Royalties with QuickBooks Online Edition

Here is our DashBook version 6 announcement, which includes an option to work with QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE). (NOTE: Intuit killed this ability, but we re-instated; desktop communication will continue as well)

We are proud to offer DashBook version 6 which builds upon years of work and customer feedback.

High on the list of improvements is speed, but we also have added more power and flexibility as well.

For DashBook v6, we restructured the royalty calculation to make it more efficient. Now royalties calculate faster than ever -- as much as 30 times faster!

You can also view order information much faster, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of products. And now deleting an order is nearly instant, no matter how large it is.

Importing sales has also sped up significantly when creating shipments.

But the larger increases in importing speed come from a new feature. Many sales reports, especially in the music business, show very detailed transactions, such that a product shows on multiple rows. You could have only 200 products, yet receive a sales file of over 30 thousand lines. DashBook v6 now has an import map option to consolidate the sales down to fewer rows. Not only will the import be much faster, but everything else downstream, such as working with the order, calculating royalties on it, and even rendering reports will be faster.

All of the DashBook v6 speed enhancements can save hours over time. We've seen it.

Our sales import is also much more powerful than before. Version 5 had a handy Skip Lines feature that allows pulling just certain rows into an order. Version 6 has changed this to Modify Data. You can request rows be dropped based on matching or not matching criteria, and can even replace a cell's content prior to import. This is especially useful when teamed with our new ability to import a single order having mixed "sales channels." For example, Modify Data can change a phrase on the report to match your sales channel phrase, so that the order and royalties understand which line item is using which sales channel.

So with mixed sales channels, a single order can now do what used to require two or more. Easily import sales of different types, such as physical vs digital, with a single import and resulting order.

Did I write Sales Channel? Well, in recognition of how versatile this feature is, we've changed the name to be Sale Class. It's not just for different sales avenues, but many different scenarios which may require a different royalty arrangement.

Version 6 also provides updated import maps for Amazon Kindle, new maps for Barnes and Noble Nook, The Orchard, Gardners, and more. If you use a common distributor sales file that we don't provide an import map for, let's add it so everyone can benefit.

Our order import, which pulls in multiple separate orders from a single file, has also been enhanced to use a contact's new default sales commission, which was critical for one of our clients handling distribution.

Royalties: While we formerly had a Less Other amount which was a fixed value per unit sold in your currency, version 6 now gives the option to take a percent off instead. So if you need to deduct 30% extra prior to calculating your royalty percent, this will be straightforward now.

If you have ever told DashBook to record a bunch of royalty payments, only to later realize that you used the wrong date, DashBook v6 now has a bulk payments delete option which will make you happy.

Reserves: DashBook never handled reserves before, but we have this as an optional module today for those who need it. Need something special? We can do it.

The QuickBooks Integration module has been great for getting data back and forth between DashBook and QuickBooks, but that only worked for the QuickBooks desktop edition before. Now in version 6, this optional module can communicate with Intuit's QuickBooks Online Edition.  (NOTE: Intuit killed this ability, but we re-instated; desktop communication will continue as well)

Reports: We have tweaked a number of reports. One new entrant is an Inventory Sales report.

And for distributing reports, we finally have Batch Email in the system as a beta feature pending more usage and feedback. To circumvent spam walls, you provide your email server information for DashBook to use in sending out reports.

And many more minor changes:
Do you use DashBook's database backup ability? We've made that much better with a very simple change - the option to append the date to the file name so keeping track of database versions is a lot easier.

The selection list on the product screen is now sort-able and includes name, title, publication date, and default product code. This makes it easy to see all products of a given title, for example. Some of you have this already.

We have plans for many more improvements to DashBook version 6, and hope you'll join with us on this journey.