If your firm needs to group time and fee entries, read on to learn how to enable this feature and implement recommended best practices.
Enable grouped time entries
- Select the gear icon on the top-right corner of Smokeball to access Smokeball Settings.
- Double-click on a user from the Staff & Users tab to open their settings, then select the Billing tab.
- Tick Enable automatic creation of time entries and tick Group activities as one time entry.
Viewing and editing grouped time entries
Grouped time entries will appear as a single entry under the Time & Disbursements tab.
When you double-click on the entry to open it, the individual activities are itemised in the Description section.
You can make several changes to the grouped entry using the Time/Fee entry window:
- You can change the Subject field.
- By default, Smokeball will describe a grouped time entry on an invoice as “Services Provided on [date].” You can choose to display or hide the individual time and fee activities under the grouped entry by selecting Show description for entries under Invoice Settings on Smokeball Billing.
- Note: If you choose to hide the individual time and fee entries, then you can edit the subject of the single grouped entry in Smokeball desktop to be more descriptive.
- Note: If you choose to hide the individual time and fee entries, then you can edit the subject of the single grouped entry in Smokeball desktop to be more descriptive.
- By default, Smokeball will describe a grouped time entry on an invoice as “Services Provided on [date].” You can choose to display or hide the individual time and fee activities under the grouped entry by selecting Show description for entries under Invoice Settings on Smokeball Billing.
- You can edit the Description of each individual activity.
- You can edit the Hours for each individual activity and choose to mark them as Billable or non-Billable.
- Use the add item... link to add another activity.
- Select the bin icon to delete the individual activity.
- You cannot use Activity codes with a grouped time/fee entry.
View and edit grouped time entries on Smokeball Billing
It is also possible to revise grouped time entries on Smokeball Billing.
- Select Time & Fees within your matter.
- Select the grouped time entry to open Time/Fee Details.
This window includes the same functionality as the Time/Fee Entry window in Smokeball desktop described above.
Manually adding activity to a grouped time entry
You can also add activity to a grouped time entry by selecting the Activity button in a matter.
It is best practice to manually add an activity on the same day the other grouped activities are recorded.
This specific feature is only available on the Smokeball desktop app.