Development Update - October 2021

This month's Development Update has taken a slightly different shape from the norm. We have the usual lowdown of what the team has been up to but we're also delighted to announce a jam-packed bonus box of items for the PRO CRM.

These are items that have been developed previously but have never been deployed across the board. Most have come directly from customer requests. There's some big, some small, some with niche uses, and some broad.

Check it out below, together with the other bits and bobs that have taken our focus in October.

A Jam-Packed Bonus

Our Sales director Andy, has put together a whirlwind recorded demo to take you through each bonus item. Check out the video by clicking the banner below.

Built for: PRO CRM

What's in this bumper jar? Default User Filter to be My Users. An extension to Analytics that allows employee payments to be calculated, exported and marked as paid. The ability to highlight a "Decision Maker". Quickly log the result of a call. Automatically mark all Meters within a Site as inactive when making a Site inactive. A new Fixed Fee Commission Type. The option to configure Gas Seasonality. Bill Validation in the Customer Portal. Added adjustments by Consumption View.

Additional Payment Terms

This feature has been hotly requested from our US customers but is also available across the pond. We now have four additional payment terms to select from: Live Split & Arrears, Signed Split & Arrears, Total Sign Annual Remainder, and First Year Sign Annual Remainder. Contact your account manager to explore the differences and discover how you can best utilise these payment terms.

Built for: PRO CRM

Other bits and bobs...

We've also added the following other bits and bobs...

Speed improvements on Imports

We've rewritten the import module for Quotes, Meters and Sites using pure SQL code. This means imports will now complete much faster.

Built for: PRO CRM

Speed improvements on Sales Exports

Just like the Sales imports mentioned previously, Sales exports have also been rewritten using pure SQL to provide further speed enhancements.

Built for: PRO CRM

"Date Created" added when Creating A Customer

The system can now record and present a "Date Created" value that details when any lead or customer was created (either manually or via bulk upload).

Built for: PRO CRM

Supplier Insights Dashboard Improvements

Supplier Insights has been updated to allow for better tracking of performance and to see the effects of adjusting matrix and bespoke pricing.

Built for: INSIGHTS

"Out of Date Badge" Improvements

Our system already displays a handy "Out Of Date" badge on quotes if the pricing previously generated is no longer current. The logic for this has been improved to notify users of further instances where pricing is out of date, such as when flat files have been completely removed.

Built for: PRO CRM

UI Improvements for USA Usage

Our usage module allows you to enter an absolute consumption value over a period of time for any given site. We've added the ability to add an 'End Date' to any inputted usage data. This helpfully defaults to the end of the month.

Built for: PRO CRM (USA Only)

Option to use Financial Reconciled data when reporting

A tick box has been added when reporting financials called "Reconciled". When ticked, the forecast and actual figures are presented based on the figures from the Financial Reconciled dashboard report, not the Financial Report (which is used by default).

Built for: PRO CRM (USA Only)

Prevent Duplicate Reference Numbers

Many customers utilise the reference numbers that are automatically assigned to Leads/Customers, Tenders, Quotes etc. Previously it has been possible to obtain duplicate values across different types (e.g. A quote and a tender could have the same reference). We've now added an alpha prefix to each one to ensure EVERY reference is unique.

That’s it for this month.

Our software evolves at such an exciting rate so please feel free to get in touch to discuss any of the functionality we’ve added since you last saw it. We’ll be more than happy to arrange a demo to show you around!


Bill Val: A Big Box Of Upgrades

BILL VAL just received a big box of upgrades and it’s only going to get better.

At the beginning of 2021 we released Phase I of our new Bill Val product and we were rather delighted by the response. We received some brilliant feedback and since then we’ve been developing many of the requested features.

Remind me again...

What does it do?

We’ve designed it to be as simple as possible – It’s a tool that allows you to upload bill data files direct from the supplier straight to our system. Once uploaded our system systematically examines each entry to ensure it’s correct.

In short, it enables you to give your clients peace of mind that their bills are thoroughly checked prior to payment.

Tell me then...

What's new?

The most significant improvement we’ve made is to the upload process. No longer will you have to ensure you have the right datasheet format for the right supplier. We’ve developed one magic generic template that will work no matter the supplier or their format.

Additionally, we’ve made the system much easier to use. The error messaging has been drastically improved, meaning that if the system does spot a problem it’ll be instantly apparent where and why.