General Q&A

Is there a way to add another field/s under addressee details for invoicing templates? For instance, I want to direct an invoice to a client representative, rather than the organisation as a whole.  See example below of what we currently have populating our template:  Organisation NameOrganisation Address I want to direct our invoice to perhaps the account department and a specific account manager, like below: Account ManagerOrganisation DepartmentOrganisation NameOrganisation Address I’ve attempted to rectify this before by changing the debtor, but for reporting/billing purposes its not ideal as SB lists the debtor as the account manager, rather than the organisation as a whole. It also can get confusing if the account manager moves on from the organisation.  Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks!  

My task list displaying on the dashboard is too long to be useful.  I prioritize my tasks by adding a “Priority” category to the tasks that are my top priority for that day.  I can sort the tasks by category on the Tasks tab (so I can put my 3-4 priority tasks at the top).  Is there a way to sort tasks displayed on the dashboard by category?Any other ideas for highlighting priority tasks?  Thanks.

Is the a way to run a report on which clients need to replenish their evergreen retainers?  If not, what about a print feature for the Evergreen screen?   Unfortunately, whenever you invoice a client and include an evergreen request, the invoice is considered “paid” only if they pay their past due balance and does not flag the user that they have not paid their evergreen.

Hi,How do I add my precedent to SB please?

Is there a way to change the default Billing Type when opening a new matter?  Right now our default is fixed and I would like to change it to Time Based.

How does another firm you send files to via messages (formerly communicate) download all files at once, instead of one at a time? 

Are there step by step instructions to provide to non smokeball users on downloading documents from messages/the communicate feature?  We get a lot of questions from other firms and don’t have a good clear answer to provide to them. 

I have set up dashboard to view billing and hours for the week/month.Is there a way to see other staff’s billing and hours?

Hi,How can I correct the letter to remove the underscore from our PO Box address?

7+ years Smokeball small solo firm here.About 99% of our firm’s work is under the practices of:Professional Responsibility EthicsAs smokeball adds new great functionality, we are seeing that practice areas don’t include these two important categories. Example is the new “Intake Forms” where “Select Practice Area” has no category that would describe these two areas above.Ideally we would like to see these two practice areas added across the board for any functionality that requires “Selecting Practice Area”.How to other firms handle this situation? I’ve searched the community and cannot find any relevant material.Is there a workaround or can Smokeball developers add this to the system?Thank you,Dan AustinBrotmanLaw / US  

Is there a way to add this disclaimer to the new Intake Form templates?This request does not establish a client/attorney relationship. Thank you,Dan Austin / BrotmanLaw

Hi  Team,We have recently adopted Smokeball. The real-time time tracking through the timers has a few limitations. It would be great if you could add the following:Show the total amount of time tracked on the list of the timers. At the moment you can’t see how much time you have recorded until after you add the time. Being able to see the total time throughout the day is really handy and has always helped me encourage productivity without having to finalise the time entries, as you may jump back and forth between different tasks so it is not practical to add time to SB all the time. Also a lot of firms have daily targets. The ability to manually adjust the time tracked through the timers. We are humans. There will be situations where eg we go away from the desk to grab a coffee but forget to stop the timer, or reversely, we stop the timer but then we get back to work and forget to restart the timer. At the moment we cannot make any manual adjustments to the timers. The only thing we ca

I have a single trust deposit that needs to be split over 2 separate matters, how do I issue this trust receipt?

Wondering if there is a Power and Estates Register within the Safe Custody Register? Thanks.

Hi thereI need to report at the end of each month how much is in WIP (unbilled time & fees), however, if I bring up the “Unbilled Time & Fees” report, it only shows the figures as at today’s date.For example, today is the 17th of the month, I have only just returned from leave, so was unable to print the report as at 30th of last month.How can I obtain the figure as at the end of last month?  Can you please insert a “date” feature, so that we can take a snapshot of the figures as at a certain date?Thank you.

HiDoes anyone know how to add a column when in the Matters tab, Conveyancing then the Open Conveyancing Matters home page?I’ve tried right clicking on the column titles, but I want to add “Sellers Agent” but the option for that column isn’t available to select - any ideas how to add a column that isn’t in the drop-down menu?Thanks

Is there a way to quickly save attachments sent to us from another firm who also uses smokeball and has sent 38 attachments via messages (previously  known as communicate) I have had to go and download each item individually and save it. It does not automatically save the documents. 

How do I add a fee if our firm works on contingency.  

Currently, the parties who the letter is addressed TO has the CC’d person’s details come underneath the TO person’s address and the emails are all grouped together at the top of the letterhead.  We would like to format it so that the cc’d parties are listed at the end of the letter.  Is this possible?

I have recently issued new invoices for the month of December. Some had balances carried forward from earlier months’ invoices. The December invoices therefore show total owing on the matter however, now that I am due to dire4ct funds from trust to some of them, I can only direct funds in the amount of the amount owing for the last invoice - not an amount inclusive of the carried forward amount.Example - Clt G is on a payment plan of sorts where they pay a small amount of $90 into  trust fortnightly. They had $1000 remaining from invoice owing in November. $1000 carried forward to the December invoice, but the December invoice was only $50. The invoice sent out for December notified $50 owing for this invoice and a total of $1050 owing all together.At the time of issuing the December invoice I informed the client they had $270 in trust and this amount would be directed towards payment of this invoice.7 days have passed and I can direct $270 to payment of the invoice but if I click the

I’m a new user.Is there a way to enlarge or zoom a dashboard for a visually impaired user?  So far it looks like I can only add/remove items from my dashboard, but I cannot make the font larger or increase the contrast.Edited to add, I think the solution is to set my computer system to display everything in larger font, but that is not always desirable so please let me know if I’ve missed something.  Thanks!

Is there any way of returning to the option to ONLY email precedents through Outlook? there is now a button that has 'send’ and then I have to select email or communicate. It's just adding one more step - whereas previously I could go right to email.

Legal ethics sometimes require that members of a law firm be prevented from accessing another firm client’s information (due to, for exaample, a conflict of interest). I know that in Smokeball you can simply “uncheck” a particular staff member from a matter to prevent that person from accessing the matter. However, how about a group of people, or for all matters for a particular client?(our problem - we have hundreds of matters open for a particular client, and going through each one to “uncheck” a particular staff member is time consuming; and, if a staff member is added in the future that can’t have access, we have to re-do the unchecking)It would be great if the “rate sets” concept was incorporated into matter access (meaning, employees could be assigned to group “access” and they would automatically be precluded from accessing matters that are not accessable to that group).

Hi thereI need to report at the end of each month how much is in Work In Progress (unbilled time & fees), however, if I bring up the “Unbilled Time & Fees” report, it only shows the figures as at today’s date.This is not good enough.How can I obtain the figure as at the last day of last month?  Can you please insert a “date” feature, so that we can take a snapshot of the figures as at a certain date?This is imperative and my boss is wanting me to continue chasing you until you can provide this vital figure.Thank you.