If you’re having an issue with logging in to PearBudget from your iPod Touch or iPhone, could you leave a comment on PearBudget’s Facebook page? We’re trying to troubleshoot an issue a customer’s having, but haven’t seen it before, and aren’t quite sure what’s going on. Thanks!
Tip of the Day! (what do you want to know?)
One of our biggest goals when developing PearBudget was (and is!) to make budgeting simple. And one of the things that makes most budgeting programs complex is that there’s so much stuff on the screen. So we’ve tucked away features and made the interface as simple as possible. So — yay! — there are gems waiting for you to discover them. But — oh no! — if you don’t know they’re there, you might never look for them (and, then, never discover them!).
So we’re going to start writing a Tip of the Day, showing how to do different things in PearBudget. We’ll be uncovering certain features (like the Go Card!), showing how to do different things (“how do I set up a recurring receipt?”; “how do I export my info?”), and giving tips that are bigger than software (“how do I talk to my partner about money?”).
We’re putting together a list of the things we think you want to hear about, but we’d love to know what you’re interested in finding out about. So … let us know! You can send us a message by e-mail (contact@pearbudget.com), or on Twitter, or on our just-getting-started Facebook page.
(Speaking of our Facebook page, if you’re the type of person who likes things like that, we’d sure love it if you headed over there and like our page. If not, no worries! We just got it going last week, and are still not totally sure what to do with it, so if you have suggestions, let us know! Should we stop posting to the blog and just make that our blog? Should we make things more interactive with it? We’re open to your thoughts.)
Anyway, right! Tip of the Day! We’re going to start writing them and will probably start publishing them once we have a cache ready to go. Another thing we’d love to know: are there any discoveries you’ve made in PearBudget that you want to share with others? Let us know those things, too!
Question about monthly bills
Question: Do I enter monthly bills(i.e. utilities, mrtg) in the Receipts section or no?
Answer: Yes, as long as you want to include them in your budget. Most people do.
We do have a “recurring receipts” feature, where if it’s the same amount every month, you can have PearBudget enter those receipts in for you. Just click on the category name to get the pop-up box for the category, and then click on the gray bar at the bottom of the pop-up to get the additional options. One of the options there is to set up recurring receipts. Hopefully it’s clear from that point on, but if you have questions, let us know!
Categories rolling over
Question: Have you ever thought of making monthly budget categories roll over to the next month if they were not used? Or if you have extra cash at the end of a month, include it as income in the following month?
Answer: We have, and we plan to. We try to not say too much about future features, mainly because we don’t always know how long they’ll take to develop. But one thing we’re hoping to add in 2011 is the ability to make any category “roll-over-able”.
For the time being, if you have a monthly category, and you want to see what it would be if it were rolling over each month, click on the category name (to get the pop-up box for it), and then click on the “year in review” tab in the pop-up box. This’ll show you the total inputs for the year, minus the total outputs for the year. That “total” number at the bottom should tell you what you’d have available in the monthly category, if it were rolling over. (I know that process is a little involved, though. If/when we get the “any category can roll over” feature in place, it’ll be a lot smoother for you.
How do I change budget amounts?
Question: How can we change the amounts in individual budget categories? There doesn’t seem to be a way to do that.
Answer: Just go to the Plan page, and you’ll see your categories. Each one should have a row, and in the row should be a box with the current month’s planned amount in it. Just adjust that number as you see fit. When you click anywhere else on the page, it’ll save the new number.
When your next month’s budget is created, it’ll use that number to create the new budget. You can tweak that new month’s budget numbers, though, and it won’t affect the earlier month’s numbers.
Be sure your e-mail address is correct!
Setting up a budget is exciting, I know. Thrill-a-minute, right? It’s important, though, that you come down off the high to make sure you’ve entered your e-mail address correctly when you create your account.
I know you type your e-mail address every single day. Multiple times in a day, even. Despite that, it’s still possible to mistype your e-mail address when creating your PearBudget account. And mistyping your e-mail address can cause a couple of problems, but they all boil down to this: You won’t be able to log back in to your account! You’ll type your normal e-mail address, and the PearBudget login code will look for your normal e-mail address in the database, and it won’t find it. So, then, you won’t be able to get to your data!
So if you’re a new user, really quickly, take a look at the upper right-hand corner of your PearBudget account, and make sure you see your e-mail address, correctly spelled.
If you need to change your e-mail address, just click on it (again, upper-right-hand corner), and you’ll get a pop-up box. Just edit that address, and you should be all set. You might need to reload the page to see the change take effect.
And if you’ve logged out, and can’t log back in, and the “forgot password” e-mail isn’t reaching your inbox, there’s a chance your e-mail address in the PB database has a typo. Just shoot me an e-mail (charlie@pearbudget.com) and I’ll check the database to see if I can find it.
Thanks, friends!
Searching the FAQs
We’ve added a search box on the PearBudget FAQ page, to hopefully help you find the answers you’re looking for. Just type in your search terms, and the FAQ page will filter out the answers that don’t have the terms you enter. If you feel like testing it out, you can try typing in “donut”.
We’ve also open-sourced the javascript to run the filter. So if you want to incorporate something similar on your own site, you can. The code is here: github.com/charliepark/faq-patrol. It’s nothing particularly special, but if it’s at all interesting, you’re welcome to check it out and use it!
If you have any problems with the search box or the FAQ page, please let me know!
Number of categories?
Question: Hello, I’d really like to start using your excellent program, but am wondering if there’s any way to increase the number of categories for fixed and irregular expenses? I have a lot more than the default number of categories. Thank you
Answer: It depends on whether you’re talking about the web version or the spreadsheet version of PearBudget.
The spreadsheet version has a cap on the number of categories. It’s not that you couldn’t add more categories … it’s just that with the design of the spreadsheet, it’s a little hard to do.
The limits on the spreadsheet version were one of the reasons we wanted to develop the web-based version. There’s no limit on the web-based version as to how many categories you can have.
E-mail reminder?
Question: Have you though of a cool feature that would be “Time to Add Your Receipts!” as daily auto message sent to e-mail with link?
Answer: We’ve thought about adding something like this. We wouldn’t want it to be … annoying. If you’re reading this and a daily/weekly/monthly reminder is something you’d like to see, send us a note via Twitter (@pearbudget) and let us know!
Holy cats!
Holy cats! Tumblr apparently doesn’t tell you by e-mail that people have asked you questions. Just saw for the first time that a bunch of you have asked questions here and have been waiting for answers. So sorry about that!
We’ll start replying to them, but if you need a faster response, feel free to e-mail (charlie@pearbudget.com) or send us a message on Twitter (@pearbudget).