Every month I receive one or two requests from customers asking where their transactions are. While it is always to receive any feedback from Simple Home Budget users, receiving the same request is alarming and requires additional attention – actually after receiving any request, I try first analyze how the user got into this situation in the first place and what I can do about it.
It was interesting to find that new users are asking about disappeared transactions at the beginning of the month, when they actually initially enter transactions for the previous month, close Simple Home Budget, then open it again next day and see no transactions. The reason was that Simple Home Budget selects the current month at the start, and there is no transactions yet entered.
The fix was simple and added: Simple Home Budget now tries to find the latest date for transaction and select that month as the current month. You can switch back to the current month by using the arrow buttons on the calendar or clicking on “Today” link on the calendar.
Then my spouse complained that she has to reach for the mouse to open calculator in the amount field. Although, it was possible to do it by pressing Alt+Down, that was really not helpful – she asked for ‘=’ key she often used in the spreadsheet programs at work. No problem, Simple Home Budget will activate calculator in the amount field if you just press ‘=’ (Alt+Down still works too). While working on it, I was like ‘what if you want to add or deduct to existing amount’, so I expanded calculator activation by key ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘/’, and ‘*’. Even these keys are actually already ‘pressed’ on the calculator. She liked it a lot – while standing on the amount field, just press ‘+’ to add to existing amount – calculator will be activated and already ready for a number to be entered.
Finally, we were looking back at our finances in 2009 (we use Simple Home Budget to manage all our finances), we found some transactions with incorrect amount. By correcting, Simple Home Budget jumped to the month of transaction. What? – she said. What happened is that Simple Home Budget changes the month for just added or edited transactions, so you can actually see in the Transactions tab. But it is not useful when you are reviewing transactions through the Categories tab for last 12 months. The fix was done right away to avoid ‘jumping’ when a transaction is edited through the Categories tab (the Categories has the button ‘Year’ to show you transactions for the current year, as well as edit or delete them.
You can download Simple Home Budget from the download page.
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