Brixx Update: auto-save, new subscription component and more

This week we released our first update since the summer. It’s been a busy time here at Brixx. We’ve increased the size of our team and with their help, launched a guide to starting a business!

By far the biggest ongoing technical project for us has been Xero integration, which is progressing apace.

I hope to have some news for you on that exciting front in the new year.

But now, without further ado, here are the features we’ve released in this update.

Interface improvements

The first thing you notice when you open the app today will be some new designs that have been applied to controls in components.

 This is part of a wider interface overhaul that we’ll be implementing in 2020, which will add more tools to the app for scenario testing and plan comparison.

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Auto-Save!

Long a requested feature, we have added auto-save to component forms and Settings.

When you make a change in a component form or in Settings, you will still get a “Save” and “Cancel” option, but if you click away onto another component or a different tab in the interface, the information you have entered will automatically save. 

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Subscription Component for recurring revenue

The subscription component is a brand new income-generating component designed specifically to model recurring revenue. This has been repeatedly requested, and now, it’s here! 

A big part of modelling subscriptions is deferring revenue. What does this mean? Imagine you are a business with an annual subscription offering. You sell usage of your product or service over a 12 month period, but only receive a cash payment once every 12 months. Deferring the revenue on this sale spreads the revenue side of this transaction evenly over the 12 months of the subscription.

This results in a Profit & Loss forecast that takes into account the period of time over which you deliver the product service, and not just the cash received from the initial transaction. On the Balance Sheet, a prepayment liability completes this financial picture, showing the value of the subscription you are still bound to deliver to your customers each month.

In addition to deferring revenue, the Subscription component lets you set:

• Subscription price over time
• Number of units sold each month
• How frequently the subscription renews
• Renewal times of existing subscriptions
• Cancellations and refunds. 
• Associated Cost of Sales or Inventory components
• VAT

Whether you’re a SAAS business or have other sources of recurring revenue, this component will help model your revenue streams and cash flow with a few simple inputs. Login now and take a look.

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Employee Direct Cost option

This new option lets Employee components be treated as direct costs in reports.

Employee components currently post their figures to the Staff Costs line of the Profit & Loss report and the Employee Costs Paid line of the Cash Flow Report. If you want to treat these costs as direct costs of sale, you can now do this with a new toggle at the end of the Employee component form. Perfect for businesses where staff costs are directly related to revenue generation.

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Popup guides

We’ve added the first of several popup tips to help new and returning Brixx users get to grips with the app. Let us know what you think!

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Bugs fixed:

We’re making small improvements to the app all the time, whether it’s decreasing load times, or getting grid lines pixel-perfect. Occasionally we come across bugs in the app, and fixing them immediately goes to the top of our agenda.

Here’s a shortlist of what we’ve fixed in this release:

• Custom dates not working in Internet Explorer.
• Section ordering can appear to change.
• Some Balance Sheet actual values calculating variance incorrectly.
• Unable to set Opening Balance accounts receivable and accounts payable to post cash to month 1 of the Cash Flow.

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Next up – a look ahead to 2020:

We have BIG plans for the next year. 

Before 2020 gets underway, you’ll see a new report covering subscription numbers to accompany the new component.

Once the new year rolls around we’ll be looking at:

• Xero Integration
• Customisable Dashboards
• Prepayments
• Scenario testing and plan comparison tools

That’s it for this update, see you next time! Keep planning!

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