Latest Entries
Posted on March 24th, 2010
Last night we launched a small update that was (admittedly) way over due. With any income or expense entry, you can now repeat a payment line on a biweekly and quarterly basis, in addition to the previous options. Just to clarify, “Biweekly” will repeat every two weeks, whereas the “Quarterly” will repeat every three months.
We’ve had several requests for this ability, so we are glad to finally say it’s here. We’ve got some other features we think you’ll like in the works. So, stay tuned. Thanks for your continued support.
Posted on February 8th, 2010
Below, Geof Harries from Subvert Marketing, Inc. tells us how Pulse helps him sleep at night.
Tell us about yourself and your business.
Subvert builds software and websites for clients in Northern Canada. We concentrate on the enterprise sector, serving mostly government and large corporations who need specialists to implement their complex technology or digital marketing plans.
What were the reasons that lead you to start using Pulse?
Lack of awareness about where our money was being spent and where it was coming from, month to month. When you’re balancing many different projects, some that last multiple years, it’s easy to be lulled into a situation where you just keep generating and spending in the same way you’ve always done.
Pulse is complementary to our invoice and time tracking system because it gives me the high-level details, whereas the other system is more granular.
That’s a dangerous position to get into because all of sudden, the rug from one project (or several) can get pulled out from underneath your feet and you’re left scrambling to find work to cover up the hole. With Pulse, we’re able to know where our receivables are at and when they will come in. If payment doesn’t arrive as expected - which as anyone in consulting services knows, happens quite often - we can be prepared with other revenue plans. Being able to know what our expenses are going to be three months down the road, also helps us sleep at night.
Describe how you use Pulse and how it fits within your accounting workflow.
I log into our Pulse account about once a week to see where things are at and make any necessary changes. Pulse is complementary to our invoice and time tracking system because it gives me the high-level details, whereas the other system is more granular. You need both views to make informed decisions.
Pulse grants me peace of mind when I need it most.
What do you like most about Pulse?
Flexibility, speed and accessibility. I can get to the numbers that matter most, quickly and easily, from any computer and even my iPhone. Plus, it’s fun to use. Much more fun than our previous solution, Microsoft Excel.
How has Pulse helped your business?
Pulse grants me peace of mind when I need it most. If we’re feeling panicked about a situation or don’t have a good handle on where things are at financially, I can go to Pulse and, after a few minutes, know exactly what we need to do.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I’ve been using Pulse since it first came out, as the One Month App. When the option arrived to pay for an account, I ponied up for a subscription right away. Pulse is worth every penny, much more than we put on a monthly basis, because it empowers business owners with critical financial insight and knowledge.
Posted on January 19th, 2010
Today we pushed a simple update to the CSV export feature. Before, we had just the basics of each income and expense entry, but it will now export all the information associated with each entry including the company, description and memo in a nicely organized CSV file. We hope this makes this feature even more useful.
Posted on December 9th, 2009
Below, Carl Smith from nGen Works tells us how Pulse makes his business smarter and allows him to make better decisions.
Tell us about yourself and your business.
nGen Works is a digital creative firm that provides web design, web development and internet marketing consulting services to clients in the U.S. and abroad. We are an unwavering proponent of the user experience, putting people before technology. We’re also the creators of Happy Webbies and like to drink beer. And play video games.
Carl Smith - Search & Rescue
Carl Smith is the founding member of nGen Works, a digital creative firm that has been building some of the world’s finest hand-crafted websites since 2003. Carl has made a name for himself in the web world by always defending the needs and wants of the end-user. He has been privileged to lead teams that have been awarded the New York Art Directors Award For Interactive Development, The Hospitality Industry’s Best of Show Award, two National C.A.S.E. awards for Educational Web Development. He has also been featured in Kelly Goto’s best selling book Web Redesign: Workflow That Works. Carl spends most of his free time complaining about sites that say “click here,” chasing his daughters, and praying they never make Spiderman 4.
What were the reasons that lead you to start using Pulse?
