Grouped AutoTime Entries Best Practices

If your firm needs to group time and fee entries (e.g., for block billing), read on to learn how to enable this feature and recommended best practices.

Enable grouped time entries

1. Navigate to Smokeball Settings >Staff & Users.
2. Select the staff member who will utilize grouped AutoTime entries and select the Billing tab.
3. Select Enable automatic creation of time entries. You must use AutoTime to group time and fee entries.  
4. Select Group activities as one time entry.

Viewing and editing grouped time entries

Grouped time entries will appear as a single entry under Time & Expenses.

Likewise, the Time/Fee Entry window you can open by selecting the entry will appear slightly different. The individual activities will be itemized 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.

• 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 garbage can icon to delete the individual activity. 

• You cannot use Activity codes with a grouped time/fee entry. 

View and edit grouped time entries on the Smokeball Web App

It is also possible to revise grouped time entries on Smokeball Billing.

1. Select Time & Fees within your matter.
2. Select the grouped time entry to open Time/Fee Details.
3. 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 Smokeball desktop.