To all of our customers:

I’d like to say that it’s been a pleasure serving you and we wanted to share some news with you. Some of you might have already heard that Issuer Direct Corp has decided to purchase the assets of Merchant’s Mirror and rebrand it into XAS Cloud.

What does this mean for you, the customer? Well, currently not a thing. Things will still proceed as normal operations while we work with the ID team to transition the technology. You might one day in the future see a different logo on the application, but it won’t be different and the payments and contractual agreements will continue as current.

The difference will be that Issuer Direct will continue development once this migration is complete while the Firelace team be on call as an advisory team. Under the resources of Issuer Direct, you’re likely to see some great feature improvements in the coming months.

It’s been a great three years and I’m looking forward to seeing the next evolution of Merchant’s Mirror to be a great one!

- Ben

It’s always a chore in making sure features are put in, and making sure that it doesn’t slow down for the rest of the site. Fortunately, there’s always room for improvement. A couple of changes have gone today for the engine itself. We’re going to start seeing a lot more action on the client browser end. That means that the work will be done at the client side and the server will cease to be always sending new data over unless it absolutely has to do so.

This in turn will increase the speed of the product itself. Second, the size of the files have been dramatically decreased. This has been done through compression and some server magic that optimizes the delivery itself. That should increase some viewable differences in performance. Last of all, we’re beginning to see some improvements on some of the content. Due to some reports by clients where there were vast amounts of data being delivered due to the number of transactions, we’ve done something about the viewing window on that data. That in turn has taken the load off of both the client and ourselves.

Wish there was a breather window somewhere in there, but there’s always new things to do. If there are issues, feel free to let us know!  As usual, we’re always striving to be the best web based accounting product you guys can have!

We’ve been accredited by the National Institute of Accounting Technicians. That’s a great thing when it comes to being officially recognized by professional groups. We’re looking forward to bringing you the best there is to offer, and always looking towards making small business accounting easier on everyone. Onward and upward! Kudos to all involved in getting this on the books!

And for those of you watching, there have been a number of features that have been quietly implemented into the current live system. As most know, they’re always done through requests of our customer base and they keep coming up with some great ideas! You can’t beat the ideas that are from the people that use the product.

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about anything, but there’s good reason there too.

Currently in the development chain that should be coming to a dashboard soon: recurrence. It’s something that has been personally bugging us, so we’re doing something about it. This is one of the features that hasn’t been requested but has been on our radar for some time. There are a few other fun things that are coming down the line.

We’ve also been working on a joint venture with another business. For now, we’ll just leave it at that. Let’s just say that there’s some expansion into other areas going on -hint hint-.

In other news, we have just gone through an audit and passed it with much nail-biting. We currently have a contract in that will have ongoing reviews on these to make sure that you’re protected and your financial records are up-to-date.

We would like to say that we wouldn’t be here without our wonderful customer base, and so this shout out is to you! You guys are the best and you make this application what it is today. We strive to answer all of your questions and feature requests as quickly as possible as a small firm and we believe that we make that absolutely transparent to you.

If you have questions, problems, or whatever else, feel free to contact us.

A. Usually.

Because software is usually used for many years, it actually depreciates over time as far as the initial cost is concerned. But if there are annual fees or some sort of time-based licensing subscriptions, then the renewals themselves are considered as current assets. If however you’re using a SaaS service such as Merchant’s Mirror, then the product subscription would actually be an expense since you don’t technically own the software and the moment you quit subscribing, you no longer have access much like a subscription to a magazine or newspaper.

Definition(s):
Fixed asset, also known as a non-current asset or as property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), is a term used in accounting for assets and property which cannot easily be converted into cash. This can be compared with current assets such as cash or bank accounts, which are described as liquid assets. In most cases, only tangible assets are referred to as fixed.

In accounting, a current asset is an asset on the balance sheet which is expected to be sold or otherwise used up in the near future, usually within one year, or one operating cycle whichever is longer. Typical current assets include cash, cash equivalents, accounts receivable, inventory, the portion of prepaid accounts which will be used within a year, and short-term investments.