Product Updates: Product Priorities for Q3 2023

Observant readers of our product roadmap the last few quarters might have noticed that the list of things we were sharing wasn't extensive for a company that had half of its people working in product, design and engineering.

There's a good reason for this — we've been busy working on a significant upgrade. More on that, and our other priorities in Q3, below!

Announcing Accelo v4

For the last few quarters, our formidable product, design and engineering teams have been working hard on a major upgrade to Accelo. We're calling it Accelo v4, and it is the largest single upgrade to Accelo in six years. We've been working on it for around 12 months now, and we're aiming to deliver it to our users in Q4!

The new Projects Experience in Accelo V4

This makes Q3 a pivotal quarter for our engineering team in particular, as we work to get our new Project View screen to alpha, joining the already released Sales View and Tickets View screens. 

If you're a current Accelo user and this is news to you, come on over to our Community and see the exciting information we've been sharing for a few months now, as our teams have been taking our users on a journey to v4!

A few highlights within the Community include:

• Accelo v4 announcement post
• Sales View Alpha release announcement post
• Tickets View Design Preview and release of the Tickets Alpha posts
• Projects View Design Preview post
• Two Behind the Scenes Webinars: one detailing the tech and architecture and one detailing the design of Accelo v4

We're anticipating a beta release in the first half of Q4 and will launch, on an opt-in basis, the new version by the end of the year. And of course, we'll continue sharing more progress updates and behind-the-scenes insights via our Community!

New Mobile App

Along with the new version of our web application, we're also working on a brand new version of our Android and iOS mobile applications. Harnessing the new technology behind Accelo v4 along with new mobile technology that is doubling the productivity of our mobile team, we're building on the public beta we announced in May with a major release of new features including our new Stream, Messages and Events. 

Home Screen

Log Time Screen

Check out our May blog post for instructions on how to get into the beta, and keep an eye on the Community for updates about the release later in Q3.

Accelo Payments Public Beta (USA)

As you might have seen, we launched Accelo Payments in a private beta in late April. During that time, we worked with a special group of early beta testers to refine the payment process, making it as quick and easy for your clients to pay their invoices, and for you to get funds into your bank account, as possible. To date, these beta testers have processed more than $300,000 in payments from more than 400 of their clients. This quarter, we're excited to make Payments available to all of our US-based users by launching in public beta.

The ability to store a client's payment details — credit cards and ACH  — and use those details to process payment for an invoice automatically has been one of the top requested features for a number of years and will be a godsend for many small business owners trying to manage their cash flow.

This public beta will be open to all US-based businesses (i.e., you need to be a US legal entity with a US bank account), and is the final step before we leave the beta period and launch for general availability.

While it isn't scheduled for Q3, we have done the preliminary work to set ourselves up to support Canadian businesses next, and we are hoping to support other countries with Accelo Payments in the future.

Client Portal Upgrade

The Accelo client portal is a popular but less frequently used part of the platform, which is why it isn't as up to date as we'd like it to be. The good news is that along with our other upgrade work (see above), we're giving the client portal a much-needed makeover!

A new, streamlined look for Accelo's client portal

While this work is being undertaken in conjunction with our Accelo v4 upgrade, there's a chance we might be able to roll it out in advance (since the client portal is somewhat distinct from the main web application). We'll be sure to share more information through the quarter around specific timing in our Community.

More To Come

Get the latest product information and engage with other Accelo users and support in the Accelo Community. Filled with insightful discussions, support Q-and-As, product updates and blogs, the Community helps you find the best ways to use Accelo to manage your client work. Connect with other professional services providers to share ideas and learn ways they have successfully managed their client work.