Less Everything Blog - Less Accounting

Smart Person

2008-01-12T19:17:00Z

Clearly David Stetler is a very smart person.

Acts_As_Conference

2008-01-04T17:34:00Z

There is a Rails conference coming up in Feb in Orlando FL. Acts_As_Conference, which is sponsored by Less Accounting and promises to be lots of fun. Obie Fernandez will be headlining along with Dan Benjamin. If you don’t know who these two guys are, you need to get out more! Obie just published what has quickly become the quintessential Ruby on Rails book The Rails Way, Dan Benjamin is the guy behind Cork’d and the guy that wrote the getting rails setup on osx post that all of you have been using. Both seriously heavy hitters and both living in Florida.

Other notables include Evan Phoenix taking about Rubinious, Ezra Zygmuntowicz talking about Merb, Anthony Eden talking about Shining a Light on the Dark Magic of ActiveRecord, Charles Nutter talking about jRuby, and more.

Zed likes 66% of the people I mentioned: This promises to be an amazing conference.

As if you didn’t need another reason to attend, here are two more:

The whole Less crew will be there. This includes Allan, myself and “the guys!”
Since Less Accounting is a sponsor, we get to put a gift in the gift bag. We have decided to give away the very first “Allan Says…” t-shirts. After the conference you will be able to buy these “pre-collectible” t-shirts.

See ya there!

Thanks Freelance Radio!

2007-11-29T15:35:00Z

Freelance Radio produced by FreelanceSwitch.com recently mentioned LessAccounting.com. Dickie Adams thanks for the plug! FreelanceSwitch.com is a great resource for anyone who freelances or owns their own small business.

Listen to the Podcast we're mentioned around 1:01 into the podcast.

Intuit Building Quicken Online

2007-08-21T17:30:00Z

This article talks about the new Quicken Online by Intuit. I think this is fantastic, and here’s why:

A lot of people are likely to use it.
Most of those people will be unhappy with it.
Some of those people will go looking for other alternatives.
Some of those people will find Less Accounting.
Most of those people will love Less Accounting.

Anyway you slice it, this will bring a lot of people into the online world of accounting applications. This can only be good for us and the others in this space.

Problem with the Wesabe importer

2007-08-14T12:07:00Z

Some of you have reported (and surely others have experienced) a problem with the Wesabe importer where certain transactions do not come across from Wesabe. They can be seen in Wesabe, but not in the Less Accounting importer. We have finally tracked the problem do to a bug in the Wesabe API documentation. Last night the Less Accounting team worked with the Wesabe team to sort out the issue, so the fix is now in sight and should be live asap. Thanks to all of you how helped us sort this out.

New Stuff in Less Accounting

2007-08-13T03:45:00Z

There are a few new things in Less Accounting that I want to tell you about.

1. Profit and Loss Report.

This report is also called an income statement. We have been planning to add this report (and a Balance Sheet) sooner or later, but my accountant wanted it now, so we wrote it this week. To go along with this report, you can now:

2. Categorize your deposits.

If you make a deposit from the invoice screen, that deposit will automatically be marked as “Regular Income,” but if you go to the Deposits screen you can now choose between Regular Income (which still lets you optionally choose an invoice the deposit goes with), Interest Income, Other Income or Expense Refund (which lets you assign the deposit to an expense category).

3. Easier navigation.

When you are looking at any invoice, proposal or note that has a contact associated with it, you will be given links that allow you to limit the items in the selector at the top of those pages to only show invoices/proposals/notes from that contact.

Accountant Recommendation

2007-08-06T14:05:00Z

We have a new accountant and recommend them to everyone. ;)

How do you use Less Accounting? -- The Bank of Dad

2007-08-02T01:55:00Z

A few days ago my five year old came home from school with a dollar. After the interrogation about how the dollar came to her (the story is very similar to Bilbo’s) was over, we talked about what she would do with it. After iterating an almost endless list of toys that all cost more than one dollar, I began talking to her about banking and interest and how if she puts the dollar in the bank then that dollar will grow into two and then three and pretty soon she will have enough for the new dolly that she is pining for. The Bank of Dad was born. We went into my Less Accounting account and created a new business and a new bank Account called “Bank of Dad” and recored the deposit of one dollar. She has been checking daily to see if any interest has accrued (none yet).

