Notices

There has been some talk of implementing bank accounts with Buddy. Here's how I would like to see bank and credit card accounts implemented.

First, back in the day there was a great app for the Nokia Communicators and Psion 5MX called RMRBank, It's still alive, you can find it here:

http://www.rmrsoft.com/epoc/bank.htm

There is a sister application for expenses called RMRExpenses. RMRBank was a PERFECT implementation of this sort of thing for a device with a keyboard and small screen. It's a shame the developer never rewrote the application for more recent devices.

Anyways, here are the functions I'd like to see implemented.

-- Creation and deletion of accounts that are either credit or debit. with a name and a description, with currencies, so account would be demarcated in specific currency as well. Ability to have CASH account as well, also with currency defined. Possibility of multiple CASH accounts in different currencies if required. When creating a debit/credit/cash account, an initial balance will have to be given with a date (could be in the past).

-- Ability to mark each expense, when entering expenses, as coming from a predefined debit/credit account, or to/from CASH.

-- Separate screen for examining credit/debit/cash accounts. Each will show a record of transactions, and have the ability to edit existing transactions and add transactions that are debit or credit, including transfers between accounts, including cash account, and deposits like salary, gifts, etc.

-- Ability to have recurring transactions by week (or other user-defined period) for salary, rent, bills, etc.

-- Each transaction will show date, budget category if there is one, description (optional), amount, currency, and whether transaction has been RECONCILED or not (this last is important).

-- From within debit/credit account screen ability to RECONCILE transactions between a given start and end date. This means checking off each transaction (usually against your bank/credit card statement). Reconciled and non-reconciled amounts can be shown in different colours and/or with a symbol in a column. (User can decide in options/preferences screen.) Cash accounts do not need to be reconciled and will not show this option.

-- Note that not all transactions associated with a given account will have a budget category. For example there will be transfers between accounts, salary, and miscellaneous debits/credits (you find or lose money in the street, for example). However, all expenses entered should have a budget category AND an account, either a debit/credit or cash. User should be allowed to enter an expense without a credit/debit/cash account associated with it, but a warning should be given alerting the user to the bad practice of doing this.

--This warning can be switched off in preferences. There will be some people who prefer to use the program without the added hassle of managing cash accounts, i.e. counting the cash in your pocket every couple of days and monitoring every single transaction, no matter how small. For them, it will be needed to enter some expenses without an associated account (e.g. cash transactions, basically).

-- At any time there should be the option to ARCHIVE the account, which means removing all the reconciled transactions into an archive file, and updating the opening balance of the account. ONLY reconciled transactions can be archived, with the exception of the cash accounts, which don't have reconciled transactions.

-- Ability to store archives in custom location.

-- An archive screen should be available showing all the archived periods for the different accounts. Ability to display archive periods for any account, but in read-only mode. Ability to un-archive by period with warning if user is about to unarchive a period that is further in the past than the last archived period.

-- Separate screen for defining/editing CURRENCIES. Here a base currency will be defined with non-base currencies defined in terms of the base currency and an exchange rate that can be updated manually at any time. Non-base currencies are used when entering transactions when travelling or other international transactions where the bank decides the exchange rate. It should be possible to create debit/credit accounts in non-base currencies (for those who have accounts in multiple currencies) although the default will be the base currency.

-- Note: I do NOT think it is important to include automatic updates of non-base currencies online, although this could be added as an option in a future version of the program. The reason is that it will be impossible to get the currency exactly right, i.e. so that it has the same exchange rate the bank uses for international transactions for your particular accounts, so anyway when reconciling transactions you will probably have to edit the amount slightly for each transaction for foreign transactions. In other words, currencies other than the base currencies will always be approximate.

-- Ability to generate graphical reports for individual accounts, and any group of accounts together, over each month, year, or any user-defined period. These reports will include both archived and unarchived transactions seamlessly.


I think that's it. It would be FANTASTIC if Buddy could be extended to include this functionality.

