6.4. Version 3.1 (March 11, 2015)

This version contains new many features, improvements and bug fixes. Here's a list with all the changes:

New Features

  • New setup guide: A setup guide is displayed automatically when Fanurio is started for the first time. It helps new users create a new repository and configure their business.

    See this section for more details.

  • Refreshed user interface

    • Views bar: The new views bar is located below the toolbar and it allows you to switch between views. It replaces the toolbar dropdown box and the sidebar to provide only one method of changing the selected view. The place occupied by the toolbar dropdown box is now taken by a new button that closes the application.

      In previous versions, the sidebar allowed you to configure which views were visible but now you can disable the features that you don't use (e.g. billing, expenses, trips or products) and their associated views will be hidden.

    • Lighter user interface: The status bar is now white instead of dark gray while the divider lines and the filters areas use a lighter gray than before. Also, all tables have slightly taller rows so that text is more readable.

  • Database-related enhancements

    • Database loading time: The database is loaded faster now. This change should be visible especially to users with large databases (data recorded over several years with many projects and invoices). In some cases, the database loading time will be reduced to a quarter of what it used to take.

    • Newer versions of the database: The application can now detect whether the database has a newer version than what it can handle. If the database version is newer then it will not be opened.

      This situation can happen if you try to restore a backup created with a newer version of the application or if you share the database between multiple computers using Dropbox but not all the computers run the same version of the application.

    • Manage repositories: In previous versions it was possible to configure the location of the database and the user-defined templates folder independently of each other but to make things easier, we decided to group them under a single folder called repository folder.

      The location of the repository folder can now be changed from File » Change Repository Folder... while the location of the backup folder can be changed from File » Change Backup Folder....

      See this section for more details about repositories.

  • Disable optional modules (billing, expenses, trips, products)

    Starting with version 3.0, Fanurio is built around two main modules: billing and projects. These modules can be used separately from each other or they can be used together.

    • just billing, no projects: create regular (non-project) invoices

    • just projects, no billing: work on non-billable projects

    • both billing and projects: work on billable projects and create invoices for them

    Version 3.0 doesn't allow you to specify whether a module is active or not, both modules are active all the time. This can be a problem if don't need to use both modules. For instance, if you don't need to bill your clients, you should be able to just turn billing off and never see anything related to billing like prices or invoices in the user interface. This version allows you to disable billing and certain project features such as expenses and trips that are not used frequently. Here's what has changed:

    • Business settings: Reorganized the tabs from Business » My Business Details so that the Projects tab contains all the project-related settings while the Billing tab contains all the billing-related settings.

      The Tasks, Expenses and Trips tabs are now sections in the Projects tab while Catalog and Taxes are sections in the Billing tab.

    • Non-billable clients: In previous versions, all clients were billable. Now you can mark them as billable or non-billable. All the projects of a non-billable client are non-billable.

      You can now mark clients, projects, tasks, expenses and trips as non-billable.

    • Disable billing: If you don't need to bill your clients then you can disable billing at business level. Go to Business » My Business Details+Billing to do this. Please note that you can't disable billing if you have at least one invoice or if you have projects with at least one product.

      When billing is disabled at business level, the following things happen:

      • The Invoices and Payments views are removed.

      • The menu and toolbar actions related to invoices and payments are removed.

      • All billing columns are removed from the projects, tasks, expenses and trips tables.

      • All billing filters are removed from all views.

      • All clients, projects, tasks, expenses and trips are changed to non-billable.

      • Projects can no longer manage products.

    • Disable expenses, trips and products: Just as you can disable billing, you can also disable expenses, trips and products. Go to Business » My Business Details+Projects to do this. Products can be disabled only if billing is enabled because products can only be used in billable projects.

      When expenses, trips or products are disabled at business level, the user interface is updated to remove all references to them.

  • Search, sort and filter projects by various fields

    In previous versions, it was difficult to manage the list of projects if you had many of them because Fanurio could record only a few details about a project (name, description, number, reference and status).

    When you manage many projects, it's important to be able to search, sort and filter them by various fields. That's why the following new features are meant to make this task easier.

    • New projects table view: The tree view displays projects grouped by client and shows only the name and the status of a project (finished or not finished). It can't be searched or sorted and it can't display detailed information about a project. To fix these problems, we added a new projects view.

