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.

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I have to say that one of the worst things you can do to your company is to not use your own product.

When you’re using it (the product) in-house, there are many things that you encounter as a user that perhaps your own clients have not had a chance to yet use, or was not caught through usability testing. In fact, one of the keys to great interface design is using the product within your company.

With Merchant’s Mirror, we fill a specific need within our own organization by using it since there are things that we’ll be the first to admit… annoy us. And thus, we strive to change the way it functions for the better of our clients. You could almost say that we are our own client so if there are any complaints, we know exactly whose door to knock on and where to rant.

It’s part of the reasons for the minor upgrades that have dotted the development roadmap recently. When it comes to web based accounting, or any other software as a service product, you can never go wrong using it since if it bugs you, it’ll definitely bug someone else.

Many of you have been wondering what we’ve been doing quietly in the background for the past few months. And we’re happy to say that here’s a little teaser. We don’t quite have an ETA although I can probably say that we’ll have this in definitely by May if not earlier.

As you can see, the entire interface has a new fresh look. But that’s not all! There are some things that have been done so that the user experience itself has been intensified. We’ll do a more in-depth post after both the test teams and development staff have finalized the migration to version 2. What you see there is something on our testing platform and we are extremely excited to bring this to you as soon as we can.

In other developments, we’ve actually moved into a new office! Excited, but tired from the move, we’re happy to join the the Nussbaum Center of Entrepreneurship as one of the incubating startups. That has actually taken some time out of our schedule but it also reinforces our test and development teams into one area for an instant feedback arena.

We definitely have more great things coming down the pipeline and didn’t want you to think that we left everyone in the dark. Look for wonderful things appearing in your favorite accounting software soon!

So here we go with a shorter list of minor updates. This is due to the fact that we’ve actually been working on some of the framework in the backend the last two weeks. What this means is that there are some major features that we were setting up to bring in, and this would help get it working. But without further ado, here’s what was added:

• CSV exports
  Yes, now you can actually export all those lists of things that you need and want into CSV file formats. Customer lists, invoices and payments by vendors, pretty much any list there we figured you’d want the data for so we set it up so you could grab it.


• High-resolution logo attachments
  One of our clients had told us that the resolution of the logos attached to the invoices were not in high-resolution. We took a look and found that indeed this was true. But this wasn’t something that you could just let go. Oh no. This was something that we felt must be thrown in there since we all love higher resolution graphics.


• Document attachments
  We’re super proud of this feature. Why? Let me give you an example. So here you are at the end of the year and you have all these receipts you had accumulated over the year that you’re finally getting around to inputting into the system. And then the big audit comes by. Yes, it does happen. But you had thrown that shoebox away…. Wait! You had scanned them in and attached them to each of your invoices! Turmoil has been averted. And that’s what we were thinking too, except we thought that it would be fantastic to actually allow customers to attach scanned documents so that customers didn’t have to worry about the hard copies.

As you can see, we haven’t just been sitting around twiddling our thumbs. And if there is anything that we’re doing great, need to improve upon, or just plain want to talk, we’re here for you. Just drop us a line on the feedback and I promise you’ll get a response. Unless your email happens to be incorrect or nonexistent… then we can’t really help you with that problem.

We’ve had several people ask for minor enhancements while we continue to work on our upcoming release. Because we listen to what you are saying, our development staff added those enhancements in our product update this past weekend. We are definitely listening! After all, we use the product as much as our clients and we care what our community has to say. If you have a suggestion or request then we need to know! Make sure to submit your feedback today.

So what exactly did we add?

• Import Assistant
  This currently is in Beta, but should be able to handle all of your importing needs if you happen to be coming from the Intuit® world and need import your data into Merchant’s Mirror. You’ll find this under the “More…” tab in the main header of the application itself.
   
• Opening balances
  For those that have never used a double-entry system before, you no longer have to go through a confusing process of how to create an opening balance when you add a new account. We took care of the entries for you and simplified it so that you only put in your opening balance and the system does the rest, automatically.
   
• Printing checks
  If you have pre-printed check stock (from Quickbooks®), you can now print checks directly from the system.
   
• Reporting Update
  Our users uncovered a need to drill down into line items in reports like the Receivables Aging. Our team made it so that if you click a line item in any report, it will take you to the related document all in just one click.
   
• Custom invoice messaging
  Now you have the ability to type out a custom message at the bottom of an invoice or estimate. Just “Include Memo” and write out what you need.
   
• Demos and tutorials
  For many folks, seeing the product without actually creating an account is an important part of the signup process. Even though it’s FREE to register, we understood what our users were looking for and so we have added several new screencasts and tutorials. You can find these on our website at the top of the page, right next to Invite a friend. Look here for more tutorials in the upcoming months as we release more features.

We have a bunch more updates coming soon! We’re working hard to bring you the best product out there and we hope you will help us craft the accounting suite that YOU want to use.