Today we’re rolling out Invoice Tracking for the billFLO platform.  Invoice Tracking enables customers to give their suppliers a real-time, summary view of where invoices are in the accounts payable process.  Check out the video below to see how it works and see the other goodies invoice tracking provides. Oh, and we’re rolling this new feature out to desktop and online versions of billFLO as of today!

So, today I’m extremely happy to welcome a European competitor, Tradeshift,  who is also attempting to fix the problem. From what we’ve read Tradeshift wants to deliver the same value and vision as billFLO, but to the European Market.  This is great news for our market as a whole, and we’re very excited to see the innovation Tradeshift will bring when they launch.

In the meantime, if you’re a small business that wants e-invoicing and AP automation for your accounting system today, get billFLO for free at www.billflo.com. If you’re an Accounting System or Large Enterprise, integrate billFLO invoices into existing workflows today with our free billFLO API.

billFLO Ian

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After my 2nd business floundered I figured it was time to take a more rigourous approach to starting business number 3 (billFLO). So, I came up with my 10-Step Approach to starting a business which I’m going to share with you today:

1. Understand your personal goals

If you’re crazy enough to consider starting a business there is something driving you. It’s super-important you understand it. Do not pass go until you do. For me it was (in-order): Learn, Be in Control, Grow my Personal Brand and finally, get rich.  Understanding my motivations has informed so many critical decisions and made me happier. In fact, if billFLO ended today, I’d be happy because I’ve already achieved my top two personal goals. (I’d be happier if I acheived #3 and #4 too though!)

2. Get family on board

Dropping everything to start a business is risky and stressful. Entrepreneurs sometimes assume they are taking all that risk, but everyone will be making sacrifices. Get your family on board. If the support system isn’t supporting - you wont be successful. Period.

3. Set Limits/Boundaries

Its very easy to get addicted to this startup business. While your still rational, set some limits to how far you’re willing to go. (Hint: Your family & friends will help you set reasonable boundaries)

4. Understand your market

This is a mistake I’ve made. Its critical to understand two things about your market: size and trend. For example, DVD players are a big market but shrinking. Window Cleaning is a big market but its not growing or declining, Small Business Accounting is large and growing (did I mention billFLO takes the pain out of small business billing!). In most cases it makes sense to pick a market that is big and not declining.

5. Undertand your business type

What is it that your business is bringing to the market? Are you bigger, faster, cheaper? Knowing this will help you understand how competitors will react and how you can out-fox them! Steve Blank has some good material on this topic

6. Define your Company’s Goal?

As you grow you’ll need to energize others around the company goal. The key is to know it before you need it. I’ve heard Grasshopper describe their’s as “Empowering Entrepreneurs to Succeed”.  Our goal is simple: Every company in the world using billFLO invoices instead of paper invoices.

7. Work out the Funding

There’s a personal and business component to this one. Plan ahead and make sure you have the cash you need to pay the bills, buy the kids clothes and pay the mortgage for as long as you need. On the biz side, think about what will be needed to get your business paying your billls for you.  Do you need to invest in machinery? Or will a couple of PCs and website do it? If its the former, where are you going to get the cash from? Like the company goal, the key is to understand your funding needs before you need the money.

8. Choose a structure

There’s lots of material out there on choosing a company structure. Suffice-it to say, spend some time thinking about an appropriate structure for the future of your business. If you plan to raise VC money then a Corporation is the likely the way to go. Starting a business with your brother to sell Christmas Trees? Maybe a partnership will work. (A lot of this can be changed later but its cheaper if you get it right from the start!)

9. Brand it!

Branding your business is about creating a persona or character for the business. The good news is this takes brain- rather than wallet-power! In the early days there are two components: choosing a name for the biz/product and picking the media to project the brand.

- There is only one thing critical about choosing a name – make sure people can spell and read it!

- Picking the media for sharing your brand is easy. Experiment with the ones you think your customers value and use the most. Try twitter, facebook, blogs, website but measure them all.

10. Set up your systems

It’s getting exciting now. You’re on the last step. It used be that small businesses didn’t bother much with systems and process. However, nowadays there are many inexpensive but very valuable tools that you can start with on day 1. The most important of which is your Income Management system. If you dont know what your income is, how do you know how your business is performing? Depending on your business a lightweight invoicing system like Harvest, Blinksale or Freshbooks combined with billFLO will provide a comprehensive view of your invoice income. If your business is a little more complex you could try a full accounting system like Clarity Accounting, Less Accounting or QuickBooks combined with billFLO to get a holistic view of your business without having to deal with a lot of data entry.

If you try these 10 steps there’s a good chance you’ll be succesful the first time around (rather than the 3rd, like me!). Best of luck.

billFLO Ian

Have you ever asked someone at a cocktail party how they are? Only for them to break down in a puddle of tears and tell you how their Grandma’s wooden leg got lost, the dog got run over and they lost their job? Its kinda uncomfortable, right?

The equivalent for an entrepreneur is when someone asks us how our business is going.  Depending on the day the answer could be anything from “Brilliant” to “I’m not sure we’re going to make it, we’re gonna have to fire everyone, I’ll probably lose the house”. The truth of course, is somewhere in between. 

So here’s my tip for answering that question without hurting the feelings of the well wishing friend:

Just say “We’re on the verge of something”.

