General Q&A

I use one of the Channels as sort of an internal Instant Messaging option.  Is there a way to set an audible alert for a channel so I know a message has been sent via that Channel? 

I frequently open a word document from one matter, edit it and otherwise change its content specific to another matter and then go to save it to the second matter, but the “save” and “save as” commands default to the matter from which it was opened and I cannot figure out how to exit the default destination so that the document can be saved directly to the second matter.  I realize I should probably think ahead and copy the document to the second matter before opening it, but I usually don’t remember to do so until after the document is opened and the editing has begun.  Is there a way to save a document once it’s been opened and edited to a matter that is not the one from which the document was opened?

Hi everyone,Just a quick one - we have set up Smokeball so that when we create a bill for a matter and finalise it, it automatically saves to the matter in a ‘Billing’ folder. However, matters that are being billed a second or third time are not being saved into the same folder (the one already made) - Smokeball is creating a new billing folder every single time we issue an invoice.Is there a way to fix this so every matter doesn’t have several billing folders, and all invoices are saved to the first folder created?Cheers! MJ

Is there a way to change the default payment method to ‘Bank Transfer’ when adding a payment against a bill? The default is Cheque - and who uses those these days? It only takes a second or two, but manually changing it for every receipt is a bit of a pain.

Message: error processing some documents  I cannot find a fix for this problem. Reinstall smokeball?

 I see from searches that I can export my task list, however my nav bar does not include Export. How do I add Export as a choice?  I am not an administrator for our Smokeball service.

Wondering which matter works best for Garnishment cases?

I have generated a client-full list report using the broadest categories to show me all the clients in the past year. I have checked this list against the open and closed matter list and the client-full list report seems to be randomly missing entries for clients. I have tried to rerun the report multiple times and I get the same results. I have confirmed the clients missing on the report are listed as clients in their respective matters. I’m at a loss.The online support article doesn’t cover how to troubleshoot this issue. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. We are just trying to get a client list with all their contact information. While you are at it, if Smokeball can allow the export feature to Excel not merge cells randomly, that would be really helpful. This prevents us from being able to sort the information.

I have a bunch of questions and will set up a Billing Q&A, but I thought that here I might be able to get a change for more suggestions, perhaps from someone who has a good workaround.I am a sole business transactional attorney. Many of my clients will have multiple matters running at the same time (eg: 2 trademarks; 3 major contracts; 1 re-draft of their in-house NDA). They do NOT want to get 6 invoices this month.I’ve been using “combined pdf with cover letter” which is a great start. But, my understanding is, that cannot be emailed from within Smokeball billing. Question 1: Can I email the combined pdf with cover letter invoices from within smokeball?What I’m doing so far is to download that Cover letter with the invoices to my desktop outside of Smokeball. I’ve created an Outlook email cover letter, and I sent that out. BUT… what I didn’t anticipate was, the client still has to click on each invoice to pay.

EDIT: I have solved this for now but can’t delete questionHi All I have been asked to provide a statement of account for a client rather than just the invoice. No payments have been made as yet. Is there a way to create the statement of account from the invoice file?TIA for all assistance.

HI there.  When I send a statement to a client to chase up an overdue account, there are no account details listed, nor an option to set up a template so that I can provide our account details.Generally, from my experience, the people who have overdue accounts are the people who don’t save our account details for payment next time, this means when I chase them, I have to provide additional details in relation to our bank account.Please make provision for our bank account details to be provided at the bottom of an overdue statement.And, please don’t suggest I send from the “Reminders” tab because that will only send it from my personal email address and not from our generic “accounts” email address, which is where we want all our accounts related emails to be sent from which means a number of people can access that inbox (in case I am away).  I have previously asked for that to be changed, and I was told I could change it, but I can’t.

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?? 

Is there a way to disable or hide the working time field entry? It is creating confusion for our attorneys and errors in billing entries. We just want one box to enter billed time. I don’t know why we would do work and not bill it. If we did, we would mark it not billable.Thanks.

