July 7th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
There are so many blogs I need/want to read on a regular basis. From competitors, to industry news to entrepreneurial and marketing specific blogs.
In the past I’ve always tended to randomly check in on the blogs when I got a free moment. But free moments are few and far between these days and I felt I was possibly missing out.
So I decided to get my act together and be more structured in how I keep track of these blogs. For the web-heads among you, you can probably stop reading now. There’s nothing ground-breaking here, this is all stuff you’ve probably been doing for years.
I wanted a one-stop shop to see all the blogs in one place. Enter Google Reader, a free service.
Most blogs have RSS feeds. RSS is simply a data feed of content that’s updated when ever a new post is made.
Paste the blog URL into the “add a subscription” section of Google Reader and it’ll automatically find the RSS feed (if it can’t find one, it can still monitor the page for changes for you).
Repeat this for all of the blogs you have an interest in.
The most common time I’m likely to have a free moment is on the train in to, or on my way home from work.
You can get free RSS readers for your iPhone that connect to Google Reader and download all of your content. Or you can just go to your Google account in a normal web-browser and read it there.
So I now feel fully up to date on all the blogs I read. And I’m so glad I’ve done it because I’ve read some real gems that otherwise I would perhaps have missed.
The app I’m using on my iPhone is called Feeddler. It’s OK and does the basics. But I’d be keen to hear of any better apps out there as Feeddler misses some pretty basic functionality such as adding feeds.
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June 8th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
I’ve never been one for the fluffy stuff. I’ve instructed colleagues to slap me repeatedly around the face if i ever use terms like “adding value”.
So when I recently found myself thinking it might be a good idea to have a written mission statement or “vision” for my company I started getting worried I was going soft in my old age. To get input from others, I posed the question on Twitter:
DuaneJackson Fri May 28 18:30:37
Mission Statements/written visions for startups. Essential or a poncy waste of time?
Here’s a selection of the replies I received:
AndyCDoyle Fri May 28 18:32:36
@DuaneJackson have one, but don’t harp on about it
dougsom Fri May 28 18:35:39
@DuaneJackson If they’re written for reference by people in the company = good. If they’re written to be used as mktg blurb = poncy. (IMHO)
billflo_ian Fri May 28 18:43:12
@DuaneJackson throw them in the bin when written, but spend time thinking bout them. also do write core values (dont throw them in bin tho!)
DavidTurner1 Fri May 28 18:52:11
@DuaneJackson Mission / Vision statements – worth having, so staff know what you stand for. Don’t have to be poncy though!
CarlReader Fri May 28 18:59:49
@DuaneJackson both essential and poncy imo!
DebjMeredith Fri May 28 19:15:01
@DuaneJackson Not essential but in bad times it helps to remind you why you started up in the first place.
creospace Fri May 28 19:22:22
RT @DuaneJackson: Mission Statements/written visions for startups. Essential or a poncy waste of time? <~ Visions/goals are essential.
RuralBroadband_ Fri May 28 19:31:28
@creospace @duanejackson goals essential but mission statement not so.
After given it some more thought, I’ve decided I am going to write one. For internal use only. Not a customer-facing, marketing-fluff document.
Why?
When the company is relatively small – ie, 5 to 8 people – everyone knows what the mission/vision is. As the business owner, I’d be working with all of them fairly closely and we were all on the same track.
But as the company grows (there are over 20 of us now), you lose that intimacy. There are people in the company now that I have very little to do with just because I don’t need to as they’re managed by others and I’m too busy to put aside the time I perhaps should.
So for that reason, I think it is worth having a written statement concisely explaining what we’re trying to achieve and how we’re going to get there. That way we can all focus on the same goal and all know where we’re headed.
So what do you think? Do you have a written and shared mission statement or vision for your company? Why? Or if not, would you consider it?
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
May 20th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
We’re looking for another bright spark to join our ever growing team. The job title is “Customer Support Manager”. The role will involve liaising between our small support team and “Big” Tim, our CTO.
NOTE: This role has now been filled.
