Acuinvoice

One week ago today, we updated the AcuInvoice server to version 1.0. AcuInvoice users have been sent an email notifying them of the server update and explaining some of the changes that were unveiled concurrent with this release. Most of the development items in 1.0 were administrative, but there were a few features and fixes that new and existing users will note.

AcuInvoice Pricing

The obvious change with 1.0. One of the critical issues in determining AcuInvoice pricing has been the identification of a metric that could potentially be used by both AcuInvoice, as well as by the customer relationship management (CRM)/ project management module we intend to release in the second half of 2008. The plans outlined in the AcuInvoice pricing page, therefore, are based primarily on the number of invoiced clients, since this metric more closely relates to concepts that will be introduced in these additional modules. All AcuInvoice accounts include unlimited invoices and unlimited contacts. Clients only count against your subscription once they have been invoiced.

Rapid Signup

We killed the big signup form in favor of a system that merely requires an email address and the selection of an AcuInvoice subdomain. Login credentials are created on the fly and emailed to you immediately. New users can simply click on the confirmation URL and will be taken into AcuInvoice immediately. We obviously recommend that you update your user information prior to sending any invoices (they would look rather naked in the absence of your business information, wouldn’t they?), but this method makes it super-easy for people to view the AcuInvoice UI and to take our system for a test drive.

Applying Discounts

Rick at HappyPa.ws (an outstanding domain name for a great service–I’ll be sending my sister-in-law your way, Rick) suggested that we provide a means of applying discounts to invoices. Though we will likely deploy something more robust in the future, we have added “discount” as an item type in AcuInvoice. We would like to gather more feedback from users regarding a more robust discounts module and have posted a thread on the forum on this topic. We would encourage you to participate in this discussion so that our development roadmap accurately reflects the requests of our users.

Rest Added Following PayPal Transaction Completion

AcuInvoice was consistently faster than the PayPal instant payment notification (IPN) service. Therefore, when invoices were paid via PayPal, they were returned to their invoice to find it still in an open state. This was confusing, and resulted from the fact that there is a moderate delay between the completion of a PayPal transaction and the delivery of IPN notification. We have therefore implemented a delay of a few seconds to allow the PayPal IPN to update the AcuInvoice server prior to returning users to their (hopefully closed) invoice.  If users encounter this issue again, let us know and we will increase the rest time a little more.  

Various Browser-Specific Display Fixes

The 1.0 release includes browser-specific fixes for Safari, IE 6, IE7, Firefox, and Opera. The most irritating bug related to a Firefox display issue that was specific for Mac OSX—strange.

Thanks

Thanks to the hundreds of AcuInvoice users who have contacted us, submitted tickets, and posted to our forums.  We are grateful for  your valuable feedback and please continue to contact us if you know of ways we can further improve AcuInvoice. We look forward to continuing the active development of AcuInvoice, implementing new features based on customer demand, and providing rapid, high-quality customer service. If you have any questions, or encounter problems of any kind, don’t hesitate to contact us.

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