What's new in YourTradebase?

We’ve been very busy so far in 2016, with a number of improvements to make running your service business even easier.

Here’s what’s new:

All-new page interface

We’ve given the main sections in YourTradebase – leads, quotes, jobs, invoices, customers, and tasks – a visual makeover to make them cleaner and easier to find what you’re looking for.

We’ve also introduced an all-new ‘Actions’ button; presenting you with right actions at the right time.

Here’s the new action button in, er, action…

Faster search, better find

Finding things in YourTradebase should be easier than it is. Well, easier than it was. We’ve rebuilt the main sections so you can now search and filter in real-time.

Just start typing what you’re looking for, or select the type of items you want to view, and the page will update in seconds with relevant results.

Track labour time in minutes

Hours or days not enough for you? Not a problem, you can now track your labour time down to the minute and quote or invoice ultra-accurately for your time.

Just select ‘Minutes’ from the drop-down option when adding labour to your quotes and invoices. Learn more about adding labour to your quotes…

These updates are ready for you to start using today. Just sign in to YourTradebase and try them for yourself.

Always attaching the same files over and again when you email a quote?

Forever changing the subject when emailing invoices?

What you need is more control over email templates… and now you have it!

We’ve just completed a major upgrade of email templates in YourTradebase, and we’re sure it’ll speed up the way you send personalised emails to your customers.

Your email templates now allow you to:

• Template your email subjects
• Use tags to add dynamic content to your emails. What’s a tag? Well, enter {{customer}} into your template and your customer name will automatically be inputted into the email before it’s sent. There are lots of tags for you to choose from. Learn more about using email tags.
• Attach files to your email templates. If you’re always attaching the same files for every quote, invoice or visit confirmation you send, just add the file to the template and you wont have to upload it every single time you want to send an email – it’ll be there waiting for you to click send!

Email templates are live and ready for you to use today.

Visit settings > email templates to start customising the emails you send or read more about how email templates work and how to set them up.

You can now invite new users to access your YTB account, from your business partner or secretary to staff members, thanks to our just launched ‘invite a new user’ feature.

Now anyone who needs to update your account, or see an overview of outstanding actions and invoices and so on, can do so simply by accepting your invitation. Perhaps your wife, husband or partner looks after your admin? You can now invite them as a new user, for only £5 a month.

Each new user has the same access to your account as you but for added security they can’t add or remove other users, change your billing settings, or cancel your account.

For more information read our Help Guide.

We’ve got a small update that delivers big results to your professional image today: email signatures are now live in YourTradebase.

Each user in your account can easily setup their own email signature with as much – or as little – information and contact details as needed.

Email signatures are then automatically included at the bottom of your email messages.

Adding an email signature not only looks professional, it also reduces the chance your email message might be perceived as spam.

Short email messages with no name/contact address can often be seen as potential spam or junk by email clients – so adding an email signature can help.

Customise your email signature today. 

Read more about how to setup your email signature →

We’re delighted to announce that you can now share your quotes with your customers, online.

Your customers can now view their quotes, ask questions, leave comments and accept or decline it – right from their browser or on their mobile.

Here’s what online quotes bring to you and your customers:

Customers view and accept quotes online

When you send a quote – or estimate – to your customer, you can now choose to include a link so your customer can view the quote online, in their browser.

Customers can:

• View your quote
• Accept (or decline) your quote
• Download or print your quote
• Ask questions about your quote

If your customer accepts your quote, or asks you a question, we’ll send you an email to let you know and flag any unread messages for your quotes on your dashboard.

We’ll also let you know when your customer views your quote.

You can preview your quote before you send it, and change the layout and what’s displayed to your customer. Your customers view your quote they way you want it.

Customers ask questions and comment on their quote online

Your customer can ask questions and leave you comments from the online quote.

All comments – and your replies – are displayed on the quote page so you and your customer have a record of all your conversations.

All email messages and replies are saved

All your customer messages – and your replies – are saved in one place on the quote so all your discussions can be viewed at a glance.

No more hunting around for email messages or trying to remember who said what…

We’ll let you know about any new, unread messages on your dashboard and via email.

Learn more about online quotes in YourTradebase

Read more about how online quotes work →

Costing and managing your materials in YourTradebase just got a lot easier.

We’ve just launched an upgrade for materials, which includes: improved material searching and saving, material categories and bulk material editing.

Improved material search

Got a big list of materials to choose from when pricing work? Our improved material search will help you find and calculate costs faster.

Try searching and filtering your materials within the materials panel by clicking the ‘Search your materials list‘ button.

You can search your material list and filter by categories and brands.

Clicking a material adds it to your material costs.

Choose which materials to save

If you want to save a material cost that you’ve added to a quote or invoice, just click the new ‘Save‘ icon for that material.