As well as managing the existing team and ensuring they’re delivering the highest possible standard of support to our customers, you will also be:
The ideal candidate will come from a customer facing background, ideally from within the accounting/bookkeeping industry. The ability to learn quickly is imperative but, more important than anything else, the applicant must be enthusiastic and have the bags of energy required to work in a busy, entrepreneurial environment. A technical aptitude is also essential.
Must-haves include:
Does it sound like something you or someone you know would be interested in? If so, we’d love to hear from you.
Applictions should be by email. Send your CV, covering letter and salary expectations to careers@kashflow.com
NOTE: This role has now been filled.
No agencies.
Our usual notice applies: If you are an agency and you call/email about this role anyway, then I reserve the right to include you in a future blog post about recruitment agencies who can’t read and can’t be any good anyway or they wouldn’t have to phone people who explicitly said “No Agencies”.
Tags: careers, hiring, jobs, support
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May 19th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
We’ve teamed up with Entrepreneur Country as their official accounting software partner.
Entrepreneur Country was founded by BBC Online Dragon and CEO of Ariadne Capital Julie Meyer and has grown into a community of 25,000 high-growth small businesses recognised as UK and Europe’s leading entrepreneurs. Certainly a group of people we want to be associated with!
They’re running an event on 15th June at Savoy Place in London under the title “In a world with no money…”. It looks set to be a great event, with these speakers addressing the challenges of doing business in the current climate:
as well as a number of panel debates and workshops, such as:
The usual cost to attend is £295, but as we’re an official partner we asked if we could get a discount for our customers and readers and they said yes, but only for a limited number of places.
The usual cost is £295, but you can save £200 and pay only £95 per attendee.
As you can appreciate, this is quite a big discount and places are limited. So if you’re planning on attending, click here to register and enter code ec2010AF to get the discount.
I’ll be there, as will my CTO Tim McOwan, so please do track us down and say hello.
Tags: entrepreneur country, events
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
April 28th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
Here are four things I found out about Twitter that aren’t immediately obvious, so hopefully they may be of use to you too.
Because of the 140 character limit, URLs you post on Twitter are usually shortened. The default URL shortener in Tweetdeck is bit.ly. So the short URL for my last post is http://bit.ly/ac4GWn.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Add a + to the end of the URL so it becomes http://bit.ly/ac4GWn+ and you get a page with click statistics as well as info on who re-tweeted it.
If you follow a lot of people, you’ll get a lot of spammy direct messages (DMs). You can actually massively reduce these spam DMs.
A lot of them come via the SocialOomph platform and they kindly allow you to opt out. Instructions here.
I’ve read lots about the other big “offender”, SocialToo offering a way to opt out from their platform too, but it all seems to be out of date and I can’t find a way to opt out from them.
When a Twitter account is compromised and you find your account is sending spam DM’s and tweets you didn’t write, people tend to assume someone has somehow got their password.
This isn’t usually the case and changing your password will have no effect. The actual culprit is usually rogue third-party applications that you’ve authorised to access your account. If you try lots of different Twitter tools that are out there then you’re more likely to fall foul of this.
All you need to do is go to twitter.com and log in to your account. then click “Settings” in the menu at the top-right and go to the “Connections” tab. You’ll see a list of applications that are authorised to access your account. Revoke access for any you don’t use any more.
When you add a tweet to your favourites, every one can see it. Your list of favourite tweets is exposed to the world so be careful what you add there.
For instance, a journalist I follow “favourited” a tweet advertising a job. If I were his employer I’d be raising an eyebrow!
Are any of the above new to you? If so click the “Tweet this” button below and spread the knowledge.
Got any thing to add to the list? Use the comments section below.
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January 26th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
In November we advertised a support role here at KashFlow and filled the role within a couple of days.
Patrick is still with us and doing a great job – but we’re still growing very fast and need more hands on the support deck. So we’re hiring again for a second support person to join our ever growing team.
The role is very much as originally advertised:
We’re growing ridiculously fast here at KashFlow HQ in London (SE1) with customer growth percentage well into the double figures every month.
The team has grown very quickly from just two people not very long ago to thirteen today.
