Acuinvoice

On Friday we released AcuInvoice 0.2. This update includes multi-language support, translations into Spanish, French, and German, several minor feature updates, and a handful of minor bug fixes. Additionally, we have finished programming our improved tax support system, though (for reasons described below) it is not included in this release. We’re considerably closer to a 1.0 release than the 0.2 nomenclature suggests and are targeting early January for the initial commercial release of our service. Additional details on this release are below.

Multi-Language Support

The most significant feature of the 0.2 release is multi-language support (MLS). Though MLS has been programmed for some time, the textual content of AcuInvoice has been evolving so much that it would have been impractical to have translations performed prior to last week. MLS is quite simple; just click on the flag indicative of your language of choice and the new language file will be loaded. These icons are found in the header area of the site and application. Our server logs indicate that many of you have already discovered as much.

What Gets Translated?

The application, the static portions of the AcuInvoice marketing site, and certain application email templates. The email templates we have translated are those that are system generated, not those that are editable by an AcuInvoice user.

Item Numbering Updated

When adding items to invoices, you can now have things such as 1.50 hours. This might get tweaked a bit more in the future, but for now it should provide the additional flexibility that many of you have requested.

AcuPort 0.2

We have updated AcuPort to include some bug fixes, minor changes, etc. This will probably be released as a standalone PHP script, a desktop application, or both in the coming months. Prior to releasing this, however, we have more features we will be adding.

Tax Support Finished

We have finished programming our improved tax support system. A minor consequence of our new multi-language platform, however, is that it is necessary to have language translations performed in advance of new feature releases. Therefore, we need to hold off on releasing this until such time as we can have translations of these new screens performed. We’re going to bundle these translations along with a few other forthcoming feature releases (Google Checkout, etc.), thereby minimizing the amount of work required by our translators.

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Two unexpected business trips rendered this blog quiet for the past several days.Despite the silence, we continue to make considerable progress and will be releasing a series of important incremental improvements over the coming weeks. Below is a tentative release schedule for these features. Please continue to email us your comments, questions, and feature requests to support (at) acuinvoice (dot) com. The amount and quality of feedback has been exceedingly helpful and we thank our users for their support and active participation in this effort.

Multi-Language Support: Week of 11/19

Translations into Spanish, French, and German have been performed and multi-language support will be released this week. While the homepage and tour page of the marketing site will be translated as well, the blog and our responses in the user forums will remain English only.

Improved Tax Support: Week of 11/19

We are actively coding an improved sales tax system that will allow you to specify the states/regions where you need to charge sales tax. This will be a useful feature for those who send large numbers of invoices and who are required to charge different rates of tax based on the presence of a local office in one state or another. We expect to launch the improved sales tax system late this week or early next week.

Partial Hours: Week of 11/19

Several people have asked us to loosen the current restriction on having only whole hours. By the end of the week you will be able to input things such as 1.4 hours as a line item on your invoices. Thanks to several people, in particular Phillip Blake, for feedback on this issue.

AcuPort 0.2: Week of 11/19

We are implementing a series of new features and bug fixes to AcuPort, the import/export scripts that allow you move data between AcuInvoice and Blinksale with just one click. Thanks to Luc Latulippe for providing a robust test case for AcuPort and for helping us uncover a few subtle issues related to this important functionality.

Various Fixes: Week of 11/19

There are a few other minor fixes that will be released this week, among them an issue related to the invoice date picker.

CSS Based Invoice Layouts: Week of 11/26

The invoice template file includes a few unnecessary tables. In the coming days, this will be revised such that divs are used whenever possible. This will let users float most elements in the invoice and will enable more sophisticated customization of invoices. If you are currently using something other than the default CSS file, you will likely have to update your style sheet once this new template file is released.

New Invoice Designs: Week of 11/26

Concurrent with (or shortly after) the release of the revised template file, we will start releasing a series of CSS files that will allow you to apply a different look to your invoices. Thanks in advance to Ben Gray for what are certain to be beautiful invoice designs.

