Splasm Software Discussions

A feature that would give "advance notice" of scheduled entries would be to add the option of including the Scheduled Entries when creating a custom "Summary Report." That way you could run a report from today's date to perhaps the end of the month-- if you could then select "Scheduled Entries" in the "Show" menu (now it only allows Debits, Deposits and Transfers), it would take those future transactions into account.

C'mon splasm!!! That option should be EASY to write, eh???

thanks for a great product!!

We've beat this to a pulp. "Scheduled Entries" (Both debits and credits) MUST appear in the main window one month before the scheduled date. Period.

We need to see our Social Security (that's ANOTHER PROBLEM that must be fixed, since these payments are posted to our banks on the x Wednesday of each month) and pension checks a month ahead, for budgeting purposes. Plus, we want to see our scheduled debits, just to make sure they're there, and we can see just how much money we have to work with in the coming month.

I guess I never looked at scheduling entries to be used in budgeting. Even Quicken, which seems to try to be all things for everyone, keeps budgeting separate. I use scheduled entries but I've used them with the idea that it saves me entry time and makes sure that repeated entries are always identical whether I enter them monthly, weekly or daily. I don't consider them useful for budgeting.

I take exception to your comment that Social Security payments are posted on the x Wednesday of each month; mine aren't. They are posted on the 3rd of each month. I'm not saying your suggestion is not valid; it likely is for a lot of people. Just keep in mind that if anything gets changed it should probably allow those of us who happen to be happy with the feature as it is to use it without having to change. An optional choice of entry date might be the best way to handle your suggestion.

_________________
Wayne Dreier

Using OS X 10.5.1

Wayne, you are obviously older than I am. Here is the schedule:
If you filed for Social Security benefits before May 1, 1997, your payments usually are dated and delivered on the 3rd of the month following the month for which the payment is due. For example, payments for January are delivered on February 3rd.

If the 3rd of the month is a Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday, your payments are dated and delivered on the first day before the 3rd of the month which is not a Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday. For example, if the 3rd is a Saturday or Sunday, payments are delivered on the preceding Friday.

If you filed for Social Security benefits May 1, 1997, or later, you are assigned one of three new payment days based on the date of birth of the insured person:

If you were born on the… ----- Your payment will be delivered on the…

1st through 10th of the month ----- Second Wednesday of the month

11th through 20th of the month ----- Third Wednesday of the month

21st through end of the month ----- Fourth Wednesday of the month

If your scheduled Wednesday payment day is a Federal holiday, we’ll send your payment on the preceding day that is not a Federal legal holiday.

SO, scheduled payments work for YOU, but not me or my wife.

I may not be older because I filed after 1 May 1997. The schedule you listed is what is published but there are exceptions to that schedule. My wife and I happen to fall under one of the several exceptions which is why my benefit is the 3rd.

But my point is still valid, any change in the way the scheduled entries are rearranged, should be an addition to the choices already available, not conform to a government schedule which has several exceptions.

_________________
Wayne Dreier

Using OS X 10.5.1

I've already sent this off to the Splasm guys, but it bears repeating. I use Now Up-to-Date for my calendar. One reason is the way they handle recurring entries -- superior to the free Apple calendar that comes with the Mac, IMO.

For example, I have an entry in my calendar on the second Friday in January - January 13th to be exact. IF I choose to make this a recurring entry on my calendar, my choices will pop up on a menu thusly:
every day
every weekday
Mon, Wed., Fri
every week (on Friday)
every two weeks (on Friday)
every three weeks (on Friday)
every month (on the 13th)
every year (on January 13)
the 2nd Friday of every month
the 2nd Friday in January, and
custom repeat...

It also lets me enter the number of times the event should repeat. So I set it to let my Social Security credits repeat 12 times (because it has to be updated annually, as does my health insurance premium

THAT'S the kind of choice we all would like to see.

And most of us want to see the NEXT event posted as soon as the current event has occurred. We schedule our bill payments on line, a month or more ahead sometimes, and need to see the other projected debits and credits among them. It shouldn't matter if it's "recurring" or not -- just that it's scheduled.

Also OS X 10.3.9

Sorry for the late reply but I just bought this product that looks great, though I did use it in trial mode for a month. Just the right level of power and ease of use I was looking for.

