• Scrolling - the toolbar and tabs are now fixed in all windows so when scrolling down the window, the toolbar and tabs are always accessible at the top of the window no matter where you are on the page. Likewise, in the Comments or Production Details sections of a transaction, there is a toolbar for adding/deleting comments, items & components fixed at the bottom of the window.
• Component Details - the Details section of a Component has now been extended to allow much more to be entered.
• Timesheets - in the Planner section, timesheet entries can be made in the Day View. This way, you can keep track of the work done on a particular job. This work can be viewed in the new Costs section of the job. To add a timesheet entry, go to the Planner Day view, select the relevant time then click on the New button on the toolbar and select "New Time Sheet Entry". Select the Start and Finish Time, the job and the "activity" - the type of work involved. The Activity is selectable from a list of products which have been set as "Time Sheet" products in the Administration > Products section.

• Timesheets - by adding timesheet sub-employees to a user, users can now be setup to be able to either view or view and modify timesheets for other users.
  
• Job Schedule - buttons have been added to expand sub items. Each press of the "Expand All" button will open another level of detail of the listed jobs. The "Collapse All" button will minimize all job details to the minimum level.
• New System submenu - under the Administration menu, three new sections exist under the "System" submenu. They are: "System Info" - gives a summary of transaction counts in Blaq and Employee Access; "System Backup" - shows a log of recent backups (please note this log will show as empty initially but the backups have still been run); "System Options" - the same as the previous "Options" section available from the "Administration" menu.
  
• Cost pricing - for non-chargeable accounts (re-do and samples) the pricing can be set to product's cost pricing (if it has been entered) by setting the "Non-chargeable Accounts use Cost Pricing" to "Yes" in the Administration > System > System Options > Transaction Settings section.
• Production Details - a new function has been added to this section and because of this (and more to come) a few of the buttons have been moved to a sub-menu accessible from the "Actions" button at the far right of the buttons below the Production Details. The "Load from Job/Quote/etc." and Re-number functions have been moved here, and a new "Re-price" function has been added. The "Re-price" function will go through all the components in the current transaction and re-price them using the system pricing. If no pricing for a product exists then the price won't be changed.
• Goods Receiving - the previous "Goods Outstanding" and "Goods Received" section have been merged into this one section. Depending on a user's access rights to this section, the options can be limited accordingly. The different options are: Add - outstanding products can be received; Modify - the date received and invoice # can be altered for received products and if the order hasn't been closed the quantity received can also be altered; Add & Modify - a combination of the Add and Modify options previously mentioned.
• Products - new fields have been added to the products section for a future upgrade. They are: "Website" (under Buying & Selling) and "Preferred Supplier". While their information can be entered now, neither are functional yet. "Website" will enable a user to quickly lookup a product on a supplier's website or it will enable you to embed links in Invoice/Quote templates for your customer to be able to lookup a product from a pdf. Preferred Supplier will make purchasing products easier by listing separately specified products when ordering in a Purchase Order.
• New tab within Jobs, 'Quote Details' shows all the production details of the quote the job was converted from (if it was converted from a quote). Any of the Components or entire Items of the original quote can then be copied to the job.
  
• The design of all grids within the Comments, Quote Details, Production Details and Costs sections have been updated to better integrate with the design of the rest of Blaq.
  
• Most pop-up windows within the Comments, Quote Details, Production Details and Costs sections are now created within the same window, making it faster.
  
• All alterations within the Comments, Quote Details, Production Details and Costs sections of a transaction now are performed without having to refresh the entire page - instead, only the grid is generally reset. For example, if moving a component down within Production Details, only the grid is refreshed making it a lot quicker.
• All Items within the Comments, Quote Details, Production Details and Costs sections can now be 'Minimised' and 'Maximised'. A small "-" or "+" besides the Item Title on the grid allows that Item's Components to be hidden or if clicked again, to be shown. A "+" and "-" button at the bottom right of each grid minimises or maximises all Items in the grid.
• The Costs section now has subtotals for each of it's subsections.
  
• New 'System Maintenance' section - under Administration > System > Maintenance:
• allows the status of any transaction to be changed to another status - eg. an closed job set to Open or an invoice to be reset to Closed for exporting again.
• allows exported batches of transactions to be reset so they can be exported again

• The edit screens have been give a more modern look
• The lists (jobs, quotes, etc.) have been changed so now if the lists are scrolled the list headers do not move, making them visible at all times.

• New look - new menu, updated sidebar (with new functionality).
• Much more "Web 2.0" design, allows Blaq (and you) to work a lot quicker.
• No longer a need to have Java installed on Blaq workstations as it's no longer used.