Google Checkout and Amazon FPS: Week of 12/3

A few users have asked about the timeframe for the release of Google Checkout and Amazon FPS support. As of today, we are anticipating support for these gateways in early December. This will bring the number of supported payment gateways to five. Please post additional payment gateway requests to the forums or email us (as most of you seem to prefer) at support (at) acuinvoice.com. We’ve already had requests for gateways including WorldPay and eWay. If you’d like to second your support for these gateways, or if you would like to nominate others for inclusion in AcuInvoice, let us know and we’ll consider putting them on the development roadmap.

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Today we are happy to announce the release of AcuPort. AcuPort lets you move your data from Blinksale to AcuInvoice (and back) with one easy click. Now you can import your Blinksale information into AcuInvoice and try it for free. Invoices imported via AcuPort don’t even count against your monthly invoice limit, so if you have a large existing Blinksale account, this isn’t an obstacle. If you like AcuInvoice, we’d love to have you as a customer. If you like Blinksale better, AcuPort gives you the freedom to move your data back the same way. Simply put, AcuPort lets you try AcuInvoice for free, with no risk and zero hassle.To use it, just go to “My Account” and click on “Import/Export”.

Under The Hood (For Geeks)

AcuPort utilizes the APIs of each service to map data fields between the respective applications and efficiently transfer account data from one service to the other. Since both APIs operate over encrypted connections, data transfer is safe and easy. AcuPort currently resides in My Account→Import/Export, but will soon be included as an option during the sign-up process. Additionally, AcuPort will be released as a standalone PHP script that can be loaded onto your server. We plan on adding additional services to AcuPort, and will update the script as we finalize the data transfer routines for our other competitors.

What Transfers?

Invoices, contacts, tags, invoice histories, and comments. Blinksale does not support estimates, so if you have an AcuInvoice account and want to go to Blinksale, you’ll lose those.

Sounds Cool. Why Are You Doing This?

We have a strong—and improving—service and want to get the word out. For those of you who have already created AcuInvoice accounts, you’ve no doubt seen a series of incremental improvements and feature releases that makes AcuInvoice competitive with any application in this space. In addition to the features you’ve seen released, we have a variety of forthcoming features, API-based extensions, and UI improvement that will make AcuInvoice a formidable presence in the area of small business accounting.

Why Try AcuInvoice Now?

Strong Product & More To Come

AcuInvoice is a great product that’s already competitive with other applications, but we’re still adding features. If there’s something you want in your billing application, let us know and we’ll strongly consider it. This is your chance to help shape AcuInvoice.

More Powerful, Less Expensive Subscriptions

Early Adopters will have exclusive access to a feature rich, lower cost subscription plan that will not be available to subscribers who sign up after the initial commercial release. If you sign up now, you get more features for less money.

Save Money

During the time you are trying AcuInvoice, you could move to the free Blinksale plan and save money.

Known Issues

Invoice Numbering

Blinksale allows users to create invoice numbers using a free form text variable. For example, “whatever:56!:?:)” is a perfectly acceptable invoice number. AcuInvoice maintains numbering conventions whereby invoices are ordered incrementally as they are created. Therefore, when invoices are imported from Blinksale, AcuPort re-orders imported invoices according to the date of creation and assigns them an invoice number.  

Blinksale Invoice Caps

Blinksale limits the number of invoices you can create per billing period; invoices transferred into Blinksale via AcuPort will count against this limit. Therefore, if you want to switch to Blinksale using this script, make sure that the account type you have is sufficient to accommodate all of your invoices.

Size Matters

AcuPort has been tested on medium sized accounts going both to and from AcuInvoice. Large accounts might take some time to transfer and might exceed our server’s current timeout interval (30 seconds). If you have a large account, drop us a note at support (at) acuinvoice (dot) com and we will be happy to run the scripts outside of the web interface during off peak hours; we will then email you when the data has been successfully loaded into your AcuInvoice account.

Having Trouble?

If you encounter trouble of any kind, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have run several test cases, but there may be a few troublesome import scenarios that were impossible to identify during testing. If you see something that doesn’t look right, please contact us and we’ll fix it. 

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