I’m excited to write about a great new feature I’ve finally had the chance to get my hands around. The new custom invoice templates in AutoTask. At first I admit I was slightly perturbed that my PO field disappeared. Some of the HTML formatting tricks went from creating nicer invoices to making my invoices look like cryptic nastiness. BUT with change there is almost always a need to change and the required effort to get the train back on the tracks was very manageable. In fact one of my favorite determinations of if a software change is good is if someone new to the system can work better with the new system than the old. The new invoice templates are certainly much better than the old system.
My favorite new feature of the new invoice templates actually comes with a bit of a complication. You are now able to report on your block hour contract usage and balance right on your invoice. The one little caveat is that you must approve and post the cost that comes along with a block purchase or the block doesn’t get used in the calculation for how many hours are active shown on the invoice. Also if a block of hours is marked “inactive” in autotask that status is not reflected in the invoice block hours calculation.
BK