Bootstrap

New customer testimonial page

We’ve received so many nice words of encouragement from users over the months that we wanted to share the feedback with others. Rest assured, we also receive plenty of comments on how we can make the site better, which is tremendously helpful. But we thought it would be good to showcase some of our users and the nice things they have to say about Bootstrap. As such, last night we rolled out a new customer testimonials page, where you can read what other entrepreneurs have to say about using Bootstrap.

Feel free to click on the links to each customer’s web site to learn more about your fellow entrepreneurs and their businesses. Cheers!

Released: Improved security and performance

Based once again on some great customer feedback, today we released a number of enhancements to improve the Bootstrap experience.

The biggest change was the roll out of SSL, which stands for Secure Socket Layer. This technology encrypts the information that is passed back and forth between your browser and Bootstrap’s servers (including the business income and expenses you enter.) It’s an added security feature that is commonly found on e-commerce sites (where credit card numbers tend to get entered.) The two things that you can see to know it’s working are a URL that starts with “https” and a closed lock icon in your browser’s status bar.

The other improvements we made were to improve the speed of the site. We have always said having too many users sign up too quickly is a nice problem to have, but it is a problem nonetheless. So, we added a bunch of memory, doubled the number of processors (CPUs), and optimized the database. And for those of you who like to know more of the technical details, we also doubled the number of Mongrel instances:-)

Thanks again for all the feedback. Please keep it coming!

Track your FreshBooks invoices in Bootstrap

Since launching a few months ago, customers have been asking for the ability to track invoices in addition to payments received. In keeping with our goal to be the simplest and most open accounting and bookkeeping software for small businesses, today we released an easy-to-use integration with FreshBooks’ online invoicing application.

By simply entering two pieces of information about your FreshBooks account, you will enable Bootstrap to regularly download all of your invoices, payments and clients directly from FreshBooks. Now, you can not only track the money that you’ve been paid, but also keep tabs on money you’ve earned but haven’t yet received.

Just go to the settings tab and click on the FreshBooks menu item. Once you check the box to enable FreshBooks invoicing, all you need to do is enter your FreshBooks login ID and API token (just follow the on-screen help to learn where to find this.) That’s all there is to it.

Issue found and fixed - Taxes tab

Last night we uncovered an issue that caused the Taxes page not to load.  While the page worked correctly through Monday’s important 3rd quarter filing deadline, several users encountered problems in the days following.

We’ve since corrected the problem (there was an invalid date in our system database) and the page again works fine.

To those customers who experienced the issue, we apologize and thank you for your patience.

By popular demand - export your individual transactions

One of the most common questions we’ve received in our first couple of months in the market has been whether customers can export their information if they decide they don’t like the experience (or if we start charging too much money.) When we launched, we supported the ability to export your income and expense report. However, users wanted the ability to export their individual transactions. Well, we promised we would add that functionality - and so we have. Starting today, users can now export all of their individual income and expense transactions.

To get your individual income and expense transactions out of Bootstrap, simply go to the “Reports” tab where, at the bottom of the detailed income and expense report, you’ll see a link to “Export Transactions.” Click on that link to get a comma-separated list (which imports nicely into Excel and many other applications) of all of your transactions for that time period. Simply choose a different time period to get more or fewer transactions.

Unlike a lot of accounting applications on the market, we will not hold your data hostage. It’s your information, you should be free to do with it as you wish. Now you can:-)

Bootstrap in the news

With this afternoon’s launch, we had some good initial coverage, most notably by Anthony Ha at VentureBeat.

We also got profiled on Killerstartups

Bootstrap is now open to the public

For entrepreneurs, self employed individuals, and small businesses that file a Schedule C at year’s end - there’s now a simple online bookkeeping web site designed to make running your businesses easier. After a couple of months in “invitation-only” mode, we have officially opened up Bootstrap to the public: www.gobootstrap.com. It’s still in Beta mode (meaning it’s not 100% complete) and remains completely free.

Here are some of the key features:
• Easily track income and expenses, using lots of shortcuts to minimize time
• Quickly see how your business is doing at all times
• Be reminded about estimated tax deadlines and get help calculating how much you owe
• Keep track of how much you pay contractors and freelancers - this will come in handy at the end of the year for sending 1099s
• Export your data in comma-separated format (which can be read by Excel and most financial applications)

You can see for yourself at our product tour. Enjoy and please send us your feedback on how we can improve the site.