Acuinvoice

Today we updated AcuInvoice to include some of the features planned for the 1.1 release. We’ll call this 1.0.1. Highlights below.

“Send Invoice” Button

Previously you had to save an invoice, then hit the send button–an obviously unnecessary step we have eliminated. Your options in the invoice creation screen are Send, Save (as draft), and Cancel.

Tag Editing

Let’s say you have 20 invoices that are tagged with Tag1. Tag1 is now editable and will cascade throughout all of the invoices.

UI Improvements

Many thanks to Ivan Boyko of VisualPharm for his suggested improvements to the layout of invoices as viewed by customers. If you’re looking for someone to provide constructive criticisms regarding your designs, I highly recommend Ivan.

Popup Elimination

We have eliminated popups where possible. Perhaps the most notable change was made to the recurring templates area.Fixed a big whereby logos were not displaying properly on invoices.Fixed to Safari-specific bugs, one related to the posting of comments to invoices, the other related to the forwarding of invoices.

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Today we are proud to announce the release of the AcuInvoice Simple Store. We are releasing this lightweight PHP script free of charge to the AcuInvoice community as a means of providing a set of core classes that can be used in custom applications that interact with AcuInvoice via the API. We have prepared a zip archive of the AcuInvoice Simple Store  for you to download and install on your web server. As previously described in detail, the Simple Store can be easily installed on your web server and allow you to sell products–both digital and traditional goods–via a clean looking storefront. Order information is passed securely to your AcuInvoice account via the API, and customers are able to pay via any AcuInvoice payment gateway you have enabled. If you are selling digital goods (software, eBooks, etc.), these goods will be automatically delivered to your customer once the invoice has been converted into a closed state (either via a payment gateway or from a payment you have manually entered).  Below you will see a brief demonstration of the Simple Store installation process.  By the end of the week we will have a full demonstration of how to configure the Simple Store (you should be able to figure it out without the demo, we think) and how orders are processed.  Meanwhile, if you have any questions about the AcuInvoice Simple Store, please email us at support (at) acuinvoice (dot) com or submit a ticket from within your AcuInvoice account.   

Installing the AcuInvoice Simple Store

As the name implies, installation is easy, but it never hurts to have some helpful visuals.  This demo should help.

Technical Requirements

• PHP 5.0.0 or higher
• MySQL extension loaded (in php.ini)
• SimpleXML extension loaded (in php.ini)
• This is not a requirement but a recommendation: allow_url_fopen = 1 (in php.ini). If this option is turned off (value 0) you will still have a fully operational store, however every downloadable item and product image should be uploaded to the store server via the admin application. Linking to remote files and images will not be possible.

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This week we will be releasing version 1.0 of the AcuInvoice Simple Store, a PHP application that uses the AcuInvoice API to enable subscribers to quickly generate a standards-compliant web store where customers can place orders for products, services, and digital goods. Order information is passed securely via the AcuInvoice API to the subscriber’s account and invoices are automatically sent. If you sell digital goods (MP3s, images, software, etc), the items will be automatically delivered to the customer once payment is received and the invoice is converted into a closed state. The AcuInvoice Simple Store is an outstanding example of the power of the AcuInvoice API (it even uses a number of features and data elements that we have yet to fully document) and provides a large amount of sample code that will be useful to other AcuInvoice developers. Therefore, we will be releasing the AcuInvoice Simple Store to the AcuInvoice community free of charge as a means of providing a strong set of core classes with which developers can build custom AcuInvoice applications. We will be putting the finishing touches on the Simple Store early this week, and plan on releasing documentation and tutorials along with the script later in the week. This post highlights the features and benefits of the store, and provides access to a sample store containing some $0.10 items so that you can execute a couple of test transactions and let us know what you think.

Sample Store

We have posted “The Charlie Store“ so that you can see a preview of what the store looks like by default.  You can execute a test transaction (where you purchase a $0.10 picture of my infant son and have it automatically delivered) to test the functionality.  The script functions in the manner described in the “How It Works” section below.

How It Works

When a customer places an order from your AcuInvoice Simple Store, all order data will be instantly passed to your AcuInvoice account. The data will be used to create a new contact (if the customer is not already in the database), and an invoice will be automatically created and sent to your customer at the email address provided during checkout. When your customer receives your invoice, they can pay via any gateway that you have enabled both in your AcuInvoice account and the AcuInvoice Simple Store. Once the invoice is paid, it will be automatically converted into a closed state. If the order contained any digital goods, the script will automatically send out an email containing an order-specific download URL. The AcuInvoice Simple Store allows you to limit the duration the download URL is valid, and specify a maximum number of item downloads.

