Sequential payment numbers
Transactions have them. Invoices have them. And now payments have them: sequential payment numbers. Every payment in your system now has a sequential number based on the order in which it was entered.
In the past we referred to payments solely by their receipt number—random alphanumerical strings like #4d5c6ce05a71a, #8b8x2nn092l3, or our personal favorite, #56oc092ma27z. But keeping track of payments like that is something better suited to computers than people. Thus, the change.
We ran a script to give every payment in your records a sequential number, starting from #1. And from here on out every new payment gets the next number in line. You can still find receipt numbers on the end of the online receipt URL shown on a given payment:
Additionally, the Financial search now checks both payment and receipt numbers, so historic receipts are still easy to look up. If you have configured a custom receipt template, contact Populi customer support to have us replace the receipt number with the new payment number.
Aging report
In July we released an Aging Report. You can find it in Billing > Reporting > Aging. It shows all of your students' unpaid invoices and how long ago you billed them, together with information about pending financial aid and last payment received.
Time tracking in courses
A new tool in Course > Reporting shows how much time your students spent in your courses on a given date.
Email bounce & spam notifications
Awhile back we released a "deliverability problem" status for email addresses. The status was triggered when email was returned as undeliverable to that address or marked as spam. Now we notify you (via automated email) when you send an email that returns a bounce or spam report.
Release notes
These are some of the highlights from the past few months of releases, which has seen a steady trickle of incremental improvements to Populi. Complete release notes are compiled on a weekly basis in our Release Notes forum, so make sure to keep an eye on that to see what we put out there.