Learn how to view and manage your Smokeball usage-based products, including how to view charges, manage chargeable action permissions, and keep payment details up to date.
Accessing Account Settings
To access your usage-based billing settings:
- Log in to the Smokeball Web App.
Select the Settings (gear) icon on the bottom-left corner of the screen, then select Account.
Viewing your Usage-based Products
Upon opening your Account Settings, you will land on the Usage page. This page is split into three tabs:
Products
The Products tab lists every usage-based product your firm has access to. Each product shows its name, description, and whether charging is currently active (denoted by the green Charging active badge).
Charges
The Charges tab displays a historical log of every charge generated across all your usage-based products.
The Charge data table contains the following information:
- Date: The date the charge was generated
- Description: The product that triggered the charge
- Matter: The matter related to the charge
- Staff: The staff member whose action created the charge
- Unit Price: The per-use cost for that charge
- Expense created: Whether an expense for this charge has been created and linked to the matter
Settings
The Settings tab is where you configure firm-wide behavior that apply across all usage-based products.
You can set the following on this page:
- Who can take chargeable actions: This setting controls which staff members in your firm are permitted to take actions from a usage-based product that generate a charge. Choose from:
- No Staff: no one can trigger chargeable actions
- All Staff: any staff member can take chargeable actions
- Firm Owners: only firm owners can take chargeable actions
- Selected Staff and Firm Owners: choose specific staff members who are permitted, plus all firm owners
- Expenses: This setting controls whether Smokeball automatically creates an expense entry on the linked matter each time a usage charge is incurred. Expenses created this way are billed directly back to the relevant client.
- Toggle Automatically create expenses on to enable this behavior
- Toggle it off if you prefer to handle expense creation manually
Once you have configured your settings on this tab, select Save.
Viewing Payment History for Usage-based Products
To access your invoice and payment history for usage-based products charged to your firm, select Payments & Billing from the left menu in Account Settings.
Payments
The Payments tab displays your full invoice and payment history. Use the Date and Billing Type filters to narrow results if needed, and Export to download the list of payments.
The table contains the following columns:
- Date: Invoice Date
- Description: Billing period covered
- Amount: Total charged for that period
- Status: Invoice status
- Draft: For invoices that have not been finalized
- Paid: For invoices that have been paid in full
- Failed: For invoices that are overdue or have a failed payment
- Invoice No.: Click on the link to view the individual invoice
Payment Settings
- Payment method: Update the card that is used exclusively for usage-based product charges here. This does not affect your Smokeball subscription billing method or cadence.
- Billing frequency: Change the billing frequency that Smokeball invoices usage-based product charges to you for.
At the moment only Monthly is available, so you receive one invoice per month covering all usage charges incurred across all products during that period.
Once you have configured your settings on this tab, select Save.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can access Account Settings?
The Account Settings including both Usage and billing areas are only accessible to Firm Owners.
Does the payment method here affect my main Smokeball subscription?
No. The payment method in Payment settings is used only for usage-based product charges.
Can I stop charges for a specific product without disabling it?
Yes. Use the Settings in the Usage section to set Who can take chargeable actions to No Staff for that product. This blocks any new charges without removing the product.
What happens if I turn off "Automatically create expenses"?
Charges will still be incurred, but Smokeball won't automatically create expense entries on matters. You'll need to create expenses manually if you want to pass costs to clients.
Where can I see which staff member caused a charge?
The Charges tab (Usage > Charges) lists every charge with the staff member's name in the Staff column.