This is just a quick update to let you know that I have increased the commission percentage for Inzolo affiliates to 60%. This is lifetime commissions. What does this mean? If you sign up for the affiliate program (absolutely free) and refer just two budget pro members, that will more that cover the price of your pro membership. Any others you refer after this is gravy to help add some funds to your budget!

I just noticed that adding & editing transactions on the mobile app broke since my last big update. I fixed that today. While I was in the code, I updated the jQuery Mobile framework to the latest version which should hopefully add a few improvements.

I’ve been using Inzolo for 3 years now and recently some balances got out of balance. You should often check to verify that your envelope accounts total matches your bank accounts total. To see this, scroll down to the bottom of your envelope list on the budget screen. If you have any unassigned transactions, verify that “Account Total” from envelopes matches “Accounts Total” from bank accounts. If you don’t have any unassigned transactions, make sure “Envelope Total” matches “Accounts Total”.

Unfortunately I don’t know how things got out of sync. I’m still testing and looking for the root cause. If anyone notices anything similar and you can reproduce it, please let me know!

In the meantime I had the task of getting things back in order. In the process I found things could be made simpler when trying to track these things down so I made a few updates that should help if you find yourself in the same situation.

First of all, in the reports section I’ve added a new report called “Envelope Audit”.

This tool will show the balance currently set for the envelope, what the envelope amount would be if you total all the transaction amounts that are assigned to that envelope, and the difference between the two. If you are a strict budgeteer, the difference between the two should be zero.

I found a few of them where off, so I manually edited the envelope balances to match the transactions balances. I had to pull a couple of envelopes out of the archive to update them.

Another update I made that was suggested on the Feature Vote system was to retain searches and filters when jumping from envelope to envelope. So if I click on an envelope, then change the filter to view all transactions, then click on another envelope, I would still have the filter set to view all transactions.

Once I got all my envelope balances in sync, I found a large discrepancy in my unallocated income folder. This is not really a big deal, but I wanted to fix it as well. I had to make a few hacks in the system to make this work.

First I tried adding a transaction with no bank account assigned. I found a bug where this transaction ended up in no man’s land because it it didn’t have a bank account or an envelope – the two ways a transaction is associated with a user. So I updated the system to assign transactions to the Unallocated Income box if you don’t select an account. Note that if I choose to undo this transaction, it goes out to no man’s land again. Basically just consider it a way to delete these hack transactions.

So after I added my hack transaction to get my unallocated income balance to sync, I now needed that unallocated income balance to equal zero again. So I added one more feature to allow you to manually set the Unallocated Income folder balance. To do this, click on the edit envelope button and you will be prompted to enter a balance amount to set.

I understand I’m airing dirty laundry here and it may feel dirty to make make manual modifications. Technically the system should be solid enough that things don’t get out of sync. But until I’m a perfect programmer, if you find yourself in an out of sync mode, hopefully these new tools will give you the ability to set things straight.

When I first created Inzolo, I thought it would be nice to have a way to set up filters to automatically assign transactions to envelopes based on filter rules – much like you can set up filters in email applications like gmail. Since someone else suggested it and this feature request got pushed to the top of the list in the feature vote system, it became top priority.

How it works

In order to auto-assign transactions, you must first create an auto-assign filter. You can create filters by going to the Filter Rules menu option. There is also a shortcut on the Unassigned Transactions list. If you click on the [] icon, it will take you to the add new filter view and pre-populate the payee and memo fields with the transaction payee and memo fields.

Rules are very basic and simple. Enter text in the Payee and/or Memo fields. If a transactions comes in that contains the text in the payee or memo field, then it is assigned to the envelope you select for that filter rule. The verify checkbox provides a way to see what will be auto-assigned before it actually happens. I personally prefer to leave this checked for every rule because I like to see every transaction that comes in.

For example, lets say you create a filter with the payee text as “Costco”, leave memo field bland and set “Groceries” as the envelope. Any transaction that comes in where the transaction payee field contains the word “costco” (it is NOT case-sensitive), then it will trigger this filter rule. If you don’t have the verify option checked, it will automatically assign it to the Groceries envelope. If you do have the verify option set, it will assign Groceries as the pending Envelope. Below is what it will look like in a pending state:

Now, you have the option of first verifying the envelope assignment. If you click the accept button [] then it will be assigned to the Groceries envelope. But, as is often the case with stores like Costco, Target, Wal-Mart etc., this may not be groceries. You may want to move it to a different envelope or split the transaction amount multiple envelopes.

Pro Tip: Notice the accept button on the table header. If you click this accept button, it will accept all pending envelopes in the unassigned transactions list.

Don’t worry, as always, if you make a mistake assigning a transaction to the wrong envelope, just click the envelope to view the transactions and click the undo button [].

It is also important to note that the order of filters is significant. Let’s say you also purchase gasoline as Costco. You could create a filter that has “Costco gas” in the payee field and goes to a Gas/Oil envelope. Filters will be triggered in the order you see them in the list, so if your previous filter of “Costco” is listed first, it will trigger and the transaction would go to the Groceries envelope. So you would want to drag & drop the “Costco gas” filter rule above the “Costco” filter rule. This way, a transaction that has the payee as “COSTCO WHSE #0487 00SANDY CITY” for example, would not trigger the “Costco gas” rule and be assigned to the Grocery envelope, while a transaction with the payee of “COSTCO GAS #0733 000LEHI” would be assigned to the Gas/Oil envelope.

