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Flat Rate Plus Online Release Notes

  • Software Release Notes

This document explains the changes made to the Flat Rate Plus Online software program.

Flat Rate Plus Online – Release Notes

Version: 5.7

Software Update Full Release Date: August 10, 2026

If Version 5.6 was about growing your customer base, Version 5.7 is about the two things that decide whether that growth actually makes money: the accuracy of your price book and the discipline of your back office. This release puts artificial intelligence to work building and auditing your flat rate tasks, adds true purchasing and contact-log capability, brings a full Weather Center to your dashboard, and hardens your account with two-factor authentication, a company-wide audit trail, and per-role feature permissions. We also fixed a long list of quiet, aggravating problems that have been with us for years – including dates that showed the wrong day and buttons that silently did nothing.

Highlights

  1. Build a Flat Rate Task with AI – describe the job in plain English and get a complete task with labor and parts matched to your own catalog.
  2. Task Health Scan – a free, one-click audit of an entire price book that finds every task selling at or below cost.
  3. Purchase Orders – real per-vendor POs in two professional formats, generated from your reorder report and emailed with one click.
  4. Contact Log – a dated, timed, topic-tagged record of every conversation with a customer, vendor, or employee.
  5. Weather Center – animated radar, severe weather alerts, and a year-over-year Season Tracker that tells you whether demand is running ahead of last year.
  6. Serious account security: two-factor authentication, a company-wide Audit Trail, and per-role feature permissions.

