An open letter to Iridesco

Dear Iridesco,

Let me start by saying that I love Harvest. It has saved me a ton of time in billing for projects and tracking how much time each aspect of a project takes. I agree completely when you say it’s the ‘worlds best time tracking application.’ It’s worth every cent of the subscription costs.

Which is why I think you are the company best equipped to build my dream application.

Because as much as I love Harvest, I find myself wishing it did more. What I really want is an application that does all of my business related business. Accounting. Time tracking. Invoicing. All in one application. I’m tired of doing things twice, such as entering information into an invoicing app, and then entering it again into my accounting app. I know I can export to Quickbooks or Excel, but I don’t want to do that. That’s still doing things twice. Here’s how I want the workflow to go:

1. Enter a new client and a new project to the system.
2. Track time and expenses for that project.
3. When the project is complete, set up an invoice according to the project settings. Invoice is customizable.
4. If the invoice needs to be edited for any reason, such as offering a discount, I can do it on the fly while setting it up.
5. If I have additional line items to add to the invoice, they can also be added on the fly.
6. Invoice can be emailed directly from the application, attached as pdf.
7. Accounting app records invoice as an Accounts Receivable item.
8. If client is late in paying invoice, invoice tracking app sends notification of late payment.
9. When client pays invoice, I deposit check into business checking account.
10. Accounting app connects to my banking account, and sees that there has been a deposit. Since the deposit is the same amount as a pending invoice, app asks if the two are related and if I would like to reconcile it.
11. Invoicing app marks invoice as paid.
12. At the end of the year, the accounting app spits out the reports I need to get taxes and such done.
13. And its all web based for multiple users.

Expenses will work in a similar manner, with the application able to connect to a credit card account and quickly and easily reconcile any business expenses. Even if those expenses aren’t directly attributable to a particular project or client.

I realize this is a big app and maybe a lot to ask. But this is what I want, and I’m guessing there are a lot of folks out there who want the same thing. I’ve been on the Quickbooks forums and have felt the frustrations I find there first hand. Small businesses want this. There are apps of this kind coming out in other countries (Xero.com in New Zealand and Australia) that look promising, but I’ve yet to find something similar here in the U.S.

Iridesco, you are uniquely situated to fill this niche. The care you put into usability and UI design far surpass others I’ve seen. I would love to see the thought and care you could put into an application of this sort.

Thanks again for Harvest, it truly is indispensable to me,
Bryan Hoffman
Spigot Design