• New "Skins" allow users to give Blaq a more personalised look - these can be set in the Preferences section.
• Menus reorganised into a more practical order. New submenus for "Sales" and "Purchasing". Accounts section now found under "Administration".
• Toolbars now only show relevant buttons - navigation buttons moved to bottom right of screen.

• Stock control - each 'product' can be set as being stocked or not. The products which are stocked are then listed in the new "Stock Control" section (under Purchasing) and their current stock level, allocation and quantity on order are available there. Also, stock adjustments can be made in this section.
• Widgets - the updated sidebar can now hold numerous new 'widgets'. Available widgets are listed in a user's preferences section, where they can select which they would like to use. Selected widgets will then appear on the sidebar when the user next logs in. Widgets can be reordered, resized and minimised.
• Employee budgets - each employee can have a sales budget. This is set in the "Budget" tab of the "Employees" section. One of the new widgets then allows the employee to see their sales for a month in comparison to their budget.
• My Week Ahead - this is now found under the CRM > Planner section. As well as the usual summary of the user's activities for the forthcoming week, it has been updated to show recent Blaq activity relevant to the user, such as when their jobs are updated.
• Scheduling - departments can be setup (in the Branch section) and then a job (or any of it's sections) can be moved between departments, from either within the job or from the Sales > Schedule section. This allows users to quickly see where a job is. Departments can be setup for any "location" a job might be at, for example, Sales, Production, Accounts and Outsource.
• Opportunities - this is a new type of transaction which a sales rep can use prior to learning all the details for a quote or job. It is a brief summary of a potential job and is used to keep track of potential work which might be coming in.
• Production Details - for any type of transaction, the components can now be more quickly re-ordered by drag and drop.
• Planner - each of the planner views has been enhanced and now allow activities to be added faster by simply double-clicking on the date/time where the activity is to be created.

Upon using the updated Blaq, users will immediately notice it has been given a fresher look. Some buttons have been moved to more logical positions, however most menus and buttons can still be found in the same positions in order to minimise the disruption in adapting to the new version. The drop-down "View" menu has been removed from the main view section and is now found on the sidebar on the left. Likewise, switching between planner views (day, month, week & year) is also done from the sidebar.

More styles have also been added in the Preferences section.

Dashboard & Widgets

On the main menu at the top of the window is a new "Dashboard" link - this will take users directly to their Dashboard, an improved version of the previous "Week Ahead" planner view. Both the existing sidebar and the Dashboard can be customised by users in their Preferences section and the number of columns in the Dashboard can also be set there. There is an increased range of "widgets" available which can be added to either the sidebar or Dashboard section. Both sidebar and Dashboard allow widgets to be dragged around and resized.

Products

Each product can currently have a minimum sell price set - the minimum nett price for that product. Now, each product can also have a minimum charge set per unit. Once set, neither of these can be overridden within a transaction.

Job "Log"

A new "Log" tab has been added in the Jobs section. The Log shows a history of a job including details such as when and by whom it was created, modified and printed.

Templates

The Templates section has been moved to the Sales menu. Templates can be used as a base for creating a job or quote - if you are frequently doing the same type of quote or job you can create it as a template then use the template and copy it to the jobs or quotes section when needed, and then modify it once copied. You can also copy and existing job or quote to the templates section instead of creating one from new.

Imports

The Import section has been revised to greatly simplify the import of customers, suppliers, contacts or products. As well as importing most MYOB files, text files generated from other programs can be imported. The process is now simplified and the fields required in the text files a lot more logical.

Planner

You can now use 'drag-n-drop' with planner items (other than recurring items) to easily and quickly reschedule them to another time or date in the planner views.

• Security - there have been a number of security enhancements, an area we're constantly improving.
• Options & Preferences - the Administration > System > Options section and Preferences section have both been redesigned. Each section has seen its various areas split up into separate tabs to make it easier to follow.
• Groups - the use of Groups has been expanded. Previously, groups were only used with products but they can now be used with Contacts and Customers as well. Both global groups and personal groups can be added. For now, their main purpose is to assist you when searching for clients and customers. More uses will be added in the future.
• Menu - because of the change to the Groups section, it has been moved along with the Products section under the Administration > Company Setup menu.
• Menu - the top menu has been redesigned to be narrower to make it easy to use on narrower screens. We've had requests for this partly due to netbooks becoming more popular.
• Emails - the HTML editor's style menus have been improved to work better when the window is scrolled.
• Contacts - in the Administration > System > Options section you can specify whether business contacts must have a company name and position.
• Calendars - date fields no longer have a button to click for the calendar, simply click on the field and the calendar will be displayed.

