The Smokeball team are continually working hard to deliver the most powerful, intuitive legal practice management software that helps small law firms to thrive.
At the Firms of the Future 2021 Virtual Summit, Smokeball's Chief Product Officer, Adele Hoyle, provided an exclusive sneak of all the exciting legal software innovations that are coming down the pipe. These new features will help to:
- Increase mobility and connectivity
- Simplify billing processes, so you can get paid faster
- Increase efficiency and organisation
- Enhance the client experience for law firm clients
If you were unable to catch Adele's live showcase, don't worry you can discover all the brand new feature releases and updates below.
New features now available in Smokeball:
iPad App
In addition to the popular lawyer mobile application, Smokeball is now available on IPad. Using the new iPad application, you can access Smokeball discreetly from the courtroom to the office, with or without an internet connection. The app has been built using the latest technology to create the best possible user experience for Smokeball users - it's fast, easy to navigate, and has a sleek user interface.
You will maintain high levels of productivity no matter where you're working from, with useful tools to help you and your staff keep track of everything that's needed to serve your clients, including:
- Matters at your fingertips - View relevant matter details, parties, law firm emails, documents, events and tasks for each matter.
- Phone messages - Receive updates from your office regarding any calls you miss while you’re away from your desk.
- Daily Digest - Get a personalised list of events and tasks each day, helping you keep on top of your workload.
- Calendaring - See what’s coming this week for yourself and your team – this is a great way to check availability.
- Tasks and To-do’s - Track what is next or quickly record that idea you want to come back to later.
Billing Snapshot
Alert notification icons - this new legal billing feature sends an update when the ‘trust balance’ is less than the ‘unbilled balance’. Allowing the lawyer to make a decision moving forward on the particular billing matter.
Fee/Estimate line - providing the lawyer with an up-to-date status of the matter bill estimate. The feature will include a notification colour change from amber (when reached 70% of the entered estimate) and red (when it exceeds the entered estimate).
Online Invoicing
Summary window – provides the lawyer with the ability to enter a summary for each invoice sent on a particular matter. This will help the client with an overview of the invoice received and help minimise the number of small back-and-forth questions.
Email invoice now – helps the lawyer save time and decrease the number of steps taken to draft an email and attach an invoice.With this new feature, you can simply click “email this invoice now”,personalise the message script and send it directly from the Smokeball system(with the invoice already attached and saved within the matter management folder).
Finalise and send invoice button.
New features coming soon to Smokeball:
Online invoicing
View details & payment – once the email has been sent using the previous feature. The client will receive an improved design and two new additional features. View Details will provide an itemised billing description and Make Payment to pay online through a secure portal. Should the client require further information on a particular itemised description, they are able to submit a request directly from the invoice.
Smokeball Dashboard
How can we drive efficiency for Smokeball users and help them easily access data that matters the most? By providing an interactive and configurable dashboard. The personalised dashboard can be set differently per user and display what is relevant to your needs.
InTake
A new approach that allows Smokeball users to receive online in-takes.
The Lead InTake will provide quick basic questions and the Full Matter Intake will have detailed questions to ask the prospector to fill in. Smokeball will provide users with the option to choose either a ‘chatbot’ style system or a ‘smart form’ style design for the law firm’s website.
Keeping its ethos of saving time, all data will be stored within the Smokeball software to reduce manual and double data entry. In addition, Smokeball will create template guides to help guide your InTake forms and from there the user can tailor it to its needs.
Client Portal
Communicate platform was designed specifically with legal professionals in mind. It's currently packed full of features to ensure lawyers can interact and securely share messages and files (even really large files) with their clients and co-workers.
The new client portal will help to minimise small reactive questions, that are often asked by law firm clients. This is achieved by providing a full overview of billing, documents & files, matter stages, and upcoming key dates.
About Adele Hoyle
Adele has over 15 years’ experience in the legal software industry and is very passionate about solving problems for law firms and building products that clients love.
At Smokeball Adele and her team work seamlessly with the Engineering team to deliver the best and most innovative small law firm products to the international market.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computing Information Technology and has a wide range of experience working in the UK and Australia where she developed a great understanding of the legal industry from her roles in software development, professional services and at LexisNexis where she spent several years heading up an international Product Management team.
