Smokeball makes it easy to keep track of your time for billing. Traditionally, most law firms come to Smokeball using a manual billing system. You can continue to track your time manually in Smokeball. However, you have the option to utilize tools like Activity and AutoTime to make billing easier.
Since Smokeball already is tracking your Activity, it is possible to alleviate non-billable admin time using AutoTime. Smokeball clients who use AutoTime capture, on average, 34% more time compared to those who use a manual approach.
Below are some common scenarios. Depending on your billing style, there are several ways you can use Smokeball to make your life easier. If you are not sure which path to take, reach out to your Account Manager for suggestions.
I struggle keeping track of my activity and time and feel I'm losing billable hours.
- Smokeball automatically tracks your activity and how much time you spend with AutoTime.
- AutoTime will eliminate the extra time spent on non-billable admin tasks by automatically creating a time entries to help you capture more billable hours.
- You can select the Review AutoTime button from the home screen every day to analyze and revise automatically created time entries to reduce admin work at the end of the month during your invoice review process.
- Learn more about AutoTime
I like manually tracking my activity, but I find myself spending extra time during evenings/weekends trying to remember everything I did.
- If you are used to manually tracking your time, we suggest trying Time Finder first. Once you see that Smokeball already has the entries that you have manually created, you can switch to AutoTime.
- AutoTime will eliminate the extra time spent on non-billable time entry by automatically creating time entries on your behalf.
- Learn more about AutoTime.
I am meticulous and use a timer for every activity I perform for a client.
- Continue to manually track your time in Smokeball using Time & Expenses.
- You can set up Activity Codes to help with manual entry of time.
- Smokeball has a Timer that will create a time entry directly for a matter.
- Use Activity and Time Finder as helpful tools to capture more billable time.
- Firms that are using Activity/Time Finder find they are capturing more billable time.
- Reach out to your Account Manager if you have questions about using these features.
Did You Know
AutoTime has a block billing feature that you can activate in your Staff & User settings.
If there are activities you complete that Smokeball does not already track, use the Activity button to ensure it is included in block billing entries.