We’re pleased to announce Release 1.5 of uCollect with the new Invitation feature. Now you can send an invitation to a contact to have them sign-up for pre-authorized collection. They can’t just pay one invoice and stop. You can select which gateway(s) you invite them to use (if you have more than one) and you don’t even need an invoice in the accounting system yet. All you need is at least one gateway setup for Pay Now and you’re away. Click here for more details.
Now you can see the uCollect status of your Xero invoices and contacts right from within Xero! You need to be using Google Chrome as your browser for this feature to work. You can install it (at no cost) from the Google Chrome store by searching for “ucollect”.
Once installed, the extension will display the invoice or contact status from uCollect at the bottom of the invoice and contact display screens. You can see the gateway that the contact is assigned to (or that no gateway is assigned) and whether the contact or invoice is suspended or the invoice has an installment plan. You can also click through to uCollect to change any of the settings as well as to the Pay Now screen (if set up). This would allow you (for example, and subject to correct gateway setup) to take Credit Cards or ACH payment over the phone in a few easy clicks!
When you are viewing an invoice the extension will show you the uCollect Status for this invoice:
If you click on the Status you will be taken to the uCollect screen with the current contact displayed.
If you have Pay Now enabled in your uCollect organization then you will also see a link to the Pay Now screen. You can use this (if properly configured) to accept credit card or ACH orders over the phone!
Please note that should Xero change their web interface this extension could stop working.
This extension does not change any of the data in your Xero ledger, and only adds code to the xero.com site presentation layer. It does not impact any other site, submit any data to Xero.com or change any of your data displayed. It simply adds a few bits of additional and useful information connected to your uCollect.biz account.
If you are not seeing the uCollect data please ensure that the email address you use to log into Xero is registered as a user in the uCollect.biz account for the same ledger.
If you need support for this extension please log into uCollect.biz and use the “Get live support” app on the site.
We’ve spent the last few weeks working on the next major piece of functionality for uCollect. And now it is available to everyone. In addition to a few small fixes and tweaks we have released the following functionality changes:
Pay Now
The Pay Now feature is a huge one! The PayNow option allows you to integrate with Xero’s Payment Services to allow your customers to pay their invoice online. But not only that, using uCollect’s payment services option your customers can even sign up for the automated billing using selected gateways.
The PayNow option is only available on selected gateways (they need to meet certain standards for us to be able to offer this feature). You can search for available gateways here – if you check the “Pay Now” option only those gateways that support the PayNow feature will show up. Right now you can use Stripe, EziDebit (Credit Cards – NZ and AU) and EziDebit (Direct Debit – AU). We are working on more gateways with PayNow features.
There are a few steps that you need to do to get the PayNow option working so please check the full details on our help page.
That pretty much completes the functionality portfolio for uCollect for a while (although there are still a few small surprises to come). If there is a feature or option that you would like to see please don’t hesitate to contact me.
We are actively working on the following payment gateways which we hope to be released over the next month or so:
If you have a need that we are not addressing yet please let me know. We are also preparing our partner marketing plan and will be attending Xerocon (Xero’s annual conference for Partners) in Auckland and Denver (and maybe even Melbourne).
We’ve added a handy “Sign in with Google” button to our sign-up and login pages.
If your uCollect login is the same as your Google+ email address then you can log in with two clicks. You will still need to create a password as part of your uCollect user profile (so that you can sign in without this option), but this will certainly make it easier for Google+ users. If you want to change your uCollect user settings so that it is the same as your Google+ account you can do this by clicking on your profile name in the uCollect banner. If you don’t have a Google+ profile – too bad!