BQE Software eLetter
August 2004
In This Issue
1. Your Web i
Wish Is Our Command!
2. Radar
Love?
3. Destined to Repeat History?
4. QuickBooks Won't Close Down
5. Current BillQuick Release Information
Your Web i Wish Is Our
Command!
Over the past year BQE Software customers have
asked for more capabilities and improvements to our web interface software, BillQuick Web i.
Top requests include:
More speed
Full Project Control application
Recording vendor invoices
Letting vendors enter their own time
Support for browsers other than Microsoft
Internet Explorer
You asked for it, you got it. (No, this is not a
Toyota commercial.)
Speed depends on a number of factors, from the
number of items in lookup lists and the number of displayed entries, to network connection
speed and the many different browsers customer use. Quite a challenge.
BQE Software met the challenge. Beta testers now
report significant speed improvements. On Intranets (internal networks), Web i time
and expense entry is just as fast as BillQuick itself. On the Internet with a high-speed
connection, again almost like you were working with the BillQuick program. Even slower
dial-up connection see faster screen refresh and data transfer, typically a few seconds
delay at the longest.
Speed improvements also came from support for
Project Control. This BillQuick function allows you to specify what employees, activities
and expenses are allowed for a particular project. The fewer employees, activities and/or
expenses associated with a project, the shorter the drop-down lists, the less data carried
from the central database to your browser, and the faster screen display and respond.
In addition to flowing project control elements
to Web i T&E, BillQuick added vendor (subcontractor) support so you can record
vendor invoices in Web i’s Expense Log as well as allow vendors to enter their
own time into Web i’s Time Entry screen.
What about browsers?
Yes, Web i now supports more than
Microsoft Internet Explorer. BQE Software tested the new software with Netscape Navigator
and Safari for the Apple Macintosh.
Radar Love?
Remember Radar Love from high
school?
That’s the point: remembering. And BQE
Software makes memory automatic with its Workflow Automation modules, Agent
Pro and AutoReporter.
Agent
Pro memorizes reports and filters, then automatically generates the reports on a date
you want, repeatedly on the frequency you want, and delivers the reports where and to whom
you want. Agent Pro also tracks delinquent timekeepers and reminds them to submit their
time card.
You can, for example, have a Work in Hand report
delivered to your PC screen every morning. Or, a Budget Comparison Report delivered to
your project managers’ email Inboxes every Monday at 8:30 a.m. Or, a Staff
Performance on the fifth of every month. Or, Billing Review or other billing reports on
any day of the month you want. Automatically.
And if you use QuickBooks, BQE Software’s AutoReporter
add-on module performs the same function for financial and other reports. Same
abilities—generate a report on a specific date, repeat the process on the desired
frequency, and deliver it via email, to a printer or to the user’s screen.
Agent
Pro and AutoReporter
save hours every month. BQE Software’s own CEO saves over 4 hours a month
using both modules. Reports show up in his Inbox right when he wants them. Another
customer uses Agent Pro reports like an appointment scheduler. When they arrive in her
Inbox, she takes 15 minutes to check for exceptions, issues and other items that need her
attention. She calls it her most efficient and effective meeting all day.
Bottom Line: You save time, time that can be
turned from non-billable to billable.
Destined to Repeat History?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana
No one wants to repeat history, those bad
experiences that cost us time, money and blood pressure points. With BillQuick (or any
software), an expensive problem can be when data is lost. Because a firm sees
“grandfather-father-son” as a genealogical reference and not a database backup
strategy, reconstructing data can take a day, week or month and hundreds or thousands of
dollars.
The message is simple: Backup BillQuick
regularly. Do a regular full backup once a week and another once a month. Then, make
incremental grandfather-father-son backups every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. If
possible, automate the process with a good backup software package that may run at 3 a.m.,
for instance.
To avoid costs and lost time associated with
wrongly deleted data or a corrupted database, use BillQuick's built-in backup program to
create an in-place copy. The file is stored in the same folder as your working
database, only with a BAK file extension. Create an in-place backup copy before you
make any major changes to your data, or simply do it every morning. It will save time and
money.
One last recommendation: Run BillQuick’s
Repair and Compact utility (from the Utilities menu). It checks for database structural
integrity errors and other problems, then tries to fix them. Better yet, automate this
task on the System Settings-Misc. tab by telling it how often to automatically run the
utility.
QuickBooks Won't Close
Occasionally BillQuick users receive a
communications error from QuickBooks when they try to close the program. It is like
QuickBooks is stubbornly frozen in place. This situation arises when BillQuick is also
open.
The problem is QuickBooks “thinks” a
user is still working with its database. It cannot tell the difference between a user and
an integrated application. While Intuit will no doubt fix this problem in a future
version, when you encounter this situation you want a way to deal with it now.
The solution is simple: Close BillQuick before you close
QuickBooks. This disconnects the link between your BillQuick database and your QuickBooks
database.
Current BillQuick Release Information
The latest version of BillQuick 2004 is 5.0.80.
If you have Internet access but do not allow
BillQuick to automatically download updates (you turned off AutoUpdate in
Preferences-Other 2), first turn on the AutoUpdate feature, then select Get Updates from
the File menu. If you wish to check out the changes made in the latest version, view the
log before downloading. When Get Updates is done, exit BillQuick. When prompted to install
the update, click Yes.
If you have a large number of computers to
update, or you prefer to download the update from the BillQuick web site, click here
and select Save when prompted. Next, run the setup program from the folder in which it was
saved. To view the latest update log, click here.
Happy BillQuicking!
Thanks from the
BQE Software Marketing Team
May Success Follow You
. . . Always |
