Free Plan Available

May 19th, 2010

NeoBudget has always been a great value with a low price tag. It’s just gotten a bit sweeter with a completely free plan that does not expire. Previously if you wanted to try out NeoBudget, the only option was the 7-day free trial. Now you can play with NeoBudget as long as you like on the free plan.

There are some limitations to the free version. It is limited to 1 account and 10 envelopes, but this is great for students or anyone with a relatively simple budget. The standard plan enhances this with reporting and unlimited accounts and envelopes.

Head on over to the Plans & Pricing page to sign up!

New Website Design

Another recent change you may notice is that the main website has been refreshed. One of my passions is website design. I love tweaking the layout and optimizing the usability of a website to make it nicer and easier to use. This change is more than just making it look nicer. Hopefully it more accurately presents NeoBudget to new visitors and lets them see the benefits more clearly.

The changes are subtle, but important. The rest of the site has been refreshed as well with similar tweaks and usability enhancements.

Posted in Announcements | 457 Comments »

NeoBudget Reviewed

May 11th, 2010

One of NeoBudget’s users wrote up a comparison of NeoBudget with several other envelope based budgeting solutions. The result? NeoBudget came out on top due to its simplicity and the instant visual feedback NeoBudget provides. Check out the full review at the Webmouse blog.

It’s exciting to hear that people notice and choose NeoBudget due to the effort I have put into designing the interface. Creating a clean and simple software package is not as easy as it may look. One of my passions though, is refining and tweaking interfaces to the point where you can say “it just makes sense.” That’s what I’ve been striving for with NeoBudget.

Posted in Reviews | 1,073 Comments »

New History and Balance Pages

May 3rd, 2010

Today I pushed out the May release of NeoBudget. This time I focused my efforts on redoing the History and Balance pages. You’ll notice many changes, and hopefully they’ll be much more usable and easier to use.

History page

In general the History page is much more compact. This has made room for 25 transactions per page instead of 10. It also makes it easier to scan over your transactions and see what’s there. Also, a new paging system lets you load pages inline instead of needing to reload the page. This makes it a lot faster.

More compact, a new pager, and a new search box

The extra details are still there, they are just hidden at first. If you want to see the splits for a transaction, or the date it was entered, or any other details about it, click on the description and the details will slide out.

Details slide out from the description

To make more room, the Export link has been moved to the bottom of the page since it will be used less frequently.

Export button moved to the bottom

Balance page

The balance page has also gotten a face lift. Much of the text has been removed, and icons are used to make it more clear what should happen on this page. It is now very clear which values you need to enter and what they do. The formula used to balance your budget is also explicitly displayed (current bank balance + selected transactions – previous bank balance = 0.00).

Compact and concise balance page

Posted in Announcements | 769 Comments »

Maintain a “Fun Money” Envelope

April 26th, 2010

Many people believe that a budget is a just way to restrict your spending and “tighten the reigns.” While this can certainly be a helpful use of a budget in some situations, a budget should not be viewed as a way to squeeze all the fun out of life. I’ve found in my own life that having a budget has freed me to give more and spend more on fun stuff than I would otherwise.

Last summer, I wrote a guest post on the FMF Blog titled Freedom From Budgeting. I encourage you to read the article. It explores the freedoms that come from having a good budget in place.

Your budget should reflect reality, not your wishful thinking. It is unrealistic to think that you’ll never spend a penny on having fun. So, why not budget for this? I recommend creating a “Fun Money” envelope in your budget. My wife and I each have individual envelopes for this purpose. This is money that we can spend on whatever we want without needing to ask each other or feel guilty for busting the budget. I usually use mine for things like buying an occasional iPhone game or stopping at Brueggers Bagels for a coffee while running errands.

The point is that having such an envelope can really liberate you. If you tend to overspend on frivolous things, this envelope will reign you in and give you an allocated amount each month to spend. If you always feel guilty for spending on fun stuff, then this envelope will liberate you from constantly feeling like you’re busting the budget by buying a coffee.

Posted in Budgeting Tips | 764 Comments »

Quality Over Quantity

April 19th, 2010

One of the exciting things for me about starting my own company is that I have the chance to start on the right foot. Several years ago I read a collection of essays called Getting Real (by 37signals). The more I read the more I realized I had found a book that embodied my goals in software development. I started dreaming of creating a company built around many of these ideals.

