7.11. Version 3.0 (December 3, 2013)

This version changes the way projects are organized so that they can be used for more than just billing. Projects manage four lists of different elements (tasks, expenses, trips, and products) instead of just one (items). Each element can record specific information, for instance tasks can have due dates while trips can record distances. Items were not capable of this because they were designed to handle only billing.

As a result of this change, new features like date range invoices or non-billable projects are now possible. Here's a list with all the changes:

New Features

  • Introducing tasks: Tasks replace service items at project level. In fact, tasks extend service items to provide more functionality and to make billing easier. Here's what's different:

    • Unlike service items, tasks can be billed more than once. You don't have to create a service item for each billing period, you only have to create one task and then bill it multiple times. This is one of the main reasons we decided to replace service items with tasks. If you don't need to bill a task multiple times then you don't need to worry, it works just like before.

      Since tasks can be billed multiple times, they have a billing history that shows when they were invoiced and how much time or quantity was invoiced. The tasks tables have multiple columns for quantity (billed, billable) and total (billed, billable). Not all of them are visible by default.

      Although service items were replaced by tasks at project level, service items are still used at invoice level. Fanurio creates a service item for a task whenever it is billed. In other words, tasks are used to manage work at project level while service items are used to bill work recorded on tasks. Service items are created automatically by Fanurio when a task is billed in the New Invoice > Add Project Items window.

      By default, service items use the billing settings of their tasks but a service item can have different billing settings. For instance, you can bill some time entries at a certain rate while others at a different rate (eg overtime rate). You can edit a service item in the New Invoice window.

    • Task planning should now be easier because we added a few more fields.

      • The Date field was renamed to Started Date.

      • The new Estimated Time field can help you track the remaining time for a task. Fanurio calculates the remaining time by subtracting the time recorded on a task from the estimated time.

      • Tasks can be marked as completed. For completed tasks, you can also specify the date when they were completed. You can also configure Fanurio to mark tasks as completed when they are invoiced.

      • The Due Date field can help you schedule the completion date for a task. You can also use task filters to see overdue tasks.

    • The new Tags field can help you organize tasks better.

    • Task categories can be managed from Business » My Business Details+Tasks.

    • Projects have a new view only for tasks. Tasks are no longer managed together with the other project items.

    • The application has a new Tasks view. You can use it to manage all the tasks you record for your projects. The Tasks view works just like the other views (Timesheet, Invoices, Payments), you can filter tasks by different properties (for instance you can see overdue tasks) and you can export them to CSV or Microsoft Excel (File » Export » Export Tasks).

    You can find more details about tasks in their own section. For more details on how old project service items are migrated to tasks, see the Migration section below.

  • Introducing trips: The new trips module allows you to record the distance and time you travel with a vehicle whether it's for billing or for tax purposes.

    Up until now the only way to bill mileage was to use expense items but the new trips module allows you to keep accurate records of your journeys whether you need to bill them or not. Distances can be tracked in miles, kilometers or both. You can also define multiple rates for billable trips.

    We've also added new placeholders to let you access trip information from invoice templates. You can access the list of mileage items that bill trips using invoice.mileageItems or project.mileageItems while the trips of an item can be accessed using item.trips. The invoice template editor has been updated to customize the way trips are displayed. See the templates placeholders section to learn about the placeholders introduced in this release.

    You can find more details about trips in their own section.

  • Redesigned expenses: We've redesigned expenses to allow you to record more details about the money that you spend. Here's what's different:

    • The new Tags and Reference fields can help you organize expenses better.

    • Expenses now record the total amount and not the price of individual items.

      This means that you can no longer say things like "this expense is for two tablets, each costing $500" instead you will record it as "this expense is for two tablets that cost $1000". Notice that the amount is for the whole expense. This also means that whenever you will bill an expense, the billable quantity will always be 1. If you need to bill individual items (quantity is different from 1) then you need to use products.

    • Expense categories can be managed from Business » My Business Details+Expenses.

    • Expenses can now be billed with a markup.

    • Projects have a new view only for expenses. Expenses are no longer managed together with the other project items.

    • The application has a new Expenses view. You can use it to manage all the expenses you record for your projects. The Expenses view works just like the other views (Timesheet, Invoices, Payments), you can filter expenses by different properties (for instance you can see only non-billable expenses) and you can export them to CSV or Microsoft Excel (File » Export » Export Expenses).

    You can find more details about expenses in their own section. For more details on how old expenses are migrated to new expenses, see the Migration section below.

  • Track costs using expenses only: All costs can only be tracked using expenses. In previous versions, costs could also be recorded on service and product items using the Cost field. This change allows you to keep a better track of your costs because they can all be found in a single place. Here's what's different:

    • Product and service items no longer have a Cost field because all costs are now recorded using expenses. To preserve costs recorded on old items, we create non-billable expenses for them.

    • The following placeholders were removed: item.cost, item.profit, project.profit, invoice.profit.

    • Since products no longer record costs, it doesn't make sense to have non-billable product items anymore. All product items are now billable and they are used exclusively for billing.

    • Billable projects have a new view only for products.

    For more details on how costs from product and service items are migrated as expenses, see the Migration section below.

  • Non-billable projects: In previous versions, all projects were billable. Now you can mark them as billable or non-billable.

    When working with non-billable projects, all tasks, expenses and trips are non-billable and you don't have to set any billing attributes to them. Also, if all your projects are non-billable you can hide billing views from the sidebar and billing columns from the tables (right-click their header to set visible columns) to make the interface simpler.

  • Non-project invoices: In previous versions, Fanurio was able to create only project invoices, invoices for clients with billable projects. This works most of the time but restricting invoices to projects prevents users who don't use projects from billing their clients. That's why you can now create invoices without having to deal with projects.

