Frustration is an understatement
I started out using Billings a few years back, and was really happy with it. The only problem I had, was that my business has 2 people and that was a 1-man program.
SO - when Billings Pro came out, I jumped to upgrade, and was REALLY looking forward to the improvements in productivity, teamwork and reduced headaches.
Well - that is yet to happen! And my hair is pretty much all gone...
In short:
- The app syncs every 5 minutes, making the timer, estimating and invoicing pretty much unresponsive for at least 2 minutes each time. Why cant it be an option to set how often (or whether to) sync automatically? It might be "vital" for a 20-man team to have it this way, but for a 2-man operation its ridiculous. (And yes, I did ask this the developer, and nothing much happened. I wouldnt think this would be that complicated to implement...)
- Took me several instances of spending up to an hour each, restoring back-ups, to learn: you DONT make an Invoice while the darn thing is syncing, or Ill end up with NO INVOICE and my (valuable) SLIPS GONE BEYOND RECOVERY!!! So unless I had restored a previous days backup (takes forever) and somehow reconstructed the timed slips for the last days work, Id be in deep trouble - NOTHING TO INVOICE AND GET PAID FOR!!
I finally figured out a workaround: I always have the Options Dialog open (Command + "comma") and switch it to the Blueprints view, that shows a spinning wheel next to the Sync button, and when its there, I know better than to do any Estimating or Invoicing - go do something else while His Holyness Billings Pro decides to finish a sync that was unnecessary inthe first place (2 - 20 minutes...) (I just finished timing a sync: 36 minutes...)
- "Slightly" annoying was the discovery, that when syncing is happening, the timer in the menu bar tends to not register with the app, only pretends to. I.e., I click to start a timer for a job, the timer turns red, showing its on, only to discover 2 hours later, that the time has not been logged in the app at all!! Again - I learned not even to try and start a timer when Billings Pro syncs - I should add up the time I have to wait every day for the tool thats supposed to make my work faster... (and maybe send a bill to Marketcircle...)
(Another recent workaround was getting an iPhone, and at least the timers on that one seem to be OK. There the major issue is trying to sync timers back and forth between phone and Mac - hoping that I wont lose more than 10 minutes when trying to exchange data between Mac and iPhone when either leaving to see a client or returning and trying to make an Invoice for the work done.
- In case youre wondering, Ive spent quite some time with support, and started to feel Im considered part of their technical support team (i.e. my time and willingness started to feel like being taken for granted in trying to debug - and I was more than willing to offer help at first!) (except for getting the paycheck for it). I pretty much gave up on working with their support - its not practical in my experience, as it takes up my valuable time and doesnt get me a PRODUCT.
- In trying to debug something, I was given a 1.5.6 pre-release by Marketcircle Support. Despite that, the App store keeps prompting me to update to 1.5.5. AND this was even happening when I was running 1.5.5, and updated to it from the App store...
I agree that the concept of this App is beyond GREAT and Im so mad at what I perceive to be insufficient attention to user feedback and care about making it a PERFECT product (that WILL sell itself through word of mouth like wildfire), as opposed to just "selling more units".
Cool Cat Creative about Billings Pro
