Learn how to prepare data to be imported into Smokeball Grow or Prosper+ from your current legal software.
This article details each step you need to take to ensure all your current data is moved over to Smokeball, and where our Onboarding Team can step in to assist you.
For some steps, we have also outlined procedures that apply to the most common setups that new firms have. If you have any further questions, contact your Onboarding Specialist.
If your Firm is coming from LEAP, we can work with the exported files from LEAP without the need for you to modify them.
Requirements for contact imports from LEAP:
This report can be located via LEAP Home Page > Menu > Reports > In browser > Matters & Clients > Clients & Cards > Card Details
- Your Firm will need to export 2-5 separate CSV files:Â
- People Cards
- Organization/Company Cards
- Business Cards
- Government Cards
- Trust Cards
It is vitally important for these files to be separated.
Once your firm has exported these two CSV files: Send the Excel files to support@smokeball.com.au.
We expect to have your contacts imported into your firm's Smokeball account within 48 hours.
We are able to import Contacts into Smokeball.
If you are exporting from another software, ensure each person is on a separate line.
A separate sheet for 'people' and 'organisations' is welcomed but not necessary.
Once you have your contact Excel/CSV spreadsheet, contact our team to get this list implemented into your firm.
If you are unsure on how to export your contacts, please reach out to your current system provider for assistance. Smokeball is more than happy to help if possible.
Once the contacts have been uploaded, you will need to recreate your matters in Smokeball.
Creating matters will be quite fast as all your contacts will be ready to go. Just select the matter type and enter any matter-specific information.Â
Importing active open matters:
- If a matter is due to be completed before you go live in Smokeball, finish it in your current system.
- We recommend you prioritise recreating open matters that will be continued in Smokeball. The following fields are the bare minimum required in order to save the matter:
- Matter Type - Select an area of law
- Matter Number - Replicate your current matter numbers.Â
- Automatic matter numbering can be enabled after all matters have been entered.
- Client - create or select an existing client.
Importing closed/archived matters (Optional):
If your firm wishes to bring over information for closed matters, we recommend the following options:
Create a General matter with a description of 'Archived 2022' for example.
Then, export a Closed Matter Report from your current system and attach this to the above-created matter in Smokeball.
Once completed, create new folders in the Documents section for each file number, and import your documents into their respective folders.
Your firm can recreate every closed matter in Smokeball - this is the same process as creating your active open matters.
Once you have created the matters, mark them as Closed or Archived.
- All documents in Smokeball are easily searchable in the Quick Search bar.
- For Conflict Checks - the contacts have been imported so they will come up in any conflict check. Search for the documents in the Archived matter file for more details.
To prepare, download your documents from your current system and save them locally to your PC.
Exporting documents from your current system The exact steps are different depending on the system.- If possible, request a backup of documents.
- Use the Export function in your current system to export all documents from each matter and save them to your PC.
Option 1:
From LEAP you can export 100 documents at a time on a per-matter basis.
Option 2:
A backup of documents can be requested directly from LEAP. We recommend speaking with your account manager at LEAP for this type of request. This can also be requested via our third party Entasker who can perform the extraction of your firms leap data.Â
Option 1: Documents that are saved within Actionstep
A backup of your data can be requested via Actionstep which will contain all of your data including documents.
You can also export documents on a matter-to-matter basis in Actionstep.
Option 2: Documents outside of Actionstep
If the documents are saved locally on your PC then the firm is good to go and can begin importing the documents into Smokeball.
If they are on another cloud solution they will need to be downloaded locally to your PC before they can be imported.
SILQ requires firms to have a cloud solution that holds the documents.
Ensure the documents are downloaded locally and then they can be imported into Smokeball.
There are two ways to import documents into Smokeball:
- Drag and drop files from your PC into the Documents section of a matter
- Clicking the Import button within the matter
For importing WIP and unpaid invoices, we recommend you follow these steps:
For WIP: Before moving to Smokeball, we recommend you invoice as much WIP as possible on your current system. This not only allows your firms to be paid but will make the move to Smokeball less complicated.
For any WIP remaining that needs to be moved to Smokeball, we advise you to do one of the following options:
Summarise and enter only the outstanding balance of the fees and disbursements/expenses separately as a single entry into the matter.
For example, legal fees up until Feb 2023 $1,000.
This removes the manual work of entering every line of WIP.
Retain a statement of WIP that can be attached to the invoice when it is created in Smokeball to show the itemised list.
Your firm can opt to enter in each line of WIP into the matter.
For unpaid invoices: Enter the Total Fees owing and Total Expenses owing for each matter. Itemised is not required as you can retain the invoice from your previous system.
Entering this in Smokeball allows monitoring of outstanding invoices and somewhere to receipt when it is paid.
Integrating with Xero or MYOB? Please ensure you enter all the unpaid invoices into Smokeball before turning on the integration. This will prevent duplicate line entries in your data.Â
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We do this with you!
Your Onboarding Specialist will organise a Trust Transition Session, where our Trust Specialists will sit down with you and help you enter the balance held in trust for each matter, as outlined in your current system's Trial Balance reports.
Please attend this session prepared with the following:
- Matters created in Smokeball with a description.
- Clients attached to the matters will require a street address on their contact card.
- Trust Trial Balance Report
- Trust Bank Reconciliation
- Trust Account Bank Statement for the month directly before your transition to Smokeball Billing
Once you have all of the above, send the reports and statements to support@smokeball.com.au.
If your firm holds documents in safe custody for your clients and you would like to migrate this to Smokeball, we advise the following:
Use Smokeball's Safe Custody register to create packets/documents on each contact card.
- Download the Safe Custody Register Report from your current system.
- Create a General matter with a description, e.g. 'Safe Custody records 1-1000'.
- Save the Safe Custody/Document Register report to this matter.
You can then create folders in this matter, named with the client's name so that documents can be populated if needed.