But there are many people who don’t use a mouse because they cannot.  They may have muscle control issues; lost arms, hands, or fingers; and so on.  Web and software accessibility guidelines (like WCAG) all require that all functionality should be available from a keyboard without having to use a mouse.  The ADA requires that websites be accessible to people with disabilities.For all these reasons, I am surprised that Smokeball requires the use of a mouse for almost every activity.This is true even when browsing files.  If I go to a Documents folder in the File Explorer, I cannot do anything with any file or folder without first using the mouse to click in the window.  And I can’t just click anywhere in the window; I have to click on one of the files or folders in the window.  If I click on something, I can use the keyboard to move up or down to get to the folder I wan

Hello How do you change a matters case stage for a personal injury case Ex. treatment to record collection to demand to settlement stage Thank you Dan 

Hi there,We are currently in our first month of using Smokeball and I’m yet to do an invoice run.  We currently do this once a month. I would like to be able to edit a Matter so that when I invoice the client (company) that it also addresses the invoice to the contact person (client contact person). As far as I can see I have do this manually each time I run a draft invoice.Our company cards do not include an email address and the email address sits with the contact person at the clients business.  I’m trying to avoid having to do this each time we invoice and have this set up on the Matter.Thank you in anticipation of someone being able to assist me :)Regards, Michelle