• Planner - activities on the planner day and week views now spread across the time they are allocated to, instead of a single entry at the start time.
• Quote follow-up dates - a quote can now have a follow-up date set which will then determine the date on the planner the quote will show at. This can be used as a reminder to follow-up the quote with the customer. The default timespan for the follow-up date after the current date can be set in the options section.
• Exports - some exports now allow customers/prospects to be selected by Territory.

• The "Recent Activity" widget has been improved further. As well as writing about what you're working on, you can now add comments to what other users are working on. This is still visible to everyone using this widget, we plan to add filters for this in the near future.
• Dashboard columns can now be given different sizes. The Widgets tab of the Preferences section now allows more choices in the way columns are configured for each user.
• Charts have been given a minor refresh. Some of the tables displayed with the charts have been reorganised and are now considerably easier to read.
• More widgets have been added including 'Purchase Orders in Progress' and 'Opportunities in Progress'.
• Addresses have been changed in all sections. In order to allow for international addresses (addresses outside Australia) the Post Code is no longer a required field and the State / Region / Province field has been extended to allow for more characters. The Country field has been changed to a drop down field with countries listed. The country you're based in will always be used as the default country.
• Currencies can now be used within Blaq. Each customer can have a default currency, and each transaction can be set to a particular currency. Currently, currencies are only being used for recording a transaction's currency, but in the future we plan to look at incorporating exchange rates to convert between a local and foreign currencies.
  

• Updated Layout - this will be the most obvious part to the update. The layout has been updated considerably but the transition for current users shouldn't be difficult.
• Tasks - jobs, quotes, purchase orders, etc. now all include 'tasks' for keeping track of tasks which need to be performed relating to that transaction. They can be assigned to different users and given due dates so that they show up on the user's planner.
• Help - there is a lot more help shown on the screen, informing the user what the many fields are for.
• Timesheet Costs - timesheet reports will be able to be costed either based on the user's hourly rate (same as before) or a product's hourly rate (new), which is set in the products section.
• user's default email signatures can now be HTML
• most record lists now only require a single click on a link instead of a double-click - makes them usable on touch-screen devices
• more MYOB import options have been added
• users can opt in or out of receiving emails about Blaq news & updates
• accounts are now in their own menu, making them quicker/easier to find
• the news feed is now in it's own section so you can see more of it
  

We've performed a second update to Blaq this month, with the following changes:

• In Options, by selecting 'Exclude Weekends' Blaq won't include weekends when calculating the required date for a job or follow-up date for a quote.
• In Options, you can now set 'Height & width display' to format the way products with height & width dimensions are displayed on screen and most templates/reports. Possible formats include examples such as '2000mm h x 1000mm w' and '2000h x 1000w'. This also is affected by the height/width order option.
• In Options, you can set the 'Length - Input/Pricing' and 'Length - Displayed/Printed' to determine the measurement units used for input, pricing and display. For example, you could use metres for input and pricing but display/print millimetres. 
• Safari - fixed bug where some menus weren't showing in the correct position

We will perform an upgrade to the Blaq System this weekend that will include some new features and bug fixes. You and your colleagues may experience some minor downtime between 9 AM Saturday, August 3 and 9 PM Sunday, August 4.

These upgrades do not affect the operation of any existing users of Blaq. Read below for the exciting new features that you can take advantage of. Please contact me if you would like to start using any of these new features as some of them will require initial setup.

The new features include:

• integration with XERO, the accounting package - www.xero.com.   Right now we integrate Sales, Accounts, Contacts and Purchases. We will do more work on this during the year and become a XERO Developer Partner
• integration with a simple time tracking system called Toggl - www.toggl.com.  This allows for Blaq users to track time on a job from your mobile device. The time entries will then flow into the costing side of the job.
• adding Paid as a new status on the Job. This will include all Jobs that have been customer paid. Invoiced status are now Jobs that are invoiced but not yet paid.
• starting to add Basic Accounting to Blaq. This will aim at companies not needing a whole accounting system to run their business. This version includes Bank Transactions, and Journal Entries. Over the next few months we will add Reconciliation and Payroll to finish this off.
• Budgets on GL Accounts have been added  as part of the accounting. This will allow you to measure the performance per Category or GL Account.
• Profit Loss
• Balance Sheet
• Budget Analysis
• entering the Nett amount in production details, making the system calculate the Unit Price and the Total.
• a rework of the GL Accounts so they can be used in the accounting.
• You can create Header Accounts  to enable hierarchies of accounts.
• Initial balance for a GL Account can be entered
• Bank details has been moved to the GL accounts section

You will see a new menu called Banking, this is where the new accounting features will be found. There will also be a new menu under Administration called Banking where we have moved the following functions:

• GL Accounts
• Tax Rates
• Payment Terms
• Payment Methods

What’s coming up:

• Payroll
• Bank Reconciliation
• Integration with another Job Management System called Coredination www.coredination.net. This is very exciting as you will be able to manage aspects of your job remotely on your mobile device. You initiate the Quote and the Job in Blaq and continue managing the Job on your mobile device; Report Times Sheets and products, do complex routing, attach photos and take customer signatures.

