Create Bulk Trust Payments

You can create a bulk trust payment for invoices on matters with trust money available by using the Bulk Payment function. There are two primary reasons to use this feature.

First, bulk trust payments are useful when your client's retainer is replenished after they ran out of money for their previous invoice. You can use bulk trust payments to apply retainer to overdue invoices before running your client's next invoice.

Second, you should use bulk trust payments if your firm prefers to wait a week or more before applying trust money to invoices. 

Note: Bulk trust payments will not appear on a client's invoice; they will only appear on invoice statements. If you need to show trust money movement on an invoice, then you have to bulk finalize invoices with payments.

Transaction numbering

Before creating a bulk trust payment, you must set up trust transaction numbering: 

1. Navigate to Smokeball Firm Settings, select Accounts, and then select the Trust Transaction Numbering tab.
2. Choose your starting number, the number of leading zeroes, and then select Save.

Select invoices for a bulk trust payment

1. Exit Smokeball Firm Settings, select Invoices, and then select the Bulk Trust Payment tab.
2. Choose which trust account will be used to make bulk payments from the dropdown menu in the left column.
3. Use the checkboxes to select the invoices you wish to pay in bulk with trust.
4. The Auto-Allocate button is toggled on by default. Use this button to automatically apply the maximum available trust amount to the invoice.
   • Toggle Auto-Allocate off to manually enter the trust amount in the Trust Transfer column. You will only be able to input an amount which is available in the matter’s trust.
   • You can verify the number of selected invoices by checking the parenthetical number in the Pay button.
5. Select the Pay button to proceed with the bulk trust payment.

Payment Process

1. The Bulk Trust Payment summary window will appear after you select the Pay button.
2. Select your check printing method and leave a reference note for regulatory compliance.
   • Choose Not Applicable for your check printing method if you are making a bank transfer.
3. Select the Process button.
4. Once processed, you will see the Transaction Details – Trust Payment(s) PDF. Review the PDF to see the list of invoices on the bulk trust payment, the total payment amount, and the amount allocated to each invoice.

Reversals

If you need to reverse a bulk trust payment, follow these steps:

1. Select Transactions and then select the trust account which made the bulk payment.
2. Select the bulk trust payment transaction.
3. Select the Reverse link in the Transaction Details window.
4. Enter a reason and then select Process.
   • Note: This will reverse all payments on all invoices included in the bulk transfer.
   • If you view the Transaction Details at the matter, contact, or account level, it will still reverse all of the payments that are linked to the Trust to Office transfer.

Review Bulk Trust Payment on Ledger

• Hover over the transaction on the trust ledger to view a full description of the entry, e.g.: Bulk Trust Payment for invoices #2955, #5837, #6128, #6133.
• Select the bulk trust payment to view hyperlinks for each individual invoice included in the bulk trust payment.

Review bulk trust payments in Reports

1. Navigate to the Reports page.
2. Select Account Balance Payments to view a report with a trust transaction table.
3. Set your filters and run the report. The Multi Amount column will list the values against each invoice that was a part of the Bulk Trust Payment, and the total will remain in the Credit column.

Bank Reconciliation

• The Bank Reconciliation creation screen will display bulk trust payment transfers as a collapsible group so that the user can see the individual invoices that are a part of the transaction.
• On the Bank Reconciliation PDF statement, the Trust to Office payment is shown as an individual item. However, the Reference will be the same for them all, which will allow the user to identify that it was a part of a bulk trust payment.