Special thanks to all the dedicated users who helped us with pre-release testing.

If you have previously updated to Version 2.01 (Builds 032+) this update will be automatically applied for you when next you open Budgets GetReal. For older versions Click here for instructions on how to update versions prior to Build 032

Build 037 makes no changes to the database structure introduced with Build 035.

Some of the benefits that Version 2.02 adds are as follows:

1. Additional databases at massive discounts.

Registered users (not available from any free offer) can now purchase additional databases at around 70% discount. Additional databases are separately registered but linked to your original registration. A limit of 4 additional databases (any combination of Personal or Business) is currently available. Some conditions apply - see in program purchase form for details.

A great gift for one of your children to help them understand where their money is going.

2. Support for multiple database sub-folders.

Database folder can now incorporate multiple sub-folders each with their own database file & backups. See Configuring to use multiple databases and About the Multiple databases interface. This will be of major benefit to Accountants, Tax Agents & users with multiple databases to manage.

Also of benefit for users with only a single database who swap files between multiple computers. See Running Budgets GetReal on multiple computers.

3. Additional tools to help your Accountant & Tax Agent.

Digitally signed “MultiUserKeys” are available to registered Accountants on application. These keys provide the enabling framework for the release of additional practice management tools and additional reporting features as these are released.

4. New Read-only database mode

Read-only mode is of great benefit when working with backups of financial records e.g. copies of your database used to prepare Tax Returns. In this case you need to be certain the records are not inadvertently changed.

Read-only mode also significantly extends the basis of your user license. See Protecting your license from disqualification.

A optional “Changes” password has also been added. This is separate from the password controlling access to the program. It allows to lock changes in read-only mode.

Finally restored backups are now automatically applied as read-only. These can be made editable once Budgets GetReal opens (assuming you know the correct password).

5. Extra printing facilities

You can now print the Account and Category summaries.

All Reports (Income & Expenses, Balance Sheets etc.) now incorporate a legend. This details the report date and exactly what search criteria have been used to create the report.

6. Updates to all Extensions

All Extensions - Small Business Pack, Cash Commitments, Future Spending planner have all been updated to support Read-only database mode. Revised extensions will automatically update as required.

7. You can now participate in our Developers program.

Users wishing to assist in the testing and development of the future releases should apply for the issue of a “developers” key. This allows you to access the version currently in development and test upgrades prior to their public release.

8. Other additional features and improvements.

For details please see the Version History.

Special thanks to all the dedicated users who helped us with pre-release testing.

If you have previously updated to Version 2.01 (Builds 032+) this update will be automatically applied for you when next you open Budgets GetReal.

If you have not yet updated to Version 2.01 (Build 032), we suggest you take a backup of your database and update immediately. Follow the instructions within the Operation Monitor section of Budgets GetReal or Click here for instructions on how to update

Build 035 makes minor changes (addition of extra fields) to the database structure introduced with Build 032.

Some of the benefits that Build 035 adds are as follows:

1. Report Filters. Provides cost-effective multi-entity reporting

Filters allow you to dissect your database of transactions, and are applicable to more complicated personal finances and to business situations. Filters are only available if you have licensed the Small Business Edition.

Using Filters allows you to do reports for a wide range of accounts, jobs and combinations of the above as you desire. You also can use filters to do BAS reports for separate financial entities. More about Separate Financial Entities and Using Report Filters.

Multi-entity reporting significantly reduces the cost of owning Budgets GetReal if you have several business or need to report different views of your database. By upgrading to the Business Edition you can maintain and report on an unlimited number of business/financial entities within the one database.

Note that the benefits also apply to anyone required to submit several tax reports e.g. a couple with individual tax returns, or individuals wishing to track multiple investment properties, or individuals required to file Australian and overseas tax returns.

2. Balance Sheet reports

Both standard balance sheet reports (i.e. statement of position at a certain date) and all transactions over a given period (i.e. difference in position between 2 dates) are provided. Balance sheets can use Report Filters and comparison between 2 reports is provided. More about Balance Sheet reports.

3. Budgeting now include specification of Job code.

Budget transactions can now be entered with the source of the transaction specified by both Account and Job code. This means that the Actuals vs Budgets reports now support multiple financial entity reporting.

4. Redefined Operation Monitor reporting

Operation Monitor refined so as to only show a reminder alert when the reminder date has been set, the reminder date is earlier than todays date and the reminder has not been cancelled. Previous versions displayed if a reminder date was not entered.

5. Statement reconciliation

Adds a separate Statement report to the Transaction Register. This report provides a view of all imported and manually entered transactions in similar format to that which you would expect in printed statement format from your bank. Transactions are in date order with calculated balances shown in running format. More about Statement Reconciliation.

6. Statement locking

You can lock all transactions from further import, manual entry or modification by setting a Lock Before Date in the Statement register. This is of particular use in preventing change to these transactions once they have been reconciled against your printed statements. More about Statement locking.

7. Free-Trial extended to Business Pack

Business Pack was not previously accessible for the free-trial versions. Now does and is subject to the same limits on the number of transactions that can be entered as for the Personal version (200 transaction limit). This permits the activation of Biz Codes for the free-trial.

