I promised I would write about iBiz 4, so here it is…
I’ve been dealing with a lot of invoices coming to IGG, bills for ads we run, our iBank retail box costs and all sorts of things and I often ask for a statement showing what invoices they’ve sent and what payments of mine they’ve received (just to make sure they are accurately billing me). Sometimes, much to my surprise, they don’t have a way of sending me this kind of info, especially in a clear and concise manner that is easy to read. So enter new feature #1 of iBiz 4, send client statements with 1-click. You can choose which invoices/payments and past statements to include, or restrict it to a date range. You can even add a % late fee or fixed fee and the statements show up like invoices and payments right in the Billings tab.
From a developer’s standpoint, Leopard brought us the CalCalendar.framework — or in laymen’s terms, easy access to the iCal data. So for iBiz 4 we’ve completely redone the iCal syncing engine. The previous engine relied on SyncServices and it has some very odd and hard to reproduce issues, so we’ve scrapped that and adopted the new framework and all I can say is that, syncing works WAY better. Let me say that again, syncing works WAY BETTER! We’ve add more options so it is easier to just push events to iCal, or just pull events, or sync both ways and it is super fast. So for you iCal and iBiz lovers, the marriage can finally live out happily ever after.
UI: it seems that every point release is accompanied with UI refinements and iBiz 4 is no exception. We didn’t go crazy, don’t worry, we still have a left-side source list driving the rest of the UI, but the info drawer is finally gone and we’ve added much easier way to edit any item’s info in such a way as to not clutter the rest of the UI, here is a hint: it’s not a floating inspector panel.
So there are a few things people can look forward to for iBiz 4, that’s all I’ll say for now, but be sure to follow the blog and IGG news.
Happy New Year!
Ian
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Client Statements! YAY!!!!
All sounds promising. Be interested to see how you’ve improved the UI, just glad to hear the side draw has gone! Also hoping for better Billing and Project integration as at present there is no link between a job and it’s invoice.
Any idea when we can expect the first beta? I would be very keen to sign up to a beta tester programme if you have one.
Just found some more info on iBiz 4 from Macworld 09:
http://security.itbusinessnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=622869-0
So thrilled about statements. This is one of the things that has had us looking at other products to switch out of iBiz to (we’ve been using it for four years!).
But the one issue (I posted on the forum as well) is the sheer size and the uncomprehensible filenaming in the library. The library of ours is over 500MB in size–that’s unreal.
I was hoping you guys could address this, and address the filenaming for all these huge pdf files, and perhaps address filing these in folders in the library that map to client names (in a folder) and/or archive folders. This type of filing would sure put you closer to the library organization of, say, iTunes.
I would also think it would help iBiz run faster. That is the biggest reason we’re evaluating other products right now.
Lastly, one of the big pains is the payment process. when I receive a check and I enter a new payment, the dropdown covers up the window with the invoices, making it impossible to see which outstanding invoice is being paid! Seems like an easy fix.
If you would like to beta test, please go to our support page (tab above) and send an email to info at iggsoftware dot com and make sure you mention it is for iBiz 4.
P.S. The payment window is now moveable so it won’t cover anything.
It has been a month what is up with ibank and ibank on ipod touch?
Come on… recurring billing please !!!!!!
1. Will iBiz 4 have a backup function? One that doesn’t need MobileMe?
2. Will iBiz 4 have an intelligible file-naming format, not the arcane, undecipherable list of stuff?
3. Will I be able to edit client info within iBiz 4?
4. My computer crashed and the new installation on the new unit required 2 days of re-assigning Projects and Events to clients. Some of the clients disappeared, and others were duplicated and had question marks in the icon. Another day of trying work-arounds.
5. Will it be possible to ‘combine’ 2 or more clients into a third hybrid client? I bill different divisions of the same company, and want to put them all together without losing the individual data.
6. Frustrating editing Notes; will not display, wrong note, will not refresh, assigns to wrong event, etc.
All I want is the ability to add billable time to my ibiz projects from my iPhone. I don’t understand why there’s not one mention of this anywhere. There’s going to be iBank for iphone, but no iBiz? What’s up with that?