Early this morning we released version 4.6 which includes some new features we hope you will enjoy.

What’s new in this release?

A Redesigned Generate Invoice Page

Your generate invoice page has been redesigned to be even easier to use. In addition, you can now choose which details you wish to display or omit when generating invoices from your timesheets.

An Improved Search Interface

Your search tool in your account has been upgraded from a pop-up window to a slide-down interface which will hopefully save you even more time when searching for information inside your account.

There are more details about the release inside the application. Be sure to click your “4.6” link at the bottom of your account for more information on this release.

While our dev team is busily working on our next big release, we’ve decided to release some new functionality that you can enjoy in the mean time. This morning we added a new vCard import tool which allows you to import client records from vCards into your FreshBooks account. vCards can be exported from a number of programs including Mac OSX’s Address Book.

To try out the new vCard import tool:

1. Login to your FreshBooks account.
2. Click on your white “Settings” link on the top right corner.
3. Click on your blue “Import/Export” link under “Step 3″.
4. Click on your blue “vCard (e.g. Mac OSX Address Book)” link.
5. Select the vCard and click your Upload button.
6. Review your data and click on your Import button when finished.

Early this morning we pushed out a new release affectionately dubbed “Animal House”. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new:

Tax management for your expenses

Now you have the ability to add taxes to your expense categories. The benefit of this is that once you set the taxes you want to associate with a given category, all you need to do is enter an expense total and we will backwards calculate the amount of tax on the expense for you. This will come in handy at tax time - especially for UK and Canadian based companies.

Staff time-tracking via the API

When we first released our Mac OS X time tracking widget, only admin accounts were supported. Now your staff can join the party with their very own API token. Here are the steps they’ll need to retrieve their token and get rolling:

1. Login.
2. Go to the “Profile” link in the top right hand corner.
3. At the bottom of the page, collect your URL and token.
4. Input these values into the widget.

Note: You (as the administrator) must have enabled the API in your account and agreed to the API terms of service before your staff can retrieve their token. But if you are already using the widget or another FreshBooks add-on, you’re good to go already.

There are other additions to the API relating to projects, credits and some other goodies. Check the developer blog for those details a little later today.

Improved “Assign Client” page

We’ve made the “Assign Client” page easier to use, which is great news for accounts juggling permissions between clients and staff.

More e-mail customizations

In this release we also added the ability to further customize your emails. You can now include invoice/estimate numbers and amounts in the body of emails sent to your clients.

So, that wraps things up.

Hey folks, just a quick note that FreshBooks will be briefly unavailable this Thursday morning while we perform an upgrade.

When will FreshBooks be unavailable?

The upgrade takes place Thursday, May 15th at 11:30 AM GMT (that’s 4:30 AM PT, 7:30 AM ET, et cetera). It’s expected to take half an hour. During this time there will be periods when you will be unable to access your FreshBooks account.

Once the upgrade is complete, watch our blog and your e-mail inbox to find out what’s new!

This morning we deployed a new release: Version 4.4 which we’re calling “Footloose”. Why footloose? In honor of Daniel who broke his ankle a month ago and just got his cast removed.

What’s in this Release?

Better tracking of billed hours. Prior to this release, we relied on date ranges to figure out which of your timesheet hours were billed or unbilled. This caused problems if you logged hours the same day you created an invoice. Now we track exactly which hours appear on what invoices, making the process much more intelligent and user-friendly.

Sexy login pages. Your login pages now feature your system colors, and your company’s logo!

Complete list of currency codes. FreshBooks now includes all currency codes and symbols, and when you choose a currency, we’ll pre-populate the symbol.

Time Tracking Widgets. We recently launched our own Mac OS X widget for tracking time, and pointed out that Goran – a FreshBooks community member – has built a Windows desktop time tracker.

There are more details about the release inside the application. Be sure to click the “4.4” link at the bottom of your account for more information – especially as they pertain to how we are handling logged hours – past and on a go forward basis.

Happy Monday.

After much eager anticipation and endless waiting, the FreshBooks time tracking widget for Mac OS X is complete!

This widget means you can track time worked for your clients with a click of a button, without logging in, and even when you’re on the road without an Internet connection — though you will need one to actually submit the time to your FreshBooks account, of course.

Download it now »

Attention Windows Users: You may wish to check out TimerSync, a 3rd party time tracking application that’s received good feedback from our customers!

This morning’s upgrades are complete, and version 4.3 of FreshBooks has arrived on the scene with lots of great improvements and a few exciting new features.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new and improved:

Expenses

• At long last, you can now manage expenses inside FreshBooks using the “expenses” tab.
• Expenses can be assigned to a client which allows for easy application to invoices.
• Expenses can also be assigned to a project, and you’ll be prompted to include any associated expenses when generating an invoice for a project.
• There are new expense reports under the “reports” tab.

PDF invoices and estimates

• You and your clients can now view (and save) your invoices and estimates in PDF format.

New and improved client import

• Our client import tool has been completely re-designed! You can now import your contacts directly from Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail.

“Save and add another”

• We just made life easier when adding multiple expenses, items, tasks and support departments.

Minor updates

• You may now choose to have no currency symbol.
• Invoice numbers can now contain the following symbols: ‘:’, ‘-’, and ‘.’
• Uploaded logos are now automatically (and optimally) resized for better presentation.
• Status legends can be permanently turned on or off.
• Help boxes can be permanently turned off.

We’ll be highlighting a few of these new features in greater detail over the course of the next couple weeks.

To see these improvements now, log into your existing FreshBooks system or create a new one for free, and enjoy!

Hey folks, just a quick note that FreshBooks will be briefly unavailable this Monday morning while we perform an upgrade.

When will FreshBooks be unavailable?

The upgrade takes place Monday, February 25 at 11:00 AM GMT (that’s 3 AM PT, 6 AM ET, et cetera). It’s expected to take 1–2 hours. During this time there will be periods when you will be unable to access your FreshBooks account.

Once the upgrade is complete, watch our blog and your e-mail inbox to find out what’s new!

FreshBooks is all about our users.

We communicate with them in several ways. E-mails, instant messages, IM, Twitter (new!), Facebook, newsletters and other assorted tried-and-true methods. Heck, we even post silly photos of ourselves on Flickr. However, our primary megaphone has always been our blog.

Knowing this, we’ve decided to re-tool the blog, creating a wider, more friendly, spacious feel. The body font has been enlarged to make it easier to skim articles, allow for easier reading, and make the blog more accessible for all. We’ve added connections to other blogs, and tried to clean up all the information so you can better traverse the newly updated “Fresh Thinking.”

We’re also making great efforts to post more frequently, so you’ll always know about important FreshBooks information, updates, travels, and general office tomfoolery. So please stay tuned in, and let us know what you think!

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:

A note about login difficulties

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.

Slimmer, easier client pages

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.

Editable invoice and estimate numbers

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!

Faster item and task creation

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.

New API Features: Timesheets, Estimates

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.

Wrapping up

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.