What’s New

  1. Build a Task with AI. Describe a job the way you would explain it to a new technician – “replace a 40-gallon gas water heater” – and the AI drafts the entire task for you: task number, customer-facing description, internal memo, labor time, and the parts list. Every part is named in trade language and then matched by our server against your own catalog, so you are not buying a generic task from the internet, you are building one out of the items and prices you already maintain. Nothing is ever created behind your back: the AI proposes, you review every line on screen, and you decide what to swap, what to create, and what to skip before a single record is written.
  2. AI Task Review. Point the AI at any existing task and get a plain-English critique: is the description going to sell, is the labor time realistic, are the parts complete, and is the price defensible? It is the second opinion most contractors never get on a price book they inherited.
  3. Task Health Scan – and it is free. Pick a price book, optionally narrow it to a category, and scan it. Every task comes back triaged worst-first: tasks selling at or below cost, then tasks with the most high-priority issues, with a per-task panel showing every finding and its suggested fix. This one is free and ungated for every user, because it runs the deterministic half of the review and consumes no AI. If you do one thing after this update, run this scan.
  4. Purchase Orders. A complete purchasing feature at Vendors > Purchase Orders. Build a PO per vendor straight from the modernized reorder report, with vendor prefill, item autocomplete, terms and reference fields, and live totals. Generate it in either of two PDF formats – a Standard layout modeled on the ANSI X12 EDI 850 purchase order structure that suppliers recognize, or a branded Generic layout with your company logo – then email it to the vendor as an attachment with one click and track when it was sent. Purchase orders are frozen snapshots, so they keep printing correctly forever even after your catalog or vendor records change.
  5. Contact Log. A dated, timed, topic-tagged record of every phone call, text, email, or in-person discussion. While you are dialing, click “Log a Contact” from the customer or vendor record and an entry opens with the date and time already filled in. Tag it with a topic from your own list, record inbound or outbound and the method, run the built-in stopwatch to capture actual talk time, and set a follow-up date with a done flag. A company-wide Contact Logs page rolls it all up with contacts this month, total timed talk time, follow-ups due, and your top topic.
  6. Contact Log for Employees. The same tool for HR conversations, visible only to managers, with a standard library of 59 topics covering coaching, performance, safety, attendance, and recognition. Finally, a place to write down the conversation you will wish you had documented.
  7. Weather Center. A full weather operations page built for field service. An animated radar loop you can play and pause, hourly and 10-day forecasts, severe weather alerts, and an HVAC business outlook that translates the forecast into what it means for your phones. The new Season Tracker compares heating and cooling degree days against the exact same window last year, so you can say with confidence that “the cooling season is running twelve percent hotter than last year” instead of guessing. A built-in Weather Guide explains degree days, demand signals, wind thresholds for outdoor work, dew point, and how to read an alert – written for CSRs and dispatchers, not meteorologists.
  8. Audit Trail. A company-wide who-did-what log. Every significant change records the date and time, the user, the page, the action, and the name of the affected record – so a deletion shows you what was deleted, not just that something was. Owners see their own company, with per-column filtering, saved column layouts, and CSV export. Coverage includes customers, vendors, service agreements, proposals, coupons, and QuickBooks sync activity.
  9. Two-Factor Authentication. Opt-in two-factor security using any authenticator app – Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Authy, or 1Password. Turn it on from your profile, print your one-time recovery codes, and choose to trust your own browser for 30 days so you are not typing a code every morning. No text messages required.
  10. Per-Role Feature Permissions. Role Settings gained ten area-level switches, so an owner can decide exactly which features a role can reach: Customers, Invoices/Estimates/Collections, Scheduling & Dispatch, Text Messaging, Sales & Marketing, Proposals & Financing, Service Agreements, Contact Logs, Purchasing & Reorder, and QuickBooks. A forbidden area disappears from the menu, disappears from search, and is enforced on the server. Nobody’s current access changed when this shipped – every switch starts on.
  11. Proposals: Real Financing Packages. Proposals moved well beyond a single loan calculation. You can now offer Reduced APR installment plans, Deferred Interest (“no interest if paid in full”), Same-as-Cash, and true 0% installment plans, each with a promotional rate and term plus the go-to standard rate afterward. Enter your lender’s published payment factor and the monthly figure shown to the customer matches the lender’s paperwork exactly. Each package carries its own lender identity, apply-now link, logo, and required disclosure text, along with dealer fees, minimum and maximum financed amounts, and an availability window.
  12. Equipment Birthday Outreach. Customer equipment now records a Manufactured Date alongside the install date, and a new audience filter finds every unit with a birthday coming up in the next so many days. A fifth Reactivation Autopilot playbook greets each unit once a year automatically. Equipment you did not install now matches the age filters properly, too, which quietly widens every campaign you are already running.
  13. Date-Driven Campaigns. Marketing campaigns can now recur. Set one up for Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or any custom date, and it re-sends itself every year with a freshly resolved audience until you pause it. Build the campaign once and it works for you every year after.
  14. Coupon & Offers Engine. Promotional codes grew into a real campaign tool: readable custom codes like EGIA2026 instead of random strings, free-Premium trial codes redeemed right on the subscription page, scheduled start dates, “first 50 companies” redemption caps, one-click pause and resume, campaign tagging for attribution, and a live status column showing exactly where each code stands.
  15. Pro Pack Bundle. A single company-wide bundle at $39.99 per month that includes AI Task Descriptions, Text Messaging, Export & Print, and AI Plate Scanning – roughly $60 per month if bought separately, so the card honestly says you save $20 a month.
  16. Microsoft Teams Meeting Sync. Create a Microsoft Teams meeting for any calendar event with one click. Move the event and the meeting reschedules; delete the event and the meeting cancels. The join link lives right on the event details popup.
  17. Right-Click Menus on Your Lists. Right-click any customer row to jump straight to Edit, Contact Log, History, or Delete – and check “Open in a New Tab” to keep your list where it is. This is the first step in an app-wide standard built around a simple rule: anything you do often should be three mouse clicks or fewer from wherever you are.
  18. DISC Personality on the Org Chart. Every employee’s personality profile now appears as a badge on the Organization Chart and on their Details page. Because a person is never just a “D” – they are a D with an I behind them, or a D with a C, and those read very differently – the badge shows both the primary and secondary trait. Employees who have not taken the assessment show a muted “not assessed” badge on purpose, so you can see at a glance who is still missing.
  19. Service Labor Rate Calculator, Supercharged. A genuine breakeven engine: three pay models, your choice of rule-of-thumb or departmental overhead with technician counts, loss-leader recovery, and service-agreement gross-up, all with margin-correct math. Save and name multiple scenarios to compare them side by side, then print a branded report you can hand to a partner or a banker.
  20. Faster Image Work. A new “Copy Images to Next Task” button carries photos forward as you work through a book, and the Online Image Search now downloads to your computer as well as attaching directly.
  21. Your Vendor Tax IDs Are Now Encrypted. Vendor EIN and SSN values are encrypted at rest with AES-256 and integrity-protected, so the most sensitive field you store is no longer sitting in plain text.
  22. Smaller Touches That Add Up. Locate a Task breadcrumbs are now clickable so you can jump back to any earlier step, and the page tells you how to fix an empty category list instead of leaving you staring at it. Double-click any row on the Events List to open it. The dashboard “What’s New” card collapses when you are done with it. Company profiles gained an EGIA / Optimus Dealer ID field and stopped listing deactivated employees. The Personality Profile moved into the Team menu. And a new public Flat Rate vs. Hourly calculator gives you something to share with contractors who are still billing by the hour.

Improvements & Fixes

  1. Dates and times now show in your time zone. Our servers run on universal time, which meant that from mid-afternoon onward, dates rendered by the server read as tomorrow for every contractor in the United States. Dashboard headers, timestamps, and logs throughout the application now display in the viewer’s own local time zone. This one had been quietly wrong for a long time.
  2. Buttons that did nothing now do something. We swept more than fifty screens for a defect where a grid’s Edit, Delete, or Details button would silently fail after the list refreshed – no message, no error, nothing in the logs, just a click that went nowhere. Every one of these was fixed, and the underlying pattern was replaced with a shared component so it cannot come back. The Customer list Edit and Delete buttons, the Vendors list Details button, and the Newsfeed Comment button are all included.
  3. The Vendor list no longer shows the same vendor twice.
  4. QuickBooks Online sync is dramatically more reliable. A duplicate-key collision could abort an entire sync run partway through and leave the page sitting silently, and some invoices reported “has no line items” when they clearly had them. Both are fixed – invoices now upload from their own frozen line-item snapshot even when catalog records have since been deleted. Sync activity is recorded to the database and the Audit Trail, and the sync page now shows continuous live progress so you can watch it work.
  5. Belt and rank scoring corrected. System accounts were being ranked alongside real employees, and an internal report counted some people more than once. Four separate scoring defects were fixed, so your team’s standings are now accurate.
  6. Saving book-level sales tax settings no longer fails. The Manage Sales Tax Rates page could return a “not found” error when saving, depending on the page you came from.
  7. Grid text is easier to read. Table text throughout the application was rendering at 10 pixels – well below our own standard – and has been normalized across every grid.
  8. A cleaner sign-in. The login, lockout, and password-change pages now fall back to our standard logo when a company logo cannot be loaded, instead of showing a broken image.
  9. General stability work across calendar events, contact log filtering, task detail pages, and the AI task builder, plus continued cleanup of logged errors so genuine problems are easier for our team to spot.