8. Maintained Import Configurations

A number of financial institutions (Australia at this stage) have been implemented as maintained configurations.

If a maintained configuration is available, the latest template for the relevant institution will automatically be downloaded and updated if required. You only need to follow the prompts from the Import File window. You should not need to create your own configuration or import a template.

Considerable refinement to AccountDetail & Configuration options has occurred. You still retain the option to create your own template for maintained institutions. More about Account Behavior.

9. Import File process has been refined

This has been updated for maintained configurations. In addition detailed instructions on how to download transactions files electronically is provided for a number of institutions.

10. Import File process has been refined

A. Category description now includes an Alternate option. This has been added for financial institutions that do not provide a statement description for certain transactions. Westpac is one that has recently taken to not providing descriptions on transactions like Interest.

B. Facility to bypass lines with badly formatted dates or amounts. This has been added because certain institutions sometimes add non-transaction entries such as notes on interest rate changes mixed amongst valid transactions. Sometimes the amount column is formatted with some character, like “_”, to indicate it is not a valid trnsaction.

C. Added additional column delimiters vertical bar & colon.

D. Relaxed the restrictions on some characters that can be entered at the Rules section of the Configuration Editor.

11. Changes to Import Format for an Account

Restrictions on changing import format for an account have somewhat been relaxed. To ensure that duplicate transactions are not entered, the import date range is checked to see that no previous imports with a different format exist. If they do the import is prohibited for the date range.

Versions prior to Build 035 restricted format changes prior to the last imported transaction. From Build 035 the import format can be different for any date range - provided no conflict exists.

12. Added Security Warnings

Clarified the Help messages on Access Password screen and Account Detail to warn against storing sensitive information, such as bank username & passwords, in any Account Detail field. This sensitive information should ONLY be stored in the Password Vault.

13. In-program Help & Web-site Documentation

Significant update to in-program Help and the Documentation / Knowledgebase content on our web-site has occurred. This update of content is not yet complete. Further updates will occur progressively - being automatically updated to the Budgets GetReal application as they become available.

Associated Business Pack changes

Updated Business Pack extension to allow filtering of reports by any combination of Accounts and Job codes. This is equivalent to Filters introduced in main application. This allows for BAS reporting by multiple financial entities.

1. Updated Registration card to avoid problems with incorrectly copy & paste of password details from registration email.
2. Extended Wallet card to allow for longer lists to be displayed on-screen. Extended resize routines to better use available screen space.
3. Minor enhancement to Custom Date facility
4. Improved handling of OFX file import. Made more robust to financial institutions not properly implementing OFX standards.

Build 035 will be major release provided free to all existing users.

Special thanks to all the dedicated users who helped us with pre-release testing.

If you have not updated to Version 2.01 (Build 032), we suggest you take a backup of your database and update immediately. Follow the instructions within the Operation Monitor section of Budgets GetReal or Click here for instructions on how to update

Some of the benefits that Version 2.01 adds are as follows:

A. Automatic download of latest versions

Version 1.01 comprised a single program file of around 5MB that required replacing whenever a new build was released. Version 2.01 now consists of a small Kernel application and many digitally signed Libraries that are individually and automatically updated to the latest build as required.

The benefit is that updates will be easier and we can release additional features, currently in development, automatically to you.

B. “Future-proofing” your database backups.

The new Library structure maintains both forward and backward compatibility of your database from Build 032. It does this in a way that always ensures that older databases can be opened and used without requiring update to the latest version.

The benefit is, particularly for Business users, that you can open any archive without requiring to update to the latest version. So if you want to look at a document created with Build 032 in 7 years from now, say for taxation reasons, Budgets GetReal will download any old libraries you may require and open your database with Build 032.

Accountants can work on any database file sent to them, confident that any changes they make will always work when the file is re-opened on their Clients computer.

C. Free tools and support for your Accountant

Version 2.01 provides support for tools we will be providing FREE to registered Accounting and Bookeeping practices. Our aim is to reduce your costs two ways - in the time you personally take to run Budgets GetReal and the costs for any accounting services you may require.

Registered users will be provided details of this program, by email, in the near future. Look out for an email titled “Tell your Accountant where to go”

D. Cash Wallets now allow for full recording of “Cash In-Hand receipts”

E. The Transaction Register now allows to you to change the date of imported transactions

The originally imported date is maintained and can be reverted to at any time. This extension was necessary because a few banks sometimes record different dates on their printed statements from that provided in download files. This allows you to simply change the dates and manually reconcile the Register to the printed statements.

F. The Transaction Register now allows you to add one-off transactions

An Audit trail of these entries is maintained and they may be reversed at any time. There are no documented cases where this has been required. It has been provided as a “fail-safe” against possible format changes in bank statements. USE ONLY AS A LAST RESORT !!

G. A “CUSTOM” date import facility has been included

This allows to get around the problem that some banks do not use computer compatible date formats in statements e.g. “23 Janu , 2008″. Also allows you to customise the names of used for months. Provides a simple way to import monthly statements where the date consists only of the month and day.