If anyone wants to VOTE for this functionality for Buddy, please add your voice here. Perhaps the developer will do it if enough people say they would pay extra for this. I certainly would, and I'd pay too if the program went from donationware to shareware.

hi noetus,
I had already begun development of several new features for buddy weeks back, its undergoing testing and bug fixing at the moment.
I believe some of your points would be taken care of, most importantly regarding linking budgets/expenses to specific accounts, I will reply to your post in detail later to explain what can be/is done and what not in the next update I release.

thanks for the suggestions.

cheers
--
krk969

krk969, that's GREAT that you're going to be implementing some of these features. I really look forward to the next release of the application!

In the meantime, I have some more suggestions that are more in the way of current usability fixes rather than any new features. These issues appear to me the kind of thing that might pose a hazard or be annoying to a user over a long period of use with the software. I've been using it for only a little over a month now and these things are only just coming to my attention, but nevertheless, I think they're important. But they can all be fixed, and without too much difficulty, I think!

(1) When in the Expenses screen, if you hit the red 'X' button, the current transaction gets deleted immediately. Now that's not what users normally expect from delete action, usually there's a confirmation (which can in some software be turned off, but only explicitly by the user in some preferences page, or 'from now on' when presented with the confirmation dialog). This hasn't happened to me yet, but what happens if I hit the 'X button and delete something, and realise I've just deleted it, but because I wasn't completely paying attention, i don't know what I just deleted. Luckily it hasn't happened to me yet, but if it does, I know i'll be kinda upset! Without knowing which transaction got deleted, I've no way of fixing things, and I just have to accept my expenses kinda have an 'error' in them now. Fix#1:: present confirmation dialog, and for this software, I wouldn't give the user of turning if off, because deleting transactions isn't so common, so user really doesn't need to be able to switch it off, it's better for him if he can't!! Fix#2: Have a 'undo' feature built in.This is probably a bit harder to implement soon, from a programming perspective, but in the long term, it would be nice to have.

(2) When entering a new expense, once you press the 'Save to Db' button it gets saved, you get a nice yellow confirmation, and all the entries get reset to 0, ready for a new entry. Good. I like that! But when you edit an existing transaction, when you press 'Save to Db', you get a nice yellow confirmation, but then everything stays the same! In one way I can see the logic of this, because it is not like entering a new transaction, after editing an existing one, you aren't so likely to be start entering a new one right away. But on the other hand, it's not consistent behaviour. I think it would be better if it did the same sort of thing as when you enter a new transaction. I think that's what other softwares do too. And there is a bigger problem with this. If you press 'Save to Db' again, the transaction gets entered again - you now have a duplicate transaction! The first time I did this, by accident, luckily I noticed the duplicate transaction, otherwise it would have skewed all my expenses for that month, without me realising.

(3) Sorting in the 'Expenses' view. I think there's a bit of a problem with the way Buddy handles sorting. The thing is, it defaults to showing oldest transactions first every time. So I go and enter a new transaction, or edit an existing one, go to a different category or back again, and back to the all transactions view, and bam, I'm back with the oldest transaction again. I have to hit the date button twice (because the first time it displays a little arrow, that's all, I'm not sure why) and then scroll down to be back where I was before. I have to keep doing this, over and over again, and it gets tedious. It would be nice if you could select the ordering (oldest or newest first) and then also it would be nice if Buddy could remember where you were in any category view, so whenever you go back there, it puts you back where you were, instead of back at the beginning again. Also, sometimes after entering or editing a transaction, I go back to the list view, and the ordering seems all jumbled up. There are old transactions, then newer ones, older ones again, it's a mess. So again, I have to press the button at the top of the date column twice (again because that little arrow comes up the first time) and then scroll down and try to figure out where I was again.

I wonder if it all works really well for you, nice and smooth because you've set it up for your particular habits, but then when someone like me comes along with different habits and slightly different ways of doing things, the software, at least in its current form, acts in a somewhat clunky sort of way? I know you have made a manual for this software, and maybe I am guilty of not having read it, but really, with a software like this, there should be no need for a manual that the user has to read. It should all be pretty self-evident, I think.

