Saasu’s new Automated Statements feature released last night is about helping you look professional, saving time and bringing forward cashflow. You can now send statements automatically via email.

• You can setup Automated Statements for each type of billing you do.
• You can have an Automated Statement run applied to specific contacts Contact or just attach Contact Groups you may already use in Automates Sales and Billings.
• You have the ability to create CSS/HTML designs to apply to your Templates for Statements. We call these designs Themes.

Let the engine do the work

The Automated Statement Engine does the work for you. Payment reminders, monthly statements, loans/finance tracking, subscription billing, renewal requests and facilitating debtors collection are just a few ways you can use it.

You set the rules

Send Statements to non-zero balance contacts. Even add a few days/weeks grace if you want to cut them some slack. Control the period that the statement relates to – week, fortnight, month or quarter. You can also send a Contact a Statement as a means to highlight your customers activity in much the same way banks, telco’s and utilities send statements.

Calling all ideas!

If in the coming weeks you have found a nifty use of this feature then let us know and we’ll post it in our Product Blog and link back to the genius who thought it up!

We hope you like it!

We have taken the capablity of the API one step further by introducing Multi Currency transaction support. This enables our users to create and update foreign currency transactions(invoices and payments) directly in Saasu using the API. Users can choose to set the FX rate when they post the transaction, or choose to let Saasu set the FX rate automatically. Let’s take a common example where an ecommerce user is posting an USD invoice issued to a customer into Saasu. In this example, the user is setting the FX rate manually.

.....
<insertInvoice>
<invoice uid="0">
<transactionType>S</transactionType>
<date>2010-02-19</date>
<ccy>USD</ccy>
<autoPopulateFxRate>false</autoPopulateFxRate>
<fcToBcFxRate>1.137640930</fcToBcFxRate>
<layout>S</layout>
<status>I</status>
.....

If the user let Saasu set the FX rate for the transaction, then the above would change to;

<ccy>USD</ccy>
<autoPopulateFxRate>true</autoPopulateFxRate>

That’s all you have to do to start using the API for Multi Currency transactions. Quite simple isn’t it? The API POST and GET documentation have been updated to reflect the new changes.

Saasu now allows you to set your own financial year end and payroll year end date. We have migrated customer files to the default financial year ends for your zone so you may not need to do anything.

The nice thing about this feature is that it flows through to your Dashboard, Reports, Lists filters and more.

To update or change your financial year end go to Settings > File Identity.

Over December and January we have been busy doing what we call a hardening release. This is where we look at areas in Saasu we can improve for our existing customers and also work on areas such as our API, subscription system and performance. The idea is simple, provide a better product and service.

What’s New?

• Profit & Loss Summary and Detail reports can now be run in Cash mode for GLOBAL files.
• New Merge Fields are now available for Statements.
• The API now supports some e-commerce features; IsVirtual, IsVisable and VType (Virtual Type).
• You can now create Vouchers Codes which can be used by e-commerce websites to apply discounts.

What’s Changed?

• The concept of a Report TAG has been removed. All Tags can now be used in Reports.
• A new Help System is now live for easier access to FAQ Answers and our Screen Guides.
• Your My Saasu area now let’s you have different types of Saasu files within your single subscription.
• The Sandbox file service for developers has been replaced with a Saasu Free file approach.

Saasu online accounting has released a new feature to allow you to setup multiple PDF and Email Templates that you can run from Sale, Purchase and Statement areas in Saasu. We have also released the initial stage of CrowdTheme™ which allows you to build your own custom themes to apply to these templates. Lastly we have enhanced Merge fields and allowed their use across Email and PDF Templates aswell as in Themes.

We know customers like to "theme" many types of content. It allows you to have a "look" that suits your brand. Themes for powerpoint slides, weblogs and desktops are popular but to date they haven’t been developed for accounting software.

Initially we want to open this up to the Saasu community of developers to create themes using HTML and CSS. We also hope people will share them in the community. We will also include a WYSIWYG editor for non-technical customers in a future release.

What’s a real example of it’s use?

Let’s say a developer makes a cool theme for printing sticky delivery address labels. Once they upload that to CrowdTheme it becomes available for you to use in Saasu. You simply create a Template for Sales in Saasu using this theme. Then all you need to do is choose that Template whenever you want to print a Label from a Sale Transaction.

You might even have a theme you want used right across your franchise network. You could embed information like maps, warranties and other special needs. You will be able to find these Themes in Saasu’s CrowdTheme™ website when it’s released later this quarter. You can start creating your own right now by going to View > Templates and click on the edit and create your own theme link provided below the Theme selector.

To take this feature to a new level we have also built out our Merge Fields capability that can be used in both Templates and Themes.

