For this latest update, we’ve been busy “under the hood”. We’ve optimized some of the back-end database structure and queries to make them even more efficient both in terms of speed and memory usage. We’ve also added a host of new invoicing features. New features include the introduction of “Deposit” invoices. We’ve also re-worked the bulk venue modification feature too to make it more user-friendly.

Here’s What’s New & Improved in v4.21:

• NEW: Deposit Invoices
• NEW: Mark invoices as complete even if not paid in full
• NEW: Ability to “clone” (copy) the contents of an invoice to a new invoice
• Improved: Selective bulk venue modification
• Improved: The “Pay invoice online” feature can now be configured to allow partial invoice payments
• Improved: Manually updating an invoice’s status allows you to “overpay”, applying the surplus as a client credit
• Fixed: Cumulative roll-up of various fixes for issues discovered since v4.20

How To Get MIDAS v4.21…

Thank you for your continued support of our software, and we hope you’ll enjoy the new features and improvements in MIDAS v4.21!

If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

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Over the years as MIDAS has developed and improved, the number of venue options has greatly increased. Today, you can set hours of operation, simple and complex hire rates, venue managers, blocking rules, alternatives, and rich HTML descriptions.

These additional options have given our software even more flexibility for a wider range of applications. However, increasing the number of individual venue settings/options available, can increase the time it takes to set up or make changes to a venue.

That’s why last March, in response to customer feedback, we introduced a way to allow you to “bulk modify” venues. Users now no longer have to modify settings for each venue one at a time.

Doing Things In Bulk

The “bulk modify” venue feature allowed more than one venue to be selected at a time from the Manage Venues screen. When the “Save Changes” button was clicked, the current venue settings/options would be applied to all selected venues.

However, some users didn’t appreciate that settings including capacity, rates, hours, and managers would be blanket applied to all selected venues.

Therefore, in order to provide even grater flexibility for users, for v4.21, we’re making it even simpler!

Now, when you have multiple venues selected on the Manage Venues screen and you click ‘Save Changes”, MIDAS will prompt you to select which settings to save to the selected venues:

This new additional dialog gives users full control by making it easier to make specific bulk changes to venues. We’re sure you’re going to love the enhanced flexibility!

Check out some of the other new and improved features coming in v4.21 here.

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Mark invoices as complete even if not paid in full

After invoices are produced in MIDAS, administrative users may freely edit their content up until the point when the invoice is either printed or emailed to the client. At this point, MIDAS assumes that the invoice has been “finalized” and therefore locks it from further editing.

This ensures that the invoice printed/emailed to the client exactly matches the invoice stored within MIDAS.

Finalized invoices indicate the invoice total, the amount already paid (which initially will be zero), and total still due. The total still due is the invoice total minus the amount already paid against it.

Until the “total due” reaches zero (i.e. the invoice has been paid in full), the invoice will continue to be flagged as “outstanding”. It then subsequently becomes “overdue” if the length of the specified payment term is exceeded.

However, we’ve heard from customers that there are instances when they would like to mark an invoice as complete, even if there is still an amount outstanding on it. An example case might be where a client has been invoiced for the use of 4 venues, but when it came to it, they actually only used 3.

Of course, one solution to this would be to invoice the client after their booking(s) have taken place. That way you can ensure that they’re only invoiced for their actual usage of your facilities. However, we appreciate that this isn’t always possible. There are some customers who prefer to invoice their clients in advance of their bookings taking place.

That’s why for v4.21 we’re introducing a way to mark an unpaid/partially paid invoice as complete.

When updating an invoice’s status, there’ll now be an optional “Mark outstanding amount as credit?” tick box. If selected when updating an invoice’s status, the outstanding balance on the invoice will be marked as a “credit” on the invoice. This will reduce the “total due” to zero and mark the invoice as complete.

Quickly “copy” the contents of an invoice to a new invoice

Wouldn’t it be great if you could “clone” (copy) the contents of an existing invoice to a new blank invoice?

Well starting with MIDAS v4.21 you’ll be able to do just that!

Simply view the invoice you’d like to copy and click/tap the new “Clone Invoice” icon. After confirming that you’d like to copy to the contents of the current invoice to a new invoice, MIDAS will create a brand-new invoice. This new invoice will be identical to the current invoice, but without an invoice date and without any payment marked against it.

As the new invoice doesn’t have an invoice date (because it hasn’t been finalized), its contents may be freely edited.

We’re sure this feature will save time for our customers who regularly produce similar or recurring invoices for their clients.

The “Pay invoice online” features can now be configured to allow partial payments

Until now, the “Pay Invoice Online” features of MIDAS, which allow your clients to pay their invoices online, would only allow clients to pay invoice in full.

If a customer wished to make a partial payment, an administrator would need to manually process their payment. Then, the administrator can manually update the status of the invoice within MIDAS to reflect the partial amount paid.

The good news is that for v4.21 we’re introducing a new “Allow Partial Invoice Payments” setting.

If enabled, this setting allows your clients to enter an amount they wish to pay against their invoice, rather than the only option being to pay it in full.

Of course if the new “Allow Partial Invoice Payments” setting isn’t enabled, then the online payments feature of MIDAS will behave as in previous versions. It will then only allow invoices to be paid in full.

We want to provide our customers the most flexible and versatile invoicing features in a booking system we can. So we’re sure that the exciting improvements to invoicing coming in our next update will be great additions!

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Invoicing has been a staple feature of our software for many years. Following customer feedback, for v4.08 we expanded the invoice generation capabilities of MIDAS to also allow generating “Cancellation Invoices“.

This feature automatically charges a cancellation fee to your clients and generates an invoice accordingly if their bookings are cancelled (removed from the system) at very short notice.

This has been well-received by customers, many of whom have also asked for the ability for their MIDAS system to generate “deposit” invoices too.

Well, we’ve listened, and are excited to announce that “Deposit Invoices” are finally coming in MIDAS v4.21!

When generating invoices for bookings and deposit invoicing is enabled, MIDAS will instead generate two invoices; the usual “regular” invoice and a separate “deposit” invoice.

The amount charged on a deposit invoice can be customized. It can either be set to a fixed amount, or as a percentage of the overall total booking cost.

Furthermore, there’s also the option to deduct the value of the “deposit” invoice from the “regular” invoice. In not selected, the deposit charge will be in addition to the main booking/hire charge.

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