Hey FreshBookers,
Just a little reminder that the FreshBooks office will be closed Tuesday, December 25th and Wednesday, December 26th for Christmas and Boxing Day. If you need assistance, visit our forum and you may find the answers you’re looking for. If not, email and phone support will be back up and running on Thursday morning wearing new sweaters, socks and maybe a paper cut or two.
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday marked one of our proudest releases in recent memory: version 4.2 (codename “Thriller”). No big new features have been added, and no major changes have been made; this release was about tackling a list of many little things to make our users happy, and we’re hoping it shows. Here’s a photo of our release cake (now a tradition thanks to Daniel) — the code name for this release was… well… you can read it for yourself:
Before we get into the bright spots of the release, we need to acknowledge one trouble spot. Right at the end of the day, after the new release had been running without a hiccup for about 14 hours, a small tweak affected people’s ability to log in for about 45 minutes. Anyone who was inside FreshBooks at the time would have been unaffected, but anyone who was trying to log in was prevented from accessing their account. If you were adversely affected by this (we were able to reply to everyone who contacted us about the issue within an hour or so), please contact us and we will look into how we can make it up to you.
Now, on to the good stuff! Here are just a few of the improvements we’ve made with our latest version of FreshBooks.
One of the most common complaints about FreshBooks was that every user required a username and password. Well, no more! Now when you enter a new client, FreshBooks hides these fields from sight, and automatically generates a unique username and password on the fly. Of course, you can change them if you like; it’s still just a click away to view these fields.
We’ve done the same for the second client address as well; if you don’t need it, you won’t see it. All in all, it reduces the number of fields on the page by one-third, and puts the focus where it belongs. It’s a fantastic change, and we’ve received some great feedback so far.
For a long time, a big pain point for our users were invoice and estimate numbers. Not only could you not only edit them manually, but they couldn’t contain letters either – particularly rough for people trying to coordinate FreshBooks with different accounting software.
Now when you create/edit invoices and estimates, you’ll see a new “number” field on the top right. Yes, it’s true – you can now edit invoice numbers, and use letters too!
Another update is inline creation of new tasks and invoice items, and inline editing of taxes. Now when you’re in the middle of something and realize you need to add one of these things, you’re given the opportunity to do it right where you are! No more leaving what you’re already doing.
Just some of the little things we’re doing based entirely on the feedback of our users. We hope you like it.
If you’ve taken a look at our developer documentation in the last couple days, you’ll notice we’ve added the first incarnation of the most-requested feature — API access to your timesheets! We’ve also added support for estimates, and editable invoice/estimate numbers.
So remember all those little toys, widgets and integrations you keep asking for — like, say, a time tracking widget or QuickBooks Integration? — they are now possible! We’re toying around with a bunch of ideas ideas in-house, so you might see something from us down the road. For now, count on the community to come through like they always have.
That’s pretty much it. We tried to get it here in time for the holidays — we hope you enjoy it; please let us know.
With yesterday’s new version of FreshBooks, the Amazon Payments service is now available to FreshBooks users. This has been in the works for a while now, so we’re really interested in hearing about some of the first user experiences with Amazon Payments. Consider what follows a quick-start guide, and an invitation to try out the service.
There are a few things about Amazon Payments that might seem a little strange, so I’m going to try my best to explain all of the “gotchas.” If anything is unclear or you have additional questions, you can either post to this thread, or email our support team or myself directly.
First off, note there are two kinds of accounts: Business Accounts and Personal Accounts. If you’d like to receive payments for FreshBooks invoices, you’ll need a business account. You can sign up over at Amazon’s site.
Business accounts are (for now) U.S.-only. I’m sure Amazon is working on adding support for other currencies; we’ll keep everyone posted as they are added, but for now, Amazon requires business account holders to have both a valid U.S. mailing address and a valid U.S. bank account. You’re asked for both when you create your business account, and if you choose not to provide this information, you won’t be able to receive any payments to your business account.
The reason for this is a little strange: unlike services like PayPal, Amazon does not deduct transaction fees from FreshBooks payments. Rather, Amazon first attempts to withdraw the transaction fee from your Amazon balance, and if this fails, so does the transaction. To remedy this, you must submit and verify your bank information, and then transfer enough funds from your bank account into your Amazon account to cover your first transaction fee. This is a bit cumbersome, but for the time being there is no workaround.
Head to Amazon’s site to find out more about the transaction fees.
Personal accounts can be created by anyone worldwide, provided they have a valid credit card. If they’ve ever purchased from Amazon.com, chances are they already have one, too. Note there are slightly higher transaction fees for International Credit Card payments — again, the fee structure is worth a look. Personal accounts have limited privileges in comparison to business accounts, but if you provide a valid U.S. address and valid U.S. bank account in your personal account, your transaction limits are increased.