I think I have more comments but I will keep it at those three for now! I hope you see where I'm coming from, and maybe these are things that could be improved. I hope so, 'cos I really want to see this software improved! It's great so far. Cheers.

hi volt,

sorry it took this long to reply, but I was waiting to make a major release to fix this.
Ive fixed in new version ( 0.3-0 ) the "do not prorate" option to include the recurring amount only if the period includes the date of the recur.
That way in your example you will see spikes in Jan and July only.
I agree with you that this is the right way to analyze when planning budgets and expenses ahead.
Thanks.

thanks for taking time out for the review noetus, I think Ive managed to cover most of your requests. The reconciliation part is not something buddy was meant for but I'll give it a thought and maybe if time permits have another update that can include this feature where expenses can be marked off as well.
But I think this newer version is a bit more polished and a complete version of buddy, yes it can always get better
read on ...

done. available in the next update.

You already see the logic I guess, the idea is we are editing and wont probably be adding a new transaction, so this isnt changed.
Secondly about clicking the save again and that adding a duplicate entry, sorry but I dont see that happening when I tried, can you let me know how you managed to do it ?

done, the entries for budgets/expenses/accounts are by default sorted by the start date in descending order, can be changed by clicking the header fields.

I do not agree, I always read a manual when one is provided, cannot always assume how a software works. The reason I put in effort to write up all that is in trying to make buddy very generic the usage is not as intuitive as it could be.
but then each to his own.

After spending many sleepless nights I am happy to announce a new updated version ( 0.3-0 ) of Buddy is available to use now.
All details regarding the usage are available on buddy's website
http://buddy.passiongarage.co.uk , hopefully that will answer most basic questions related to usage.

Major features:

• accounts support ( link )
  budget/expense entries for a category can now be linked to an
  account ( e.g current account/credit card etc )
  
• multi currency support ( link )
  while making new entries an input currency can be chosen and
  buddy will do the conversion of the amount to the default
  currency set.
  
• wireless sync support ( link )
  now entries on the N900 can be synced wirelessly with the
  updated desktop version of buddy available for linux/windows or
  another maemo device on the same
  network.
  
• new savings report ( link )
  a new set of reports to show the usage/savings and the expense
  distribution for a selected account.
  
• snapshots ( link )
  every time a sync is done a snapshot is taken and buddy can be
  reverted back to a previous state using these snapshots.
  
• proration ( link )
  changes in how the proration works, its made simpler now for the
  user though implementing it was complicated hence this is listed
  as a major change.
• bug fixes and cosmetic enhancements.
  
• auto database migration
  The old entries and archives are automatically migrated to
  support the new features, however I recommend taking a csv file
  backup and saving it in another location prior to upgrading to the
  new version of buddy.
  
• updated linux and windows desktop versions of buddy
  ( scroll to the bottom of this link )

Minor changes:

• account/budget/expense views are now by default sorted by start date. It can be sorted by other fields by clicking the header.
• prompt while deleting entries.
• system tray messages for the windows version to reduce intrusive alerts.
• database corruption when buddy was closed while viewing archives.
• csv file changes to accommodate new fields like accounts and currencies, although the old format is also compatible.
  

NOTE:

• Please take a full backup of the database in a csv file and save it somewhere before updating, It has been tested fine but this is just in case things go wrong.
• Also take csv file backups of archive db's if its important for you.

this update was painfully long for me. I would like to be honest in saying that I did not find ample time to test this update as I would have liked to, having said that I've tested buddy for a couple of weeks and all functions seem to be working alright, but there may be issues that may come up over time which of course I shall attempt to fix.
Once everything is stable I will move it to the maemo.org download section.

some screenshots attached, you can find more screenshots and details here : http:://buddy.passiongarage.co.uk
if you like the update please hit the thanks button or leave a feedback here.
As always comments/suggestions welcome .

cheers.

This is plain brilliant Thanks so much for this!
Quick question, it is transfer between accounts (lets say, I have a banking account I use to pay my credit card, wich is another account) a planned feature?

Hello esiravegna
You can simulate the transfer by just changing the account name of the entry , as simple as that
hope that helps.

cheers.

Thanks for the reply! I will try. I've, however two more issues:
After adding a local currency, closing the app and then starting it over, I got a 'missing currency file, reinstalling' error, and a crash.
I've as well a silent crash on Windows 7 64 when trying to launch the app.
Any ideas?

Thanks!