Version: 5.6

Software Update Full Release Date: July 4, 2026

Happy Independence Day America! To celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, we are proudly announcing one of the biggest waves of new capability we’ve ever released, and much of it is aimed squarely at helping you sell more, get paid faster, and run your day with less effort. Since our last release, we’ve been heads-down building the tools that help you grow your business and protecting the ones you already rely on every day. This update adds a full suite of customer-growth automation, a proposal-and-financing closer for bigger tickets, an all-new dispatch board, an AI assistant that writes your task descriptions for you, and a major round of behind-the-scenes security and reliability hardening — including PCI-compliant checkout, a stronger password policy, and a move to enterprise-grade cloud image storage.

Highlights

  1. A brand-new Grow-Your-Business Suite: Marketing Campaigns, Reactivation Autopilot, Auto Review Requests & Reputation Management, and Service Agreements / Maintenance Memberships.
  2. Instant Proposals — Good/Better/Best option-selling with estimated monthly financing and customer e-signature approval.
  3. An all-new Dispatch Command Center with per-technician swim lanes, crew assignment, and double-booking protection.
  4. AI Task Description Generator — one click drafts a professional task description for you.
  5. A rebuilt, drag-and-drop Image Manager spanning tasks, parts, and categories in one screen.
  6. A major security and reliability upgrade: PCI-compliant tokenized checkout, a stronger password policy, and image storage migrated to enterprise cloud storage.

What’s New

  1. Marketing Campaigns. Send bulk SMS and email campaigns to saved customer audience segments, right from inside Flat Rate Plus Online.
  2. Business Pulse on Your Dashboard. A new at-a-glance panel puts the numbers that matter right on your home screen — revenue KPIs alongside an “attention worklist” that surfaces the items needing your eyes today. Open the app and know exactly where your business stands and what to act on first.
  3. Bulk AI Task Descriptions. Love the “Generate with AI” button? Now run it across your whole list. Select many tasks at once from the Tasks page and let the AI write professional, trade-accurate descriptions for all of them in one pass — turning hours of writing into a coffee break.
  4. Built-In Photo Cropping & Resizing. When you upload a task or item photo, a built-in image editor lets you crop and resize it right there before it’s saved — no separate photo software needed. Combined with the Online Image Search, great-looking presentations have never been faster.
  5. Distraction-Free Presentation & Cart Views. New focus-mode toggles on the Presentation page and Cart Summary strip away everything but the sale, giving you a clean, full-attention screen to close in front of the customer.
  6. Adjust Cost & Markup in Bulk. An ERP-style power tool right from your Items and Tasks grids: select the items you want and change the markup method and/or cost across all of them at once. Repricing your book after a supplier increase is now a few clicks instead of an afternoon.
  7. Reorganized Menus, Built Around Your Day. The main menu was reorganized around how field service companies actually work — a dedicated Team section, Invoices split cleanly from Estimates & Quotes, tidier tool groupings, and sort/arrange buttons on every step of Locate a Task so you can order your pricing exactly the way you sell.
  8. Reactivation Autopilot. Automated playbooks that reach out to lapsed customers and customers with expiring equipment or warranties, so leads you’d otherwise lose keep coming back.
  9. Auto Review Requests & Reputation Management. Automatically ask happy customers for a review after an invoice or estimate closes, with a private feedback channel that catches unhappy customers before a bad review goes public. A new Reputation dashboard tracks it all.
  10. Service Agreements & Maintenance Memberships. Sell recurring maintenance plans with automatic visit scheduling, a billing-due worklist, and per-customer equipment coverage you can manage at any time — not just at enrollment.
  11. Instant Proposals. Build a Good/Better/Best proposal, show the customer an estimated monthly payment for each option, and send it by email or text. Your customer compares options and approves with an e-signature from their phone, and your owner dashboard tracks Sent, Viewed, Accepted, win rate, and pipeline dollars.
  12. All-New Dispatch Command Center. A true dispatch board built on a technician swim-lane layout: drag jobs to assign or reschedule, assign a full crew to a single job, follow a color-coded job-status pipeline, and get an automatic warning when a technician is double-booked. Your existing Calendar view is untouched and still available.
  13. AI Task Description Generator. A “Generate with AI” button on every task writes a polished, professional description for you in seconds.
  14. Rebuilt Multi-Type Image Manager. One drag-and-drop screen now manages photos for Tasks, Parts & Equipment, Task Categories, and Item Categories together, with a filter for records that are missing images — the fastest way to make your price book look sharp.
  15. Send a Quote Directly From Your Subscription. Aptora’s team can now build a subscription quote exactly as you’d configure it yourself and text or email it to you with a click-to-restore link, plus a clear “annual billing saves you” callout and full quote tracking (sent, opened, expired) on your Orders page.
  16. Manage Employees, Reimagined. A new employee Details view shows status, role, last login, and activity at a glance, role permissions are now shown as simple summary cards instead of an unwieldy grid, and the employee list gained sortable/exportable columns.
  17. Master Catalog Updates. Lays the groundwork for Aptora to push periodic price-book and task updates to your account without ever overwriting your own customizations.
  18. Free Equipment Decoder Widget for Your Website. A free “How old is my system?” tool you can embed on your own site (WordPress plugin or simple embed code) to capture leads — fully branded to your business.
  19. Support Tickets, Rebuilt. A company-wide ticket view with priority, tags, and status, a chat-style conversation thread, and support for multiple open tickets at once.
  20. Smarter, Faster Imports. CSV imports for tasks and items got a major overhaul: a clearer Name/Number field, new optional columns (Stocking Season, Unit of Measure, Notes, Commonly Used, Price Locked, Vendor Number, Equipment Type), automatic vendor/manufacturer creation, and client-side chunking with a progress bar so large catalogs import without timing out.
  21. Flat Rate Catalog API for Total Office Manager. Lays the server-side groundwork for a direct integration between Flat Rate Plus Online and Total Office Manager, keeping your flat-rate catalog in sync between the two systems.
  22. Weekly Email Center. Scheduling, content, and preview for your customer-facing weekly email now live together on one streamlined admin page.
  23. Security & Reliability Overhaul. Card payments now use browser-side tokenization so card numbers never touch our servers (PCI SAQ A-EP), password requirements were strengthened with forced periodic changes, and all customer and item images were migrated to enterprise-grade cloud storage for better uptime and durability.