To enable Amazon Payments in FreshBooks, head to your “settings” area and choose “enable online payments.” Here you’ll see the option to enable Amazon Payments toward the bottom; this will redirect you to their site to enter your account information. At this point, you can sign into a business account you’ve already created, or create one on the spot. Amazon will ask you if you wish to authorize FreshBooks to make payments to your Amazon Payments account. Once you have confirmed, you will be redirected back to your FreshBooks account.
Now, when you create invoices or recurring profiles, or back to edit existing ones, you will be able to select Amazon Payments as a payment option.
I hope this long-winded post has cleared up some questions you may have about Amazon Payments. Again, if you have any additional questions, please post them here, email our support team, head to our support forum or email me directly.
Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, December 19, 2007), we are releasing FreshBooks Version 4.2.
Please expect a short period of downtime between 7:00 AM and 8:30 AM EDT (NOTE: this is 4:00am in LA, 7:00am in NYC, 12:00pm in London, 7:00pm in Hong Kong, and 11:00pm in Melbourne).
We sent a detailed email out about this and other FreshBooks news this morning. If you didn’t receive it, you can go here to view it online.
Version 4.2 includes a number of usability improvements, integrations with Amazon Payments and a major API update. It has some other goodies that I am sure you will like.
My friend and I were recently at a business event. And conversation came around to talking about business models. And after rolling around the business models with Web 2.0 startups and innovations and trolling through the buzzword-friendly marketing arenas of word-of-mouth and customer experience marketing, my friend looked at me and said, “you’re just customer service.”
I laughed. I had to agree: yep. We’re “just” customer service.
Serving the customer? Meeting their needs, solving their problems, making them happy, making them want to call you again, seeing you as a trusted advisor, having them smile at the thought of calling your company? That’s the point, right?
Customer challenges, when met, are the ones we brag about to our family and peers and leaders. Helping customers is the source for our sense of accomplishment, our sense of well-being, our intrinsic rewards and sense of worth.
Serving the customer. Meeting their needs.
It’s just customer service for those companies who are growing, self-sustaining, exceptional in their fields, looked to as leaders.
Fred Reichheld in his book, The Ultimate Question, talks about how companies are addicted to bad profits — profits that come at the customer’s expense and drain the value out of customer relationships. They burn out employees and alienate customers.
Companies whose business model is “just” customer service are filled with staff who are inspired and motivated. They’ve connected their passion to serve with the needs of their customers. Internal or external customers. It doesn’t matter. It’s just customer service.
For those that forget, customers pay salaries. They provide the cash that exceeds expenses in cash-flow statements and net income statements. Bonuses are derived from customer payments — well, they are in the better-run companies.
You sometimes wonder if the company you’re calling, or working for, forgets that. It’s a crass motivator, I agree. But it’s useful. There may be readers too jaded to embrace a life of service in the business world.
If you can’t serve the customer, remember they pay your salary.
Others like banks for loans, or ad agencies to drive your message. Ad agencies and their expenses aren’t needed when your customers are served. Customers carry your message. And that message is their experience with your company: It’s wonderful they tell their friends and colleagues and neighbors. Their ad for you is convincing. Not so with your ad agencies.
It’s “just” customer service that can free you to control your destiny, your mission, your customers, your business, your day. It’s just serving your customer that gives you the freedom to build your day, run your business, innovate and change the way you want to, the way your customers want to.
Oh. And make a little money.
You’re just customer service. At the end of the day, you can do a lot worse.
I have used FreshBooks for a few months now. I’m billing faster, getting paid faster, and feeling more in control of my projects. But I’d like to write about another aspect of FreshBooks that makes a big difference to me: the words.
You see, I write marketing copy and help systems for a living, so noticing how businesses express themselves is my professional obsession. From the start, I’ve been impressed with the way the FreshBooks team have used clear, friendly language, not just on their website but throughout the application, in their blog and in the forums.
Have you noticed how FreshBooks is largely self-documented? Next to most of the form fields, there’s a short, clear explanation of what the field is for and how to use it. Link text tells you in plain English where the link leads. There’s seldom any need to click the Help button. It’s common sense, really, but I’ve seen too many web applications sacrifice clarity for style.
Sprinkled through FreshBooks, surprising and quirky language enhances the sense that you’re using an application with real people behind it. I like the random phrases that appear in the task timer when you log hours, and the kooky names for color schemes.