However, I'll second the suggestion on this thread. This was something I had already identified in my head as the major improvement to be brought to CheckBook.

Wayne comments:


While this may be true, that is because Quicken has a Budgeting module. Checkbook does'nt; not that I would want one. This requested feature is just to make sure you don't write a NSF cheque inadvertently.

Well, two new versions since this subject has been brought up, and no action.

Let's compromise: Just add a button on the SCHEDULE page next to each item that says: "APPLY NOW" and we could live with that for a while by doing it manually. We don't even have that option as it now stands.

I second a manual button.
Please, I need this option.

Any progress on this?

The one feature of Checkbook which I don't like is that scheduled entries are not automatically appled - you have to 'approve' them every time, which I think is an unnecessary complication. Could there be an option to automatically apply scheduled entries please?

I have to admit we haven't made the time to get to your enhancement request for CheckBook's Schedule Entries. I can say that we're wrapping up 2006 business this week and will be almost exclusively about CheckBook 2.0 through 2.1 for the foreseeable future. We will try to get things working as you'd like in 2.0 but it may have to wait until a minor release on the way to 2.1.

Just to be sure we're on the same page, your Schedules need to repeat on specific instances (1st through 4th, or last) of specific days of the week in specific months, right? For example, the 2nd Friday of every month or the last Monday of February, similar to what can be set up with iCal's custom repeat options. What if we extend the "Repeat Every" part of the Schedule interface to include these kinds of options? CheckBook should already work well for the rest of the examples you gave from Now Up-to-Date. Repeating a specific number of times is also already part of CheckBook.




The Look Ahead feature we introduced earlier this year should help with this, allowing you to see the Scheduled Entries that will become due a specific amount of time into the future and commit them in advance.

We've always had it in mind to add a contextual menu item to each Schedule so the user can commit the next due Scheduled Entry. Would that work for you?




We're extremely reluctant to provide this option because we're concerned about how it would affect less experienced users.

Committing automatically would really hurt if a user mistyped the Start Date for a Schedule, such as entering a year at some point in the past. That would bring a wave of unwelcome Scheduled Entries into the current Account. This could also happen if the date on the Mac is just plain wrong and happens to be wrong into the future rather than the past. With the Schedule Reminder we're trying to give users a sporting chance of seeing the trouble before it comes to pass. The Schedule Reminder also gives users a way to try various Schedule options to see how they will play out without actually affecting their Accounts.

If we do provide an option to automatically commit it would have to come with a very strong warning about the very painful possibilities. Even then I suspect some less experienced users would skip the warning text. It might be better as a hidden preference, only available to users familiar with the defaults command-line tool or editing user defaults property lists by hand.

_________________
Keith Gugliotto
Primordial Sea Captain
Splasm Software
https://www.splasm.com

That's fine. PLEASE implement this because I find the present method painful compared to the Amiga program 'Money Matters' which I have used for the last ten years, and which does automatically apply scheduled entries. Yes, you could get dates wrong, but the program did not auto-save so you could just undo it.

Fine.

As for automatically "committing" I think the look ahead feature handles that. I like to check the box in the check register ONLY when I see (on the bank's site) that the payment or credit has been applied, and properly, at that.

Oops. I STILL can't set CB to auto-accept my wife and my Social Security deposits. I thought this was promised back in 2005! 2 1/2 years sure is a long time.

Yep. In OCTOBER 2005 I said:
I've already sent this off to the Splasm guys, but it bears repeating. I use Now Up-to-Date for my calendar. One reason is the way they handle recurring entries -- superior to the free Apple calendar that comes with the Mac, IMO.

For example, I have an entry in my calendar on the second Friday in January - January 13th to be exact. IF I choose to make this a recurring entry on my calendar, my choices will pop up on a menu thusly:
every day
every weekday
Mon, Wed., Fri
every week (on Friday)
every two weeks (on Friday)
every three weeks (on Friday)
every month (on the 13th)
every year (on January 13)
the 2nd Friday of every month
the 2nd Friday in January, and
custom repeat...

It also lets me enter the number of times the event should repeat. So I set it to let my Social Security credits repeat 12 times (because it has to be updated annually, as does my health insurance premium

THAT'S the kind of choice we all would like to see.