NeoBudget is a service created by my company, Tebros Systems, LLC. Much of the foundation for Tebros Systems is formed by the “Getting Real” philosophy. The core essence of this philosophy is that it’s better to build a simple and small product that is rock solid, than to build a huge product that is everything to everyone and yet it’s unstable and buggy. It’s quality over quantity.

As I’ve created NeoBudget, I have always striven to keep this standard. There are many things that NeoBudget could do, but I would rather spend my time improving existing core features and making them even more rock solid. Quality over quantity.

Don’t get me wrong, I have plans to add many new features to NeoBudget. It’s not that these new features won’t come eventually. The point is that I will be focusing on the core features first. Once those cannot be improved any further, then I’ll move on to adding more new features. The benefit of this approach is less frustration to the end user of NeoBudget (e.g. you). You should never have to worry whether the system is going to work or not, and you should always have the utmost confidence that your budget data is safe and secure.

Posted in Uncategorized | 749 Comments »

Transaction Import Wizardry

April 12th, 2010

Before I had created NeoBudget I tracked my budget in a spreadsheet. This worked well, but it was very time consuming. My normal procedure was to print out my bank statement, then go down the list and enter each transaction by hand. Without fail when I reached the end I had mistyped a transaction or two and had to spend some time tracking it down. All told, I would spend about and hour or two every week updating my spreadsheet. I thought there had to be a better way.

The Import Wizard

When I created NeoBudget, one of the first things I wanted was the ability to import my bank statement directly. The import wizard in NeoBudget does exactly this. It has cut the time spent updating my budget down from 1-2 hours to 15 minutes per week.

Here’s how it works. It’s a simple four step process:

Step #1: Upload your statement

Step #2: Select the transactions to import

Step #3: Assign each transaction to envelopes

Step #4: Confirm that everything looks right

Manual Transaction Entry

Of course, it’s also possible to manually enter transactions. There are any number of circumstances where you might want to record a transaction before it clears the bank. My wife often records our grocery purchases right away so we can keep up-to-the-minute track of that envelope. I also record all checks we write so they come out of the budget immediately (you never know how long it will be before someone cashes a check).

To do this, simply click on the “Add $” or “Subtract $” tabs at the top of the page.

A question I frequently hear is: “Will I end up with duplicates for some transactions when I manually enter something and later import transactions from my bank?” NeoBudget is smart enough to notice duplicates. On the second step of the import wizard, NeoBudget will notify you of transactions it thinks you might have already entered into your budget. You can make the final judgment call.

The import wizard is a real time saver. For me, it saves at least an hour a week over my old spreadsheet budget. It’s just one of ways NeoBudget helps take the sting out of budgeting.

Posted in Tutorials | 1,107 Comments »

New Release, Long Overdue

April 5th, 2010

Today I am pleased to make some long overdue updates to NeoBudget. I’ve been working on these changes for the past 8 months. The unfortunate reality was that I have not had much time to dedicate to NeoBudget. All that has changed now that NeoBudget is my job. I’ve gotten more done in the past two weeks than I had in the past 8 months put together!

Going forward, it is my goal to push out new changes at least once a month. I’m already working on some new things for the May release and can’t wait to share them with you all.

“What’s new?” you may be asking yourself. Most of the changes are behind the scenes. Even though things look mostly the same, much of the underlying structure of NeoBudget has changed. This is the ground work for future enhancements. I won’t go into all the details of these back-end changes since you most likely won’t even notice them.

However, there are some things you’ll readily notice:

  • Larger font sizes. Everything is slightly larger in NeoBudget now. This should increase the readability and usability of the site.
  • Better support for Internet Explorer. Support for Internet Explorer has greatly improved. While some features work best in other browsers (like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari), NeoBudget is now fully functional in IE versions 7 and 8. If you are using IE 6, I highly recommend that you take advantage of the free upgrade provided by Microsoft. In fact, in the near future I will be dropping support for IE 6 altogether.
  • Subtle use of animations. There are several places throughout the site now that use subtle animations to help enhance the user experience. Two examples are dialog boxes fading in and out and form elements sliding in on the transaction page.
  • Calendar drop-down widget. Many users have requested a drop-down date widget on the transaction pages. Now when entering a transaction date, you can either type in the date or click the calendar icon and select the date from a calendar.
  • Import recovery. Before, if you started importing a batch of transactions and navigated away from the import wizard, you would lose the import. Now I have implemented an import recovery feature that detects the unfinished import and asks if you want to start where you left off.
  • Sign in detection. When you visit www.neobudget.com and you already have an active session, you will be prompted to continue that session instead of always needing to sign in again.

