CashBase blog

If you've been using CashBase for at least a month or two, we feel your pain: you probably have a long, long list of categories now (previously tags/ descriptions) that you have a hard time handling.

To help (and we're using this feature ourselves), we've built a tool that lets you merge categories together. You can find it by going to settings, categories, then click on "Merge categories".

A good example of how you'd use this, is the scenario where you previously used to type in detailed descriptions like "groceries at trader joe's", "groceries at costco", "groceries at the market"... which you could now all merge together into "Food/Groceries" or even "Shopping".

All you need to do is drag a category from the left column and drop it on the category you wish to merge it into, to the right. You can drag & drop as many as you wish, but don't forget to click "Save Changes" when you're done.

We're so happy to announce that we've just launched v2 with a sweet new design and lots of other goodies. New iPhone and Android apps are on their way, too.

Since we haven't been properly introduced before, this is us. Hello!

Enjoy this new screencast below, featuring the new UI and features:

Just a teaser of what we're launching later this week...

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our shiny new Android app!

(download)

Click here to download:

cashbase-android-app-JfuBdvgHqaqssvfoAijo.zip (85 KB)

The app is available on Android Market for free and, like our iPhone app, it's always in-sync with the main web app.

We'd like to extend our warm thank you to Edi, an awesome Android developer (working at Seesmic) who helped us build this app.

We look forward to hearing what you think and we plan to iterate quickly, to improve the UI and add more required features.

Exciting times ahead! :)

(download)

Click here to download:

import-transactions-from-csv-files-spEzaxpBuyErvIGaheys.zip (100 KB)

Now you can import previously exported CSV files into CashBase.

You can use this to import bank statements or CSV exports form other apps. 

The importer UI & functionality is still very fresh, so in case you run into any trouble or have questions about it, let us know. You might want to open a discussion on our new Support section.

You like? :)

Let me start by apologizing to all of you who've received 3, 5 or even 7 emails from us earlier this week. We're now sending out email notifications (with Sendgrid, which we love and totally recommend) to those who are not using CashBase for more than 30 days in a row. We ran into a tech glitch and messed up, for which, again, we apologize.

It's been a busy, very productive week for us! Here's what we've been up to:

1. First-time setup wizard, after sign up

(download)

Click here to download:

lots-of-new-goodies-qIitxoyqfcxjbdxHxEbJ.zip (722 KB)

Most people that sign up for CashBase need a few seconds to figure out what they are supposed to do. The empty UI is not very intuitive. So we've built a 3-step wizard that asks new users about where they store their money (cash, bank accounts, under the bed etc.), what's their income and what are some of their typical expenses. It then creates a number of one-time transactions based on the answers.

2. Delete your account

Not our favourite feature, but one that was long due: the ability for users to delete their account on CashBase, together with all the data associated with it. It doesn't even just deactivate it, it actually deletes everything from our database. There's no going back.

3. Adding wallets just got easier

How in the world do you create new wallets? Oh, this is how. Really? Is that the best we can do? 

As of a few days ago, you can go to Tools & Preferences and, under the Wallets tab, there's now a "Add a new wallet" button. Simple. Finally!

4. Recurrent/repeatable transactions

(download)

Click here to download:

lots-of-new-goodies-IEyvhekCnyGgHFivBkEs.zip (46 KB)

This one has been on our mind from day 1, but how do you add recurrent transactions without cluttering the UI and messing with the user's experience? We decided it was time to do it the best we could and iterate later when we get feedback and better ideas.

Once you create a recurrent transaction, we take care of it for you and ensure that your transaction is repeated at the interval you chose. Basically, we'll automatically create future transactions when they are due. 

5. Better transaction editing capabilities

As per popular request, you can now edit a transaction's amount, not only description. If it's a recurrent transaction you're dealing with, you can update its recurrency settings.

6. Drag & drop transactions between earned-spent or between wallets

Did it never happen to you to add an expense but forgetting to type in minus in front of the amount? Been there, done that!

If that happens again, simply drag that transaction from the Earned section to the Spent section. Oh, and you can also move transactions from one wallet to another, by dropping it over the wallet you wish to transfer it to. That's it. 

Keep the feedback coming

As always, we enjoy listening to you. You might have noticed the bottom-right corner survey widget powered by KISSinsights -- thank you for using it!

We're very excited to announce a partnership with LATERAL, the web/mobile dev & design company we're involved in on a daily basis.

This partnership will allow us to invest more time & resources into CashBase, to take things to the next level. 

CashBase has been growing quickly in these past few weeks: we've been doubling our registered users on a weekly basis and we've quadrupled unique visitors on the site since last month. We're also receiving more and more emails from happy users and also a lot of amazing feedback.

In the following months, expect to see fast iterations on both the web application and the iPhone app, plus a shiny new Android app which is due in about a month. 

