We try to pack in a large variety of features and flexibility yet still make it easy to use and give you the ability to manage several aspects of your finances. Because we have so many features, some may not be easily noticeable on the site so we’ve compiled a list of options on the site that may not be as noticeable as we’d like:

1. Gas Mileage – The Gas Mileage application can be found either under Organize from the Simple navigation menu or Finance from the Advanced navigation menu. When entering a new transaction a gallons input box will appear if you’ve selected a category that is tied to your gas mileage application. At the top of the Gas Mileage page you’ll see where you can set your default gas mileage settings.
2. Pay Down Schedule – From the My Bills page when you enter a new bill, you’ll see a link titled “more options…” and then an input box titled “Total Due”. If you enter a total due amount, a small calculator icon will appear next to your bill on the monthly forecast link. Clicking this will show you all the future dates, amounts, and how much will be left until the balance reaches a positive amount. If you create a transfer to a loan or credit card, this will automatically show up based on the total loan amount or total credit balance due.
3. Quick Notes – When you click on Notes under Organization in the navigation menu, you’ll be taken to the search application that shows notes, links, or transactions. Notice once clicked, the search box will be pre-filled with “n:”. If you add text after “n:” such as “n:This is a new note”, a note will automatically be created for you instead of having to click the New Note link. You can see the full list of Quick Search Results by click the “Quick Search Terms” link. Continue Reading »

With the new year approaching, now is a good time to start thinking about your goals for 2009. Enter the New Years Resolution application. This will allow you to keep track of the goals you set for next year in a convenient place for you to come back and check periodically on how your doing throughout the year. To access, look under Organizer from the navigation menu.

The My Calendar page has several options and ties into the site:

• Color – By default, the background color of all Bills on the My Calendar page is red and all Income items are Yellow to distinguish these from other Calendar entries. You do however have the option to update the background color of any entry by updating the reminder and choosing a Color from the dropdown list.
• Groups – The My Calendar page allows you to organize your reminders by group. This is similar to what Google calls new Calendars. When you enter in a group for your reminders, a checkbox will appear at the top of the page with the group name you’ve entered. When clicked, all reminders within the selected group will be hidden/shown. You can have an unlimited number of groups as this will help in keeping your reminders more organized. Continue Reading »

The I Owe You page can be accessed under Organization from the Simple Navigation menu or under Financial from the Advanced Navigation. When you enter in a new I Owe You, you can choose whether you owe someone money or if someone owes you money. If you select “I owe money to:”, and enter the email of a user already in our system, they will recieve a notification in the Notification Inbox on the left side of each page asking if they would like to add “Money is owed to me by {your email}:” Once you pay them back, if the user is in our system, the amount will appear as a link. Once clicked you will be taken to the Record Transfer page which will do the following:

• Create a new transaction in your registry.
• Mark the I Owe You as paid on the I Owe You page.
• Notify the Payee that you have marked this as paid in their Notifications Inbox.
• Provide the Payee with a link to mark this as paid on their end as well.

If the user is not in our system, you will simply see a link titled “mark paid” to record this as paid.  The I Owe You page is a great way to keep your I Owe You’s organized and since it ties in with your transaction registry, this can be easily tracked on the My Budget page.

BudgetTracker not only will track financial information as well as life information such as tasks, contacts, etc. but we also give you the tools necessary to design your own applications. This allows you to track almost anything you can think of. To get started, first you’ll need to go to the Beta Applications page by clicking Beta Applications from the Navigation menu and choosing “Update Applications”. If your Navigation is in Simple mode, select Other > Beta Applications.  On the left hand side under My Applications, choose the link “Create Application”.  Then click the link titled “Add Entry Fields” to open up all available options. The checkboxes going down the left side of the page represent which fields you would like turned on when users of your application (including you) fill out a new form. The textbox next to each checkbox is what the caption will say next to the item when filling out a new form. To the right of the textbox is gray text explaining which type of HTML element will be shown. Continue Reading »

There are several ways to generate extra income without much work. “The Dough Roller” has a good article that helps explain one way to utilize 0 interest credit cards with no balance transfer fees. The idea is that you receive cash from a credit card that doesn’t charge you any interest, then transfer that cash to a savings to generate income off the interest. Once the year is up, pay off the credit card and keep the interest you’ve made. The biggest problem however is making sure you don’t touch the money as well as making sure it gets paid before your one year is up.

The card offers a no interest balance transfer feature for 12 months with NO BALANCE TRANSFER FEE. Just in case there was any confusion with that, the card has NO BALANCE TRANSFER FEE. Oh, it has no annual fee, either. While I’ve found and written about a lot of great balance transfer deals, this is THE best one currently available that I’ve found.

Smart Money Management In Action.

With the holidays approaching, now is the perfect time to start organizing your gift list. Our Gift List application will allow you to track what your going to buy, for how much, and who you’ll be buying it for. Then mark it as complete by clicking the checkbox once you pay for the gift. To get started, from the Navigation menu, click Beta Applications and choose “Update Applications”. You’ll see Gift List as the most recent entry so click the “add” link and it will now show up in your Navigation menu under Beta Applications. Staying organized and setting limits when spending money on gifts is crucial to avoid overspending or being suprised when you see your credit card bills in January.

Gift List

The search page on the BudgetTracker site has several features that you may not have known about. When you search through your transactions from the My Transactions page at the top, you are taken to transaction search results on the Search page. However, you can also save notes, site URL’s, and have the ability to tag any of these items.

• To start with, on left hand side you can quickly filter through any of these items by selecting the dropdown and choosing “Today”, “Last Week”, and several other common choices but you can also type in the textbox above it the actual date or if you prefer, type the text “Today” instead of selecting it from the dropdown.
• If you want to create new notes, you can either select the “New Note” link just under the date filter, or if you type in n: in the search box, anything you type after n: will get saved as a new note along with the date it was saved for filtering on later. To see more quick commands that will save you time, click the Quick Search Terms link just under the search box.
• Underneath the tags on the left hand side, you’ll see 2 links (“New Link” and “My Search”). If you drag these to your quick toolbar in your browser, you can easily save sites you’re viewing on the web to your BudgetTracker account. Since the items can be searched on, it’s like having your own custom search engine.

Search Results

The search page can be found under the Organization category from the Navigation menu or you can do transaction searches from the My Transactions page. If you have ideas for new features you would like to see on the Search page, please let us know.