This is an update on recent customer feedback we collected and the steps we are taking as a result of your comments. Thank you for helping us improve Clear Books.

Feedback system

Recently we introduced a new method to collect your feedback via an in system banner provided by a third party. We did not anticipate how persistent the banner would be so apologies if we appeared overzealous. In the future we will limit the feedback banner to displaying twice per year.

Frequency of changes

We recently hired a new Quality Assurance analyst who, on reviewing the qualitative feedback from the customer survey, reflected that one of the biggest challenges our customers face is the frequency of changes to the system.

To keep innovating we need to keep improving the system and that means changes. But we’ve listened to what you have said and recognise that a system that changes too frequently is confusing.

The solution is to reinvent our Labs module. Labs is where we sometimes put experimental new features for you to try. Going forward all changes will automatically go to Labs.

Periodically, we will take a group of improvements that are sitting in Labs and apply them to the wider customer base. By slowing down the release cycle we will be able to more clearly communicate the group of changes.

We’ll keep you in the loop when we relaunch Labs.

User experience

This summer we are implementing a company wide push on core functionality and user experience. As existing development projects draw to a close we are deferring starting new ones. In addition, some experimental development work has been put on hold. All this freed up development resource is going into improving the user experience of our existing application.

Support

We received a few comments with ideas to strengthen our support team. As a result we have added some accounting expertise to the team with the recruitment of a full time Chartered Accountant. Say hello to Latha.

Communication

In an effort to communicate changes better we have been more proactive with emailing customers when large changes have been released. We are blogging about these changes too and recent updates include dividends and payroll.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Posted by Tim Fouracre

Tim founded Clear Books in 2008. Like many small business owners he worked from home for 15 months to get his startup off the ground. Today Tim enjoys helping Clear Books, its customers and its growing team innovate and achieve. Tim did his GCE O Levels in Ghana.