Join us for the ride! :)

Notice the new tab on the right? The first tab shows you the standard view (add/list transactions). The second tab shows you stats (we changed its icon). The third tab, well... it shows you how much money you might have in the future!

We didn't just put this in for the sake of saying "CashBase does predictions". We put it in because we want to answer an important question that most of us ask (themselves): "How much money will I have by July?". Or November, or the end of the year. And CashBase attempts to tell you that, based on your spending habits. It works best if you've used it for a few months. It works really well if you've been using it since last year! 

(download)

Click here to download:

predictions-are-here-emkGqqvchsdzpmwjnGjC.zip (138 KB)

You're probably wondering about the slider at the bottom. The slider helps you play with the prediction like this: "If I only spend 8,560 as the maximum monthly amount, how much money will I have by July?". What this does is brutally cut costly months to a controllable amount. You now know that you need to manage with under $X, if you want to have $N by July.

We're still tweaking this, as it doesn't work as expected in all cases. We plan to let users leave out large, one-time expenses that they had, but won't have again in the future, and the prediction algorithm is considering. 

As always, we're happy to find out what you think! :)

One of the most requested features for CashBase was the ability to transfer amounts from one account to another, easily.

Previously, you could only do this in 2 transactions:

1. Get money out from account A.
2. Put money into account B.

From now on, this is going to be super-easy to do with a single transaction, as pictured below:

You got the idea, right? It's based on an older CashBase feature, to specify the wallet you wish to transaction with, overriding the default/selected wallet (left tabs). So you basically type in 2 accounts separated by the ">" operator, e.g.:

@cash > @savings

We're here to help, if you have any questions :).

We're super excited to announce the free CashBase iPhone app!

(download)

Click here to download:

cashbase-iphone-app-xtxoFnFguJHqqlgetJmH.zip (618 KB)

The app is always in sync with the main web application and you can use the same account on both platforms. 

Next, we'll be working on a mobile-friendly web version and an Android app. 

Did I mention we have an API? In case you're interested in building something on top of CashBase, get in touch and we can make it happen.

We wanted to do this for a long time, so we're very happy that it's finally live. Once you sign in, your connection is 256-bit encrypted and your transactions are safe.

This is a very important step towards better security of your data, but it's not the last one. Thus, we want to let you know that we're now working on encrypting all the data we host in our database! It's a big challenge, but we believe we found a great solution which we can't wait to implement!

Does this update make you feel more secure about your interaction with CashBase?

Would encrypting the data we host make you dive even more into CashBase?

Here's a long-awaited feature: stats per (keyword) search.

(download)

Click here to download:

better-stats-new-homepage-BucbyDwmqgxBsoortDbx.zip (53 KB)

We also have a new homepage which now better emphasizes CashBase's main features:

We hope you'll enjoy these updates and all the other that are coming :).

We're back in business, after a long and very cool summer!

I'd like to show you 2 of our new features, the stats section and transaction editing. This screencast tells the story:

If you have any suggestions on how to improve the editing process/UX, or if you think certain stats would be cool to have, please let us know, we'd love to hear about it!

Also, I'm glad to announce that our iPhone app is fully-functional, we just need to tweak the UI a bit before submitting it to the AppStore. Great times ahead! :)

Hi there! 

There are a bunch of cool updates you may or may not have spotted yet:

1. Tag transactions with hashtags, twitter style.

With these hashtags, you can basically group expenses together and, later on, you'll be able to see stats and graphs based on them. A typical hashtag is "#car", a "container" for all car-related expenses. Another one would be "#home", for all home bills, mortgage, home improvements etc. 

How's this working for you? Do you find it useful? Does the implementation affect the general user experience, by slowing things down?

2. Fancy scrollbars instead of the browser default scrollbars, which looked quite ugly inside the UI.

3. New, playful logo, designed by Mircea Dragoi.

4. A "tools" section, where you can now rename and/or delete accounts. Just go to /app/tools or click on the "Tools & Settings" link top-right.

More tools are coming to this section, soon. Stuff like profile settings (change password, etc.) and also a "trash" feature that enables you to revive deleted transactions.

5. Graphs, baby! Just click on the toggle icon to the right, to see them. Better and more beautiful graphs are coming soon, cause I'm not that happy with them now.

6. Bug fixes, cache support, speed improvements.

7. API. It's there, REST-style, but not open to public yet. If you're interested in building something on top of CashBase, email me and let's talk. I'd love to help get you started with your app and provide all the API support you'd need!

Currently, the API has methods for retrieving a user's profile, accounts, transactions, creating and deleting transactions and accounts. Basically, all the actions the web app does.

I'm going to continue to improve the app, iterating slowly, building the best personal finances app!

Thanks for reading :), feedback welcome!

Subscribe to this blog if you want to receive periodic updates from CashBase. I'll tell you what's new, what's better and what I'm thinking about in order to make CashBase the best personal finances app!

3... 2... 1... Go!