Features & Benefits

Super Simple Installation

The AcuInvoice Simple Store is easy to install and configure. Simply unzip the archive, upload it to your web server, create a MySQL database, change a couple of permissions settings, and load the installer script in your browser. Your store will be automatically configured and should be functioning in about five minutes.

Clean Code

The AcuInvoice Simple Store utilizes clean CSS and produces valid XHTML 1.0 Strict for maximum compatibility with a variety of popular web browsers.

Simple Management of Content

The AcuInvoice Simple Store utilizes the TinyMCE HTML editor giving you the ability to style your store’s content using a familiar interface. TinyMCE is integrated by default into a number of applications and should be familiar to most users.

Fully Customizable

Your AcuInvoice Simple Store is completely customizable. You can make modifications to the storefront to suit the look of your site, and edit the store’s CSS via a simple web-based editing utility.

Standalone and Embeddable Mode

The AcuInvoice Simple Store can be used in either a standalone or embeddable mode. The standalone mode (default) produces a separate storefront page, while the embeddable mode allows you to insert your AcuInvoice Simple Store into any web page using a singleelement. Embeddable mode could be used, for example, to insert your simple store into pages dynamically generated by popular publishing platforms such as WordPress. 

Centralize Service Invoices and Store Purchases

You already use AcuInvoice to bill your clients, but if you sell products too, you might have to use another system for tracking those sales. Since the AcuInvoice Simple Store uses the AcuInvoice API to automatically enter customer and order information into AcuInvoice, all of your data will be centralized into your AcuInvoice account.

Automatically Delivers Digital Goods

If you sell digital goods from within your AcuInvoice Simple Store, these goods will be automatically delivered once the relevant invoice has been paid. Once payment is remitted and the invoice is converted into a closed state, customers will be sent an email containing a purchase-specific URLs that provides controlled access to digital content.

Plays Well With AcuInvoice Domain Mapping

If you have enabled domain mapping in your AcuInvoice account, all invoices generated via the AcuInvoice Simple Store will originate from your mapped domain, thereby giving you the option of providing a more carefully branded purchase experience for your customers.

Unbeatable Price

The AcuInvoice Simple Store will be released without charge to the AcuInvoice community. Please note that transactions completed through the AcuInvoice Simple Store will automatically pass customer information securely to your AcuInvoice account. Therefore, if you believe you will have a very active store, be certain to have a subscription level that will permit you to have a sufficient number of invoiced clients.

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Last night we applied some updates to the manner in which domain mapping behaves. If you have pointed yourdomain.com (or billing.yourdomain.com) to your AcuInvoice account, the following summarizes the manner in which invoice URLs and payment processing now occurs. These changes provide flexibility in branding your AcuInvoice account without sacrificing security as it pertains to sensitive data.

Invoices Sent From Mapped Domains

If you are logged into your AcuInvoice account using yourdomain.com and you send out an invoice, the invoice URL will be branded with your domain (e.g. http://yourdomain.com/someinvoice.php). Note that in this case the invoice is served over a standard http connection, due to the fact that there is not an SSL certificate installed on the AcuInvoice server that is valid for yourdomain.com. If a user clicks on the link for one of the enabled payment gateways, the transaction will occur over the acuinvoice.com domain, and will still have the benefit of 256-bit SSL encryption. In short, invoices can be viewed without SSL, but payments will be processed over an encrypted connection.

Invoices Sent From Your AcuInvoice ID

If you have a mapped domain, you can always login to AcuInvoice at https://your-acuinvoice-id.acuinvoice.com and send invoices. In this scenario, your invoices will be accessible and payable only over an encrypted connection.

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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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We’re currently updating the AcuInvoice server to the 1.0 release and there may be brief periods during which certain functions are unavailable.  We will have detailed release notes shortly.

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As we near the 1.0 release (delayed by several days by the arrival of Charlie), we are already actively coding features for AcuInvoice 1.1. This next release of AcuInvoice will include a number of user interface improvements, feature upgrades, and modifications designed to improve the overall user experience; details have previously been posted here.  In discussing plans for 1.1 with our engineers this morning, we have decided to seek feedback from the AcuInvoice user community regarding the notion of allowing subscribers to opt-in to the AcuInvoice staging environment, thereby providing access to an advanced preview of new features and allowing us to more rapidly assemble feedback that will make AcuInvoice more useful and productive for everyone. We stress that this would be on an opt-in basis and that users would not be required to use the staging environment. More details are below. If, after reading this post, you are interested, please post a comment or respond to the thread I have posted on the forum (go on, you know you want to join the forum).

What Is The Staging Environment?

