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Smokeball Q&A

Not sure how to do something in Smokeball? Just ask! Here you'll find answers from Smokeball users and learn best practice tips & tricks from the experts.

647 Conversations
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PAHarringtonContributor
asked in General Q&A
How do I reimburse firm for client costs from Trust Account

Very new to Smokeball. We have costs that the firm has prepaid prior to onboarding with SB. I need to know how to reimburse the firm, from the Trust Acct, for costs pre-paid over the life of the case. Also need to know how to pay Lien Holders out of the Trust. We went from desktop Quickbooks to On-line QBs so I am learning two new systems. 

351
Sara Sultan
Community Manager
9 months ago
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jdeanContributor
asked in General Q&A
Billing one client with multiple matters

Our firm is new to SB, and is a few months out from using SB billing. Most of our clients have several matters that we bill to monthly. As I understand it now, there is not a great way to bill a client for multiple matters without them receiving a separate email for each invoice and each matter (not ideal for us or our clients).I believe our work around could be using the combine/cover letter feature. Is there a way to edit/customize that cover letter at all? Is there a way to choose what information is shown? I would love to hear from other  Firms and how they bill clients with multiple matters to get some ideas on how we can make it work.Thank you!

885
P
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
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Ravi_LawContributor
asked in General Q&A
To Do list for next 7/14/30 days.

Is it possible to change the default categories under the to-do list from “Today/This Week/This Month” to the next “7/14/30 days.” I know I can make manual lists with a specific date range, but I would have to update those everyday to achieve what I am tying. I would like to be able to always be able to see the tasks that are due in the next 7/14/30 calendar days.

321
J
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
A
amy13021Contributor
asked in General Q&A
LeadPro

Is there a way to send a full intake form to a lead? For example- we prefer our estate planning leads to complete a full questionnaire before their consultation, not just a general intake. 

904
M
10 months ago
Joe
JoeContributor
asked in General Q&A
Not Sure What Type of Matter

I am not sure what is the best type of matter to open a new file for.  I was just appointed by the Court as the Receiver in a divorce action.  I am not representing the plaintiff, defendant or any party.  Rather, I am acting as the eyes and hears for the court.  What would be the best option to choose when opening this matter in Smokeball?  Thank you.

354
E
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
A
abbey321Contributor
asked in General Q&A
Why are some matters not showing in weekly status report?

When an associate runs their “weekly status report,” two matters he works on don’t show up. He is tagged on both matters, and has recorded billable time on the cases. They also don’t show up when he runs a “matter-full list” with his tags. Why are these cases not included, and what can we do to ensure they are included moving forward? Thank you!

281
E
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
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OCLawyerContributor
asked in General Q&A
Mobile device sign on

Has anyone else been unable to sign onto Smokeball on a mobile device (cell phone)?

271
nashchaves
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
S
Stephanie BaumgartnerContributor
asked in General Q&A
Combining contacts

Is there a way to combine contacts? For some reason clients have been entered multiple times (probably by different staff members) so we have more than one contact set up for the same person. Is there a way to combine them? I don’t want to delete them because they are associated with matters.

1051
nashchaves
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
T
taniatuttleContributor
asked in General Q&A
Copying/Moving Emails to Separate Folder or Matter(s)

Is there a way to copy emails such that they are in more than one folder or more than one matter, like you can do with documents? I understand that you can re-tag an email such that it will move to a different matter, but what if an email covers more than one matter and you want it assigned to both matters.  Example - email is from client with two separate matters and needs to be attached to both Matter 1 and Matter 2 Also, what if you want the email assigned to a specific subfolder?  For example - email includes a settlement offer from opposing counsel and you would like it to be saved in the Settlement subfolder   You can do this with documents so easily - I would think you should be able to do the same with emails.

563
C
10 months ago
Funkytown
FunkytownFrequent Scribe
posted in General Q&A
Messenger - new and improved with AI Summary

I just noticed a new feature: Smokeball Messenger includes an option to summarize a conversation using Artificial Intelligence. I used that feature and found a short summary and an action item list. Checking with a tech savvy client, he said that the summary is not viewable to the client. This feature could be handy. Anyone else using it? 

621
Sara Sultan
Community Manager
10 months ago
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KVenditContributor
asked in General Q&A
PDF/VOIP Fax

We have Ooma as a phone/fax service. To send a fax, we drag a PDF into the application. We cannot drag a PDF from SB into the application as it says it doesn’t recognize it as a PDF. So currently, we have to save the PDF to a temporary file and then drag and drop it into the fax application. Is there a quicker way to do this from within SB? Can anyone tell us why the PDF isn’t recognized as a PDF when we try to drag it out from SB?

816
Ben
10 months ago
V
VictoriaWLCContributor
asked in General Q&A
Adding data field into invoicing template

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!  

503
M
10 months ago
M
McCurdyLawContributor
asked in General Q&A
On the dashboard is there a way to display tasks based on category?

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.

361
Sara Sultan
Community Manager
10 months ago
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EporterContributor
asked in General Q&A
Evergreen

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.

322
E
10 months ago
Smokeball Anonymous
Smokeball Team
Smokeball AnonymousSmokeball Team
asked in General Q&A
Adding precedents

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

701
J
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
J
JCorraoContributor
asked in General Q&A
Default Billing Type

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.

261
E
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
A
avelazquezContributor
asked in General Q&A
Messages with outgoing attachments - how to download all files at once

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

508
Sara Sultan
Community Manager
10 months ago
A
avelazquezContributor
asked in General Q&A
Step by step instructions for non smokeball users on downloading documents from messages

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. 

311
Sara Sultan
Community Manager
10 months ago
K
KpittContributor
asked in General Q&A
Viewing staff activity/billing

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?

483
K
10 months ago
Smokeball Anonymous
Smokeball Team
Smokeball AnonymousSmokeball Team
asked in General Q&A
Precedent letter requires correction

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

251
Kalina
Smokeball Team
10 months ago
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BrotmanLaw-DanContributor
asked in General Q&A
Designating the practices for "Ethics" and "Professional Responsibility"

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  

616
B
10 months ago
atharkhan
atharkhanRegular
posted in General Q&A
Smokeball on Snapdragon X Elite

Hi All, I am not sure if anyone on here has a laptop with a Snapdragon X Elite.  It is my understanding that the performance of this latest round of ARM chips from Qualcomm is comparable to Apple’s M series chips.  Additionally, the Windows X86 emulation has allegedly reached a point where Smokeball would run without issues despite it being not natively written for ARM. If anyone has any experience with Snapdragon X Elite, please do share it.  Thank you!-Athar. 

813
Ben
10 months ago
B
BrotmanLaw-DanContributor
asked in General Q&A
Disclaimer on Intake Form

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

462
B
10 months ago
X
x.liuContributor
asked in General Q&A
Time tracking function requests

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

986
Ben
10 months ago
E
efreemanContributor
asked in General Q&A
Trust Receipt to multiple matters

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

371
Tony Hastings
Smokeball Team
10 months ago

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