      The new table view shows projects in a table that can display as many project fields as you need (right-click the table header to choose the visible columns). It also allows you to sort and search projects by any field. For instance, you can choose to see the total time recorded on a project or its total value.

      The table view is not visible by default but it can be enabled from the View menu using View » View Projects as Table.

    • New project fields: The list of projects can be managed easier now because we added several new fields.

      • Start date: You can now track when a project was started. This allows you to go back and see past projects, for instance projects you did last year.

        For old projects, the start date is calculated automatically. Fanurio uses the first date when something was recorded on a project to determine its start date. It compares the date of the first task, the date of the first expense, the date of the first trip and the date when the project was created to determine the start date.

      • Finished date: Besides being able to mark a project as finished, you can now set the date when it was finished. Finished projects are displayed in gray in the projects table.

        For old finished projects, the finished date is calculated automatically. Fanurio uses the last date when something was recorded on a finished project to determine its finished date. It compares the completed date of the last task, the date of the last expense and the date of the last trip to determine the finished date.

      • Due date: You can also specify a due date for your projects. This helps you prioritize projects by due date but also see overdue projects. Overdue projects are displayed in red in the projects table.

      • Tags: Use tags to record the project type, status or anything else that can help you manage projects easier. See this section for more details.

    • Optional project fields: The number, reference, due date and tags fields are optional and can be hidden when creating or editing projects. Only the Number field is visible by default.

      See this section for more details.

    • Automatic project numbering: Project numbers can be now generated automatically. This feature allows you to generate a unique number for your projects so you can find them easier. To enable this feature, go to Business » My Business Details+Projects.

      By default, Fanurio generates numbers using four digits but you can define your own format.

    • New clients filter (show only clients with unfinished projects): The clients tree (projects tree view) and the clients list (projects table view) have a new filter that only shows clients with unfinished projects. This feature can help you hide active clients that don't have any ongoing projects. Up until now, the only solution to hide such clients was to mark them as inactive.

      To use this filter, click the small gears button and select "Active with Unfinished projects".

    • Complete tasks when a project is finished: If a project is marked as finished and it has tasks that haven't been completed, Fanurio will prompt you to decide whether these tasks should be marked as completed or not.

  • Billing enhancements

    • Exact precision for billable time: Up until this version, Fanurio used two-decimal precision to calculate billable time but now it can also use exact precision (unlimited number of decimals).

      For instance, if a billable task was billed at a rate of $60/hour and it had 20 minutes of work then the task was evaluated at $19.80 (0.33 hours) instead of $20.00 (0.333...3 hours).

      The precision method is configurable and is set to exact for new repositories by default. Old repositories will be migrated to use two-decimal precision unless Fanurio was configured to use the undocummented "decimal.time.precision" system property in which case old repositories will use exact precision.

      See this section for more details about the two methods of precision.

    • Deposits: Billable clients have a deposits account that can track money paid in advance. You can use money from this account to pay client invoices. See this section for more details.

      Also added new template placeholders (client.deposits and client.depositsBalance) to allow you to access deposits-related information from invoice templates. See the templates placeholders section for more details.

    • Default client billing settings: Clients have new billing settings for their tasks. These settings are used when new projects are created to set their default settings for billing tasks.

      For instance you can specify a default hourly rate and a default rule for rounding time for each client. Each time a new project is created, it will have the default rate and rounding specified at client level.

      See this section for more details.

    • Financial year: Added a new setting for the start date of the financial year under Business » My Business Details+Billing. This makes it possible to select the current or the last financial year when creating sales reports (Reports » Sales Report) or when filtering invoices and payments.

      The default start date for the financial year is January 1st. If your financial year starts on a different date, you should change it from Business » My Business Details+Billing.

    • Task category billing: In the previous version, when a billable task used a billable category, the pricing of the task couldn't be changed. It was fixed to whatever the category had, if the task category was billed in hours so was the task.

      The billing settings of a task are no longer limited to the billing settings of its category. You can now define a category that's billed in units and use it with tasks that are billed in hours.

    • Optional invoice fields: The attention, reference (used to record the purchase order reference number) and period fields are optional and can be hidden when creating or editing invoices. All these fields are now hidden by default. See this section for more details.

  • Reports

    • New reports: Added new reports for projects, expenses and trips.

    • New Time Report filters: The Time Report has two new filters that allow you to filter time entries by their billable and invoiced status. These filters are visible only if billing is enabled.

