New business apps in Office 365: Connections, Listings and Invoicing

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/07/10/new-business-apps-in-office-365-business-premium-help-you-run-and-grow-your-small-business/

by willyyr • 9 years ago

26 17 9 years ago

blogs.office.com

jaclaz2• 9 years ago

Limited to "Microsoft Invoicing":

Microsoft Invoicing helps you quickly create professional-looking estimates and invoices, so you get paid quickly.

I can assure everyone that I normally (slowly) create manually VERY professional-looking invoices, but that doesn't in any way help me being paid quickly.

simonswords82• 9 years ago

Ha - excellent spot. Whoever signed off that copy as a benefit needs to rethink that line.

I guess they were trying to say if you can produce invoices quickly you can send them sooner which in turn might get you paid sooner - but that's me being very generous to the marketing person behind that statement. You're right, it needs to be re-worded.

tertius2• 9 years ago

Please share some examples of these VERY professional looking invoices. I'll look at the ROI to see if I'd like to do the same.

Also, if clients don't pay (and it's not contractual, i.e. 30 days, 90 days) then stop serving them.

jaclaz2• 9 years ago

Well, no, I am not attempting to sell a template for professional-looking invoices, it's the good MS guys that are trying to do so.

Their invoicing system may well be quick, convenient and what-not, but the actual example seems to me like any other invoice, not in any way "more professional-looking" (I believe that there are not so many ways to write down an invoice BTW) and allow me to believe that (as in the posted example) if you send an invoice:

Document Date: July 6, 2017

Due Date: July 20, 2017

it is not likely that it will be payed much earlier than July 20, 2017, particularly if the Billed to is a firm.

The whole stuff reminds me of Calvin&Hobbes and the secret weapon that no teacher can resist:

http://kuro.sine.com/calvin-hobbes/89/ch891031.gif

StavrosK2• 9 years ago

Freshbooks commit the same sin:

Wow your clients with professional looking invoices that take only seconds to create. The best part? You’ll get paid faster, too.

I don't really understand how they figure that.

larrywright• 9 years ago

At least in their case, I think that likely refers to the ability to allow your customers to pay online with a credit card.

dade_• 9 years ago

I think their business benefits are real: Small business owners are often brutal at sending out invoices. They procrastinate like everyone else. The sooner you send out an invoice, the sooner you will be paid. Also, tracking payments provides structure to follow up with your receivables. Often a reminder is all that is needed for payment. Customers just forget, but do want to pay. Clear invoices that are easy to understand will also have fewer questions and are less likely to be contested.

jameslk• 9 years ago

Looks interesting. I wonder how these apps compare to the individual competitors in the space such as MailChimp and Freshbooks

Neil44• 9 years ago

Pretty pared down by the looks, they're not going to be as mature for a while.

I wonder if Connections is going to charge per mailout/campaign like the encumbants do.

tonyedgecombe• 9 years ago

Invoicing is a long way short of proper bookkeeping software, I doubt Freshbooks has much to worry about.

fwr• 9 years ago

Listings looks exactly like what I was looking for - does anybody have experience with a similar tool?

polskibus• 9 years ago

<joke> It looks like Microsoft is slowly reimplementing half of YC startups. </joke>

Seriously though, I'd be really worried if I was in SaaS space now. Microsoft is going after most business-relevant SaaS offerings, while providing infrastructure to others (what's going to be left?) at the same time.

I wonder at what point will this strategy be seen as monopolistic or as a threat. For example, what's stopping them from becoming THE accounting outsourcer for half of the world? First you use their accounting, next you are out. While MS investors must be in heaven now, others should be wary.

Anti-monopolistic laws probably won't kick in in USA, because MS has competitors in each space they are walking into. However, seen as a whole, one can easily see how impoverished (in terms of choice) the ecosystem is going to become.

kfk• 9 years ago

PowerBI is the best example, Tableau's stock price dropped 50%+ last year and I am convinced a big part of that is Microsoft stepping up their game in the analytics dashboard area, I covered this in my blog too. It's difficult to make predictions and if you are using these software solutions the only way to protect yourself and your organization from sudden changes in the market is to adopt an architecture that is as modular as possible. No software package or SaaS should be mission critical to run your business unless impossible to avoid to do so (ie Excel in finance).

swiley• 9 years ago

Isn't there some GNU tool that can automatically generate invoices and cheques?

znpy• 9 years ago

m4? :P

New business apps in Office 365: Connections, Listings and Invoicing

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