Improvements & Fixes

  1. The Model & Serial Number Lookup now covers even more equipment — including refrigerators, freezers, and generators — and handles additional manufacturer date-code patterns for more accurate age results.
  2. The AI Task Description writer was upgraded to be noticeably more trade-accurate, understanding the difference between a repair, a replacement, and an upgrade.
  3. Added a “Merge Duplicates” tool for Manufacturers to quickly clean up your lookup lists, and hardened image uploads to accept only safe, standard image types.
  4. Fixed several logged application errors, including a Support Tickets “Unknown error” on open, silently empty grids caused by browser-security blocking, and a friendlier error message when a customer CSV import file is not in the correct format.
  5. Fixed bulk Task and Task Item delete operations timing out on large catalogs, and confirmation dialogs that stayed open after a delete completed.
  6. Added a Vendor Number field to task items and to the item CSV import.
  7. Added a “diagnostic or travel fee” flag for labor items.
  8. Migrated PDF generation to a modern, more reliable engine and added category drill-down to the Task Locator.
  9. Fixed a crash on QuickBooks Online sign-in.
  10. Fixed the Subscriptions page so Power-Up Add-Ons can be selected in any order, with clearer validation only at checkout.
  11. Fixed a variety of image-display issues across the app following the cloud storage migration, ensuring task, item, category, and profile photos always display correctly.
  12. General logged-error cleanup and stability fixes across imports, categories, and task/item editing.

Version: 5.5

Software Update Full Release Date: June 12, 2026

This is one of the largest waves of new capability we have ever delivered to Flat Rate Plus Online®. It rolls together everything released between versions 4.7 and 5.5 and is packed with tools that help HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors sell more, look more professional, and run their day with less effort.

Highlights

  1. Two-way text messaging with your customers, built right into the app.
  2. Send estimates by email or text, then watch in real time as your customer opens, reads, and approves them.
  3. A completely rebuilt scheduling calendar and dispatch board with weather, conflict warnings, and color-coded job categories.
  4. Customer equipment tracking with an AI-powered data plate scanner.
  5. Built-in sales tax rates for the entire United States.
  6. Powerful free tools for the trades: a Model & Serial Number Lookup, a Part Cross Reference, and a DISC-style Personality Profile for hiring and team building.