    • New Tasks Report filters: The Tasks Report has two new filters that allow you to filter tasks by their billable and invoiced status. These filters are visible only if billing is enabled.

    • New Tasks Report placeholders: Added two new placeholders that calculate the estimated and the remaining time for a list of tasks: tasksreport.calculateEstimatedTimeAsHour, tasksreport.calculateRemainingTimeAsHour.

    • Non-HTML report templates: You can now use non-HTML templates (eg Microsoft Word, OpenDocument Text, etc) to export reports but not to view them. Only HTML templates can be used to view reports in Fanurio.

    • Rounded elapsed time for time entries: If a time entry belongs to a billable task or to a service item that rounds time, the rounded time may be different from the actual recorded time. This property is useful in invoices and in time reports where you need to display the rounded (billable) time and not the actual time.

      For instance, if a time entry has 12 minutes of recorded time and it belongs to a billable task that rounds time up to 15 minutes then the rounded elapsed time for this time entry is 15 minutes.

      Fanurio has two additional placeholders that allow you to access this property from invoice templates and time report templates:

      • timeEntry.roundedElapsedTimeAsHour

      • timeEntry.roundedElapsedTimeAsDecimal

      and another two placeholders that can be used in time report templates to calculate the total rounded elapsed time for a list of time entries.

      • timereport.calculateRoundedElapsedTimeAsHour

      • timereport.calculateRoundedElapsedTimeAsDecimal

      Templates created by the invoice template editor (File » Template Editor) now display the rounded time instead of the actual time.

    • Renamed placeholders that indicate invoiced time

      • invoice.billedTimeAsDecimal replaces invoice.billableTimeAsDecimal

      • invoice.billedTimeAsHour replaces invoice.billableTimeAsHour

      • project.billedTimeAsDecimal replaces project.billableTimeAsDecimal

      • project.billedTimeAsHour replaces project.billableTimeAsHour

      • item.billedTimeAsDecimal replaces item.billableTimeAsDecimal

      • item.billedTimeAsHour replaces item.billableTimeAsHour

    • New time reporting placeholders for invoices: Added new invoice placeholders for invoice templates that need to group time entries by date.

  • Integration with other applications

    • Apple Contacts

      • Replaced the name Address Book with Apple Contacts in all actions. Address Book was the name of the application before OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

        If you're using an older version of OS X, the following actions refer to Address Book: Import from Apple Contacts, Update from Apple Contacts, Show Contact in Apple Contacts and Edit Contact in Apple Contacts.

      • You can now update the contact details of a client imported from Apple Contacts by ctrl-clicking it and selecting Update from Apple Contacts from the contextual menu.

        Before version 3.1 Fanurio didn't associate a client with a contact. That's why the first time you'll be updating a client imported with an older version, Fanurio will ask you to associate it with a contact from Apple Contacts. You only need to do this once for each client you imported from Apple Contacts in the past.

      • You can now access and edit the contact associated with a client by ctrl-clicking it and selecting Show Contact in Apple Contacts and Edit Contact in Apple Contacts from the contextual menu.

      • Improved Apple Contacts field mapping to also collect data from home fields if work fields are empty.

    • iCalendar-compatible applications

      • Export projects in the iCalendar format: Fanurio can export projects in the iCalendar format so you can use them in popular calendar applications like Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Reminders (formerly iCal), Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo! Calendar or the Lightning extension for Mozilla Thunderbird.

        See this section for more details.

      • Import time from iCalendar: Fanurio can import events from popular calendar applications as time entries. Fanurio is compatible with any calendar application that can export its events as an iCalendar file (eg Google Calendar, Apple Calendar (formerly iCal), Yahoo! Calendar or the Lightning extension for Mozilla Thunderbird).

        See this section for more details.

    • Migrate from iBiz: IGG Software have announced that they are officially ceasing the development of iBiz, their time tracking and billing application. To help iBiz users move to a new solution and keep their old iBiz data, we've created an import module that converts an iBiz (4.1.4 and older) database to a Fanurio repository.

      See this guide to learn how to migrate from iBiz to Fanurio and how Fanurio is different from iBiz.

  • Runs on Java 6 and later: Fanurio now requires Java 6 or later to run. As a result, Mac OS X 10.4 is no longer supported but all other platforms (Mac OS X 10.5+, Windows or Linux) are supported.

