Introducing Easy Edit for QuickBooks Online

Today we released a beta version of our new “Easy Edit” feature. You can find it under the Data menu in OE Companion. I’m really excited about this feature, because it eliminates a major pain point of using both QuickBooks Online and OE Companion. If you’re wondering what the heck it does, read on…

Have you ever tried to add or edit a large volume of data in QuickBooks Online? Takes a while, doesn’t it? Actually it takes a while in the desktop version too. I’m certainly not faulting QuickBooks. They have made it about as easy as possible. There just aren’t a lot of good design options for data entry on thousands of customer records that have 50-100 fields each. Similarly, in OE Companion trying to update inventory counts for hundreds or thousands of items individually is quite cumbersome. What you really need is to use software that was built for editing large amounts of data.

So we set out to solve that problem, and we did! Easy Edit is the result. It is a 3-step process:

1. Download your data to Excel (or another program).
2. Make your adds/edits in Excel (or another program).
3. Upload your data back to OE Companion, which then sends it to QuickBooks Online.

It sounds ridiculously simple, and it is. That’s the point. It’s very simple and it’s very fast. This will save you a TON of time if you do lots of data entry with QuickBooks Online. If you are paying someone to do data entry (and I know many of you are!), this feature will save you money. There is no doubt about that.

Right now you can only use Easy Edit for items (products/services), but we’ll have support for other things shortly after we gather some feedback from our users about the way Easy Edit works. Please email me (neal@oecompanion.com) if you have any questions, and be sure to let us know what you think about Easy Edit.

OE Companion is Online!

The beta version of OE Companion is now available. To create your free beta account, go to http://www.oecompanion.com/.

This release includes mainly the inventory and purchase order functionality of OE Companion. Other features will be added as soon as they are available.

The beta trial will last somewhere between six weeks and several months. As described in a previous post, a monthly fee will be required to continue to use the service after the trial ends. Active beta testers (those who send us feedback) will receive a 50% discount on the first three months of service after the beta trial ends.

Certainly I want to eliminate any bugs or errors in the software, but most importantly I want your feedback on how well OE Companion works in your business. Your input will drive the future direction of the product.

I can’t wait to hear your feedback.

Questions on OE Companion Beta

Sometime in late March or early April, we will make the beta trial of OE Companion publicly available. (If you are interested in participating in the beta, sign up here.) The initial beta release will contain primarily the inventory and purchase order functionality of OE Companion.

The remaining features will be phased in over a period of a few months. During this time that the software is in a "beta" phase, you are free to use all the features of the software at no charge. We just ask that you provide feedback to help us improve the software.

At some point in the future, once we feel it is ready, we will move from a beta phase into a commerically available phase. At that point, the software will cease to be free, and it will require a monthly fee. Beta testers will receive a discount for an initial period, to ease the transition. Pricing has not been announced yet, but it will be announced before the beta begins.

I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. Please contact us if you have further questions. We will continue to provide additional information as it becomes available.