Smokeball Q&A

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.

Is there a way to limit (allow) only certain things to be viewed in file? 

For those of you handling civil litigation where your Plaintiff seeks bankruptcy protection, how are you managing filings and related information in your civil matter? Do you set up a separate matter for the bankruptcy or do you integrate the information into your existing civil matter (and if so, how do you input information like the trustee’s name/contact information, case number, etc.)?

Smokeball is currently exploring meaningful ways of linking your related matters together within the program, and we want your input! We want to hear from you, our users, how such a feature may provide utility and solve problems you face on a daily basis. We are especially interested in the types of relationships between different matters in Smokeball and how users need them to interact with each other. If you are interested in learning more about this endeavour, please fill out the survey at the link below:https://forms.office.com/r/9cgYHxhkPjFeel free to respond to this post as well, and thanks in advance!

 My prior balance owing is not showing on the new invoice. How do I show the prior balance? 

I am trying to automate a letter to send to our clients’ medical providers for unresponsiveness. I have gotten it to prefill just about everything, except for one section within the letter. I created an ask that should insert the medical provider selected, but when I select the medical provider, it does not fill the field. Instead, it just leaves a blank space. How do I fix this? Is there a different ask type I should make?  For context, the ‘Ask’ I have is a Party Selection Ask, with Medical Provider being the Party. What have I done wrong?

Anyone using Ai software to write demands?

Will there be a way to create our own customizable forms for Matter Flow? When sending a form to a client, there are only 2 options under Estate Planning, married or single. These go through ALL of the questions, many of which, we have already gone over in our initial meeting, and would seem redundant to send to someone who just went through all of the design questions or asset information. We have used forms with our other intake programs, but we are attempting to streamline our software and eliminate the ones that are redundant. We have several fully developed forms that address the information that we need to have for a successful matter, without being daunting to our clients.Having Intake Forms that we could customize and map with Matter Fields (once the prospect is converted to a client) would be very helpful. A form that gathers the family info, basic asset info, and any notes that we would need to know about before a meeting, and then puts that info where it nee

Is there a way to change the way we see the matters described. We would like to have the Decedent’s name shown instead of the personal rep/admin.

My firm is interested in exploring minimum billable time (“piecemeal plus”?) for the automated forms we have invested time in creating ex. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage or Parenting Plan. There is a field called “Duration” in the Smokeball Pane within document automation view in Microsoft word: I cannot locate any resources in Smokeball’s support hub regarding this field. I created a document using “1:00” in the field and it did not post 1:00 as a time entry in the matter. Does anyone know the purpose of this field? ​​​​​​Here is my dream feature set for this:First, have a master setting in SB desktop main settings that enables or disables time entries according to “Duration field”; Second, have a master setting to allow fixed fee according to duration OR allow minimum of the du

Our office is looking for the best VOIP provider to integrate with Smokeball. Can anyone share if they’ve had great success with VXT in the United States?

Is there a way to calculate average days it takes for our clients to pay their invoices?  example; we want our average days our invoices are paid to be less than 30 days  on aaverage.We are using the Cash Flow Story method of analyzing our company health.Any ideas?

Hello all.Is there a canned report that I’m missing that we could compare, for various matter types, the actual time worked versus what we assess for a flat fee for said matter?  (For flat fee matters, we nonetheless add time, but we mark it as non-billable).Essentially, we’re trying to right-size our flat fees; and I don’t see an easy way to do the analysis. Short of a report that’s already created, going forward, I suppose I’m cross-referencing time entries  for specific matters against billing and income reports.  It’s job security I guess...

I have many clients who have both a work and a personal e-mail address, but I am not able to add more than one to their contact card.  How can I get around that so I can send an e-mail to a client at both addresses?  If that is not possible, I’d like to suggest that as a feature, but now I cannot find the feature suggestion page. 

Anyone figure out how to use the print checks to actually align well when they print out. The “Fit to Paper” doesn’t work on our copier (Ricoh), and I’ve spent way to long this morning manipulating a PDF to get it to fit. Wondering if anyone has come up with workarounds. 

I’m trying to work out how to set a default Re Line that is ‘our client’s lastname’ & ‘other party’s last name’. I know how to get into the smokeball settings and set an auto re line but the only options are for their fullnames. We really don’t want that. We, and all other firms in our area, only use last names. Has anyone had any success with this? I don’t want to have to manually enter in a Re Line on every matter and then every time we open a file.

Our firm typically acts for government departments and have many of the same matter type i.e Advice or General type matters, with different matter descriptions i.e:[Client - Government Department Name] - [Matter Type - Advice/General] - [Matter Description: Appeal re 1 Smith St] We are finding that the matter description does not populate in most of the SB interface as default  - In widgets such as “recent matters” or “new matters” “tasks” and in the reporting function – for instance matter lists – the description of the matter is not populated and the only identifying difference is the matter number – which is not very helpful for easy identification purposes.  Similarly, in Billing, in the Invoices tab, invoices are grouped via debtor, and matter type – and the description is not populated in a column for easy navigation. So when we have a particular client with a more than 1 matter – it can be confusing as to which matter relates to which.Surely we aren’t the

Are there multiple notification setting/options for messages/Smokeball Communicate? For example, an attorney at our firm would like to receive an email each time a Lead submits an inquiry through Lead Pro. Is this possible?

Is there a way to create a task from your activity? 

Good afternoon, I plan on getting a new PC and wanted to find out if SB is compatible with Apple products, eg Macbook. Regards,

We’re culling down our contacts list to get to a manageable number to send holiday cards.  There are any number of clients and contacts that should not be on the list for myriad reasons (deceased, difficult client, etc.).  These persons won’t get a card. Going through the downloaded client and contact list to pull these persons out has been a time sink for staff and attorneys.  I haven’t seen it, but outside of deleting a contact, is there some magic on/off toggle button somewhere in SB that we could check yes/no to keep said clients/contacts on a list for mailings?Any help would be appreciated so we can avoid this comprehensive effort next year.Thanks!---------------Yes, @Roy Clifton I see I missed this Webinar from last month.  Has that been saved somewhere to watch? I haven’t found it.

I just closed a matter in Smokeball, but was still able to enter time for it.  Is there a way to prevent time entry once a matter has closed? 

Hello everyone, Could someone please explain how to change the matter type once it has been created as lead? I’m having trouble trying to change it.

I have been asking for years for the ability to sort time and expenses by Matter and now “Internal Reference.” You can sort time and expenses by just about everything else but not these. This would be a huge help when there is a lot of billing on a lot of matters in a single day. Any hope of this becoming a reality?Thanks

We’re bringing on a new paralegal/assistant soon and I’d like to give her a manual she can refer back to for common tasks and workflows. I figure I would ask here first since we’re all on Smokeball and that’s going to factor into our procedures significantly.