Hi all - Jesse from FusionInvoice.com here. I’m a big fan of bootstrapped.fm, which is the primary reason I’m here, but I’m also a developer spending a lot of my free time on free and open source software looking to venture out into that other world where I try to make people give me their money for my software. A lot of it will be experimentation, really, because I just don’t know how else to approach it, but it should be a fun journey nonetheless, as long as I manage to learn along the way. If you see a highly introverted sponge in the corner, it’s probably just me soaking in all of your ideas and input and whatnot. You probably won’t see it talking too much.
Hi Jesse. Took you too long to find your way here!
I’m actually very interested in the approach you’re taking with FusionInvoice. Would be great if you post any progress on here; lots of people seem to be interested in running a business around open source.
I was debating on whether or not I should join since I don’t really have anything to offer in terms of bootstrapping a company just yet, but decided I should go ahead and have fun with it even if it turns into a train wreck, and that it would be in my best interests to interact with people much smarter than myself on this kind of stuff.
Hey Jesse, I checked it out.
Do you have this tied to a payment source, stripe, paypal, any gateways? Do you have a client portal built or client registration? Can the clients be split into specific groups with separate logins? I’ve been working with Blesta trying out their new release, but its hard to get cooperation sometimes with the developers on some things like plugins to enhance the experience.
Yes.
Yes.
Not sure what you mean by that, but a guest login can be given access to see one or multiple client accounts. Typically for a client login, it would be 1:1, but it can be 1:n as well, in case you need to allow an accountant or someone like that in the system.
Thanks for the reply Jesse. What I mean by Groups is categorizing clients into service groups like (Web Services, Resellers, Contractors, Vendors etc.) and have separated portal pages for each group when they log in so you can pitch them on items only related to their category group. While some of these sound like just vendors for payables, we also charge some of them for things (as a client) we sell to them as well.
No. FusionInvoice is a tool for people to use to manage their clients, quotes, invoices and payments. There are no means of pushing sales through the application. When a client logs in (in the upcoming version), their dashboard shows them any quotes needing action, as well as invoices which they can make payment on. Otherwise, a client can interact with the system by sending them a unique URL from the system which shows them the quote or invoice you’re working on for them and allows them to approve / reject / make payment, etc. Does not provide sales features out fo the box.
But FusionInvoice is open source? It could be custom coded for the type of usage I was talking, yes?
Yes, of course. I was answering from an out of the box point of view.
Been using FusionInvoice since before it was FusionInvoice. Not sure if you’re the original/sole developer, but either way, nice work on a great product.
Yep, that would be me, and thanks! Always glad to hear these things.