Witchy Worried About? This October Release is all Treats

Well we did it, we made it through October. And you know what? We’ve accomplished so much. There have been three release cycles throughout the month, and while there were some small features worth mentioning, there were also some BIG ticket items that you have been asking for. No tricks here, it’s all about the treats, and just in time for Halloween. So let’s dive in, shall we?

In this blog we will be talking about:

• Improved notifications
• Custom quote exports
• Changes to importing recurring invoices
• Multiple purchase order confirmation
• Customer contract imports
• Setting prebuilds as favourites
• Pasting plain text in WYSIWYG
• Xero timesheet integration

Improved Notifications

Maybe you’ve missed this big announcement recently but targeted notifications are HERE! So what’s new in notifications? Well aside from accessing notifications from the setup menu, just about everything has been enhanced. Now you have the option to:

• Apply filters with conditional logic to create targeted recipient lists
• Attach PDFs to email notifications
• Use notifications for purchase orders and statements
• Disable notifications for specific customers
• Save a copy of the sent notification in the notes on the employee, customer or contractor card
• Tailor the sender ID for SMS messages at the notification level

These new targeted notifications will help you boost staff productivity, build stronger customer relationships and take action on your purchase orders, invoices and statements. If you’d like to learn more about these improvements, you can read the dedicated notifications blog.

Keep Data Clean, Do Things in Bulk and Save Time

So many small improvements have been added this past month and they are all designed to improve your experience as well as take away some of that tedious and repetitive data entry. Now you can import customer contracts, import in bulk and save time creating and updating records. And the time saving doesn’t stop there. If you use Maintenance Planner, you can now easily update the rates and service levels of assets on customer contracts by exporting and importing contract service levels and rates.

Ordering from multiple suppliers? Adding catalog items from different suppliers to a purchase order now displays a warning message, letting you know that you can create multiple purchase orders. It also gives you the opportunity to amend the order and change suppliers for certain items if necessary. This will help you keep your data clean and avoid making small but time consuming mistakes.

You can now also set up ‘custom quote export’. When exporting a quote, you can choose to export all of its contents, including sections, cost centers and items, giving you more flexibility. Plus import recurring invoices in bulk, making it easier to get up and running with recurring payments. Save time creating and updating recurring invoices.

Favorite Your Pre-Builds for Easy Access

Finding yourself using the same pre-builds over and over again? Wasting time by having to look them up every time you need them? Thank goodness for pre-build favorites. Mark your pre-builds as favorites so you can quickly and easily add them to your quotes, jobs, Takeoff Templates, recurring invoices, and even when searching through materials. Get that quote out the door faster!

Paste Plain Text into WYSIWYG

An oldie but a goodie - save time with plain text! Instead of reformatting what you’ve pasted into a simPRO field, simply click '...' and then click Paste as text. It’s just that simple.

Send Your Timesheets Directly From simPRO to Xero Payroll

Anyone that works in finance or payroll can now breathe a big sigh of relief. Xero timesheets integration is here*!

When it comes time for payroll, how much time do you spend manually re-entering timesheets from a downloaded spreadsheet back into Xero and then cross-checking for mistakes between systems? The latest update to the Accounting Link integration removes this manual data entry step from your payroll process.

Now you can quickly transfer your simPRO timesheets, including leave, to your Xero Payroll accounting software* as a draft. Then, approved staff can finalize the timesheet approvals in Xero as they normally would.

This new integration allows you to:

• Set up the Xero timesheets integration on the Accounting Link set up tab in simPRO
• Use the “Map Automatically” feature to automatically map employees, schedule rates and activities (using name, date of birth and email address to find the matching record in Xero)
• Lock relevant pay periods to prevent staff making timesheet changes that could impact payroll
• Open the timesheet directly from the review screen to review hours and fully investigate any concerns
• View a transaction log that shows whether the transfer was successful and lists any failures and their descriptions
• Have an authorised staff member approve the data (all data will remain at draft stage in Xero until your authorised staff member completes the Xero-based approval process)

*Xero Payroll add-on is required. As Xero Payroll is not available in the USA or Canada, the integration is not available in these regions.

Let us know what you think about the new Xero Timesheet Integration. Share your experience and complete a quick two-minute survey: Share My Feedback

Well there you have it folks, a wrap-up of all the simPRO treats from October. Mostly, we’ve spent our time helping you save time...Which is time well spent! Now get out there and enjoy all that extra time on your hands.

P.S I know we said no tricks in this blog… but I just wanted to let you know that there’s only 9 weeks until 2022 (at time of publishing). 🎃

If you’d like to know more about these features and improvements, learn more by reading the release notes here.