Last week, SohoOS, celebrated hitting its 1M user milestone by rebranding as ‘PlanetSoho.com‘.
Originally designed as a utility for SOHO (small office, home office) businesses — main features being Invoicing, Web Presence and Contact Management — the rebranding also represents a shift from pure utility to a community hub for micro-businesses.
Today the company is announcing a new iPhone app called ‘Get Paid‘ (iTunes link), designed to help small businesses get paid on the go by being able to invoice and collect payments at customer locations.
(Android users hold tight, you will not be neglected. A version is in the works and the company expects to release it sometime in Q1 2013.)
The current version lets PlanetSoho users collect payments in the forms of cash, check and PayPal. Credit card payments are on the way and will be facilitated via card scanning using the iPhone’s camera (powered by Flint.com), as well dongle (the company declined to comment on which maker’s).
I got to play with the app this week and if I were a small businesses owner, especially one with out-calls, I’d find it pretty useful for two main reasons:
The first, managing invoicing is central. Users can quickly issue a new invoice, but even more importantly for small businesses, the app makes it really easy to manage overdue ones. The entire ‘back-office’ experience is designed for mobile so it’s effortless to see which invoices are Due, Overdue and Paid.
Subtle CRM features are the second app highlight for me. See, the web version of PlanetSoho revolves heavily around the customer ‘entity’ (CRM first, invoicing second). The app, however, flips that on its head and revolves around the invoice. Instead then of a list of customer accounts with related actions such as Email, Call and SMS, the app attaches these to the invoice status. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but sometimes you don’t need ground-breaking UX to make an app really useful — and this is a case-in-point.
Ron Daniel, CEO, explained that the company will continue to heavily target the Accounting, Finance, Computer Services, Construction and Retail verticals. He expects the new app to go a long way in helping users get the most out of their clienteles.
Finally, as with the last time we wrote about the company, it’s still at a pace of adding 1500 new (global) businesses every day.
