Welcome back to another edition of What’s New! It’s been busy behind the scenes, and there are a load of exciting updates to share with you since last time. Whether you have already found some of these features, or they’re completely new to you, there’s sure to be something useful.
Missed the last update? Check out What’s new in August 2023.
Let’s jump right in!
🚀 Multi select in estimates
This is a big one, and was one of the most highly requested features in the Estimating module. You can multi-select items in the estimate by holding the Ctrl key and clicking items, or holding the Shift key and selecting many at once.
While multi-selecting, you can copy or delete the selected items, as well as create a new purchase order from them (more on this later). Multi-select is a huge time saver, especially when you need to copy lots of items, or delete a bunch of items at once when cleaning up.
Multi select copying in an estimate
📚 Multi select in estimate library
It wouldn’t make sense to stop there and only allow multi-select in the estimate itself. You can now multi-select items in the library as well!
When multi-selecting, you can do a bulk delete of all selected library items, including any sections. Previously you had to delete every item one by one, which was a bit of a pain. This is a huge time saver, especially when you need to clean up your library.
Multi select deleting materials
When deleting materials and labour, you will be shown any modules these items are used within and advised to delete them from the module first. Once the items are not used within any modules in the library, you will be able to delete them completely.
Deleting materials referenced in modules
🔍 Searching in estimates
Have you ever been thinking something like “It would be great if I could find all the places we use this material in the quote”, or “I forgot where I put this item, how can I find it without having to search in every section”?
Search quote button in the actions menu
You might have already seen the “Search Quote” button while estimating. If not, this feature allows you to search for items within a quote by their name. This makes it way easier to find the item you are looking for, especially on those larger jobs.
Searching the quote for ‘pine’
📝 Notes on estimate items
There’s now a perfect place to store internal estimate notes that the client cannot see on their quote document. This is super handy to note down anything you find or decide whilst estimating that you’d like to store for later reference, or use for a job handover.
Storing notes on a section
You can also view all of these notes in one place at any time, by running the Sections report in the estimate.
Viewing the sections report with descriptions and notes
🛒 New purchase order from estimate
This feature is a game changer for purchasing by job. You can now create a new purchase order, straight from items or sections in the estimate. This is a huge time saver, especially when you need to order materials for a job, so you don’t have to manually add each item to the purchase order.
Creating a new purchase order from selected items
Simply select the items or sections you’d like to create a purchase order for, right click, and select “New Purchase Order from Items”. This will prefill a new purchase order with the selected items, ready for you to send straight to your supplier.
The newly created purchase order with all materials and labour
📧 Email autocomplete
No more having to type out email addresses by hand when sending emails. You can now click into the email field, and be shown a list of all emails on the client including contacts. This makes it way easier to send emails to the right people faster, and reduces the chance of sending emails to the wrong person with typos.
Autocomplete dropdown with client & contact emails
📤 Emailing of purchase orders
You can now email purchase orders directly from within Acrual, without having to first save them to your computer. Simply click the green envelope icon in the top right when viewing the purchase order document, and you can send it straight to your suppliers inbox.
🔄 Purchase order syncing to Xero
If you use Xero, you can now sync your purchase orders to Xero. This means you can keep your accounting software up to date with your purchases, and have a record of all your purchases in one place instead of having to enter them twice.
Acrual now syncs purchase orders to Xero
The Xero integration now supports sending invoices, purchase orders and timesheets directly to Xero. Changes are syncronised automatically and immediately when creating or editing a invoice, purchase order or timesheet.
📄 Page numbers on PDF documents
All PDF documents now display the current and total page numbers in the footer. This makes it easier to keep track of where you are in multi-page documents, and know how many pages are in the document. It’s also super handy if you print out the document, and the pages get mixed up.
Page number showing at the bottom of the page
🔒 Disabling of users
If an employee leave your company and you wanted to disable their access to Acrual, you can now disable users. This will prevent them from logging in and using the system immediately. You can also re-enable users at any time if they return.
Autocomplete dropdown with client & contact emails
And that’s all for this update. Hopefully this post was useful and as always, if you have any questions, or would like to see a feature added, don’t hesitate to get in contact. Happy Acrualing!