Another time saving feature

Now, while we are on the topic of saving time and assigning envelopes, there is another little feature I have added to give you an alternate method for assigning envelops. If you click on the pending envelope icon, or, if there is no pending envelope, you can click on the assign envelope icon [] to bring up a pop-up dialog box with all your envelopes.

Note: It may not be obvious from the screenshot, but this list is scrollable if all your icons are not displayed.

The drag and drop is nice, but I will probably find myself using this new method of assigning envelopes far more. What about you? Do you think you’ll prefer the old drag & drop method, or this new method?

I’ve added a new report to the reports section: Spending by Month.

The report will let you select a date range, then show your spending for each month in that range, along with totals and averages. It’s as simple as that. Not much else to say. Go give it a try.

I recently learned how to make Google Chrome extensions. For kicks & giggles I made an extension that will load Inzolo mobile in a pop-up window. This can be handy if you want to jump into the simply mobile interface to check envelope balances, bank account balances or add a new transaction while sitting at your computer.

You may have noticed a new menu option for “Feature Vote”. This is a new tool I have added to let you help decided what you think the most important feature request is for Inzolo. You get 10 votes every month to put toward the idea you think would be most beneficial. Also, you can add your own feature ideas. Here is a brief video showing you how simple it is:

My microwave blew up a couple of days ago. OK, so it didn’t blow up, but I thought it was going to! We hadn’t used it for ours and the display turned off. When I went to pull it out of the cabinet to check to plug I nearly burned my hands. The whole thing was so HOT!

We bought the microwave in April when we moved to our new house. Previously we had an over the range model so we couldn’t take it with us. We bought this GE model from Lowe’s. Seeing how it was only 6 months old I wanted to see if I could get it replaced or fixed under warrantee. I’ll be honest, I don’t keep manuals. They are just clutter. I figure if I need a manual I can always look up a model number online and find it.

I don’t keep receipts either. In this instance I wish I would have. I wanted to see how much I paid for it and when exactly. I opened inzolo and looked though my past transactions in the envelopes I expected it in, but couldn’t find it. That’s when I realized, Inzolo really needs a transaction search feature.

I spent a couple of hours writing a search feature. It’s now in place. Click the new “Search All Transactions” button from within the Budget view to try it out. It will search the Number, Payee, & Memo fields of transactions. This search feature is also in the transaction list when you click on an envelope or envelope category.

I found my microwave transaction. It’s a long story, but it definitely wasn’t in the envelope I expected it to be in, which is why I couldn’t find it originally.

TIP: If you are importing transactions for you bank, take the time to edit edit the memo fields with keywords that will help you find the transaction easier in the future. In this case it was easy. I searched for Lowe’s and found it, but I also had “Microwave” in the memo field so I could have just searched for that term.

So it’s late Friday night, my wife is out of town, kids are in bed, and what do I do? I start a hacking session to see what my transactions would look like in a calendar view. Honestly when I started it, it was mainly out of curiosity. Three hours later I found the view interesting enough and working well enough that I just decided to push it live for all to see and use.

Right now, features are pretty basic. It displays all your transactions (associated with any bank account on the calendar). Withdrawals are red, deposits are green. You can move transactions around to change the date of the transaction.

Here are a few of things I thought would be nice to add to this view:

• Ability to add & edit transactions from this screen
• Add notes to dates to remind you when bills are due, or when to expect paychecks.
• Filters? (by envelop or envelop category)

Welcome September indeed! If you are anything like me you tend to spend more money during the summer months. Kids are out of school. You cram your calendar with as many little vacations, reunions and activities as you can. While all of this is fun and will be missed, my budget could use a breather! Let’s put the kids back in school, stay home on weekends and generally spend less money and basically plug holes in perverbial budget damn.

Below are recent updates made to Inzolo:

1. First, thank you for all the feedback I got on the mobile Inzolo redesign. I’ve moved forward with that design and added a few more features – most notably you can add and edit transactions.
2. Added Trust Guard. You might notice on the home page and login page I’ve added a Trust Guard icon. Basically this service runs a series of tests and hacking attempts each night on the server. I’m happy to report that since its very first run, zero vulnerabilities were found. In other words, I have not had to make any updates to increase safety on Inzolo.com.
3. More Banks: I’ve written a script to connect to OFXHome.com‘s API to merge all the banks they have in their directory that support OFX Direct connect. I’m working with the owner of that site to make sure the directory stays as up to date as possible.
4. I’ve added a new page for testimonials. If you’d like to add your kudos, I welcome your email. I can even link to your blog or website if you wish.
5. When you are looking at history in your envelopes or your unallocated income box, you can filter transactions by deposits and withdrawals. This may help you find the transaction you are looking for.
6. When creating or editing an envelope and selecting an envelope icon, the icons are sorted by name alphabetically now. This seems to have put them in better groupings anyway.
7. A recent new member requested a dog icon for their pet envelope. Frankly I’m surprised it hasn’t come up until now. There are now new pet icons available. Wouldn’t you know that a couple weeks later my family gangs up on me and now we have a dog. No, I didn’t name the dog Karma (her name is Daisy and she’s a Great Dane).

And now, for an assignment… I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have a visual reminder of debts while working on the debt snowball — something to see where you’ve been, where you are at, and where you plan to be. A thermometer comes to mind. You can see the red decreasing until it gets to zero. But what else could you use to represent this visually? Ready… go! Reply to this post and share your ideas.

Thanks,
Dustin