Billing Manager Release
Have you noticed? Billing Manager is sporting a fresh new look! Last night, developers not only spiffed up the site but delivered one of your most-requested features. Also, you can save time and money by taking advantage of new special deals our team is offering.
New Look
Site pages got a facelift, but Billing Manager workflow hasn’t changed. You’ll find your favorite features and links in the same place, with one minor exception. The Billing Manager menu has moved from the right side of the screen to the left (though the Sign Out link remains on the right).
New menu location
Options that lie underneath this menu and elsewhere in Billing Manager remain the same. They just may look a bit different.
New Feature
Lots of you have requested the ability to create and email PDF files. Now you can! Email PDF invoices or estimates as attachments and provide clients with their own electronic copy. You’re also able to save PDF files for your own records too. PDF generation is a premium feature. Haven’t yet signed up for Premium? Read on to learn about our special upgrade offer.
Special Offers
Billing Manager is offering new premium users a price cut. Upgrade to Premium and save half off the monthly fee. New Premium subscribers pay only $4.95 a month (reduced from the regular price of $9.95).
Looking for an even better deal? If you sign up to take credit card and eCheck payments with Merchant Service for Billing Manager, you pay nothing for Premium service. A merchant service account (a monthly fee of $14.95) includes a premium subscription and all its great features! Try this add on service now, and we’ll waive the $14.95 for the first month. Sign up.
There’s never been a better time to take advantage of all Billing Manager has to offer.
March 8, 2009 at 8:18 am
Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like there could have been a lot more improvements to Billing Manager in this release than just a facelift (which it didn’t need) and PDF feature. Not sure how many users requested the PDFs (I may have been one of them, I don’t recall), however since I’ve been using billing manager, I have felt the lack of need for PDFs (which is how I previously handled my invoices).
Additionaly, I felt a lot of my suggestions would have made excellent updates to Billing Manager. For example, the URL to view invoices is too long and when it gets wrapped, causing the URL to become invalid in some customer’s email client. That prevents them from even being able to see the invoice. In addition to that, it takes 2 clicks for them to see the details of the invoice. IMO, it should be 0. They should have the full detail in their inbox, however if they must go out to the site, it should be in a single click. Right now if they want to print their invoice, the process is:
- Click the link in their email (if it works).
(this takes them to a page almost identical to the summary they had in their inbox)
- Click the green View and Print Invoice button. (pop-up, could be blocked)
- Click Print this invoice. (which should really just be “Tips on Printing”)
- Click Continue Printing (if they didn’t check that checkbox)
- Then click Print in their print dialog.
Intuit claims to have a “Team” of developers on this project, but updates are few and far between. You would think during the time since the last update, we would get maybe a few more configuration/customization options. Maybe a bit more customization on the default email subject and salutation.
One major concern at this point is performance. I love AJAX just as much as the next guy, but it’s supposed to speed up the performance of your site, not slow it down. It’s the same dilemma Facebook is dealing with now. It’s just getting slower and slower.
A tiny thing I suggested was to have the option to remember your sorting preference. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I log into billing manager, I’d like to know the invoices that are the most “past due”. However they are sorted in the opposite direction, pushing the past due items sometimes off the first page. Sure I can click it to sort it, but I must do it every time I log in. Aren’t the recent invoices the least of your concern? Or maybe have 3 sections, “Past Due”, “Most Recent” and “All Invoices” or something.
So anyway, I know I have sent several items using the Feedback link inside billing manager, but I thought I’d post it here to get other user’s opinion about it. I really enjoy Billing Manager, and I chose to use it over every other (and I do mean EVERY because i tried them all) web-based invoicing application out there. I have even offered my services to help out with development. I hope they are really taking the “Feedback” responses into consideration for latest builds.
April 27, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I woud like to agree with the poster above. One feature that I really need still isn’t available. When I had the desktop version of QB I could send an invoice to my clients and they could click a “pay now” button and pay me instantly or at their leisure. Not having this feature on QBOnline is making my bookeeping a nightmare. I have to be on the phone with my clients to input their credit card information. It’s really such a pain. Any idea if we are going to see this happen any time soon?
April 27, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Ok, so I see now that billing manager is different. But still! Why won’t it sync up with Quickbooks online? I don’t get it. I have the QB merchant account. I don’t understand why I have to subscribe to a different service in order to use this feature. It still won’t help me because if my clients pay me via Bill Manager, then I still have to go over to QBO and input those payments? It’s just so silly and franky I don’t believe this could be so horribly difficult. I’m entirely frustrated. Oh, but it looks pretty. Great.