The question asker will respond ”On the verge of what?” accompanied by a quizical look on their face.

Respond by saying “Well its either complete failure or world-domination. <pause> I’m just not sure which one yet.”

Guaranteed to make everyone laugh, or your money back!

billFLO Ian

Running a small business is tough. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting your business, growing it or just keeping alive there is nothing easy about it. As the owner everything falls on you and sometimes its overwhelming and you want to through the towel in. Don’t ! Here’s a tip on how to deal with those days: Go-To-The-Well. You can call it the well of inspiration, the well of persistence or the well of patience, but everyone has somewhere they can go to juice-up and get going again.

The key is knowing what your well is. For me its time with my peers. A good chat with a trusted fellow entrepreneur helps to blow away the frustration and put things in perspective. For others its family time, a hike in the woods or a good book. Ultimately, its your job to know  your well and know when to go there!

Your thoughts?

billFLO Ian

Well, whadya think? Should you stalk customers?

For many years, Intuit has had a program where they follow users home and watch them use QuickBooks and Quicken in their homes. If that’s not stalking, I dont know what is! (Ok..our lawyer says I have to clarify that Intuit actually pays their customers for their time so it’s all above board!). Our friends at Freshbooks stalk their customers in a different way – they follow them to dinner (Whats that? Oh, right. My legal eagle says I should point out the fine folks at Freshbooks actually buy their customers dinner and drinks too!).  You get the point though, customer stalking is important and worth paying for. About 3 months ago, I was reminded of the value of “customer stalking” when I spent a morning with a customer of ours.

Actually, hold on for a second.  That catholic, Irish guilt is getting to me. I have to come clean (clears throat…) The customer stalking title was just to get you to read my post. There, I said it.  The real point is a little less exciting but way more important if you want to build a succesful product. So lets get to it.

The particular customer I was visiting really feels the pain that billFLO eliminates. So I was looking forward to watching them use billFLO and compliment us on how great it is. I watched as the customer spent a couple of minutes copying 10 or so billFLO invoices to billFLO buyer from their email client. Great, I thought, now we’re ready to start the billFLO show. These folks will be blown away. A couple of questions, followed by a couple of clicks and all the billFLO invoices are imported. That was quick and easy, I’m thinking.

Me: “So, what do you think?”

Cusomer: “I like not having all the paper”

Me: Good, I think. ”Anything else”

Customer: “Well, its not that much quicker than the way I normally do it”

Me: WHOA. Hang-on. What are you talking about you fool? A couple of clicks and you were done. Pause… Mmm, lets stay calm here, and try to work this out. “Tell me some more”

Cusomer: “Well, copying the invoices from my email takes a while”

Me: WHAT? just because you use a crappy email client that doesnt copy multiple files at once, you think billFLO is slow? What are you smoking? “Oh, I see”.

I left soon after and to be honest, I was pissed-off. It wasnt quite the self-congratulary buzz I had hoped for. What I did learn though, is customers define the user-experience, not us. We’ve since launched a new version of billFLO that streamlines this process significantly for the user. 

LESSON? Deliver the best experience as defined by your customer (and stalk them ethically!)

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement, we’ve got more Goodies! This time it’s for billFLO buyer users . Today we’re announcing billFLO buyer supports approval workflow, rule-based importing and email receipt of invoices! Can I get wOOT wOOt!

Email Receipt of Invoices - when your vendors send your billFLO and PDF bills to your new billFLO email address, the bills will show up automatically in billFLO!

Approval Workflow – Is there an invoice a co-worker needs to see before you pay it? No problem, send her an approval request to review the invoice. She can review and approve it in her browser. (Check out the vid below of approvals in action)

Rule-Based Importing – billFLO now analyses invoices as they are received, according to your rules, to pre-assign accounting info (account, project, etc) and require approvals as needed.  Now, when your rules have been satisfied you can import all those invoices with a single click!

And, one more piece of good news. We usually roll out new releases by accounting system, but not this time. Our dev team has been working super hard (thanks guys!) to make these features available for ALL our users as of today.   

You can get this release of billFLO buyer here or just open billFLO buyer and you’ll be prompted to download the new version. Enjoy!

What’s probably not apparent though, is that in the back office the hardware store owner is struggling under mounds of paper invoices. Every hammer, trash can and piece of timber ordered results in an invoice! In some cases a mom-and-pop store will have a full time bookkeeper just to deal with the invoices.

So, we’re extra happy to announce today that we’ve got something to make hardware store owners life easier. We’re expanding the billFLO invoice network to enable Do it Best store owners receive their invoices electronically with the billFLO buyer service. That’s right, the network of 4,100 independently owned Do it Best stores can now receive all their Do it Best invoices in billFLO format, straight to their PC. Enjoy!

Since our last big launch we’ve been inundated with requests from eager Accounting System Vendors looking to add billFLO functionality to their offerings. So, I’m happy to announce, that today we’re making billFLO machine readable invoices available to every small business with the launch of our billFLO seller API!

Our launch partner for the API, Clarity Accounting, deployed billFLO in just a few hours for their customers. So, start lobbying your accounting system provider to get you billFLO invoices!

Find out more at www.billflo.com/developer.php

billFLO Ian