Posted in Announcements | 607 Comments »

Many Exciting Changes

March 29th, 2010

March has been monumental both for NeoBudget and for me personally. I resigned from my day job and am now working on NeoBudget much more consistently. As a result, you will start to see many new features and enhancements around here beginning very soon.

A Bit of History

As many of you may know, NeoBudget started in 2008 as a hobby. Having used many different envelope based budgeting solutions, I just wasn’t pleased with any of them. None of them did budgeting like I thought it should be done: online and simple.

After working on NeoBudget in my spare time for several months, I released it to some close friends. A few months later, I released it to the general public. Since then, I have been maintaining it and keeping it going in my spare time on weekends and evenings. And that worked well for a while.

As time went along, I realized that many other people felt the need for simple envelope budgeting just like me. NeoBudget kept growing, but I found myself limited to maintaining the existing software. I didn’t have time to develop it further and make many enhancements.

My wife and I discussed this dilemma and decided to work toward the goal of making NeoBudget be my full time job. Now, many months later that dream has become a reality. I resigned from my day job and have started working much more consistently on NeoBudget.

More Activity

You will start seeing more activity around here. For starters, this blog will be much more active. You can expect to see tutorials, product announcements, and budgeting tips on a regular basis. So be sure to subscribe!

These changes will also result in a more consistent release cycle. Not only will bugs get fixed quickly like they always have, but new features will be pushed out at least once per month. It is my goal to produce a new release of NeoBudget during the first week of every month. Since April is nearly upon us, you can expect to start seeing some exciting changes around here pretty soon.

Feedback and Thanks

Your feedback is what makes NeoBudget a great budgeting solution. You, the NeoBudget users, have always been excellent at providing feedback and letting your opinions be known. I covet your input as I continue to develop NeoBudget and make it even more robust. As always, please feel free to contact NeoBudget support with questions, concerns, and suggestions.

Thanks for helping make this possible by using NeoBudget and telling your friends. I am excited to be spending more time making NeoBudget even better.

Posted in Announcements | 763 Comments »

Assigning Transactions to Envelopes

February 19th, 2010

Recording a transaction in NeoBudget is easy, yet powerful. You can take all of the funds from one envelope, or split it across several envelopes. This tutorial shows the process of recording a “Subtract $” transaction in NeoBudget (essentially, a debit).

First, click on the “Subtract $” tab at the top of your account page. You can also get here through the import wizard when it comes across a debit or charge transaction.

Enter all the details about the transaction such as whom it was to, the date, and any other details you wish to remind yourself of later.

Next, enter the amount of the transaction. If you are in the import wizard, the amount will be added for you automatically. Note that the “Save” buttons are disabled and that the “Remainder” shows the total of your transaction. The “Remainder” is the amount of the transaction that has not been assigned to an envelope. The buttons are disabled until the “Remainder” is $0.00 meaning that the entire amount has been distributed to envelopes.

In the case shown in the image below, we have set the amount to $68.45 but have not said which envelopes to take that money from, so the “Save” buttons are disabled.

The final step is to say which envelopes the money should be taken from. In the example below, we are taking the entire amount from Groceries. However, you could just as easily take $10 from Clothing and $58.45 from Groceries.

Once you have assigned the entire amount, the “Remainder” value will be $0.00 and the “Save” buttons will be enabled, allowing you to save the transaction and continue using NeoBudget.

Posted in Tutorials | 769 Comments »

Import File Formats

February 18th, 2010

I often get a question about whether a particular bank is supported in NeoBudget. The truth is, your bank is most likely supported.

NeoBudget doesn’t support specific banks, but rather has built in support for common file formats that most banks support. NeoBudget can import both QIF and OFX.

So, is your bank supported? Check and see if it can export your transactions as a QIF or OFX file. If so, then it will work fine with NeoBudget. If not, send us an email and we’ll see what we can do. We might be able to add support for new file formats.

Posted in Uncategorized | 866 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »