Wizard's Abacus
Time Tracking, Project Management, Invoicing and Payroll
Order before Tuesday, December 3rd and lock in the price at $1 less per user per month—forever! Enjoy a 3-month free trial and all the added benefits:
- Reduced Pricing: Just $4 per user/month for time tracking and payroll, $7 with invoicing.
- Free Onboarding Session: Expert guidance for a seamless transition.
- Priority Support: Access to our dedicated support team.
- Gold Tier IntelliMuse AI Subscription: Like adding extra staff to your company! Enjoy ongoing access to Brandy Blaze, Freddy Fullstack, and more—free as long as you're with Wizard's Abacus.
Don't miss this limited-time opportunity to enhance productivity and streamline operations at an unbeatable price!
Addressing Your Pain Points:
- Is tracking time for payroll a hassle for your staff?
- Is generating payroll or invoicing a tedious and time-consuming process?
Wizard's Abacus is the Solution:
- Streamlines time tracking and payroll.
- Generates invoices to your clients.
- Provides insightful analytic reports to understand how your team's time is spent across various projects.
Last week finally created a marketing page. Actually, my friend made it using AI. The design is not what I would normally expect, but I like it. The main image was also created by AI and is a combination of clocks, abacus, and wizard hats. I decided to use it as background and it's quite nice, imo.
Next I did a major UI and UIX revamp. All pages have enhancements to just look cleaner and nicer. More significantly, based on security level it now shows the Management drop list and Invoicing options.
Not much to report on this project since I've been busy with IntelliMuse (AI), WTK and my regular work.
Wizard's Abacus has 2 clients now. They use it to do payroll as well as a time tracker.
The task tracking and project analytic reports have really come in handy for both of them.
During their first two months the first client made several minor requests for analytic reports and special payroll tracking. Those were easy to do and a few of them have become core new features to the Wizard's Abacus.
Currently client has 28 staff using the website 7 days per week. They use Abacus to track time and manage the payroll to their staff. Staff are paid in multiple currencies (GBP, USD, MXN, etc.). All is working quite well and on November 1st I created invoicing functionality to bill clients for their SaaS usage of the Abacus.
I generated no-charge invoices for the first 2 free months of usage I gave them. Plus the October bill. At the $5/user/month the bill came to $140.
So this is my first revenue from Wizard's Abacus which is not even offered publicly yet. And it's monthly recurring!
I'm quite pleased and if I wasn't so busy with billable coding work I'd love to start marketing the Wizard's Abacus. Too much fun tech to do!!!
Initially the client chose to go with an alternative that offered 'free' service for time logging but it was crippled and to get the really good features cost a lot more. They tried that for a couple months then decided to take my offer.
My initial offer was $4.99/user/month but I would give them the first two months free since they were the first customer and I knew some enhancements were needed.
A few days before August 1st they called and said they wanted to take me up on my offer but needed it ready by August 1st so all staff could use it for the month of August. I agreed and billed them my normal rate to do the 10 hours of minor enhancements they wanted. Plus for free I made several core changes which I deemed essential and good for the overall service.
Over the month of August they made several more requests. About half of them I did for free because I deemed them as essential and good for future clients. The other half I billed them my hourly rate.
The staff using Abacus have been extremely pleased saying it is easier to use than Deputy or the old 'punchclock' software they used to use. Plus, even more importantly, it has saved both the staff/users and the client significant time. Before they were using one software for tracking time and then copying that information into spreadsheets to determine payroll. With Abacus the payroll is generated easily directly within the website. The website also allows users to enter their preferred payment methodology and currency code. Some get paid in GBP, some in Euro, some in USD and others in Mexican pesos. The client pays the users in their preferred currency and let's them track any bank fees or conversion fees into other currency. For example some get paid in GBP (British pounds) and deposited into their bank which converts it into Euros. The client puts in the GBP they paid and the user can enter the Euro actually received.
In summary, all is going great. I plan on offering them the option of my integrating the Abacus data tables and web pages into their new website once that is completed. I'm building their new website using Wizard's Toolkit (https://wizardstoolkit.com) and the new website should be completed by January 15th, 2023. My goal will be to negotiate integrating but still charging the $4.99/user/month in addition to a setup and installation fee.
I have been submitting my time logs and invoices to my latest client. Today he asked me if I could make some enhancements to Wizard's Abacus so all staff in his company could use it. He has 30 staff so this would be a nice little monthly contract. A couple months ago I told him I would match a competitor's price of $4.99 per person per month.
The enhancements he wants would allow him to see which staff are logged in and what task they are currently working on. Plus he wants a few anti-abuse features. I estimate the enhancements he wants won't take more than 12 hours.
It would be nice to have the first paying customer of Wizard's Abacus sign up. Currently they are using Deputy.
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Hi Alec!
Getting the first paying customer is awesome but don't try to please them too much! :) You should consider their suggestions but they are not the product owners... especially if they haven't paid you yet!
If they really need custom features you should offer them a custom solution with a minimum contract length or for a 1 time larger payment.
Btw I really like your app's name! :)
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This is actually for a company that I work for. They agreed to pay my hourly rate for 10 hours of enhancements (cancelling one of their original requests). Plus they said they are interested in purchasing entire software to put on their server. I've told them let's postpone that discussion for a month so they can truly fall in love with the service. Then I'll let them choose between monthly contract or large lump-sum for them to install on their own servers.
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I uploaded the video showing how I built the initial simple Project, Task, Time Logging management website using the low-code Wizards Toolkit (WTK) development environment.
I time-logged every step from DB creation to building web pages, writing SQL triggers, creating SQL reports that show the data both in list and graph / chart views, and making it all look good.
Entire project took 3 hours and 18 minutes to have a fully functioning website. Later I did some fine-tuning for another 1.86 hours. This video only includes the highlights.
On Sunday I recorded myself building the initial WizardsAbacus.com website from scratch. This included everything from setting up the BitBucket repository, creating the SQL database, importing the core tables and data from Wizards Toolkit and the new Abacus tables, to building the initial web pages.
This first version will only be used by myself and my staff so I took a few short-cuts. I was able to have a working site within 3 hours and 18 minutes. This included having web pages to manage clients, their projects, associated tasks, and time logs.
I was using Filmora to do the screen captures and unfortunately about 45 minutes was not recorded properly - just the audio recorded. Today I'll be taking the film recording that did work and make a "Build in Public" video out of it.
I'm very curious as to which would be better. Just post the full 2.5 hours as a "Build in Public" video. Or to post a "Highlights only" video which will be 15 or 20 minutes and would show the process but not all the nitty-gritty. My plan is to create/post the "Highlights only" and ask for comments and feedback as to whether my YouTube channel wants the full version or not.
https://www.youtube.com/BusinessOfProgramming
The good news is I have been using the WizardsAbacus all day Monday and Tuesday. I've made some minor enhancements regarding time log page so the start time defaults and there is a "Stop Time" button to set the stop time to "now". I'm already getting good use out of this time tracker.
Note, I don't plan on working on making this perfect just yet. I built it now so I can track my time while I build my next SaaS. I really want to show off how fast I can build a SaaS from scratch using Wizards Toolkit. For now I'll be using the Wizards Abacus and slowly enhancing it as I need new features.
In November 2020 I quit my CTO job. At that time I exported the database and website of my old Projects2Do.com and stored it on a hard drive. I started building that website in 2001 and used it to manage projects, track time on those tasks, then use those time logs to generate both invoices to clients and payroll for employees. I was running a software development company and it served me very well.
Of course I had not updated the user interface in over 10 years so the UI was quite out-dated. So instead of just re-installing on a new server I decided to do a full revamp. A few months ago I had my SQL expert update the database using new naming conventions and to integrate better with my Wizards Toolkit low-code library.
It's time to rebuild this from scratch. New name, new UI, and built using Wizards Toolkit. This will make for a great "showcase" project on the Wizards Toolkit website. Plus it will help me with managing my software development company that I re-launched in February so my staff doesn't have to keep track of their time in spreadsheets.
The plan is build it using Wizards Toolkit. Film most of the programming for a "Build In Public" playlist on my YouTube channel, then pick some of the filming as tutorial segments for the Wizards Toolkit website.
Initially I'm just building it to use in-house. Later I'll fine-tune it and make it a full SaaS and charge people a per-person per-month subscription.
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