An invoicing update was pushed out today and now billing open projects in multiple increments where the cost of the project increases over its lifespan is easier. Lets say you have a project that you've invoiced and received full payment but later the project has some additional cost. Now, instead of only being able to create a new invoice for the entire project total you also have the option of invoicing for only the additional cost.

Basically the update is an easy way to convert your existing invoice into an incremental invoice -- where your client's previous payments are noted -- without having to convert your invoice manually.

I tested it with as many scenarios as I possibly could but keep track of your invoices when using this new option to ensure the totals are calculated correctly and report any inconsistencies as soon as possible.

Another minor update relates to the Side Job Track homepage as it received a slight change to the header.

If you have questions or comments about the invoicing or homepage updates, please feel free to comment about those in this thread. As always, you can use the contact form on the help page to contact me directly.

Tiny updates! I finally had a chance to go through and make a few updates to Side Job this weekend and made some small yet useful modifications. Nothing ground breaking but there are probably a few additions you'll enjoy:

* Service Completed Date now shows up on the services list as well as on the link hover.

* New Invoice Due After Setting allows you to set a default number of days an invoice is due. So, for example, if your invoices are always due 30 days after you create the initial invoice, this setting will set that date automatically when the invoice is initially created. Of course, you can still edit this date if you need.

* Bigger Textareas for client comments, project service descriptions and project material descriptions make it easier to give more detailed information for each.

* Bar Graphs on Reports tab for Client report. Now it's even easier to tell who your most profitable client is based on a percent of the invoices you've received for the report year. The graphs themselves were created using the awesome CSS Bar Graphs developed by Apples to Oranges.

* X/HTML is now allowed in textareas. If you have files on a webserver, you can now link to those documents using the standard anchor tag. This is especially handy for project notes or service descriptions. Any mark-up you add, however, will be removed before you create an invoice regardless of type (rtf, txt, htm).

There are some more features I do plan on adding in the future; so, if you've requested something that wasn't added in this round of mini-updates don't despair, there are more things I have plans to add. If you have any comments or questions about the additions, please let me know.

The redesigning of the homepage has sort of taken away time from adding new features, but fear not because more updates are on the way. I'm working on a list of what I am considering adding to the site, but first I'd like to explain an oft-requested feature I added recently: a simple timer that can be used for hourly services.

The timer can be used when editing services that are attached to projects. Edit or create a service on a project and look to the right of the Quantity box:



Opening the timer will automatically start the time. The timer itself has five buttons, three control the function of the timer and two control how the time is recorded back onto the corresponding service:



If you have a quantity already listed and you open the timer, the time that it records will be added to that time.

The timer icon will be available regardless of whether the service is by item, weekly, monthly, etc. but it's only useful when charging hourly.

UPDATE: Kevin Wetzels, the maker of the free and most excellent Drunkey Love icons that Side Job uses, created a brand new stop watch icon that makes this feature's purpose more obvious.

Thanks Kevin!

Tiny updates!

* The State field has been extended to three characters for both your business details and your clients.

* The advanced settings page now has some more detail on the codes that are available for custom estimates and invoices.

* A bug related to incremental invoices when tax is charged has been corrected, let me know if there's anything else wrong with that.

As an aside, I'm really interested in what people think of "uno" -- specifically, the custom estimates and invoices. Does anyone have a custom estimate or invoice they would like to share? If so, please link to 'em in the comments of this thread. (Maybe if enough people post their templates, some sort of shared template system would be in order.)

A bunch of little updates as I work towards billing by percents (yes, it's coming):

1) Blog posts have moved up top. I think it's less intrusive at the far top, but let me know.

2) When invoices are listed, only the last invoice note shows instead of every single note.

3) When a long string is displayed through a drop-down it's now truncated and a '...' is added after 22 characters.

4) If you don't have any materials nothing material-related will show on your invoice (email or print).

5) Project Due Date has been added as an optional field. If you choose to set a due date, the remaining time is noted by the project title. So, it'll say something like '2.2 Months' or '3.1 Weeks' then it'll go to days. If you go over, it'll tell you how many days past due you are.

If you notice any problems or form a mutiny to get any particular update undone, drop a note in the comments. Just please don't ask about billing by percent. I know, I know.