Capsule

Email Marketing with MailChimp

Javelin CRM now integrates with MailChimp for email marketing, and it's available in both the free and professional editions of Javelin. Here's a quick video showing how it's done.

See the MailChimp site for more information on their email designer, templates and campaign management tools.

FreeAgent Integration

Javelin and FreeAgent now hook up. So if you use Javelin alongside the simple, but powerful online accounting tools from FreeAgent you’ll get the complete view of your relationships including notes and files you’ve added, emails to and from the contact, tasks that need to be done, sales opportunities, support requests and invoice statuses.

Integration is easy - simply enter your FreeAgent account details into your Professional Edition of Javelin.  Javelin automatically imports your customers from FreeAgent and you’re good to go.  Here’s a summary of what you get:

• When viewing a contact in Javelin, you’ll see a summary of invoices and overdue amounts from FreeAgent
• Contacts can be exported from Javelin into FreeAgent so that you can start invoicing them
• Add a new invoice by clicking through from the contact in Javelin
• Updates to contact details such as addresses in Javelin are automatically synchronised to FreeAgent so you only need to make the update in one place

Demise of MS Money and the rise of web apps

A decade or so ago when Microsoft was in its heyday, we bought software and installed it in our homes and offices because that’s the way it was. Fast-forward to 2009 and we know that consumers are embracing software and services that operate online.  The recent announcement from Microsoft that they are discontinuing MS Money provides a good example of the way it was then and the way it is now.

Microsoft in their own words have admitted the market has changed
http://www.microsoft.com/money/default.mspx

“With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing today that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30, 2009.“

In the same way MS Encarta was made obsolete by Wikipedia, MS Money hasn’t kept up with our expectations for tracking personal finances.  Online services like Mint, Wesabe and Quicken offer not only an easier way to get started, but also a whole new way of presenting and using your financial information.  For example Mint can compare your spending with other users and highlight areas where you are paying over the odds.  Because Mint is hooked up to your bank, it also keeps track of your transactions as they happen and alerts you to events such as your account running out of money.  Neat stuff and much more useful than MS Money ever was stuck in the constraints of your PC.

Part of the reason Microsoft have discontinued Money is due to a cost cutting exercise.  Fact is the cost of distributing and supporting installed software is expensive.  With an online service there is only one installation to support, not millions.  This results in lower costs or even free services for consumers.

While individuals have been busy trying out these new services, businesses have been slower to change.  After all, which is easier - trying out Mint for your own use, or convincing your boss to use a new online accounting system to run the business? Small tech savy businesses are leading the way by mashing up their pick of online service such as twitter, CRM, accounting, wikis and email marketing.  You can see an example of this in my post showing Javelin CRM integrated seamlessly with Xero and KashFlow.  In the same way that personal apps like Mint have made MS Money obsolete, the writing is on the wall for traditional business apps stuck in PC’s such as Act!, Sage and even MS Word.

Faster searching

Javelin users have been asking for a quicker way to search for contacts.  Previously the only way was to click through to the people and organizations page.  So to make searching quicker we’ve added a search box that’s available from every page in Javelin.  It’s implemented as a live search so it returns results as you type.

Here’s a short screencast (without sound) showing the new search in action:

search from Javelin on Vimeo.

Accounting Tweaks

The Javelin integration with Xero and KashFlow has been very popular since its release a few weeks ago.  We’ve been tweaking this functionality based on ideas and feedback from our users which has been top notch as usual.  Here’s a summary of the recent changes that are live:

• Suppliers are now included from KashFlow.  For the initial release it was customers only.
• A supplier view which shows invoices from your suppliers and their statuses.  Just a bit of background on the naming convention here - KashFlow calls these “Receipts” while Xero calls them “Accounts Payable Invoices”.  We’ve decided to use the term “Supplier Invoice” because we think it’s clear and ensures we have common terminology for any accounting system that we integrate with.
• Automatic tagging as Customer and Supplier.  This makes it easy to see the relationship you have with a contact and you can use the tags to filter searches and lists

We have a further tweak in the works that we expect to release for Monday.  Currently if you view a person (e.g. Joe Blogs) attached to a company (e.g. Acme Corp), you can export that person as a customer or supplier.  That doesn’t make a great deal of sense as it’s Acme Corp that should be the customer/supplier in this example rather than Joe Blogs.  We are making a simple change to fix this - when exporting a person that is linked to a company, Javelin will detect this and export the company details instead.  Also, when viewing a person that is linked to a company, Javelin will display the opportunities and invoice information for the company. See the uservoice request for more info.

Here’s a screenshot showing a supplier with the tag and invoice information:

Announcing Xero and KashFlow Integration

Today we’ve made it easier for small businesses to better manage their customers by integrating the best CRM with the best online accounting systems, Xero and KashFlow.  CRM and accounting are both important functions for most small businesses.  CRM provides the tools to manage relationships with prospective and existing customers, and accounting systems provide the tools to manage your financial success. 

Typically these systems have been disconnected, so when updating a customer in your CRM you have to duplicate that change in the accounting system.  Of course, in practise time is tight and the these systems often drift out of date.  Equally important, you want to see everything you know about a customer in one place.  The CRM provides the customer dashboard, so why would you want to switch to the accounting system to see what’s been invoiced and what’s overdue?

By integrating Javelin with these accounting systems we’ve fixed the problem.  Now all information including invoicing and overdues is available from customer view in Javelin, and updates to customers are automatically applied to the accounting system so you only need update the customer in one place.  This is a big step forward for small business in getting better value out of CRM and accounting.

