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| Deleted: <p>This is a build update from Zorderz.</p> |
| Added: <p>Today Zorderz 1.2 is released.</p> |
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Deleted: <p>Zorderz is small business management software you install on your own WordPress site, free and open source on GitHub.</p>
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| Added: <p>Zorderz is small business management software you run on your own WordPress site, and this version adds a minimal estimate and invoice creator to the built-in apps.</p>
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| Deleted: <p>Today's release, version 1.2, is about standing on its own.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>We made Zorderz lean less on outside services for the basics, starting with invoicing.</p> |
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| Deleted: <h2>Small business management software you can start with</h2> |
| Added: <h2>The new estimate and invoice app</h2> |
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| Deleted: <p>Until now, sending an estimate or an invoice meant connecting Zorderz to an outside billing service.</p> |
| Added: <p>Normally you would connect your own invoicing software, like QuickBooks or FreshBooks.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>That is still the best setup if you already pay for one, and Zorderz still connects to those.</p> |
| Added: <p>If you do not have one yet, that is fine, because a basic version is now built into Zorderz.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>But not every business has one yet, and some just want to begin.</p> |
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| Deleted: <!-- wp:paragraph --> |
| Deleted: <p>So version 1.2 includes a basic estimate and invoice generator built right in.</p> |
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Deleted: <p>You build an estimate from your own price list, turn it into an invoice with one click, and record payments against it until it is paid.</p>
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| Added: <p>You build an estimate from your own price list, turn it into an invoice once the customer approves, and keep track of both for each customer.</p>
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| Deleted: <p>It all works with no outside service connected, on the site you already own.</p> |
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| Deleted: <h2>What this is, and what it is not</h2> |
| Added: <h2>Still a work in progress</h2> |
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| Deleted: <p>This is on purpose a floor, not a full billing platform.</p> |
| Added: <p>These built-in estimates and invoices are here to get you started, not to match everything a full system can do.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>It creates the documents and tracks the payments, and that is where it stops.</p> |
| Added: <p>They help one person begin running their business in Zorderz, and they are not meant to replace a real invoicing service, or a customer relationship manager.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>It is not a comprehensive invoicing system, and it is not a customer relationship manager.</p> |
| Added: <p>Zorderz is not a customer relationship manager, and it will not become one.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>Customer relationship management software stores and runs the whole relationship with each customer: their contact details, the history of every deal and conversation, the sales pipeline, and the reports built on all of it.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>Zorderz is not trying to be that.</p> |
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| Deleted: <h2>Why we are holding that line</h2> |
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| Deleted: <!-- wp:paragraph --> |
| Deleted: <p>WordPress was built to run a website, not to be the filing cabinet for a company's entire customer history.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>If we copied a full customer relationship manager inside it, we would pack the database with data it was never meant to hold, and every app would get slower for it.</p> |
| Added: <p>A full one would store far more data than a single WordPress site should carry, and it would slow every Zorderz app down, so we are keeping this lean on purpose.</p> |
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| Deleted: <!-- wp:paragraph --> |
| Deleted: <p>So we are keeping the built-in tools light on purpose.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>For anything heavier, the plan is to connect to the software you already use, rather than rebuild it.</p> |
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| Unchanged: <h2>What comes next</h2> |
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| Deleted: <p>We will keep improving how Zorderz connects to outside tools, so it can read your existing systems and set itself up to match.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>We also plan to connect Zorderz to an open source customer relationship manager down the road, for people who want one without paying for a closed one.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>That is a future goal, not today's.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>Today's was simpler: let a business run on Zorderz alone from day one.</p> |
| Added: <p>Zorderz will keep improving and connecting to outside tools safely.</p> |
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| Deleted: <h2>How this gets built</h2> |
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| Deleted: <p>Every release is made the same way.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>A human guides the work, Claude, a large language model from Anthropic, writes the code and the drafts, and I review, test, and decide what ships.</p> |
| Added: <p>In time it should read the systems you already use and set itself up to match how you work, and get smart enough to offer new products on your estimates and invoices as you add them.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>Version 1.2 is live on GitHub now, both the theme and the apps, at the same version number.</p> |
| Added: <p>Eventually we hope to connect to Twenty, an open source customer relationship manager, as the first one Zorderz supports.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>You can read or run the code on <a href="https://github.com/CarletonTorpin/Zorderz">GitHub</a>.</p> |
| Added: <p>That is a future goal, not today.</p> |
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| Deleted: <p>You can download this release, the theme and the apps, from the <a href="https://github.com/CarletonTorpin/Zorderz/releases/tag/v1.2.0">version 1.2 release page</a>.</p> |
| Added: <p>For now, someone trying Zorderz can create a real estimate or invoice and run a little more of their business with it, and that is the point: making it easier for someone who already runs a business to get their work done.</p> |
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| Unchanged: <p>Carleton</p> |
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