General Q&A

Does smokeball produce a statement of account with payments and balances

I accidently finalized but didn't use the “finalized with payments” tab to auto-allocate payments; then we tried doing the bulk trust payment, but didn't like the way it showed up on the invoices (invoices were still showing “Pay this amount” so we reversed the bulk payment,  however some invoices are still showing paid, when they actually aren’t paid.  We’ve already reversed the bulk payment so we can’t “reverse a payment on the individual invoice” so that we can just void it out and start over.  

Why can’t I open an a client’s information to add an email address?  I double click on it and I have right-clicked and chose open client - but nothing happens and some little white box shows up in the upper left hand corner - 

Hello, for some reason this morning, I am unable to open any of my SmokeBall matters, and I have shut everything down and restarted my desktop and there is no change.Is anyone else having this issue and/or does anyone know how to resolve it? Thanks very much.Still a new SB user in NMMartha Carpenter

Hi,We are a medium sized suburban law firm. We have just installed smokeball. We have an old legal accounting system called B&C Legal which is not compatible with smokeball. It has been suggested we move across to xero. So far we have moved our payroll to xero, super etc. Our trust account has moved to Smokeball however, apparently, we need a separate xero package for our general account banking and our service account banking. Is this correct? Can anyone steer us in the right direction as how we instigate this.   

Hi, I am fairly new to Smokeball.  I had a client text several photos to me via communicate, as attachments.  I want to save the attacments to the matter in a photo folder, but all it lets me do is open the photo on the internet, and there is no option to save to the file to Smokeball.  Do I have to save them locally and then drop and drag into Smokeball?  I know they are stored in the file through Communicate, but i want them saved as actual photos in a folder.   

can you input beneficiaries details so they auto populate a will?

I’m pretty sure I once saw a place in SB where you could document settlement negotiations, but now I can’t find it, and I can’t find any guidance.  Anyone know where it is? 

Hello,I need to export our contacts that we are using to seed a CRM we are implementing. I would like to get more client details than are in the contact report such as marital status, dob, and a bunch of other fields.Is there a way to customize reports in Smokeball to extract this additional information?Bonus points if we can extract data that shows that two contacts are related. This can either be family relationships of related to the same matter.

I need to prepare a declaration of attorney’s fees for one case. Any tips or tricks to filer, then extract the necessary data and export to a spreadsheet? -Thoughts and comments appreciated.

Is it possible to record a voice memo / task in Smokeball? And if so, can I do this from the mobile phone app?I have come from using LEAP and being able to integrate a voice recording to the file and as a task is immensely helpful.ThanksNickie  

Is it possible to change the Default Matter types and sub-types?

In our Smokeball migration, many of our contacts that are organizations, such as District Courts, came over as individuals instead of organizations or companies. Is there an easy way to convert these? 

It would be great if the three little dots next to the “View Matter” button at the bottom of emails in Outlook, could allow you to create a task. it only is for renaming which doesn’t make sense. Often we get requests or prompts via email and it would be so much more efficient if we could add a task right on that screen rather than having to open the matter and put it in there.

Is there a way to not only sync my outlook to SB, but also my attorney’s?  for example, when I calendar reminders on outlook and drag it to my attorney’s calendar it only shows up on my smokeball calendar...not his.  Also, we I create a single event on his calendar in outlook it will not show up on his SB.  Any help is much appreciated. 

From the invoices tab, I’m trying to figure out a way within Billing to sort or easily identify which ready-to-send invoices are for clients with Trust accounts.  It would be great if there was a column listing the Trust balance, but there is not….even having a column with a checkmark or Y/N would help.Easily identifying these invoices is helpful for any number of reasons, including invoice transmittal timing, identifying which ones will need a customized invoice templates/email, tracking Trust activity, etc. Do any of you have a work-around for this?  

I am trying to make it so our automated document can show an automation for either Client 1 or Client 2, rather than just one single client. I was wondering if there’s anyway I can insert an automation including this or possibility of clients, if that makes sense. I have attached a photo below with the highlighted words being where I want to insert Client 1/Client 2. Hope you can help!   

We have online filing of documents and e-service.  Whenever we try to download a PDF from the court to Smokeball, it gets blocked.  Any thoughts? 

My old employer sent some documents to my new employer through communicate. I can see the documents in the communicate tab, but they are not populating, i.e. “downloading” to the documents section of the associated matter.

It would be appreciated if the MEMO tab became a different color once a memo has been saved. We use memos as a way to leave helpful notes for whoever looks at the matter next. Often, some of our staff will not realize there is a memo as they dont check the memo tab. There needs to be some sort of notification to make whoever is looking at the matter aware that there is a memo saved to that matter. I recommend just making the MEMO tab a different color. See image attached below.    

Hi folks, I had a great question from @Wendy Marroquin who’s new to running her firm with Smokeball. Welcome Wendy!I thought I would share her question with the community so that others can read the answer and benefit from it too. Here’s the question:“I am having trouble with the medical records requests and doctor's information. How do I add their names and faxes so it is automated?I can create the letter no problem, but adding all those details takes time.”P.s If you are in the Personal Injury space and have any tips for Wendy and her firm as they get started please do share with her.  

Is there the ability to make a two way automated form?  The Personal Injury Client Intake Form is a great way to get basic information but I want to be able to “talk” to Smokeball so the information from the Form is uploaded.  I don’t want to have manually enter the responses from the client.  We used to meet face-to-face with clients and input the info to our form while talking to the person.  It would be great to email the client an intake form and upload the information when it was emailed back. Thanks in advance,Andrea

I’ve been trying to automate my closing documents (real estate attorney).I can add the Full Name of “This Party” (i.e. Seller 1) to insert under the first signature line, however I can’t find the option to plug in Seller 2.This would be the second party or second Card (if there are two Sellers that need to sign a Deed).

Hello all.  Like at your firm, some of our clients prefer things via email, some by regular mail.  I checked with Smokeball experts, but there’s no data field to indicate as such, so we are just modifying the internal reference number with an “E” or an “M” as a quick way to separate the two camps.  Have any of you come up with something perhaps easier to implement and sort (esp for batch invoicing)?Thanks. 

Recently there was a change made to not allow creating a trust transaction with a future date which for me has become very restrictive.  When we have a Personal Injury settlement ready to disburse I typically create the checks the day before and date the checks for the actual disbursement date.  This allows me to get required signatures on the checks prior to the disbursement date so everything is set to go on the actual date the funds are available.  As an example, a client’s settlement funds become available on March 29.  I write the checks on March 28 and date the checks March 29.  I like to enter the transactions into Smokeball when I write the checks so that all systems are in sync for the monthly reconciliations.  Given the future date transaction in Smokeball I have to remember to enter the Trust transactions the day after the checks are written.  I think a better way to handle this is to provide a warning message when entering a future dated transaction as opposed to not all