We will perform an upgrade to the Blaq System this weekend that will include some new features and bug fixes. You and your colleagues may experience some minor downtime at some stage between 9 AM Saturday, September 14 and 9 PM Sunday, September 15.

These upgrades do not affect the operation of any existing users of Blaq. Read below for the exciting new features that you can take advantage of.

The new features include:

• Colour coding Departments. Each department can have a colour set for them ( go To Administration, Branches, select a branch, Departments, select a department and choose a colour for the Department - note, you can enter your own RGB colour or select from the available palate). This will allow you to quickly see which jobs are assigned to which department on the Job Schedule by colour.   
• A warning symbol will be displayed on the left side of the job list in the Job Schedule screen if the Job is Created and is Required within the same day. To turn on this feature, go to Administration, Options and select Transactions Tab. Scroll down to the Transaction Settings section and set Display job schedule warning to Yes.
• On the Job Schedule screen, the + and - buttons have been made larger to allow better accuracy when using Blaq on your iPad
• For Deliveries, Jobs, Purchase Orders and Quotes - when creating a new, the Attn, Phone and Company on the Address tab is now defaulting to the selected Contact. 

 What’s coming up in October

• Payroll
• Bank Reconciliation
• Integration with another Job Management System called Coredination –  www.coredination.net. This is very exciting as you will be able to manage aspects of your job remotely on your mobile device. You initiate the Quote and the Job in Blaq and continue managing the Job on your mobile device; Report Times Sheets and products, do complex routing, attach photos and take customer signatures.

We will perform another upgrade to Blaq this weekend. You and your colleagues may experience some minor downtime at some stage between 9 PM Friday, September 20 and 9 AM Saturday, September 21.

These upgrades do not affect the operation of any existing users of Blaq. 

The new features are:

• An External Reference Number field has been added to Jobs. This can be used to tie into any other systems you may be using in conjunction with Blaq in order to form a link.
• An automatic refresh option has been added to the Jobs view. You can select the refresh frequency in the options list at the top of the Jobs View to 1, 5, or 10 minutes. The default on entry to the screen with be "No refresh".
• The attachments list within an email will now only show the file that you have just created. This helps to avoid errors when sending an email or quote - no one wants these getting into the wrong hands!! If you have Terms and Conditions or Warranties or any other type of file that you would also like to appear in your attachment list, please contact us and we can add this for you. If you wish to see all files created, you can still go into CRM/Email/New Email and all the attachments will be in the list. 

We anticipate another upgrade next weekend and will let you know in advance!

1. SaaS is quick to get up and running
   
   With SaaS, you sign up for a service and in many instances can start using it straight away. All you normally need is an internet connection and web browser - there is no need to install software on one or more computers, and no need to setup servers!
   
   
2. SaaS is always the latest version
   
   With regular software, you normally need to purchase upgrades to ensure you have the latest version, and to keep up with any newly added features. If there are any issues with the software you’ll need to install updates to fix bugs also - or way for your IT department to do it for you! With SaaS, you don’t need to do any of that. The software is always the latest version with all the current features - there’s nothing you need to do!
   
   
3. SaaS reduces costs
   
   With SaaS there is no large capital expenditure to purchase software, you just pay a lower monthly subscription fee. Instead of finding out there’s a new version you need to upgrade to with regular software, the monthly fee makes it easy to predict costs. For many small businesses which outsource their I.T. support, it often would have cost them to have traditional software installed, configured and updated regularly - but with SaaS they’ll save money as none of that will be needed! Also, SaaS subscriptions are often based on the number of users, so it’s easy to scale as your business grows. You’re not paying extra now for when your business grows in the future!
   
   
4. SaaS is more secure
   
   Data security is always a concern for any business. With traditional software residing on a server, you’ll need to ensure the server has all the latest security updates and anti-virus software. You’ll also have to make sure you have reliable backup systems in place, since the loss of your data would normally be catastrophic for most small businesses. With SaaS, all of this is taken care of, with the SaaS company looking after everything for you. Your data is extremely important to them and they will have tried and tested security and backup methods in place to ensure your data is safe and always available to you.
   
   

The latest changes to Blaq are... really good!

Michael is getting married!