Simply Invoices

If you track your time in Tick or Harvest you can now create invoices from the time you’ve logged in those applications.

I’m really excited to now offer integration with four different time tracking applications (Basecamp, More Honey, Tick and Harvest). Please let me know ASAP if you have any problems with the new integrations.

Enjoy!

You’ve always been able to create invoices from the time you have logged in Basecamp with Simply Invoices. As of today, you can now create invoices from the time and expenses you have logged in Get More Honey. Get More Honey is a fairly new service for tracking time and expenses and keeps it very simple. The two services are a great fit. Get More Honey is currently free, so give it a try.

By far the most popular request was that I add fixed price line items to invoices. This is now available. Here’s an example invoice:

Please send any and all feedback to me via email, campfire or the support tab.

What’s next? Integration with getmorehoney.com. My original plan was always to add support for importing time from other time tracking apps. I’m excited to finally be doing that. Expect updates on that within a couple weeks.

Many thanks to Андрей Руденко for providing me with a Russian translation. You may now create invoices in Russian and with the руб currency.

Also in this update is the ability to edit the invoice number by hand. Editing the invoice number only changes the invoice number for that invoice, it does not effect the incrementing counter for the invoice template.

Both of these changes were driven by users. Please do email me or stop by the chat room if you can provide a translation, have a feature request, a support issue or just want to chat.

Simply Invoices version 1.3 is now running. What’s the biggest change? Invoice templates now allow you to choose a language for the invoice. Available options are English, Spanish, German and French.

Thanks to Carmen Ruiz of motiongrafixs for help with the Spanish translation and Norman Janssen of mediacode for help with the German translation. I couldn’t round up a volunteer for the French translation, so Google gets credit for that.

Pleaselet me know about errors in the translations.

Also in this release is support for a tax rate in the invoice template. Carmen pointed out that this is inadequate for a lot of European customers needing to charge multiple tax rates. I hope to add custom tax fields in an upcoming release.

This release also fixes a bug in the image upload process. Some of you may have noticed that your images weren’t being sized correctly. That has been fixed.

Enjoy!

What’s next? A lot of people have been requesting fixed priced line items and the ability to charge per day instead of per hour. I hope to update the invoice editor to allow more flexibility. The hard part will be keeping everything simple :) I don’t yet have an estimated date for this release. Feel free to drop into the Campfire chat and ask me for status.

A common request is for the ability to send invoices to clients that don’t speak English. This feature is in Beta now.

The current list of languages I’m supporting is: English (done :D), Spanish, French and German.

I’d love to add to that list. If you speak another language and wouldn’t mind translating a very small set of words/phrases please contact me and I’ll send you the list.

Along with this update I plan to add support for tax fields to the invoices. That should be in the next beta update.

I expect these features to be deployed to the main site later this week.

As mentioned previously, the ability to send invoices via email was in the works. That feature is now available to all users. Enjoy!

I also ended up throwing in a few minor enhancements in as well.

First is that each invoice template now has a setting for “Currency”. This is the first baby step towards fully localized invoices. Don’t worry, I’m not stopping here. Support for choosing the language, tax fields and better currency support is on the way. If you’d like to help with the localization effort, please contact me.

Next minor enhancement is the ability to add a note to invoices. You can provide a default note in the invoice template. And of course the note is fully customizable in the invoice inline editor.

One last change is that the ‘Pro Blue’ invoice style has been updated. Hector Cabarcas of Bamba Design provided some great tips and screenshots for how some subtle changes could improve the layout. I’ve done my best to apply those.

Enjoy!

I’m happy to announce that after two weeks, I’ve released the first significant update to Simply Invoices. I’m calling this version 1.1

As you can see in the previousposts, the big change is that your Basecamp account is no longer a per user setting, but is now a per invoice template setting. You may also choose ‘manual entry’ instead of a Basecamp account for those of you not using Basecamp, or who aren’t tracking their time in Basecamp.

I’m hoping this widens the audience a little. Minimally, it sets the stage for me to support for integration with other time tracking apps.

Enjoy!

p.s. Thanks to all those that helped test this new version.

I’m finishing up the features mentioned previously. I’m expecting to publish the new version on Tuesday or Wednesday and would love some help testing :D If interested, send me an email, visit the campfire or leave a comment.

Next up on the increasingly long feature list is some internationalization. I won’t be internationalizing all of Simply Invoices, but I’ll be making it so the invoices you create are fully localized for your client. This update is probably 4-6 weeks away. I’ll post more on that later.

Simply Invoices is now close to a week old and has gotten somegreatattention.

Along with the links, have been some great emails from both new users and potential users. The two most common requests are to allow non-Basecamp users the ability to create invoices with Simply Invoices and for the ability to use multiple Basecamp accounts from one Simply Invoices account.

These are very different request with the same solution. In the first update to Simply Invoices (due around August 3rd), you will be able to do both of these things. The Basecamp account information will move from the registration page to the invoice template page. When creating or editing a template you’ll be able to:

a) link that template to an existing Basecamp account (used in another template)
b) associate a new Basecamp account
c) choose “Manual Entry”

“Manual Entry” will allow you to add your time entries manually when you create a new invoice using that invoice template.

Thanks to everyone that’s sending in feedback, please keep it up.