H. The Import Wizard has been extended to notify you of any Templates applicable to your institution.

I. Extended in-program Help resources.

The HELP button [?] now allows direct access to the Introduction Video and the Budgets GetReal web site resources. Use the In-Program Help for quick contextual help. Use the Web based resources for the latest help + FAQs, user guides etc.

J. The manual entry of dates has been made more flexible

Budgets GetReal requires dates entered at search screens to be in the short date format set for your computer. Originally only numbers and the correct date delimiter were accepted. Now you can enter numbers and any of the common date delimiters (i.e , . or /) and your entry will be converted to the correct short date format.

K. A database access log has been added

File “ActionLog.txt” within your “Database” folder now records the major events - opening and close of database, backups and restore.

L. Names can now be actioned by double-click

M. Some minor errors have been rectified

Incorrect screen rendering preventing more than 5 Jobs being entered. There is no limit on the number of Jobs that can be used.

The Reconcile button did not always show with Manual entry. Transactions, did however, always process and display correctly.

Start!

In the words of Robert Kiyosaki - “Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow”.

If you’re looking to start budgeting, or just improve your finances in general, there is no better day that today.

Chances are that you’re already aware of the benefits of budgeting, but you might be unsure how to start. Whilst ultimately the most important budgeting tip is to start keeping track of your income and expenses, the following tips should help you to get started with a budget.

Keep it Simple - but not simplistic

This is important if you want to succeed with your budget.

- Over-complicate your budget and it will become too hard to update and stick to.
- Over-simplify your budget and it will be too general to identify any areas where you can improve.

Where possible, work with real figures. Guesses may be easy, but guessed expenses are usually underestimated - which will leave you way out and with a lot less money than you thought you had.

Before you start budgeting it is important to determine what your actual expenses are. Without this, any budget will just be a simplistic guess.

Any software you choose to help you should be compatible with these principles.

Pay Yourself First

The idea behind Paying Yourself First is simple - when you get paid you put aside a certain amount of money for yourself before you pay anyone else.

After all, you’re the one who works hard to earn the money.

There are a couple of methods in which you can Pay Yourself First, including paying down debt, or simply putting money for you aside.  We will cover these different methods in more detail in a future post. Until then I will look at how you can use the Pay Yourself First principle to boost your savings.

A good way to do this is to put the money that you have decided to pay yourself into a separate account - preferably one with high interest & low (or no) fees.

Transfer the money soon after you get paid, don’t wait until the end of the month to put whatever is left in your account in to savings… chances are that there will be little left. If the money is not in your main transaction account, it is harder to spend it.

Paying Yourself First is a great way to reward yourself and boost your savings, because you are putting this money aside just for you. There is no way that you are going to stick to your budget if you never see any benefit out of it.

Set a Goal

In addition to Paying Yourself First it often helps to have a goal.

The goal does not have to be big, and even small amounts can make a massive difference to your finances with compounding interest.

For example, your goal might be to own your home sooner by putting an extra $20 per week down on your mortgage. This is a long term goal, but the results will encourage you to keep going, as you see your goal coming closer and closer to reality.

Something as simple as that $20 per week on your mortgage can help you to own your home years sooner, save tens of thousands of dollars on the total cost of the loan, and give you extra flexibility should problems ever arise. It’s a good reason to keep to a budget, isn’t it?

Prioritise

If you find out that you’re spending more than you earn it’s time to prioritise.

The idea here is not to deprive you of fun. The idea is to identify the things that you don’t really need, so that you can have fun, and still have money left over!

In order to successfully prioritise you’re going to have to run the figures to see what you’re spending and where. You can download a free trial of our budgeting software to quickly get an idea of what your true expenses are.

Don’t forget about cash

Studies show that up to 30 - 40% of many peoples spending is still in cash. Cash is also the hardest form of spending to track.

If you ignore cash or are unable to track your cash spending, you are potentially missing out on some easy savings. Although it is usually just a little bit here, and a little bit there, cash spending can add up very quickly. For this reason it is important that you attempt to keep track of your cash spending, and include cash in any budget you create. Without a proper ability to record cash purchases, you may end up with a big chunk of your spending that you are unable to account for.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these concepts.

It’s been just over a year since the first public release of Budgets Get Real.

It has been a great year. We would like to thank all of our kind supporters, without whom all this would not have been possible.

During that time there have been some significant Free bonus extensions added to the basic program. These include Password Vault, Small Business edition, Cash Commitments and the Future Spending Planner.

Support for automatic OFX statement download is a new extension soon to be released from testing. This will also be free to our existing customers.

There have been some 13 builds, most of which have entailed significant extra features. If you look at the Version history you will clearly see something our team is very proud of - almost negligible bug fixes required. This is because we put so much time into pre-release testing.

Build 032 is due to be released shortly. Stay tuned because there are some great features to come. Best of all they’re free to our existing customers.

Once again, sincere thanks to you all from all of the Budgets Get Real team.