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.