What’s New

  1. Two-Way Text Messaging (SMS/MMS). Text your customers without leaving Flat Rate Plus Online. A clean, chat-style inbox keeps every conversation in one place, complete with picture messages, unread alerts in the menu, and per-customer texting preferences. Your office sees every message, so nothing falls through the cracks.
  2. Send Estimates for Approval and Payment – with Live Tracking. Email it, text it, or both. From the moment it leaves your hands, you can see when the customer opens the estimate, how long they spend reading it, and even an engagement score that tells you how interested they really are. Real-time alerts pop up the instant a customer views or approves an estimate, read-receipt badges appear right on your orders list, and a new analytics dashboard shows your whole estimate pipeline from sent to sold.
  3. All-New Events Calendar and Dispatch Board. The scheduling calendar was rebuilt from the ground up. Create your own color-coded event categories with icons, assign work to employees, attach customers and vendors to events, and get an automatic warning when a technician is double-booked. The calendar shows the local weather forecast and U.S. holidays, supports time zones and instant search, and imports or exports industry-standard calendar files so you can move work in and out of other calendar programs. A matching Events List view gives you a sortable, filterable grid of everything on the schedule.
  4. Customer Equipment Tracking with AI Data Plate Scanner. Keep a complete record of every piece of equipment your customers own – brand, model, serial, capacity, efficiency ratings, and warranty dates for general, parts, and labor coverage. Best of all: snap a photo of the data plate with your phone or webcam and let the built-in AI scanner read it and fill in the specs for you.
  5. Model & Serial Number Lookup. Type in a model or serial number and instantly see the brand, the age of the equipment, and key specifications based on manufacturer numbering patterns. Perfect for repair-versus-replace conversations at the kitchen table.
  6. Part Cross Reference Tool. Enter a part number and see acceptable substitutes in seconds. Flexible matching options (ignore dashes and spaces, partial matches, wildcards, and more) help technicians find an interchangeable part that is on the truck instead of driving to the supply house.
  7. Personality Profile – a Free Hiring and Team-Building Tool. A DISC-based personality assessment built for contractors. Use it when hiring technicians, dispatchers, and salespeople, or to better understand the team you already have. Choose from over twenty trade-specific roles and get a detailed, printable report.
  8. Sales Tax Rates for the Entire United States. State, county, and city sales tax data is now built in – covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. A friendly setup assistant walks you through choosing the right rates for your service area so your flat rate pricing stays accurate.
  9. Address Verification (Premium). One click checks a customer address against official USPS records, confirms it is deliverable, and offers the standardized version. Cleaner addresses mean fewer billing problems and techs that never end up on the wrong street.
  10. Customer History at a Glance. A new History tab on the customer record rolls up everything you need to know before you knock on the door: invoices, estimates, open balances, lifetime purchases, and the value of pending work – with an option to include the customer’s entire family of related accounts.
  11. New and Upgraded Calculators. A brand-new Fan Blade and Blower Wheel Selector joins the toolbox, the Superheat Calculator now includes refrigerant metering device selection and an electrical efficiency analysis, and the Dual Overhead Rate and Service Labor Rate calculators received a complete facelift.
  12. Better Item Photos – Automatically. Items now support up to nine images with a primary photo, and the new Online Image Search finds product photos on the web and imports them straight onto the item – sized, optimized, and named for you. Great-looking presentations with almost no effort.
  13. Smarter, Faster Lists. Grids throughout the program are getting a standard set of power tools: show, hide, reorder, and resize columns with your layout remembered per user, plus CSV and Excel export (a Premium Member feature). The customer list also gained a Smart Search that ignores punctuation and spacing differences, so “B & G Heating” and “B and G Heating” find the same customer.
  14. A Friendlier Data Import Center. The import page was redesigned into one clean, unified screen with a validate-only preview mode, plain-English error messages, and downloadable templates. New import types let you bring in tasks complete with categories and attached parts, and the importer can create missing vendors and manufacturers automatically.
  15. Redesigned Dashboard and Navigation. Your dashboard now greets you with the local weather, upcoming holidays, support ticket updates, and a daily snapshot of your business. The main menu was reorganized around how field service companies actually work, and a new site-wide search box takes you to any page or tool by typing a few letters.

Improvements & Fixes

  1. Resolved the reported issue with importing Flat Rate Plus books from the legacy desktop program.
  2. Major speed improvements across the entire application, including page compression, smarter caching, and more resilient database connections.
  3. The user interface framework was upgraded by five years’ worth of releases, bringing a cleaner, more modern look and feel throughout.
  4. Estimates automatically attach your default Terms & Conditions, show your full name to the customer, and guard the Send buttons until a valid email address is entered.
  5. Items now carry modern equipment data fields – SEER2, EER2, HSPF2, Energy Star, tax credit eligibility, AHRI certification, and more – so you are ready for rebate and tax credit conversations.
  6. Task and item category management is easier: see how many records use each category, multi-select to clean up several at once, and move any category back to the top level.
  7. The Locate a Task page gained a “Show Only Common Tasks” toggle for faster selling.
  8. A mobile-friendly sign-in experience and significant security hardening behind the scenes.
  9. The Manage Subscriptions page and several reports – Gross Profit Margin, Technician Compensation, and Inventory Reorder – were modernized and improved.

Version: 4.6.0
Software Update Full Release Date: August 17, 2025

Highlights

  • Cleaner QuickBooks Online (QBO) invoices that now mirror FRPO exactly—tasks, items, subtotals, and notes.
  • Customer signatures captured at checkout are attached to the QBO invoice automatically.
  • Smarter Chart of Accounts mapping from FRPO to QBO with safe fallbacks.
  • Crystal-clear status & UI: color-coded sync states, helpful tooltips, and tidy totals—so it’s easier to see what needs attention.

What’s New

1) QBO invoices that match FRPO—line for line

  • Tasks + Items (Labor / Inventory / Non-inventory) now post as separate QBO lines, using your FRPO item numbers and names so everything is familiar.
  • Subtotals are now added as QBO’s special SubTotal lines (no price entry required), letting QBO total “everything above” the way you expect.
  • Invoice notes from checkout are appended as a final zero-amount line (“Notes: …”), using a reusable FRPO-Notes item—perfect for long job details.