The following screencast demonstrates how you can get started easily and start benefiting from an integrated solution.  The screencast shows Xero in action and we’ve done exactly the same for KashFlow too.

The KashFlow version of the screenflow is available here.

To find out more about Xero and to sign-up for a free 30-day trial, visit www.xero.com

To find out more about KashFlow and to sign-up for a free 60-day trial, visit www.kashflow.co.uk.  KashFlow are kindly offering Javelin customers £2/month off KashFlow when you sign-up using promo code JAVELIN01

Sign up for a free, no obligation 30-day trail of our Professional Edition to get started.

The value of integrated solutions for small business

Javelin is days away from an upgrade where we are moving into a significantly new world for our Javelin users.  We have integrated Javelin with two online accounting systems.

Why have we done this?  One of the criticisms of CRM’s is the difficulty of maintaining accurate data.  If you are not actively updating the information, no matter the quality of the CRM solution, it will fall into disrepair.  Rubbish in, rubbish out.

I know this from personal experience.  I am in a part-time buy-to-let partnership and we use an accounting package, a landlord system, and a bunch of excel spreadsheets. We have to key the bank details into the accounting system, we have to duplicate the contacts, and we have stopped using the landlord system for anything other than letters and the core contact details – even though the system offers much more.

The good news is that we have integrated the best CRM, Javelin, with the best accounting packages so you manage your data more easily.  What a transformation from when these systems were disconnected.  Accounting information is on the same page as all the other information about the customer – at a glance you can see the invoice status on the customer record, along with last contact dates, history of contacts and any pipeline business.  So if you are chasing an outstanding invoice you can see the value of new business alongside the outstanding invoice before making the call to the customer.  There are also some cool features like moving between systems being as simple as a click-of-a-button.

Personally, I hope other service providers will understand this need and start providing integrated solutions for their users.  It is time for small business to get the benefits of SaaS well beyond discussions around a lower cost threshold and much reduced IT support.  I am proud that we are leading the way in providing a service that is truly beneficial to you.

Where are our users?

Javelin launched this week after 4 months in private beta and we figured now’s a good time to analyze how our users are distributed across the globe to see where all the interest has arisen from.  We’ve shared the aggregated numbers in the graph below.

While the Javelin team is based in Britain, we see ourselves as a global service and it’s great to see users joining us from all over the globe.  Unlike accounting systems which have different tax rules for different countries, managing customers is the same whether you are in Hong Kong or New York. 

On a related note, we have been asked whether Javelin can be translated to other languages.  We like the Facebook approach to this which gets the user community involved in the translation - after all if it’s your first language you will likely do a better job than we can!  Vote up the request here on our uservoice forum if you like the idea.

Farewell beta, hello the new Javelin

Today is a milestone for Javelin as we farewell the beta and relaunch the Javelin website with our shiny new branding. A big thank you to all users who participated in the beta! Your feedback and kind words of support have been greatly appreciated.  If you had a beta account, it continues as before with a limit of 2 users, 250 contacts and 10MB of file storage. With the full launch of Javelin, we’ve introduced the the Professional Edition with a huge 50,000 contact capacity and generous file storage.  The professional edition has a simple fee of $12 per month, per user (£8 if you’re in Europe).

Javelin features preview: Customise your contacts

With custom fields you can easily extend and customise Javelin to suit your business. Checkout this screen cast for a quick introduction.

SaaS taking off in UK small businesses

Online accounting provider Xero announced yesterday they have signed up 1000 customers in the UK and 4000 globally, with much of this growth coming in the past 50 days.  UK based Kashflow also recently announced reaching their 2500 customer milestone and postings from Duane Jackson their CEO, reveals the last 6 months have been particularly busy.  Well done to both.

While the numbers are still relatively small compared with take-up of SaaS in the United States, they clearly demonstrate a change in attitude by UK small businesses.  No doubt the accountancy partners of both Xero and Kashflow have been instrumental in this growth.  After all, while a SaaS accounting package has many benefits to the customer such as reduced total cost of ownership, the accountant also benefits from easier access to the all important business data.

It looks like predictions that 2009 will see an explosion in SaaS are correct.  This all bodes well for Javelin, our own web CRM designed for small businesses and launching soon.

The Image is from Xero’s website.

Javelin features preview: Track your way to success

Javelin will be launching soon and in preparation we will be providing a preview of Javelin functions via our blog.  First up, we are previewing Tracks.

Tracks are a neat feature in Javelin that provides a simple way to manage repetitive processes.  In business we find often find processes that do, or perhaps should! follow the same steps each time.  For example:

• following through on a sales opportunity
• managing a customer support query
• issuing a monthly customer invoice
• end of period accounting procedures

Tracks establish a pre-defined series of steps.  It could be as simple as a pre-defined to-do list that you tick off when steps are completed:

Tracks become more powerful by including rules that control the sequence and timing of each step:

Once defined, a track is available to embed in a Javelin Opportunity or Case.  We’re confident businesses will find novel ways to use this function.  Do you have processes in your business that would benefit from a more structured approach?  We’d love to hear about it.

Register for our Beta now if you would like to see Tracks in action.

Javelin in private beta

Today we are making Javelin available for invite only beta.

This is the culmination of many months of design, development and testing. We are proud of the result, which provides businesses with an intuitive easy to use system for managing relationships, tasks, communications with contacts, and deals in the pipeline. Javelin raises the bar by keeping it simple, but at the same time giving users more power by letting them decide the information that is relevant to their business.

We look forward to working with a small number of beta users over the coming months. If want to take a look, be sure to register your interest for the beta via our home page.

The Javelin Team