Thursday, August 18, 2011

2.0.22 Released

I am very excited to announce our new release, 2.0.22. This version includes a feature I call "Search & Export". This feature allows you to search deductions or expense items from the past and lets you download them so that you can analyze the data using Excel or any other tools of your choice.


For example, let's say I want to know the past trend for my electric bills. First, I will go to the "search" page and then enter "Duke", which is the name of my electric company.

dsBudget will then show all Duke energy bills that I have paid in the past.


Once you get the result, you can click the export button at the top (which I circled in red) and it will let you download the search results in Excel (or OpenOffice, Google Doc, or whatever..)


Then, you can analyze the data, create graphs, etc..


Instead of providing a native reporting function on dsBudget, I believe "Search & Export" will meet most (if not all) of your reporting needs.

Another cool feature that was recently requested by one of our users is the ability to enter deduction or category amounts by percentage.


Instead of specifying a specific amount, you can specify a percentage as a Deduction in relation to the amount of an Income entry. The above screenshot is showing I am deducting 10% of my paycheck for monthly saving, for example.

You can also specify a percentage in the Category amount as well.


Above screenshot shows you that I have allocated a category which is 10% of total net income, for example.

If you are interested in these features, I highly recommend that you upgrade it by simply uninstalling the current version of dsBudget (your current document & configuration will not be touched), then install the new version downloaded from our download page.

* Please note that if you are sharing your document across multiple machines, you need to upgrade all of them before using the new version.

There are a few other new features and various bug fixes. I hope you will enjoy the new version!

Release Notes
  • Fixed the bug where old backup files were not removed as specified in the configuration file.
  • Added ability to specify percentage in category and deduction dialog 
  • Added ability to specify IP address to bind the server 
  • Added a search/export page.
  • Added Spanish translation. 
  • Added shortcut on the Program Files installation directory so that user will be able to start the application from program installation directory.

8 comments:

  1. Looks great. Keep up the good work.

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  2. Thank you for your continued work.

    I have a small suggestion: A button that can bring a category's allotted amount to be equal to the expenses in that category. They way I use dsbudget is that I have a certain unallocated amount that can be used for any category out of a few. Whenever there's a new expense in such a category, I increase its allocation by the amount of the expense so that essentially such categories look like they have 0 remaining, but I know that I can use any of the unallocated amounts for any of them. Right now I do this manually, but it would be convenient to have such a button.

    I hope that was clear enough.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi. That's a nice feature. I often adjust my budget for a particular category (to decrease it, not to increase it) at the end of the month when I over-budgeted for the month.

    However, for the specific usecase that you are describing, can you simply create a category that says "misc" and put all unallocated amount there? Also, the point of budgeting is to decide how much money you will spend on each category at the beginning of the month, and to stick to it. So you could simply allocate a bit more than you think you would spend if you are having to keep adjusting your category throughout the month.

    Please feel free to comment on this feature further at our forum > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/dsbudget

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unfortunately, Google Groups doesn't accept OpenID, and I don't want a Google account, so it's not possible for me to join the forum discussions.

    To answer your question: making one "misc" category would work similarly, but that would also mean putting all such expenses into one group, instead of being able to track them separately. If, for (a made up) example, I collect T keyboard keys and phone covers, I would want to know how much I spent on "collection items" of those flexible funds, separately from "eating out".

    I like my flexible system, but I understand how some people won't. I "stick to" total expenditures per month, and deciding ahead of time on the amounts for certain categories doesn't make as much sense to me.

    In any case, I'm certainly not making any demands, just friendly suggestions to make a great program even better.

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  5. I'm very excited to download the latest version, it's an excellent resource. I use dsBudget every month. Thank you for making it available. I wanted to suggest that you list it on cnet.com. Right now the SimpleD 1.05 is on there as the latest version, and of course we know you've made many upgrades since then!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi. Thanks for reporting this. I've asked them to update to the new version.

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  6. I was hoping to use the percentage feature, as I tithe to our church and I always deduct the amounts from each pay cheque (it isn't hard math just 10% but I liked the idea of using the percentage button). However, when I click the deductions there is no option for percentage. I uninstalled and the older version and reinstalled the 2.0.22 but it's not there. The new search and export option is there. Could this be a browser issue? I find sometimes certain browsers don't offer features that others do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charley, thank you for trying my application.

      There is no button or option that you have to select before using percentage option. Just enter "10%" where you'd normally enter "$50" for example. dsBudget will automatically recognize that you are entering percentage instead of a fix amount.

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