2) Customer signatures → attached to QBO invoices

  • If a signature is captured in FRPO checkout, we convert and upload it as an attachment on the QBO invoice (included in QBO emails).
  • Built to be non-blocking: if something goes wrong with the image, we still post the invoice and log the issue for support.

3) Chart of Accounts (COA) mapping you control

  • We now honor per-item FRPO account numbers first, then fall back to your company defaults, and finally to QBO’s first available Income account—so invoices always post.
  • Works even when QBO doesn’t let us filter by account number—we scan safely and match in memory.

4) Sync status you can trust (with color cues)

  • The Orders Page was remade to Invoices.
    • Several new columns were added.
    • Buttons were added to quickly open invoices and customers.
    • A footer was added to the grid. It includes paging and a refresh button.
  • The Invoices page now color-codes the “QBO Sync” column:
    • Uploaded / Sent = green
    • Pending = orange
    • Failed = red
  • An info tooltip explains each status in plain English. The summary counters now reflect reality (e.g., already-in-QBO invoices are Skipped, not “Uploaded”).

5) Prices that keep their cents

  • We removed hidden rounding paths so $75.24 stays $75.24.
  • Where we show two decimals, we display two decimals—without altering the stored math.

6) Clearer checkout & payment records

  • “Other” payment references (e.g., Venmo/Zelle IDs) now save to the correct field—no more “string too long” errors in CheckNumber.
  • We clip long memos and IDs to fit field limits automatically.

7) Better visuals in the Task Locator

  • If a task image is missing, we fall back to the category image, and if that’s missing, we use a clean placeholder—so the layout always looks professional.

8) Version info where you need it

  • The footer now shows the app version and (optionally) a data version pulled from your database—cached for speed.

Improvements & Fixes

  • Accurate upload tallies in the QBO sync results: Uploaded / Skipped / Failed are now counted correctly.
  • Stable invoice ordering: invoice lines appear in the same order you built them in FRPO, including subtotals.
  • “Copy Item” no longer fails after adding IsCommon: new copies inherit the correct setting by default.
  • Null-safe, keep-going uploads: if one line can’t post, we log it silently and continue so the rest of the invoice still posts.
  • Cleaner grids: corrected Kendo templates and added balance highlighting (red when a balance remains).
  • Customer email & addresses now flow to the QBO invoice (Bill Email / Bill To / Ship To) more reliably.

Why This Matters

You’ll spend less time reconciling differences between FRPO and QBO, have clearer visibility into sync outcomes, and get cleaner invoices out to customers—complete with signatures, subtotals, and the exact pricing they saw at checkout.

Tips

  • If you maintain COA numbers in FRPO, double-check a few items to see your preferred income accounts carry into QBO.
  • Use the “QBO Sync” tooltip on the Orders page to quickly understand what Pending, Sent, Uploaded, Failed, and Skipped mean.
  • Want to see notes and signatures on a live invoice? Open any recently synced invoice in QBO—look for the Attachments section and the final Notes line.

Version: 4.5.8
Software Update Full Release Date: August 3, 2025

  1. Redesigned the Shopping Cart PDF template. A footer was added displaying new information include the date and time the report was generated. The file name was changed to “ShoppingCarSummary_YYYY-DD-MM HH-MM-SS.pdf”.
  2. Fixed two missing checkboxes on the Copy Task popup window. Users were not always able to see the box that they might wish to check on these options: Create New Inventory Items and Create New Labor Items.
  3. Fixed a bug when trying to delete an associated (assigned to) Flat Rate Book from a Task. Users were not able to delete the book unless it was on the first row.
  4. Fixed a bug that prevented the Direct Cost, Retail Price, and Price Levels.
  5. Added a footer to the Item Category List and Task Category List. The footer contains paging controls and a refresh button. We made the Search box wider and now searches both the Name and Description fields.
  6. Resized columns in the Item Category List and Task Category List to improve usability.
  7. In the Task List, the “Common” checkbox is now editable while in Inline Edit mode.
  8. In the Edit Task > Task Items tab, various columns were resized to make them easier to read and edit.

Version: 4.5.7
Software Update Full Release Date: June 25, 2025

  1. Fixed a bug in the form where you add items to a task. When you open a task to edit, go to the Task Items tab. The ‘Inactive’ box was checked when the task item was actually ‘Active’. If you edit the item and do not uncheck the Inactive box, the item would become inactive when saved and removed from the task item list. The item becomes inactive globally.
  2. Extended the number of pages most lists allow the user to load. Example: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250.
  3. The app’s version number was added to the page footer. You will now find it at the bottom of each page. You may use that along with the release notes to better understand what features have been added and what bugs have been fixed.
  4. Added error handling and import messages to the various CSV imports.
  5. The process of deleting an entire flat rate book is much faster. The deletion time was cut by approximately 90%.
  6. Added the ability to mark a task as commonly used. When creating or editing a task, there is now a checkbox called ‘This is a Common Task’.
  7. Added the ability to mark a task item as commonly used. When creating or editing a task item, there is now a checkbox called ‘Commonly Used Item?’.
  8. The Task List and Task Item List include a new column labeled “Common”. This allows users to sort and or filter by common records.
  9. Added a preference to show only tasks marked as ‘common’ on the ‘Locate a Flat Rate Task’ page.
  10. When generating a PDF flat rate book, the book will honor the new “Common Task” setting. Only tasks marked as common will be included in the book.
  11. When generating a flat rate PDF book, the book name (file name) now includes the time (it already had the date).