We develop and test on an internal LAN, then perform advanced testing in a staging environment that has a configuration substantially similar to the live AcuInvoice server. Additional testing in the staging environment helps us find (typically minor) bugs that had previously gone undetected, and helps us further optimize the code prior to releasing it to the public. The more people use the staging environment, the faster the code can be optimized, and the faster the code will get out to the public.

Is It Safe?

Yes. We don’t put Blue Screen of Death code on our staging environment; it’s typically pretty solid and just needs to be reviewed by a few more users. Also, if we open up the staging environment, we would let you opt out at any time. Lastly, since we recently implemented Amazon S3 backups, we would easily be able to roll back your account to a previous day. The risk is quite minimal.

Why Would I Use The Staging Environment?

Good question.  Here are a few reasons.

1. You would get to see cool, newfangled features before everyone else.
2. You would get to influence the development process more directly; your input is likely to have an obvious impact on the final work product.
3. We would likely give out perks to staging environment users who provide significant help, feedback, etc.

If you think this sounds like something you might be interested in, let us know. Our go/no-go decision on this will be based largely on the level of enthusiasm expressed, so if you are interested, please let us know by commenting here or on our forum.

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We’ve noticed that PayPal’s instant payment notification (IPN) feature, which AcuInvoice uses to record the receipt of payments, is informing our servers of payments received on a timeframe that can’t really be described as “instant.” There was a post to the PayPal Developer Community blog on Friday indicating that delays were observed.  Though PayPal subsequently indicated that the problem had been resolved, it appears as if similar problems may have resurfaced. Therefore, if it takes an unusually long time for PayPal payments to be recorded on your invoices, please understand that this appears to be an issue on the PayPal side.  IPN notifications should be received, but it might take several minutes, or even hours for AcuInvoice to be notified.

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The past few days have been some of the most exhausting, but wonderful days ever. Charlie was born on January 27th and is 8 lbs, 10 oz of energy. He’s got a powerful pair of legs (can hold himself up), has outstanding taste in music (already a Willie Nelson fan), and prefers to take naps on the couch with his dad at about 3AM. Baby is healthy and mom is recovering rapidly.  Highly recommended. 

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As we near the launch of AcuInvoice 1.0, we have begun to update our development roadmap and set goals for the reminader of 2008. This post, which highlights features of the soon-to-be-developed AcuInvoice 1.1, is the first in a series of articles detailing our near term development goals and provides some insight regarding the direction of this service. Subsequent posts in this series will discuss (perhaps not in the following order):

• Plans for AcuInvoice 2.0, a major release scheduled for the second half of 2008
• Expansion of the AcuInvoice API and the release of an AcuInvoice-driven web store and
• Development of a CRM and project management module that integrates with AcuInvoice.

If you have any feedback on these, or any other, development items, please post a comment, start a topic on the forum, or contact us by email or phone.

AcuInvoice 1.1: An Update Scheduled for Late Q1 2008

The forthcoming 1.0 release marks both the conclusion of our initial development efforts, and the start of some important follow-on development. AcuInvoice 1.1, the first in a series of incremental updates, should be released late in the first quarter and will focus primarily on making the software more user friendly. Key features will include:

Dashboard Quick Actions

The AcuInvoice dashboard is ideal for scanning your invoices and identifying accounts in need of attention. However, working with invoices requires that you first click on the invoice, navigate to an invoice-specific screen, then select from one of several context-dependent actions. AcuInvoice 1.1 will include Dashboard Quick Actions, a series of functions allowing you to initiate context-specific actions from within the dashboard. You will no longer have to navigate to a particular invoice to receive payment, send a payment reminder, or deliver a thank you note; these actions will all be available via an intuitive dashboard interface.

Quick Reports

AcuInvoice has powerful built-in reporting features and allows you to customize reports. AcuInvoice 1.1 will extend this functionality by allowing you to quickly generate reports using a set of predefined input parameters.

Tag Editing

Tags are great for organizing your invoices and tracking various business segments. Though AcuInvoice’s tagging functionality is strong, it can be improved. The 1.1 release will allow users to edit tags and have changes automatically applied to all invoices.

Selective AJAX-ification

There are a few elements in AcuInvoice that can be improved through the selective use of AJAX. Expect minor improvements throughout the application in this regard.

Adios, Unnecessary Pop Ups

A few unnecessary pop ups somehow managed to remain in the current code (we’re actually not sure how they managed to get there in the first place!). They will soon exit stage right.There will likely be several other small items included in AcuInvoice 1.1. Significant new features, however, will be included in AcuInvoice 2.0 (scheduled for the 2nd or 3rd quarter), and will be unveiled concurrent with the alpha release of a CRM & project management module currently in the planning stages. More on this major release (AcuInvoice 2.0) soon.

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