The staff members don’t hide their personalities behind feigned “professionalism.” Their blog and forum entries reassure me that the people behind the application are accessible and answerable to their customers, not hidden away behind a wall of corporate PR consultants.
FreshBooks has become an indispensible tool for my business, and I use it every day. Any other high-quality application I’d only keep using until something better came along, but through their words I’ve come to feel like I know the FreshBooks team. I feel good using their product, I’m loyal, and I want to see them do well.
Wouldn’t you like your customers to feel that way about you?
Greetings, fearless reader!
In today’s post we’re highlighting friends of FreshBooks, whose stories we’ve gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe. If you track expenses, design websites or charge for your services — or simply enjoy riveting blog posts — then read on, I say!
The FreshBooks API lets the outside world interact with FreshBooks in computer-speak, instead of using our dandy web interface.
What’s the big deal? Well, it means enterprising developers can build anything — from a little widget to an entire application — that works with FreshBooks. You can automate your processes, integrate with your website… forgive the cliché, but the possibilities are endless. In technical terms, it’s really neat stuff!
Talented 18-year-old Nebraska college student Cory Becker is putting himself through school building custom integrations for fellow FreshBooks users through his company, Becker Web Solutions. Fun fact: his high school graduation gift was his own LLC! We’ve seen his work first-hand, and it’s excellent; Cory’s a real pro, and we’re proud to have him working on our platform.
And be sure to check out Xpenser, a brand new expense-tracking utility that works from anywhere and integrates with FreshBooks. A recent made-up study showed 100% of people have trouble keeping track of their expenses; Xpenser makes it easy by allowing you to record your expenses on the road via SMS, instant messaging, e-mail — even with a quick phone call! And when it’s time to collect, Xpenser can instantly export the details to a FreshBooks invoice. It’s a fantastic app.
For more information, read the full press release highlighting these two stories. You can also nab it in handy PDF form.
FreshBooks user Eric Marden shares an excellent piece on value-based billing. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll remember we discussed this topic a couple months ago while highlighting how FreshBooks users get paid faster.
Eric offers some excellent advice on how to handle the financial side of your client relationships.
No one likes to wake up with a bill under their door, so quit hitting your clients with invoices like the hotel ninjas. Talk about any upcoming invoices, before they are sent, so that your clients know what to expect. Once they are expecting the bill — they will start to get themselves ready to pay it.
Great stuff, Eric! Be sure to read the full article at Xentek.net.
Finally, we don’t like to spend time puffing out our chest on our blog. But when the community recognizes us, it’s only right to recognize them right back.
In that spirit, we send a hearty thanks to small biz blog feed growth! for recently featuring us as their “growth idea” of the day; and offer our gratitude to brand new design gallery CSSFirst for honouring our website as one of their very first featured designs. Keep up the solid work!
Hope you’re enjoying your holiday season thus far. Remember, if you need anything at all, we’re just a ring or two away at 1-866-303-6061.
Drive safe!
The FreshBooks headquarters can be a busy place. At any given moment there are phone calls, product discussions, and programming banter clogging the airwaves. Combine that with our open-concept office, which means no cubicles, walls, or other sound-dampening barriers, and you’ve got (at times) one distracting work environment.
I’ve found that I work best when I’m totally focused on the task at hand. Any little distraction, and that huge chunk of code I was juggling in my head — it’s gone, and my productivity with it.
My solution? A pair of studio headphones from Audio-Technica I picked up on eBay back in August. Now when I need to get something done, I pop on my phones and blot out the world with tunes from my iPod. I can’t hear my co-workers and they can’t hear me, even with the volume cranked — which is great, because I listen to some pretty embarrassing stuff.
My self-imposed “audio prison” has become a shining beacon of productivity around the office. Mike’s joked about buying sets for the entire office, and Justin’s test-driving a pair of heavy-duty Sennheiser’s as we speak.
A while back I wrote a post about Triscuits, and Jonathan — who lives in Fiji — commented here on the Fresh Thinking blog to say:
I’d like to request removal from all future posting which reference food items I’m unable to purchase in this country.
I am right now dying to try cracked pepper and olive oil Triscuits.I am seriously considering canceling my FreshBooks account because of this irresponsible posting. Have a heart.
jonathan
We felt for Jonathon, so we took the liberty of sending him a couple boxes of Triscuits. He was pretty excited when he received them. So excited in fact that this weekend Jonathan wrote a feature article in the Fiji Times titled “Separating the good buzz from the bad” about FreshBooks and a handful of other businesses whose outstanding service has touched Jonathan.
I gotta say, it’s pretty neat to be in a newspaper, especially one in Fiji. Thanks Jonathan, and we’re glad you liked the crackers.
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