Software Update Full Release Date: June 20, 2025

  1. Updated parts pricing.
  2. Updated HVAC and plumbing industry categories.
  3. Added numerous flat rate tasks.

Software Update Full Release Date: March 4, 2025

  1. Updated parts pricing.
  2. Added and replaced images for certain task categories.
  3. Minor software bug fixes related to filtering on grids.
  4. Minor bug fixes related to synchronizing customer addresses with QuickBooks.
  5. Updated related help topics.

Software Update Full Release Date: January 3, 2025

  1. Updated parts pricing.
  2. Updated HVAC and plumbing industry categories.
  3. Added numerous flat rate tasks.
  4. Removed obsolete tasks.

Software Update Full Release Date: November 2, 2024

  1. General flat rate system data update.
  2. Updated parts pricing.
  3. Updated and added HVAC and plumbing industry categories.
  4. Added numerous flat rate tasks.
  5. Minor QuickBooks vendor notes synchronization bug fix and enhancements.

Software Update Full Release Date: September 2, 2024

  1. Updated parts pricing.
  2. Added numerous flat rate tasks.
  3. Removed certain tasks and items that were obsolete.

Software Update Full Release Date: June 3, 2024

  1. Fixed a bug with exporting tasks from the primary book.
  2. Added additional QuickBooks synchronization options.
  3. Updated parts pricing.

Software Update Full Release Date: March 13, 2024

  1. Minor bug fixes related to exporting the flat rate books and item.
  2. Minor bug fixes related to synchronizing invoice items with QuickBooks.

Software Update Full Release Date: January 3, 2024

  1. Bug fixes and speed improvements during search.
  2. Updated parts pricing.
  3. Update QuickBooks API.

Software Update Full Release Date: November 23, 2023

  1. Bug fixes and speed improvements during search.
  2. Updated parts pricing.

Software Update Full Release Date: July 4, 2023

  1. QuickBooks API updates to enhance customer updates.
  2. Updated parts pricing.
  3. Added new tasks and task categories.

Software Update Full Release Date: February 14, 2023

This is the most significant update we have ever released. More than fifty improvements were made to the free and paid version.

 

    1. The name and URL were changed. The first thing you will notice is that we changed the URL from BlackBeltContracting.com to FlatRateSoftware.com. The website was rebranded. This work was done to better reflect our emphasis on being the absolute best flat rate pricing software system available anywhere. The flat rate system on the website is called Flat Rate Plus Online™.

    1. Flat Rate Plus Online is now hosted at my.flatratesoftware.com

    1. We are branding the flat rate pricing system as Flat Rate Plus, with a new logo.

    1. The website no longer requires users to create a profile. Users may now use the website and perform limited tasks as a guest.

    1. You may now login using your Google or LinkedIn credentials.

    1. You may now manage customers. There is a new Customer List and an Add New Customer option. We matched the fields with QuickBooks® and Total Office Manager® from Aptora. This will allow us to create a fantastic QuickBooks integration. That feature is coming in December 2022.

    1. There is now a screen for adding numerous system defaults. This will speed up data entry.

    1. There is a new Integrations screen which contains options for future software integrations (such as QuickBooks and others).

    1. A new dashboard was added. It provides users with very useful information about their flat rate price books, account, and website activities.

    1. A Flat Rate Pricing Wizard was added. This wizard walks users through the process step-by-step. It makes creating your flat rate books fast and easy.

    1. We have added a great task selection screen. This makes selecting the correct tasks a simple matter of clicking the appropriate image. Each image selection drills the user down to a new narrowed set of possibilities. See “Locate a Flat Rate Task” menu option.

    1. The Edit Tasks page now includes a quick way to add that task to any flat rate book. This process just takes two clicks. Look for the feature called “Add Task to Flat Rate Price Book”.

    1. When using the Labor Markups feature, you may now quickly apply revised markup methods to selected labor items. With this change, you may use your changes immediately on selected labor items, only use them as the new default, or a combination of the two. See “Add Selected Markup to Items”.

    1. The Add Existing Items to a Task page now includes a Quick Search feature.

    1. You may now include images with items. This works like the Task Image feature.

    1. We added the Task Description as a new column in the Task List.

    1. Added additional Checkout buttons in various places to make it easier to add tasks to the Shopping Cart.

    1. Items now have an “Item is Discontinued” checkbox. You may use this to identify an item that will no longer be available and that you do not necessarily wish to inactivate.

    1. Items have a selection box called “Stocking Season”. This allows you to establish the season that the item will be kept on the truck. The options are Summer, Winter, Year-Round, and Not Applicable.