I started using Pulse to kill that sick feeling in my stomach when I didn’t know if we would make payroll. Being in an industry full of 50/50 payment projects, or getting paid in thirds, it can be super confusing when money will come in. Receivables don’t tell half the story, or even a third sometimes. So I went looking for a solution and low and behold I found Pulse.
Ultimately [Pulse] helps me see potential outcomes as I play with “what if” scenarios.
Describe how you use Pulse and how it fits within your accounting workflow.
Basically I use Pulse separately from our accounting system. As the business owner, it’s really my toy and my baby. I manually update when it looks like cash will come in and variations in payables. Sometimes I look at how cashflow from a project will impact us and decide if we really want a project, or if a client starts acting up what the impact will be if we walk away. Thanks to Pulse I know right now we’re solid through May of 2010 so we can take 2 weeks off as a company at the end of the year. Without Pulse I might not be as confident in that decision. It also helps when looking at employee bonuses and planning for conferences. Ultimately it helps me see potential outcomes as I play with “what if” scenarios.
What do you like most about Pulse?
The flexibility. It’s so easy to add or remove a project, or shift a receivable or expense. It’s also easy on the eyes which is a plus for us. It’s funny, but I’ve shown it to colleagues and clients because I think it helps position us as a smart business. Hopefully I’ve turned a lot of people onto Pulse.
It’s funny, but I’ve shown it to colleagues and clients because I think it helps position us as a smart business.
How has Pulse helped your business?
Pulse makes nGen Works smarter. We make better decisions because we can see further. You could say it’s lowered our stress level by removing the fear of not knowing.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I speak quite a bit about establishing trust with users, and I use Pulse as an example. I asked you to provide the ability to zero out over a year ago and you ended up adding that feature in. You had me as a customer at that point because you listened.
Posted on December 8th, 2009
Below, Casimir Loeber from Base-10 Design & Development Inc. tells us how Pulse takes the “fear and stress out of cash flow projection and management.”
Tell us about yourself and your business.
My name is Casimir Loeber and I am co-founder of Base-10 Design & Development Inc. We are a creative agency that specializes in custom web design and development, print and graphic design. We are a tight team that prides itself in our agility and ability to come up with a solution to almost any visual or technical problem. We are located in Vancouver, B.C. Canada and serve clients around the globe.
What were the reasons that lead you to start using Pulse?
As most entrepreneurs will know, there are never enough hours in the day to do the work that pays the bills, let alone the behind the scenes work most of us hate to do. Both my business partner and myself knew from the beginning that we were not the accountant types or even good bookkeepers. What we did know how to do was preserve the paper trail and plug numbers into websites. This lead us to pulse which allowed us to visualize our cash flow before our brains turned to snow with receipts, spread sheets and accordion folders.
If we have a large prospect on the horizon we take 2 seconds to put it in Pulse to see how it effects us; simple as that.
Describe how you use Pulse and how it fits within your accounting workflow.
Before we had a bookkeeper we would simply export our invoice totals from our invoicing system (Freshbooks!) and enter these values as income in pulse. We were pretty good with our expense paper trails and would just go through our credit card and cheque book for these values. As things started to ramp up and consume more time, we hired a bookkeeper and gave her the keys to our pulse account. She was able to pick it up in no time and now all we do is log in every couple of days to see where we are, where we are headed and where we came from. If we have a large prospect on the horizon we take 2 seconds to put it in pulse to see how it effects us; simple as that.
What do you like most about Pulse?
What I like most about pulse is that it turns something that is very number heavy and hard to visualize into something that is easy to look at. I can take a quick look at my Pulse account and see exactly where we miscalculated on a quote and how long it took us to recover from that. The reporting functionality is definitely the strong point with pulse and has the potential to be expanded in many great directions.
I can take a quick look at my Pulse account and see exactly where we miscalculated on a quote and how long it took us to recover from that.
How has Pulse helped your business?