    When creating an invoice using the New Invoice window, you can now use:

    • the New button to add new product items (not related to a project) and

    • the Add Project Items to add project items.

    We've also added the invoice.nonProjectItems placeholder to let you access the non-project items of an invoice in an invoice template. Older invoice templates will have to be updated to use this placeholder if you need to create invoices with non-project items.

  • Redesigned invoice items: Items are now used strictly for billing, they can no longer be marked as billable or non-billable. There are four types of items:

    • service items bill tasks,

    • expenses items bill expenses,

    • mileage items bill trips and

    • product items bill anything at project level or directly at invoice level.

    Items no longer have date and notes fields. The item.date placeholder is now deprecated and it has the following meaning:

    • for service items, it returns the start date of the task

    • for expense items, it returns the date when the expense was made

    • for mileage items, it returns the date of the invoice

    • for product items, it returns the date of the invoice

    The item.notes placeholder was removed. Older invoice templates that use this placeholder will have to be updated.

    The business catalog accessible from Business » My Business Details+Catalog only manages catalog items for products. Service items and expense items no longer have a catalog item. You can now use task categories to organize tasks and expense categories to organize expenses.

  • Date range invoices: The Add Project Items window has a new field that allows you to specify the billing period. The Period field is very helpful if you need to bill a specific period like last month because it automatically selects the matching tasks, expenses and trips.

    Tasks that contain time entries outside the billing period will be billed partially, something that wasn't possible in previous versions. You can now create a single task (Consulting) and bill it multiple times instead of creating multiple service items, one for each billing period (Consulting January, Consulting February, etc.).

    When you specify a period in the Add Project Items window, Fanurio fills in the Period field from the New Invoice window automatically.

  • Time, tasks and sales reports: Project reports were replaced by time, tasks and sales reports. We've also added a new set of placeholders that you can use to create your own templates.

    You can now create sales reports for your invoices whether you need to send a client statement, analyze your billing history by month or create a report at the end of the year.

Improvements

  • Import time from CSV

    • CSV formats needed to import time in Fanurio can now be exported to and imported from disk. It's now easier to share import formats with other users.

    • Added two more separators: colon (:) and vertical bar or pipe (|).

  • User interface

    • The status bar and the filters from the main views use a smaller font on OS X.

    • The timer display also shows the client name and the project name. Now, when the timer is running, the timer display shows the client, the project and the task name. If they are too long, they are truncated.

    • Added a Close button to the Edit Timer window.

    • Reordered filters used for the projects tree.

  • New timesheet format: The timesheet format version is now "3.0". Fanurio can still import files created with the old formats (version "1.0" and "2.0"). The new format uses tasks instead of service items.

  • Freemarker 2.3.20: Updated Freemarker from version 2.3.8 to version 2.3.20. This update is relevant only to expert users who need to create templates that use features available in versions newer than 2.3.8.

  • Taxes with three decimals: Taxes can now use three decimals instead of two (eg 7.275%).

Bug Fixes

  • The tax total wasn't calculated for new invoices.

  • Finished projects were available for billing although only unfinished projects should be billed.

  • When invoicing a specific project, that project is selected by default in the Add Project Items window.

  • A client tree node was expanded when its popup menu was displayed.

  • The elapsed time was not calculated correctly in the New Time window when the "both" option was used.

  • If Fanurio was configured to confirm the exit and it was closed using the window close button (red x button) then the confirmation message was displayed twice if the exit was canceled.

  • The mini-timer isn't resized correctly on Ubuntu 13.10 running Unity. See this note for more details.

Migration

  • Services: Here's how services are migrated to the current version.

    • Project service items are converted to project tasks.

    • Invoiced tasks have one service item that bills them.

    • Invoiced tasks are marked as completed and their completed date is set to the invoice date.

    • Invoiced tasks billed in units have the billable quantity set to 0 (zero), there's nothing else to bill for these tasks.

    • Service catalog items are converted to task categories. Task categories can be managed from Business » My Business Details+Tasks.

  • Expenses: Here's how expenses are migrated to the current version.

    • New expenses don't have a Name field so their Description contains the Name and the Description of old expenses.

    • New expenses don't have a Quantity field so the Amount of a new expense is the Quantity x the Cost of the old expense.

    • All invoiced expense items retain their properties (quantity and price).

    • Expense catalog items are converted to expense categories. Expense categories can be managed from Business » My Business Details+Expenses.

  • Products and services with costs: Here's how products and services with costs are migrated to the current version.

    • Non-billable product items are converted to non-billable expenses because all products are now billable. Expenses resulted from non-billable products have the tags "#migration,#non-billable-product".

    • For billable product items with costs (their Cost field is not zero) we create non-billable expenses because products no longer have a Cost field. Expenses resulted from billable products with costs have the tags "#migration,#product-with-cost".

    • For service items with costs (their Cost field is not zero) we create non-billable expenses because services no longer have a Cost field. Expenses resulted from services with costs have the tags "#migration,#service-with-cost".

      Hourly-rated service items with costs are harder to migrate and the amount of their expense is zero. The Notes field of these expenses contains the value of the Cost field.

    If you want to review expenses resulted from products and services, go to the Expenses view and search them by the Tags field.

  • Projects: Projects no longer have billing settings for the cost of expenses and their unit of measure. The only expense-related setting is the one that indicates whether expenses are billable or not by default.

    Also, all projects are now billable by default. If some of your projects are non-billable, you need to edit them. To edit a project, go to the Projects view, right click it in the Projects tree and select Edit Project.

  • Items: Items no longer have the date and notes fields.