We now need to hire a smart, articulate individual to join our customer support team.
Being a quick learner and being able to communicate well by email is much more important than any type of industry experience, so the role may be well suited to a bright school/college/university leaver. If you have an interest in a career in IT or accounting then this would be a great starting point.
This is an excellent opportunity to start your career with a fast-growing technology company. And you’ll learn more about accounting than you ever wanted to!
If this sounds like something you might be interested in please send a CV with covering letter to careers@kashflow.com
The salary on offer ranges from £12-18k dependent on your experience.
I can’t stress enough that enthusiasm and ability to learn is more important than qualifications or experience.
No agencies.
Our usual notice applies: If you are an agency and you call/email about this role anyway, then I reserve the right to include you in a future blog post about recruitment agencies who can’t read and can’t be any good anyway or they wouldn’t have to phone people who explicitly said “No Agencies”.
Tags: recruitment
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January 13th, 2010 by Duane Jackson
When KashFlow was first available back in 2005 it was a very, very basic invoicing tool. It produced invoices with sequential numbers and you could mark them as either “paid” or “not paid”. Nothing more. This was intentional. We (or “I” as it was then) didn’t want to make assumptions about what businesses wanted from what was to be a fully functional accounting software
We were lucky with our timing. There weren’t any other web-based accounting apps worth mentioning at the time and we weren’t under the level of scrutiny new entrants in this market place are today.
So we took our time and asked our customers to tell us what they wanted added. Once we’d covered the main bases we’d only add new features it if they passed 4 tests:
1) Customers must be asking for it – so not just something we think would be cool to have
2) It mustn’t distract from the simplicity of the software
3) It shouldn’t remove any existing functionality
4) Wherever possible it should be off-and-onable, defaulting to off so as not to confuse or distract customers
Rule 4 can cause a problem as people taking an initial look at the software today can be fooled into thinking it doesn’t have many features when in fact there’s probably no other accounting app, online or offline, with the depth of functionality we now have.
This is why we tell people that if they think it can’t do something they need, they should get in touch with support as it probably does do it.
The result is that we now have an application that’s got lots of features that are of genuine use to small business owners, rather then lots of confusing menus full of jargon and options you never use – the main thing that put me off other programs available when we started.
We’ve kept our approach the same over the years; actively soliciting suggestions and sticking to the rules above. You’ve not let us down. We have a list of great feature requests and we’re constantly improving the software based on those suggestions.
Until relatively recently we’d pick the features we (myself and one other developer) were going to work on and just go for it. This meant we’d get new functionality released very quickly and this kept us ahead of the emerging competition.
Now we have thousands and thousands of customers and a team of developers (they rarely let me touch code these days) we needed to implement a more methodical approach to developing the application. So this is how one of your suggestions goes from initially being received to being live in the software.
The suggestions we receive from you are all logged on a database, nothing is discarded no matter how silly or complicated.
Once every 4 weeks I sit down with the development team and let them know which suggestions I want implemented over the next 4 weeks.
The way I decide what I want them to do is based on how many people are asking for a particular feature and how complex it is. I’d be lying if I said I don’t take into account who’s asking for it too. We have some Partners who spend tens of thousands of pounds a year with us and I’d be silly not to give more weight to their requests than I do to others.
They go away and develop the features on a development server we have in the office. Once they’ve finished, the new features are copied to a separate test server we have here and it’s tested by non-technical end users. Assuming the features work as planned they then go on to the “live” system where you get access to them.
This works really well and means we can still get new features out quickly and regularly.
The down-side is that if you make a suggestion for us, it’s virtually impossible for us to tell you how long it’ll be before it’s available. It may be a great idea and we plan to add it in the next development cycle. But as requests flood in each week, the list changes all the time so your suggestion may get put back if other requests become more popular or more pressing.
An observation. The basic invoicing tool we launched with cost £13.99/month. Since then, despite going from a basic tool to a full accounts package that’s winning awards all over the place, and spending 100’s of thousands of pounds developing the software and infrastructure, we’ve only upped the price once – to £15.99/month. And that was only for new customers. If you joined us back when it was £13.99, that’s what you’re still paying.
