Zahara News – September 2021

New suppliers module – released today

We have just released our new Suppliers module. You can access this from the Business Menu – (Suppliers Z3) or when in Zahara 3, the Suppliers link. This new functionality is a complete re-write of the supplier management with better importing of suppliers and products. Another key feature here is the ability to batch change values – like payment terms and numerous other fields. You can also categorise your supplier much more easily with tags and classify them as “Trusted” (see below). 

We have kept the original suppliers module as well so you can compare the two. 

Staff expenses 

We will shortly release a new staff expenses module on the mobile app. This allows claims to be created with photos or documents added to each line item. Claims can then be held on the phone and released when ready for approval. There is a dedicated help article explaining how it will work. We expect this version of the mobile app to be in the respective App Stores early next week. 

New Invoice Create 

We also have a new invoice create module that is very close to release. We will release it to a select few clients initially for testing before releasing it to the wider community. It’s a really nice user experience,  much smoother, with the ability to handle much higher numbers of line items without any impact on speed. If you would like to be a Test Pilot and try this can you please let Ruth know (rw@myzahara.net) and she will enable it for you on release.  

Invoice Auto Pilot 

Another feature in the release queue is invoice Autopilot. Zahara’s take on “straight through processing”. You will be able to enable this for your “Trusted Suppliers” – those where you know the OCR recognition is always perfect – and then have invoices emailed into Zahara that go straight into a workflow. This could mean that orders and invoices that match perfectly go straight into your finance system without touching the sides. The main thing is you are in control. 

Zahara 3 

We have set ourselves the goal of getting a consistent look and feel of Zahara 3 by April 2022. We aren’t saving it all up to release in one go. We are working one module at a time. The developers are now onto Business Settings and then we will start on Divisions and Workflow. We are on a journey and we are so glad you are with us for the ride!

Faster and Better 

Covid affected every business in different ways. For us it was development. Not only were developers off ill with Covid from time to time, we also lost quite a few developers in a short space of time. When a developer works from home, they can pick and choose who to work for. So some opted for things they thought were more funky or cool. How rude! Zahara is cool! We overcame though. Seriously though, all our stats and metrics suggest we are running faster, with less bugs now, which makes for happier customers and a happier team. That is encouraging but also, having recently opened a new office in central Bath, it’s absolutely fantastic to have the team back together, collaborating face to face, baking cakes for one another and drinking the occasional beverage on a Thursday night.  We are truly a team again with the number one goal of  Make Zahara Better and Make the Customers Happy.

Thank you for your input and at times patience. 

ps. Pass it on. If your Zahara admin seldom logs into Zahara – can you email them a link to this article so they don’t miss out on the news.