Saved materials are added to your material list and available to select quickly when pricing work in the future.

Categorise your materials

Add and manage categories for your materials to filter searches and ensure you’re including all the correct materials in each job.

Setup your own material categories in settings > materials then assign categories to your materials.

Edit your materials in bulk

Want to quickly change a lot of materials, categorise your materials or increase material markups? Our new bulk edit feature allows you to manage lots of materials in one go.

To start updating your materials in bulk, go to settings > materials and click ‘Edit all materials in bulk‘.

You can change descriptions, prices or add brand and categories to as many materials as you need. Just make your changes and click ‘Save changes to materials’ when you’re done…

You can even choose to update the markup for lots of materials in one go or adjust the price by checking the relevant materials and selecting an option from the menu that appears.

Duplicate your paperwork with the new ‘Copy’ function for quotes and invoices.

To start copying your paperwork, click the ‘more‘ button from any quote or invoice (you’ll find it next to the ‘edit’ button), and click ‘Copy‘

Select who the customer of the duplicated quote or invoice is and all the paperwork details will be copied over for you.

Paperwork copying is available now from YourTradebase.

Send emails and customise the ‘from’ name, and which email address your customers ‘reply-to’.

Available to change now from the Settings > Emails settings menu

The ‘from’ name displays in your customers mail client when receiving emails from you.

Use the ‘reply-to’ address to change where emails send to when customers click ‘reply’.

Getting too many emails? You can now choose whether or not to send a copy of your emails to yourself.

We’ll remember your choice and use it the next time you send an email.

Happy emailing!

Want to know if your customers have read the quote or invoice you sent?

YourTradebase now tracks when your customer opens the paperwork you’ve emailed to them. So you know your customer has received your invoice or read your quote.

Email opens are available now for all the paperwork you send from now on. You’ll see what’s been opened in the activity feed for your paperwork:

You can also filter your quotes to see which haven’t been opened:

YourTradebase tracks email opens and reads for customers who have images turned on in their emails. For (the minority of) customers that don’t have images turned on, we don’t report opens and reads, but emails are still sent.

All emails opened and read from 22nd March 2015 are now tracked. Sign in to YourTradebase to start seeing when customers open your paperwork.

Want to keep track of your customer surveys, appointments or important events?

Your YourTradebase calendar now allows you to set appointments and events for specific times of the day, so you can more easily keep track of your days.

You can also choose to subscribe to just your appointments in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. You’ll find more details on subscribing to your calendar here.

Want to attach PDFs, plans, documents or images from your tablet or smartphone whilst you’re on the job?

We’ve made it easier to attach your documents to jobs, quotes, invoices or customers when you’re on the move; you can now attach files directly from a dropbox account.

Add an attachment as usual, but you’ll now notice a ‘choose a file from dropbox’ link; click that, and you’ll be invited to login to your dropbox account to select a file to attach.

Choose and upload your file and it’ll be available directly in YourTradebase.

We’re welcoming in 2015 with a host of new features and improvements for YourTradebase.

These changes are designed to improve the way you organise and manage your jobs, as well as a few smaller general improvements.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump in!

Convert your quotes to jobs

Had a quote accepted by your customer? You can now convert quotes to a job in a couple of clicks, schedule a start and end date and start invoicing against it.

Mark a quote as accepted and click ‘convert to job’ to get the job started. Any materials, labour and pricing information will be available right from within your new job.

Job sheets

Got a job about to start? Stay up to date with your notes, what work is required and what materials you need with the new job sheet feature.

Job sheets display the latest information for a specific job and can be downloaded, printed or emailed like any other paperwork in YourTradebase. All your jobs’ works items – including a breakdown of materials and labour – are available to view along with job details and notes.

Easily customise the options you want to display, then print a copy to take on the road or email to your teams on site.

Visit your job, click the new ‘work details’ tab and select ‘View job sheet’ to see job sheets in action.

Schedule your job start and end times

We recently introduced a new calendar function to help you see your upcoming work, and we’ve now improved job scheduling further with the ability to select start and end times for your jobs.

Jobs start times can be scheduled in just a few clicks, and you can browse your work calendar to see available work slots right there and then.

Easier paperwork display options

Creating great looking, professional paperwork is at the core of what YourTradebase does, and we’ve worked to make customising your paperwork even easier.

Select ‘Display options’ on any quote, invoice or job sheet and you’ll see a better way to select how your paperwork is displayed.

With more options and easier navigation you get more control over the look and feel of your paperwork.

Get an overview of your paperwork and your performance

What percentage of your quotes are you winning? How many invoices are outstanding? How many leads are you converting to won?

We’ve updated your quotes, leads and invoices pages to make it easy to answer these questions and see how you’re performing.

As always, all of these updates are available the next time you sign into YourTradebase.