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 More Lists > 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 More Lists > 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

Answers to FAQ’s

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?

More Lists > 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 More Lists > 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.

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

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

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.

All feedback and ideas are welcome.

We have released extended coverage for Singapore tax zone. Saasu has many international businesses with Singapore offices as well as our local Singapore businesses. Accordingly we are proud to extend the current Beta Release features a little further toward a commercial Singapore release in the future.

Release Features

• GST Tax Codes.
• Tax Invoice requirements as per Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore under Reg.11 of GST (General) Regulation. See the tax invoice document requirements we support.
• Self Billing Tax Invoices feature.

GST rates

• GST0 Zero rate 0%
• GST7 Standard rate 7%
• GSTE Exempt

See the detailed help note on Singapore tax. If you have additional requirements for the Singapore tax zone please let us know.

Inventory Adjustments can be used to modify the value and/or quantity of stock in your business. Some common examples include the need to re-value stock and write-off damaged, lost or stolen goods.

Inventory Transfers are used to transfer items when building, bundling or assembling products and services. That is, reducing the quantity of component items used and increasing the quantity of combo items built and available for sale.

Note that you can also use this feature to disassemble (un-build, un-bundle) goods back into their components if required.

For full details on how to use these new features see our API help area

To add a default Buying Price go to More Lists > Items > Edit (icon) to open the item in edit mode. You can then enter a default Buy Price into the available field in the buy section of the screen.

In the buying details area for an inventory item you can now:

• Set a default Buying Price.
• Set whether the Buy Price is inclusive or exclusive of tax.
• Allow Saasu to load the last Purchase Price from your most recent Purchase of that Item if you haven’t entered a default Buying Price.
• The Buying Price for an Item is supported in both export and import formats of your Inventory items list. Go to More Lists > Import or Export > Import other Data Inventory items.

We don’t always plan releases like this as we expect some ideas that we think up or that customers suggest to us fall into the realm of innovation. If put to the vote strange innovative ideas might never leave the cutting room floor. Apple created a strange innovation that customers didn’t ask for back in the 90’s when they invented the iPod click wheel. It ended up being industry changing. So in summary we have three forces influencing our development pipeline. Government/industry compliance, Innovation and Votes.

Pay Item Detail Spreadsheet

You can know run a spreadsheet report that details and totals the amounts against each Pay Item for a chosen period of time. You can run this for all employees or a single employee. Go to More Lists > Payroll > Export to spreadsheet option above the list of payroll transactions. This will save a spreadsheet (CSV/XLS) file to your desktop.

This is a report designed to be used by customers who have a wider use of Pay Items other than just the basic Base Salary, Tax and Super/Pension type Pay Items. This will appeal to companies using Group Payroll or managing several Super/Pension fund payments. You can also access this report from the Group Pay area after processing your draft pay run. It’s also useful where a business has created their own custom Pay Items for their specific Zone or business needs.

Employee Details Report

The second report we released is an an Employee Details report which gives our customers the ability to get all employee setup data out into one report for checking, signoff and compliance needs. Go to Reports > Payroll > Employee Detail to run the report.

When you add an account you have the opportunity to specify whether it is a Bank Account. Bank Accounts tend to be transactional accounts that may include loans, petty cash, trading accounts, directors loans and others. We will begin to refer to these as different names in the future depending on the use. For a simple transition, this is the first step towards that direction.

Turn it on, try it out for free. – Sign in to Saasu and go to the file that you want to have multi-currency enabled for. Then goto Settings » Multi-currency » and tick the "turn on multi-currency for my file" option. Repeat this for each file you would like to have this feature.

Soon Saasu will let you have different files in the same Subscription. You will be able to add free files for those pesky little entities that don’t do many transactions but still need to be accounted for. You will be able to have FREE, PRO, GLOBAL and CORPORATE files all in the same subscription.

Get it permanently – If you want to keep using this feature in coming weeks you will be asked to upgrade to our new plan called GLOBAL. Saasu is offering GLOBAL at what we refer to as Extreme Value. This is where we aim to offer our products and services at half the price of other products with similar features in the market. For more details about Saasu plans see our updated pricing page.

What can you do with Saasu Global?

• Run and operate foreign currency Accounts.
• Create Sales and Purchases in a foreign currency.
• Apply payments in foreign and local currency.
• Automatically source Foreign Exchange (FX) rates daily.
• Foreign currency Payables and Receivables.
• Foreign currency Gain and Loss Accounting.

Full display mode is great for accessibility and in general for facilitating an aspect of the speeding up the web movement.

The new foreign exchange (FX) currency converter in Saasu that we have built (shown below) uses this approach. You can see FX rates in both directions in transactions, enter rates yourself in either direction or load a feed rate from a feed source. In this case xe.com.

We hope you like it.