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!

Although the focus of this blog is certainly Simply Invoices, occasionally I’ll mention some technical stuff. Like what you see below.

One of the things you should never notice about Simply Invoices is that the source code is hosted at RoundHaus. I only mention this because RoundHaus is now publicly available starting today and wanted to give it a good plug.

If you are a rails developer, I highly recommend you give RoundHaus a try (30 day free trial included w/ all paying plans). Along with never having to remember the syntax to ‘svnadmin’ again, you get:

• continuous integration (more on how this saved me below)
• super easy user control
• “signals” (also more on this below)
• a very purty code browser

I think one of the biggest draws of RoundHaus will be the continous integration + signals. To explain why, let me tell you how it saved me from making a dumb mistake.

I had just finished a small modification to Simply Invoices. All my tests passed. So, naturally I checked in the code and was just about to give it the green light to deploy to the production server. Seconds before I was to deploy I received a tweet in Twitterrific stating “Brian had broken Simply Invoices”. Gah! I clicked the convenient link in the tweet and found the problem in seconds. I forgot to check in a file (duh). I checked in the file and all was well. I waited for the “Brian has fixed…” tweet and deployed.

So, that’s my continuous integration + signals success story. The Twitter signal in RoundHaus, plus Twitterrific makes for a great tag team.

Feel free to follow Simply Invoices on twitter. You can also follow me if you like.

If you have any interest in emailing your invoices directly from Simply Invoices, please contactme.

I’ve just added this feature and am testing it out now. Here’s a taste:

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.

I just couldn’t wait for tomorrow. The doors are open. Sign up now!

The last piece of the Simply Invoices puzzle was a screencast. It weighs in at a very consumable 2.5 minutes and can be seen http://simplyinvoices.com/tour/intro.

About a month or two ago I emailed Ryan Bates of railscasts.com if he’d be interested in doing a screencast for me (for $$ of course). He agreed and the result is above. I’m really happy with how it came out. I’ve been a fan of railscasts since I first learned of it and was happy to support Ryan a little by commissioning this screencast.

Enjoy!

If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or issues you can:

Log into the Simply Invoices campfire and chat with me
Email me
or file a support request

Simply Invoices is still set to launch next Tuesday. One of the things I just completed is the ‘tour’ page. This page shows off all the essential screens in Simply Invoices. I’ve placed a smaller version of the tour in this post. Enjoy!

1) Create a template

Invoice templates describe essentials to get started. This includes the client’s name and address, invoice number format and your hourly rate. Templates also describe what Basecamp project and person to get time entries from.

2) Create an invoice

Once your template is set, creating an invoice is a simple matter of telling Simply Invoices the start and end dates.

3) Preview and edit your invoice

Make any last minute changes to the data imported from basecamp. Everything is editable except the total hours and total price. Those fields are calculated from the data in the invoice.

4) Download the PDF

Simply Invoices can generate PDF invoices for you to send to your clients.

5) Quickly see recent invoices

View your most recent invoices in the dashboard. Easily download, edit or delete your invoices from the dashboard. Marking invoices as paid allows you to easily see what’s outstanding.

Today I started the Simply Invoices semi-private beta. If you’d like access, shoot me an email @ brian@simplyinvoices.com.

To celebrate, here’s a screenshot of the Simply Invoices dashboard. What you see in this shot are two “invoice templates” and one invoice listing. Next I’ll show what the invoice editor looks like along with an example of a generated PDF or two.

Simply Invoices is set to launch on July 24th. What is it? Simply Invoices is the easiest way to turn the time you log in Basecamp into an invoice. You create invoice templates that are associated with your Basecamp project and a person within that project. From then you just tell Simply Invoices to create a new invoice for time logged between two dates and you’re done. Download the PDF or copy a unique link to give to your client to view the invoice.

Simply Invoices saves all your invoices and makes it easy to track unpaid invoices.

Use the form on the right to be notified by email when Simply Invoices is open for business.

You’ll also want to subscribe to the RSS feed to catch some pre-release screenshots and other information regarding Simply Invoices before and after the launch.