    See this section for more details on how to install the latest version of Java on your computer.

Improvements

  • Mileage items: In the previous version, a mileage item could group trips with the same rate from multiple projects. Now, it can only bill trips with the same rate from the same project.

    Mileage items are project items so it makes sense to bill only trips from the same project.

  • Use Start TLS for SMTP servers: If you use Fanurio to send invoices by email, you can now configure the SMTP server to secure the connection with Start TLS.

    The "Edit Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)" window has a list of settings for popular email services like Comcast, Gmail, iCloud, Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail.

  • Contextual menus: Added contextual menus to all major tables and lists. Up until now, only clients and projects from the Projects view had contextual menus but now all tables from all views have one.

  • Time input: Time can be entered easier in the New Time dialog (Time, Pause) and in the New Task dialog (Estimated Time). The two spinners have been replaced with a text field that accepts time in both hour and decimal format. Here are a few input examples:

    • 2:30 - enter the number of hours and minutes.

    • :30 - enter the number of minutes.

    • 2.5 or 2,5 - enter the number of hours.

    • .5 or ,5 - enter the number of hours.

    • 2 - enter the number of hours.

    A time input field also has two links (hh and mm) that allow you to enter time using the mouse.

  • More columns

    • The project tasks table has two new columns: Description and Notes. These columns are not visible by default.

    • The project tasks table and the tasks view table have two new columns: Billable Time and Billed Time. These columns are not visible by default. When visible, their totals are displayed at the bottom of the table.

    • The tasks table from the New Invoice > Add Project Items window has configurable columns now. It also has a new column for Reference.

    • The Completed Tasks table from the New Invoice > Add Project Items window has configurable columns now. It also has a new column for Reference.

    • The timesheet table has a new column for task reference. This column is not visible by default.

    • The invoices table has a new column for invoice profit. The invoice profit is calculated as the difference between the invoice total and the total amount of all invoice expenses. This column is not visible by default.

  • User interface

    • The task window has a new field that displays the total time recorded on the task. Next to that field is the 'New Time' link that allows users to add time to the task without having to switch to the Time tab.

    • The Period drop-down from the New Invoice > Add Project Items window has two new periods: Last Two Weeks and Last Half-Month.

    • Improved editing for numeric fields including money fields.

    • Most date pickers are now editable.

    • Date columns are aligned to the left instead of the right.

    • The tags field is now optional and is hidden by default when time entries are created or edited. See this section for more details.

    • The clients tree remembers the expanded client nodes when the application is restarted and when the filters (Any, Active, Not Active Clients and Any, Finished, Not Finished Projects) change.

    • Actions from File » Export now export all records, for instance File » Export » Export Expenses... exports all expenses recorded in the application. To export only the records visible in the table from the Expenses view, use the new Export Table button below that table.

    • Improved the New Invoice window to display totals at the bottom of the items table. The Notes field was moved to a separate tab.

    • Using a standard file chooser to open or save a backup copy. You can now save and open backups from anywhere, not just from the backup folder.

    • Using a standard file chooser to export invoices and payments.

    • The Start New Timer... dialog allows you to specify the start time relatively in minutes (e.g. 13 minutes ago).

    • The timer reminders are now focused on the action that they should trigger. For instance, the Start New Timer reminder allows you to specify when the timer should be started (now or in the past).

    • The template editor can now specify the character encoding so that templates don't have to be changed manually. This setting is useful to people who use custom TrueType (*.ttf) or OpenType (*.otf) fonts that don't render correctly when the document is exported to PDF.

    • Clients have a new tab that groups company registration fields: business number, tax number, other number and code.

    • When exporting invoices, you can tell Fanurio to show you the file on disk (in Windows Explorer on Windows or in Finder on OS X).

    • The user interface displays consistently when a high contrast theme is used on Windows.

    • Improved Spanish translation.

Bug Fixes

  • The width was not always saved for hidden table columns that were made visible and then resized.

  • On OS X, the application can be installed in any folder, not just in Applications. If installed in subfolders that had a space in their name, the default templates and the user guide were not found.

  • Invoiced filters also showed non-billable elements. For instance, if both billable and non-billable expenses were recorded, when the Not Invoiced filter was selected in the Expenses view, non-billable expenses where still visible.

  • If a client had two or more projects with the same name and one of them was clicked, the first project was selected instead of the one that was clicked.

  • Failed to delete clients with invoices.