May 2021 sees the launch of another new release from Aqilla which includes the introduction of a new “UX2 powered” Document Control Desk, extended built-in email addressing capabilities for automatic debtor statements, changes to MTD to keep pace with the latest UK HMRC controls and an update to the SharperLight Excel Add-In.
The functionality behind the original Aqilla Documents “tab” or menu option has been enhanced as part of the Aqilla UX2 “User Experience 2” programme, designed to build upon the rich and attractive user interface for the benefit of all customers.
This release focuses upon the heavily utilised Documents view which historically has been presented as a list, summarising all of the documents a user has permission to access, create and edit. The latest release adds a range of new views (List; Simple and Card) and features including the capability to group by Category (e.g. Purchase Orders, Goods Receipt and Matched Purchase Invoices) in a single group; show only live or “open” documents; select ‘Favourites’ and even change the colour associated with a particular category of documents in use.
The standard view most users will see when accessing the upgraded version for the first time depending on their role and permissions will be the ‘List’ view:
Even this simple view can be enhanced by selecting ‘Favourites’ (select the star icon in edit mode):
and colours (right-click on the category title) to provide a striking and highly visible view of Documents in progress and available to the end-user:
Colours are stored locally in the browser and selectable from whatever range is available on the client PC / Mac (so for now you will have to set it up on different browsers and machines in use):
…which for many users should result in a simple, colourful and straightforward view of their work in progress both in ‘List’:
…or ‘Card’ format:
Within the “List” view there is a new ‘simple’ text-based view, in this case still arranged by Category Documents in progress with values as appropriate:
The ‘Card’ based view, which again inherits the colours and categories previously defined by the individual user, organises documents into a series of reference cards by type (and category if selected):
Once a user is satisfied with the display options the selection bar can be hidden, and the options saved by clicking on the ‘x’ (and subsequently revealed once again by selecting the options “cog” icon).
The email Subject can now include two macros for account code and name.
The resulting email subject then looks like Statement (D00726) : Sloughton Sound
HMRC has recently added even more controls to the processing of Making Tax Digital submissions. To make sure continuity of operation is preserved Aqilla now supports the HMRC VAT MTD date range as per their instructions; namely that:
1) The date range is limited to 366 days;
2) The earliest possible “From” date is now effectively 1st April 2019.
To ensure that our customer data is as secure as possible, we always endeavour to support the latest industry-standard security protocols, removing wherever possible any potential weaknesses before they become a problem. Back in August 2019, we announced that Aqilla, along with other leading cloud-based providers, will be focusing support on the latest TLS (Transport Layer Security) internet protocol – version 1.3 (and supporting 1.2). This coincided with the effective retirement of Internet Explorer as a viably secure browser for our customers.
Whilst that process went OK there are still a number of clients still running older versions of the SharperLight Excel Add-In despite SharperLight supporting TLS 1.2 from version 5.0.85 (the current downloadable release is 5.1).
The link to do so and the associated help information is available here at: https://www.aqilla.com/help/HTML/sharperlight-installation.html
Support for SharperLight running utilising TLS 1.1 (and earlier versions) will cease as of 31st May 2021 so action on our users part is required.
