Category: Development

Invoicing Improvements in v4.07

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August 7, 2014

The next feature-rich update to our web based room booking and resource scheduling software is coming soon. Here on our blog we’re outlining some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see in the upcoming v4.07 release.

This article covers some of the improvements coming to the Invoicing capabilities of MIDAS.

Tax Exempt Clients

In MIDAS v4.07, you’ll be able to exclude individual clients from being charged tax on their invoices. Find Out More…

New “Payment Terms” Setting

Payment TermsWe’re introducing a new “Payment Terms” setting for v4.07. This allows you to specify how many days you allow for your clients to pay their invoices. This new setting may be found via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Invoicing.

 

New Invoicing Variables

As a result of the introduction of the new “Payment Terms” setting, a whole host of new invoicing variables have also been introduced. These include: %INVOICEDUEDATE%, %INVOICEDUEIN%, %INVOICEOVERDUEBY%, and %INVOICETERMS%. There are also new variables giving you far greater control over the “Invoice To” section of your invoices.

The previous %INVOICETO% variable (which includes the client’s name, organization, postal address and email address) can now be broken down into smaller parts. This is achieved through the introduction of the new variables %INVOICETO_CLIENT%, %INVOICETO_ORG%, %INVOICETO_ADDRESS%, and %INVOICETO_EMAIL%

New columns in the Invoicing Overview screen

Invoice Overdue Column

Also as a result of the new “Payment Terms” setting, there’s now dedicated “Invoice Date” and “Due Date” columns added to the invoicing overview screen.

Invoice Reminders / Overdue Notifications

Invoice Reminder Template

MIDAS v4.07 contains a new “Scheduled Tasks” engine. Scheduled Tasks allow your booking system to automatically send clients email reminders a number of days before their outstanding invoices are due, or if their invoice is overdue, send them a notification a certain number of days after.

The content and wording of these notifications can be fully customized too!

Improved PayPal Integration

PayPal IPN IntegrationIf you allow your clients to pay their invoices online via PayPal, you can now have PayPal automatically update the status of their invoices within MIDAS once payment has been made. This means you’ll no longer have to manually update invoices yourself! For more information, please see: Configuring PayPal Integration

Google Wallet (formally Google Checkout) support removed

Google WalletThe previous support for clients to pay their invoices online via Google Wallet has regrettably been removed from 4.07. This is because Google no longer support such payment provisions. Google have now retired Checkout, and Google Wallet is now restricted to payments for mobile apps in the Google Play store only. We’ve covered this in more depth in this article.

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Template Improvements for v4.07

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August 6, 2014

The next substantial update to our popular web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner, and so throughout this month, we’re outlining some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see in the upcoming v4.07 release….

This post covers some of the improvements coming to the customizable “Templates” within MIDAS.

A range of customizable templates has been available to administrators for some time (ever since v3.12, way back in May 2011) via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Templates. v4.07 sees a number of improvements to these templates…

New MIDAS Email Templates
New MIDAS Email Templates

More Flexible Email Templates

List of Templates In previous releases, there has been a single customizable email template which was applied to all outgoing emails sent through your scheduling system. For v4.07, we’ve extended the number of email templates to NINE!

You’ll now be able to modify separate email templates for booking confirmations, booking reminders, invoice reminders, invoice overdue notifications, booking request submitted/approved/rejected notifications, as well as the original “general” email template for all other emails.

You’ll also be able to customize the subject field of most of these emails templates too!

 

More Variables

To accompany the many new templates available in v4.07, we’re also introducing a range of new “variables” which can be inserted into your template code to provide even more flexibility.

For example, a new %CLIENT_FIRSTNAME% variable has been introduced alongside the previous %CLIENT% variable to allow your emails to be more informal by using the client’s first name instead of their full name.

A whole host of new invoicing variables have also been introduced including, %INVOICEDUEDATE%, %INVOICEDUEIN%, %INVOICEOVERDUEBY%, and %INVOICETERMS%, as well as new variables giving you far greater control over the “Invoice To” section of your invoices.

The previous %INVOICETO% variable (which includes the client’s name, organization, postal address and email address) can be broken down into smaller parts through the use of the new variables %INVOICETO_CLIENT%, %INVOICETO_ORG%, %INVOICETO_ADDRESS%, and %INVOICETO_EMAIL%

Visual Template Editing

The other big improvement for templates in v4.07 is the ability to edit your templates “visually” in the “Template Preview” area as well as manually in the “Template Code” area.

You can now type, copy, cut, paste, and move items around in the “Template Preview” area, and MIDAS will automatically generate updated template code from your edits.

Reset Templates

Messed up a template and want to start again? Each template within MIDAS can now be reset to its standard factory default.

Customize the Web Request and Pay Online templates further with your own .css Style Sheets

External Custom CSS We’re also giving you even more control over the “look and feel” of your “Public Booking Request” and “Pay Online” screens by allowing you to specify your own external .css Style Sheets that will override the default theme your MIDAS is running in when these pages are displayed.

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Tax Exempt Clients

Filed Under: Development by midas — Leave a comment
August 5, 2014

The next substantial update to our popular web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner, and throughout this month, we’re outlining some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see in the upcoming v4.07 release….

Making Clients Exempt From Tax

We love feedback and suggestions from our customers, and this next feature arises from just such a suggestion (which eagle-eyed readers may have already spotted in a screenshot from our previous post!)

MIDAS already includes powerful invoicing capabilities, allowing you to set flexible room rates for each day of the week as well as different lengths (durations) of booking. In additional, you can also setup discount rates depending upon the type of booking (for example, community hires can be charged at a lower rate than commercial hire of your facilities)

These extensive invoice capabilities are further enhanced for v4.07, as we’re introducing a new per-client setting allowing individual clients to be excluded from having the standard global tax rate you’ve setup for your system (via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Invoicing) applied to their generated invoices.

Making Clients Tax Exempt
Tax Exempt Client
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New Scheduled Tasks

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August 4, 2014

Introducing Scheduled Tasks…

Scheduled Tasks
Scheduled Tasks

In MIDAS v4.07, we’ve introduced a new “Scheduled Tasks” feature. This may be accessed MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS & Scheduled Tasks.

“Scheduled Tasks” allow the software to perform a series of automated tasks in the background without any user intervention. These automated tasks include:

  • Sending booking reminders to clients in advance of their upcoming bookings
  • Sending invoice reminders to clients in advance of the due date of their invoice, if their invoice hasn’t been paid in full
  • Sending invoice overdue notifications to clients who haven’t paid their invoices on time

Each “task” can be configured. For example, you can specify how many hours before a booking commences a reminder should be sent to the client, or how many days before/after an invoice is due a reminder/notification should be sent.

Reminders/Notifications are sent via email to clients who have been set to receive them. You can control which reminders/notifications each client receives by modifying the “e-mail reminders” setting of their client record. Additionally, clients themselves have the ability to “opt out” of receiving further email notifications from your MIDAS.

We’ll also be giving you the ability to customize the content of these email notifications/reminders. We’ll cover this in more depth in another blog post!

Set Email Reminders for Clients

In the meantime, if your MIDAS system in “self hosted”, in order to use the new “Scheduled Tasks” features of v4.07, you’ll first need to configure your server to execute a MIDAS component once every hour. For more information, please refer to the following knowledgebase article: Configuring your server to run Scheduled Tasks.

If your MIDAS is “cloud hosted” by us, there’s no need to do this. Scheduled Tasks will work “out of the box” for our cloud hosted customers.

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