    1. We added a tab called “Advanced” to task items. Depending on the item type, you will see fields to add Income Account Number, COGS/Expense Account Number, Asset Account, and Unit of Measure Abbreviation. This information will be used in future API work and for third-party software interfaces.

    1. The Items page has a checkbox called “Price Sensitive”. This allows users to keep track of items that have dynamic prices. In other words, their price changes a lot or there are large price swings.

    1. Item Categories and Task Categories may now include an image.

    1. We added the ability to import Item Categories and Task Categories. You are not required to import items or tasks. The category import supports hierarchical structure.

    1. Item Categories, Task Categories, Manufacturer Name, and many other fields now allow more text. The max length in most cases was increased from 50 to 100 characters.

    1. An item and task image import feature were added. Users can now import images for items and tasks. You will find the button on the lower righthand side of the respective list. The name of the image controls what items and tasks the image is associated with. The item and task image format are this: [<item or task number>]<anything>.png. Example: [010-1409]image21.png. For tasks, it is the same: [<task number>]<anything>.png. For the primary image, “p” is prefixed. p[<task number>]<anything>.png. Example: p[010-1409]image21.png. The Item Image Import may also use UPC numbers instead of the Item Number. All image files need to be uploaded with a “.zip” file.

    1. Direct Cost now allows five places to the right of the decimal point. Example: $12.12345.

    1. When editing a task, you may now see a list of Flat Rate Price Books that contain that task (if any).

    1. When editing a task, you now have the ability to quickly add that task to one or more flat rate price books. See “Add Task to Flat Rate Price Book” in the Basic Information tab.

    1. Updates were made to the styling of the Dual-Overhead Calculator and the Service Labor Rate Calculator.

    1. Items now include a button labeled “Tasks Using”. This opens a form that displays the task number of each one. The task number is also a hyperlink that opens that task in a new window for easy preview and editing.

    1. Many labels were changed and enhanced for clarity. They more closely match the labels in Aptora’s Total Office Manager. For example, we used terms such as “Is Active” and “Deactivated”. These were changed to “Inactive”.

    1. The Flat Rate Pricing menu system was updated to make navigation easier. New buttons and shortcuts were added throughout the system. The layout of the Item page was improved. Tips and helpful information were added to various screens.

    1. The new menu system includes shopping cart and social related alerts.

    1. Page refresh was improved. In many cases, the system will automatically refresh information on a page that you are viewing when that information was updated by another user. The page is not reloaded. Only the information is refreshed.

    1. All the major lists include the ability to rearrange the columns. The arrangement is not saved at this time. That will likely be done later.

    1. Major lists include the ability to group list items by any of the column types. For example, you can group the items in a list by item or task category.

    1. All the major lists include a checkbox that is used for bulk changes. We found this method is more intuitive than highlighting the row.

    1. The Price Books List includes new fields including a count of how many tasks are in each price book.

    1. The Task Items List contains new fields including the number of tasks using the item.

    1. The Flat Rate Tasks List contains new fields including “Item Count”. This tells you how many items are associated with the task.

    1. The website was optimized to perform better when using tablets.

    1. Celero® (formally Transnational®, aka: TNP) credit card processing was added. Users may now sign up with Celero and process customer payments through the flatratesoftware.com website. We highly recommend Celero. Please note that Celero is not affiliated with Aptora Corporation. You can learn more about Celero here: https://gotnpayments.com/

    1. The data import for Flat Rate Plus® legacy desktop was updated to reflect all these new changes. The important may now have zero amounts. The import process is much faster too.

    1. A popular feature from Aptora’s Total Office Manager called Item Alias was added. This allows flat rate pricing users to maintain multiple part numbers for a single part. Users can enter their vendor’s specific part number, price, and a memo. You can search for your main (master) part number or search by the alias.

    1. Items now include UPC Number, Labor Minutes, and Sales Commission fields.

    1. Tasks may now be associated with one or more industries (such as HVAC, plumbing, etc.). You may also select Commercial, Residential, or both. This allows users to better organize their flat rate books.

    1. Task Categories and Item Categories may now be associated with one or more industries (such as HVAC, plumbing, etc.). You may also select Commercial, Residential, or both. This allows users to better organize their flat rate books.

    1. Task Categories and Item Categories are now hierarchical. You can have different levels (AKA: parent/child relationships).

    1. Items include new fields to identify them as equipment. When this option is used, you may now enter type, SEER, AFUE, HSPF, capacity, and other helpful information.

    1. The overall look and presentation of the Shopping Cart Summary and Checkout pages were improved.

    1. Searching the Item List and Task List is now easier. They now include a search and filter feature for each column (like MS Excel®). We also added a text search that searches every field on the list. Matching results are highlighted.

    1. There is now a Bulk Add feature that will allow you to add an entire task category to a flat rate book.

    1. The Terms and Conditions form now allows essentially an unlimited number of characters. The prior limit was 500. The text includes full formatting capability.

    1. Each book title has its own Terms and Conditions. Prior to this update, they were shared by all flat rate books.

    1. Sales tax rates now allow for ##.########. This is the same as found in Total Office Manager.

    1. The Support Ticket area was improved with better labeling and some minor UI changes.