Migrate your Smokeball data

Matters are the core organizing entity in Smokeball, holding the Matter number, Internal Reference Number, description, Matter Type, Client, Debtor, Other side, Other side Attorney, Open debtors balance, Person Assisting, and Person Responsible. Smokeball's own migration service explicitly migrates open and closed matter metadata. We map the full Matter object, including stage and responsible attorney assignments, and flag any Matter Type values that need normalization.

Contacts include Name, Addresses, Phone numbers, Email addresses, Notes, and Tags. Smokeball's migration documentation specifies that Contacts are imported as-is from the legacy system. We validate all required fields during scoping and flag duplicate Contacts for cleanup before import, since the Data Import tool does not identify duplicates.

Staff records migrate with First name, Surname, Email address, Status (active or inactive), and Salutation. Email address is required for every staff member in the source system. We confirm Staff status mapping and validate that inactive staff land correctly in the destination system.

Activities track every action completed throughout the day—tasks, document work, memos, emails, and matter admin—and feed into AutoTime for automatic time entry generation. Activity history can be extensive. We map Activities to the destination system's equivalent engagement or time-logging object, preserving the relationship to the originating Matter.

Documents migrate as file blobs associated with Matter containers. Smokeball's documentation warns that high-volume document uploads on open matters may not complete by the Go Live morning. We migrate documents in a staged sequence, prioritizing open matters, and confirm full completion against a file manifest after cutover.

Workflows are series of tasks applied to matters by Matter Type or practice area. They must be manually recreated in Smokeball's configuration rather than imported directly. We document the firm's existing Workflow logic during discovery and assist in translating that logic into Smokeball's Workflow builder post-migration.

AutoTime generates time entries automatically from Activity data. Historical time entries and billing records are migrated as transactional data under the relevant Matter. We map billable hour values and confirm that AutoTime rules are reapplied for new entries after migration.

Smokeball includes invoicing, batch billing, and automatic payment plans. Historical invoices and billing records migrate under Matters. We preserve the relationship between invoices and their originating Matters and validate that line-item formatting matches the destination system's requirements.

Trust Accounting and reporting are native to Smokeball. Hard costs (court filing fees, expert fees paid to suppliers) and soft costs (in-house photocopying, postage) are tracked as disbursements. We map historical trust account balances and open debtor balances carefully to maintain accounting integrity during cutover.

Custom field formats—including date, name, and text variations—can be set when creating automated documents via the Smokeball Toolbar in Microsoft Word. Custom field structures vary by firm. We map custom fields to destination equivalents and flag any that require format conversion during import.

Document Containers (also called Letterheads) are headers and footers containing firm branding and matter information. They are document-level templates rather than data records. We migrate the container definitions and confirm that they render correctly in the destination system after cutover.

Tags are associated with Contacts and can be used to segment and organize client records. Tags migrate as part of the Contact object. We preserve tag assignments during migration and confirm that destination tag taxonomies match or are normalized accordingly.

Smokeball integrates with Xero, MYOB, and QuickBooks for accounting synchronization. Hard and soft cost mappings are configured per accounting software. Post-migration, integration credentials must be re-established and cost mappings reconfigured in the destination system.

The secure client portal and AI-assisted communications features are configuration-level settings tied to firm identity and client relationships. These are set up fresh in the destination system rather than migrated as data records.