Finances Updates: Little Changes, Big Impact
Tidy is growing fast — we’re constantly working on the platform, adding new and useful things, removing heavy and clunky bits. However, moving fast comes at a cost — things can get missed and inconsistencies may start to appear.
Sometimes you have to take a breath and go through things and tidy up. That’s what we’ve done with Finances. We’ve also spent time solidifying the foundations to make things clearer and support bigger things in the future.
Summary
If you don’t have time to read what we did or why, here’s the short version:
- Fixed consistency issues with labels throughout finances including, Transactions List, Invoices, Deposits, and Expenses.
- Added a new Actions Menu to the Transactions List giving better access to the related Invoices, Deposits, and Expenses.
- Added sortable headers to all the tables in Finances.
- Removed .pdf reports but replaced with more detailed .csv data exports
- Money Owed / Due Tab updated and renamed to Awaiting Payment
- Added All Tab allowing you to keep track of all of your Invoices, Expenses and Deposits
The little changes
We rolled out a handful of little fixes to address consistency issues that were making finances more confusing than they needed to be. Cleaning these up will make Finances simpler to follow and easier to keep on track.
Fixed consistency issues with labelling of invoices and transactions
We removed some legacy terms; we used to call it Description in different parts of the platform, but now we call it Reference everywhere. We also re-named Number to create consistency between Invoices, Expenses and Deposits. It used to be named a mix of Ref No. and Invoice #, which was confusing.
Fixed finances settings
Updated tooltips to make it clearer how Number works. It’s a super useful feature and very simple, but our tool tips and labels were making it a bit more confusing than it needed to be.
Updated Refund panel
The refund panel now shows extra information to make it clearer what you were refunding and to whom. We also added notification to let you know it was successful which we had missed before. It should be super clear what’s going on now.
Updated Invoices
Invoices now highlight Sent Status, letting you know if the Invoice has been sent out. We also added some additional fields for consistency like ID, which is the unique Invoice ID.
Updated Transaction Details panel
We now show more information on the Transaction Details panel (found by selecting the Transaction ID in the Transactions Table or via the new Actions Menu). We also added the ability to update the descriptions from here making keeping references nice and organised — way easier.
Updated all .csv exports
We’ve made sure all of our .csv exports are providing all the right information. Fixed some issues where not all data columns were being exported — giving better access to all of your data and greater flexibility.
Removed .pdf (print) generation for reports
Our .pdf reports weren’t performing as well as we liked. We’ve moved them for now but replaced it with the ability to Export your data to .csv in each tab.
Added Reminder Counter under sent status
A handy little counter has been added to Invoices and Expenses letting you know if a reminder has been sent on Invoices and Expenses that are awaiting payment.
Added Sortable Headers
All of our Finance tables now have sortable headers — order your data in the way you want!
The Bigger Ones
When Tidy Finances first started, we emphasised categories as a way to make keeping track of money as simple as possible. Recently we realised, that to keep growing with our customers, our Finances needed a little bit more power — namely, more granular control over how your money was being recorded.
Behind the scenes, we worked for many months to introduce one of the biggest changes to the platform; Line Items for Invoices. Since an Invoice can have many Line Items and each Line Item can have it’s own Category, the old way of displaying things based on Categories stopped making sense. With our most recent changes, we’ve re-worked how Invoices are displayed on the platform making them easier to manage and keep track of further consolidating the big shift.
Old way: single Invoice, single Category (single Item)
New way: single Invoice, multiple Categories (multiple Line Items)
In the future this is going to allow you to sell shop items alongside Memberships and Event tickets. This means Invoices become the central point connecting everything. Every Transaction will be traced back to an Invoice.
Added new Tab: Invoices, Expenses, and Deposits
- Added new tab All which shows every Invoice, Expense, and Deposit in the system.
- Moved Money Owed Due under Invoices, Expenses, and Deposits as sub-tab.
- Moved Drafts under Invoices, Expenses, and Deposits as sub-tab.
- Updated table All tab table columns; added Number (which links to invoice), added Status, added Sent.
- Replaced Money Owed / Due with Awaiting Payment. This tab now shows sent status, making it easier to follow up outstanding Invoices.
- Made links to Invoices more consistent and clear.
- Improved navigation between Invoice and all Invoices. Added a link to make it possible to switch back to all invoices from an individual Invoice.
Issues addressed:
- Hard to find an Invoice after it was created.
- When an Invoice was paid, it would ‘disappear’ from the system.
- Hard to see if an Invoice had been followed up on.
- Couldn’t navigate from an Invoice to all Invoices easily.
Transactions Table updates
- Replaced legacy Ref. No. with ID (Transaction) column — linked to Transaction Details.
- Removed Category column (legacy).
- Fixed description label; now called Reference.
- Added Actions Menu.
- Table columns now sortable.
Issues addressed:
- Inconsistency with Ref. No. column.
- Difficulty accessing the Invoices related to the Transaction.
Added Actions Menu to Transactions Table
- Added menu to Transactions Table that links back to the Invoice, Expense or Deposit a Transaction is related to.
- Other actions include; View Details, Refund, Mark/Unmark as Reconciled.
Issues addressed:
- Accidental reconciliation marking.
- Difficulty finding the Invoice, Deposit, or Expense related to a Transaction.
- Difficulty knowing how to make a Refund on a Transaction.
- Difficulty finding out more information about a Transaction.
- Difficulty updating and maintaining references and notes on a Transaction.
Automatic Transaction References for Events / Memberships / Shop Items
- For Events we use the <event name>.
- For Memberships we use the <membership level name>.
- For Shop Orders we use ‘Order’ + <order name>.
We hope you enjoy these changes and they make your life a little easier.
As always, we’re open to feedback and happy to help with getting used to any of these updates. Reply in the comments below or chat to us in Tidy.
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