Pulse has taken the fear and stress out of cash flow projection and management. It has seriously made it so that I can sleep better knowing that I am not going to randomly run out of cash tomorrow. It is easy to learn and easy to teach, so integrating it into our work flow was not an issue at all.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I want to say 2 last things. The first being that seeing the blue line climb upwards and the green bars tower over the red, makes me want to dance. Secondly, I can’t wait to see what the people at Pulse will cook up next.
Posted on November 19th, 2009
A couple of weeks ago we asked for companies using Pulse to help us out by becoming a case study for how they use Pulse. The first in the series comes from Valon Sopi, founder of boldUnderline.com.
Tell us about yourself and your business.
Hi. My name is Valon Sopi and I am a university educated graphic and web user interface designer. I am also the founder of boldUnderline, LLC in Prishtina (Republic of Kosova) - a boutique web-design studio that creates aesthetic and functional websites for clients in the public and private sector.
What were the reasons that lead you to start using Pulse?
Our finances were all over the place. Complicated Excel sheets, hand-written calculations, imaginary forecasts, self-created charts, and periodic walks to the bank, just to name a few, were how money was managed.
As a business owner I wanted our financial department to be the leading catalyst in our daily operations, because I knew from experience that a healthy cash-flow leads to a great product and service. So, to stay competitive and financially strong we had to start searching for a robust application that was free of clutter and without all the distracting bells and whistles. Once we signed up for the Free version of Pulse, it didn’t take long to commit and purchase the professional one.
One of my personal favorites in Pulse, is the ‘Week View’ of Cash Flow, which is a magnified version of the Monthly approach.
Describe how you use Pulse and how it fits within your accounting workflow.
We use Pulse for two reasons. The first is one is to monitor the actual cash-flow of our firm and the second one is to forecast and plan our firm’s financial future.
As for the first one: Pulse helps us monitor the heart-rate of our business and reconcile our monthly operational expenses. What this does is assist us in scheduling each incoming payment accordingly and know exactly what to charge and what discounts we can afford.
As for the second: Pulse helps us measure up various projections in regards to generating new business and hiring new staff. By simply entering our data in Pulse we can forecast in real-time the firm’s financial future.
Also, since Pulse easily integrates with Basecamp, we can monitor our profits and expenses for each specific project. This in turn helps us become more agile in our pricing practices and stay competitive in the market.
What do you like most about Pulse?
Before deciding on going with Pulse I was personally testing out few other web applications that offered somewhat of a similar service. However, what I noticed in all of them was that they all lacked the intuitive user interface, which ranked Pulse way above of its competition. The ease of use, creating new categories on the fly, marking payments as one time or repeated, are just a few elements that help us sustain the financial health of our firm.
One of my personal favorites in Pulse, is the ‘Week View’ of Cash Flow, which is a magnified version of the Monthly approach. This screen tells us the exact date of all incoming and outgoing payments, which in turn guides us with our financial undertakings.
Also, reports, visual charts, cash-on-hand (beginning of the month), and other nicely designed and functional perks make me a devoted fan of Pulse.
Overall, using Pulse is almost like having a full-time financial advisor for a very small monthly fee.
How has Pulse helped your business?
Pulse teaches us how to talk money within the firm as well as with our clients. It helps us know how far we can push financially, and where our limits are, without compromising our firm’s overall financial goals.
Overall, most of our income depends on the time it takes to finish a task. In this sense Pulse is a perfect assistant that helps us stay afloat and explore new waters.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Pulse is a great tool that is constantly upgrading with each new release. The guys at Pulse truly know their stuff. Overall, using Pulse is almost like having a full-time financial advisor for a very small monthly fee. Any business of our size, freelancer, or even a bigger firm can reap the benefits of Pulse and know exactly where the money is.
You have no idea how a simple and specific financial picture can put your business for that much more ahead.
Posted on November 9th, 2009
Here at Pulse, we want to make sure you stay informed about what we have going on, but also give you a chance to get in touch with us and provide feedback. Some of these are probably familiar to you, but we wanted to list the various ways for you to stay in touch and give us your feedback:
And, if you need to send us a support request or contact us about something regarding your specific account, please use the contact form.
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