Tags: agile, development, sprint, suggestions
Posted in Programming, Technology, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
December 3rd, 2009 by Duane Jackson
There are a number of changes to VAT on 1st Jan 2010. This is how we’ll be helping you to easily deal with them with the minimum of effort and fuss
The standard rate of VAT will change from 15% to 17.5%. If you’re VAT registered then a message should be showing on your Overview page which to take you to a page where you can click a single button and have your account added to the list we’ll automatically apply the changes to. If you’re on this list then the following changes will take place automatically for you at midnight on 31st December:
- If you don’t currently have 17.5% in your list of VAT rates then it will be added
- All repeat invoice, purchase or bank transaction templates set to 15% will change to 17.5%
- If your default VAT rate is currently 15% it’ll be changed to 17.5%
- Any Sales Types or Outgoing Types you have set to a default rate of 15% will change to 17.5%
- If you use the PayPal Importer service and have the VAT rate set to 15%, this will be chnaged to 17.5%
The data you’ve already entered wont be changed.
If you’re on the Flat Rate Scheme then the percentage VAT you pay may be changing. You can change this rate in Settings -> VAT Settings.
Where you’ll have fun is if the period you’re producing a VAT return doesn’t start on 1st Jan. In this scenario you’d have to pay the old rate on sales prior to 1st Jan and the new rate on sales after 1st Jan
KashFlow makes this very easy. If you tick the box in VAT Settings to say you’re on the FRS then you’ll see the settings to deal with cross-over periods like the above.
In the past you’ve only had to declare sales of products (as opposed to services) that you make to customers in other EC states on an EC Sales List (ESL). KashFlow knows whether the item you’ve sold is a product or service based on whether or not you’ve ticked the box on the Sales Type page that says “This is a product (as opposed to a service)”. If the box is ticked then any sales of that item are declared on your ESCL
As from 1st Jan most services will also have to be declared on your EC Sales List. This is a simple change for us – we’ll just change the wording from “This is a product (as opposed to a service)”. to “Include sales of this product/service on my EC Sales List”
If you have any questions on any of this then please contact support@kashflow.com
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
November 9th, 2009 by Duane Jackson
After executing the plans laid out in my July blog post “Warning – this blog post may radically alter your business” – KashFlow has now been radically altered.
We’re now based in London and I’ve lured the CTO I’ve been after for years.
I’m now not allowed to touch any code myself and the development team, free of my interference, are turning out product enhancements based on your requests at least twice as fast as they were previously.
We’ve now got some pretty cool stuff that needs to be tested by a select group of actual customers before being released into the wild. First up (ready and waiting for you right now) is integration with FreshBooks. Soon our iPhone app will also need testing and I’m sure there will be plenty more to come.
So are you interested in testing some of these new features? We’d give you access to these new features before others get to use them in return for feedback on them, how we can improve it and if you can find any bugs.
If this sounds interesting to you (you sad, sad person!), contact support@kashflow.com with your username and let them know you’re interested in being a beta tester.
Tags: beta testing, freshbooks, iphone
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
November 4th, 2009 by Duane Jackson
We’re growing ridiculously fast here at KashFlow HQ in London (SE1) with customer growth percentage well into the double figures every month.
The team has grown very quickly from just two people not very long ago to thirteen today.
We now need to hire a smart, articulate individual to join our customer support team.
Being a quick learner and being able to communicate well by email is much more important than any type of industry experience, so the role may be well suited to a bright school/college/university leaver. If you have an interest in a career in IT or accounting then this would be a great starting point.
This is an excellent opportunity to start your career with a fast-growing technology company. And you’ll learn more about accounting than you ever wanted to!
If this sounds like something you might be interested in please send a CV with covering letter to careers@kashflow.com
UPDATE: This role has now been filled.
No agencies.
Our usual notice applies: If you are an agency and you call/email about this role anyway, then I reserve the right to include you in a future blog post about recruitment agencies who can’t read and can’t be any good anyway or they wouldn’t have to phone people who explicitly said “No Agencies”.
Tags: recruitment
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