Multiple Templates

Setup templates for different trading names, stationary needs and the use different logos for each template from the selection you can upload yourself. To access Multiple Templates go to View > Templates

CrowdTheme™

Control the the look and feel of your PDF invoices and statements by applying your own custom themes to them. If you’re familiar with HTML and CSS you can now change the font, font-size, color, and even the layout by customizing the theme associated with the template.

Merge Fields

Saasu had some basic Merge Field capability for templates but in this release we have dramatically increased the range of available data you can access. We will be adding more to this area including the ability to dynamically generate information much like you would using formula’s in a spreadsheet. We will elaborate on this upcoming innovation in coming weeks.

Big changes can lead to some small differences

There are lots of changes behind the scene to make this happen, and one of the changes that we made that may affect you is the way we handle logos. So please re-check your PDF invoices and purchase orders before sending them out.

Logo Handling – Before the Upgrade:

• One PDF template and one logo only.
• No logo size restriction.
• We resized the logo for you.

Some users uploaded very big and high resolution images resulting in big PDF file generated, which in turn causes all sort of problem with email delivery as some email servers have restrictions on attachments size.

The auto-resized logos sometimes didn’t turn out to be as expected. This is due to many logo uploads being TIFF or BMP formats which aren’t supported by webpages. We had to convert these on your behalf.

Logo Handling – After the Upgrade:

• You can now upload multiple logos or images, and you can use these images from your theme.
• Maximum logo size is 100KB.
• Supported formats include JPG, GIF and PNG.
• There is no auto-resizing of your logo’s. The maximum width recommended is:
  • 640px – If you have sender details
  • 960px – If you don’t have sender details

What’s the rationale for the logo file size limits?

• To prevent massive PDF files generated, which should improve reliability of email delivery of PDF invoices.
• To give you back full control on the appearance, size and quality of the images you upload.

What did you do to my logo? It looks different.

Based on the width of the logo you’ve uploaded:

• Width <= 640px: We didn’t do anything to your logo. Will render as it is.
• Width > 640px and you have sender details: Resized to 640px.
• Width > 960px and no sender details: Resized to 960px.

How do I change the logo in my template?

View > Templates. Open the template, and upload new logo or use one that you’ve uploaded before.

How do I resize my logo?

Use online image resizer tool, or if you want more control, use image editing program. The free one such as Paint.NET for Windows should do the job.

Can I customize the font, font-size and layout of the PDF generated?

You certainly can. To do this, go to View > Templates and open the template you want to customize, and click on the edit and create theme link underneath the theme picklist. Familiarity with HTML and CSS required.

Late yesterday one of the Saasu servers was listed on the Spamhaus Block List (”SBL”). Spamhaus is a blacklist provider used for anti-spam protection. The blacklisting has since been removed but emails to some of your customers sent using Saasu may have been rejected during this period.

Spamhaus blacklisted a range of Server addresses (IP Addresses) in the big cloud hosting companies including Rackspace and Amazon Web Services (one of our host companies). Unfortunately Saasu was caught by the fact that one of our servers had a similar server IP address to one the spammer was using.

What was Saasu’s response?

Saasu notified Spamhaus that our server is legitimate and requested removal of the blacklist. We also notified Amazon Web Services to put pressure on Spamhaus which they did. Spamhaus removed the IP address from the blacklist and then placed it on a lower risk list called the Policy Block List and later today also removed it from this list.

The time frame this occurred in was between UTC: 14 Oct 2009 2:06AM – 15 Oct 2009 7:00AM
Timeshift for your zone: London+1 | Los Angeles-7 | Sydney+11

We are very sorry for the inconvenience this issue caused.

What do I need to do?

We will notify customers who are affected after complete review of the email logs. Saasu doesn’t store the content of emails sent we only store transactions so you will need to re-send them.

I still have more questions about this?

If you have an additional concerns or questions just get in touch by emailing service@saasu.com or via a support ticket at saasu.com/help

Many customers have been asking for a cashflow widget for their Saasu online accounting dashboard so we decided to release an initial version.

Use the cashflow widget to:

• This widget gives you some quick ways to observe trends in your cashflow over time.
• See where you Saasu bank account balances are at in Saasu and how up to date your reconciliations are.
• Track how much money investors and directors are putting in or taking out of the business.

We also added the ability to quickly pick up bank files from your computers desktop that you have exported or received via email from your bank. This area will also provide status updates about bank feeds when we make that feature available.

We want to build a version 2 of this widget with more capability that allows you to look forward in time and take into account automated transactions and payroll.

Add the cashflow widget to your Dashboard by clicking the Manage link in the blue header bar.

All feedback and ideas are welcome.