Depending on the circumstances, your firm may need bill a business matter on a time-based, fixed fee, contingency, or pro bono basis. Choosing the appropriate billing type is of paramount importance.
The billing type can be used to filter what matters show when creating invoices in bulk. The billing type is also essential to the creation of time entries. Whether you are using AutoTime, TimeFinder, or manually entering time, Smokeball will look at the billing type set on the matter and then designate the time entry to billable or non-billable by default.
For time-based matters or matters that have no billing type selected, the time entry will default to billable. Otherwise, the time entry will default to non-billable, as it should be included in the contingent fee, is fixed fee, or is pro bono.
To set the billing type in Smokeball Desktop go to the Billing tab in the Info section of the matter.
To set the billing type in Smokeball’s web app, open the matter and select the Edit Matter button. In the Billing Fees and Rates section, select the billing type.
How to best utilize AutoTime for Business Law Firms
There are some activities Smokeball does not track, such as reviewing printed out documents, research in law books, and anything else done outside of Smokeball. There are a few options to add manual time to Smokeball:
- You can use Smokeball’s manual timer that is found in the upper right of the main Smokeball window or any matter/lead in Smokeball desktop.
- You can create a Time Entry in Smokeball manually.
- If you are using Grouped AutoTime entries, you should add an Activity for any activity not captured by Smokeball on the same day it happened. This will allow the activity to be captured by AutoTime and added to your daily entry. You can add activities on the mobile app as well. Note: Any activities manually added for a prior day will not be captured by AutoTime.
If your rate changes on a matter-by-matter basis, you can override your default hourly rate on a matter basis under the billing tab in matter info.