I don’t understand how to find phone messages through search.  I don’t see them show up as a time matter either.  I think we are missing time on bills because of this.  Is there a way to fix this or should I not be using phone messages the way I am because I cannot seem to track them at all. 

I have an existing Contact who has joined the local Attorney General’s office.  Therefore, I opened the contact record for the Attorney General’s office and clicked on “Add Another Person” at the bottom of the list of all of my contacts already there and successfully linked my contact to the office.But there is no address in that person’s contact record.The address from the Attorney General’s Office contact did not fill in the address fields of the individual whom I just added.Is there a way to tell Smokeball that the employee of the company uses the address in the company’s contact record?

Discounting invoices When entering the amount in the discount field, we have to enter the amount before GST is factored in. Is there a way to apply a discount after GST is factored in?Alternatively, if I want my invoice to end up being a round number, what is the calculation I need to apply to figure out the discount?

Hi all,  I’m new to SB and working to set up some customized intake forms.  In the pre-loaded questions, for yes/no questions, there is a little toggle button at the bottom that lets someone choose yes or no.  But, I’m not finding that toggle switch in any questions which I create myself.  I seem to be able to only use the “choice” button and then create yes and no options.  Am I missing it somewhere?

I review and approve my invoices in Chrome. After I am done reviewing my time and fees, I click “View Preview” on the right hand side. When I do that, I get a message that says “This browser does not support PDF!” I have other people in my office that use Chrome and don’t have this same issues. How do I fix this?

Folks:I am a new Smokeball user, transitioning from an old version of Time Matters.  I have many unbilled time records that I intended to import to Smokeball.  Based on Smokeball’s help files, I knew that my Matters had to be imported and validated before I could import time entries.But the “Unbilled Time & Fees” option in the Import function is grayed out.When I addressed this with my onboarding agent, she told me that I cannot import time and fees except when importing matters.  No one else at Smokeball has told me that and that appears to be inconsistent with the Smokeball help files.  “Finalize matters import before importing time and “Import time when you are importing matters” just don’t jive!Does anyone know how I can get the import function unblocked and how I can get these records imported?Micah 

For the past few days, I’ve had trouble with the “Combine PDF” feature...it stalls and fails to complete when combining 7 image files with a table of contents and page numbering. Anyone run into this?

Does anyone know, if a safe custody packet replicates a document, is there a way that I can delete one of them from the packet? It is the same document twice. 

I represent an agency that has multiple matters. We often have the same points of contact over the various matters. I am setting up my stages and want to automate some communication to the contact at the agency based on the stage of the case. How does SB handle a single “client” or person with multiple matters? 

We are managing devices that use smoke ball and noticed a large amount of data being stored in this location. C:\Program Files\Smokeball\data\mattermanagement\files2This is a cause of disk’s becoming full for us. Is this cached data that can be removed? Is there a command we can send to smoke ball to clear this up / limit the cache size? Thank You

Hi, is there a way of sending different matter intake forms to 2 different clients in the one matter without the information being deleted? For example, in a Wills, Power of Attorney & Enduring Guardian matter there are some instances where there are husband/wife clients in the same matter and a matter intake form is sent to both clients. My experience is that if Client 1 completes the matter intake form and then Client 2 completes it after, rather than creating two separate mapped intake forms for each client, Client 1’s information is deleted when Client 2 inputs their information and submits the form.The only work around that I can see is to create two separate matters for each client or I simply don’t use the Matter intake forms, which is obviously not ideal. Any help/ideas would be appreciated!

Maybe we’re an outlier, but of late, MS Office (Word, Excel, etc.) doesn’t play nice with Smokeball.  Maybe it was caused by a recent SB update or MS update, I don’t know, but it’s a recurring issue for at least the last 2 months.  What do I mean?  For example, Word will take an extended time to open when opening it with a saved SB file.  Sometimes it will freeze.  All the time, the program stays open even if you ‘save and close’ into SB.   Similar issues with Excel.Reinstall, reboot didn’t fix it.  SB tech support is still churning on this one.Just us or can anyone else commiserate?