Do you have any good stories to share? How do you use Less Accounting?

Less Accounting Out of Beta

2007-07-31T22:06:00Z

We are very proud to announce that Less Accounting is finally out of beta! We have been working on this for a long time, and we (and our wives) are simply thrilled. Here is a list of changes:

Upload your logo (appears on proposals and invoices).
SSL for everyone.
No more “Sales Leads/Projects.” Everything just works through contacts now.
Mark an invoice as sent. This is good when you are adding historic invoices, or if you get a payment without sending an invoice.
Sending a “Payment received” email.
Site redesign.
Easier navigation.
Import transactions using Wesabe.
Bug fixes.
Time zones.
VAT
Redesigned invoice templates.

Thanks very much to all of those who reported bugs and gave us their input. We’re not done though, more changes will be coming!

What? Is there something new with Less Accounting?

2007-07-27T03:31:00Z

SSL for everyone?
Uploading logo’s?
New design?
Lots more?
I have to check this out!

We're back....did you miss us?

2007-07-09T22:32:00Z

Well, we just got back from vacation. It’s the first time this year I took more than one day off in a row (and I rarely even get that). We had a great time, Allan & I packed our families and rented a nice house on the beach at Florida’s Emerald Coast, and did less all week long (less stuff, not Less work). The kids played on the beach, the boat ran out of gas, I found out that one can indeed ride a jet ski too much. I cut my foot on some shells or oysters or something. Allan cut his legs on the jet ski: He was trying to hold on to the side while I pulled him. Give it gas & start laughing! We tried another trick, where I was up front and Allan sat backwards. He was going to jump off at a high speed. The trick was rather lame, but watching the two of us try to get on the jet ski was a riot. Oh, and we ate. A lot.

So what’s less next? We have promised July to be Less Accounting month. We are going to work hard on Less Accounting and Less on Everything else.

Transfer funds now available.

2007-04-22T18:26:00Z

I just pushed the new feature that lets you transfer funds from one account to another. The feature went through automated, regression and internal testing, but I have this sinking feeling like I might have missed something on this one, maybe something is being displayed in a report that shouldn't be. Can you guys please test this out for me and let me know if anything is broken?

Thanks bunches!

Beta is open

2007-04-18T13:38:00Z

Last night Allan and I opened the beta of Less Accounting to everyone. No more waiting, no more invites. Anyone may sign up and try Less Accounting. Over the next few weeks we are going to add a few more things and then exit beta and start the free thirty day trials. After that we will be adding more things and then even more. We had almost two thousand people sign up to be invited to the private beta. We would like to thank everyone who took part in the private beta and ask everyone else to come try out Less Accounting. As always, please keep the feedback coming!

New stuff

2007-04-04T20:24:00Z

Here is what we added to Less Accounting today:

Fixed bug in Cash Out report.
Made reports smarter.
Added "Was this page hard to use?" feed back form.
Changed main tab names to make things easier to understand. Did it help?
Left side selection areas no have a pager if there is more than 20 items in the list.
Users may now have more than one business.

What do you want to see us do next?

Open the flood gates

2007-03-28T03:24:00Z

For about a month now we have had a small number of people in the closed beta for Less Accounting™. Since Less Accounting™ was changing so much we asked people not to talk publicly about it. Well the gloves are off and the gates are open; with tonight's release, we feel that Less Accounting™ has solidified enough that we told our folks that they may say anything they like. In the next two weeks we plan on inviting between one hundred and five hundred of the over one thousand people who signed up to receive an invitation to the closed beta. We will also start talking more publicly about Less Accounting™, us, our hopes and dreams, and the people using Less Accounting™.

For the last month we have received a lot of great criticism and encouragement. We added features that we had decided specifically not to add, and we think Less Accounting™ is better for it. Let us know what you think, send us an email "theguys" at "lessaccounting" dot "com," leave a comment here or blog about it, good or bad, we want to know what you think so we can make it better for you.

Thanks, steve & allan (the guys)