DevFirst.com FAQ
DevFirst.com FAQ
Q. How can I contact you?
A. admin@devfirst.com is the best place to start. If you need a phone number or physical address, it can be requested through email. We love to hear from our users!
Q. How can I contact you?
A. admin@devfirst.com is the best place to start. If you need a phone number or physical address, it can be requested through email. We love to hear from our users!
Spending Money FAQ
Q. How can I contact you?
A. spendingmoney@devfirst.com is the best place to start. If you need a phone number or physical address, it can be requested through email. We love to hear from our users!
Q. How can I download the app?
A. Click Spending Money App to take you to the Zune App Marketplace or use the tag to the right.
Q. How do I remove transaction without deleting all data?
A. There are two ways. 1) Select the transaction and click ... to bring up the main menu, then click Delete. 2) Press and hold on the transaction. A context menu comes up with options to delete or copy it.
Q. Can the app be used to tracking a checking account balance?
A. Yes! (as of v 1.5) Any spending event can be tagged as a check and can later be cleared. Just check the "Check/Cheque" box when adding a transaction.
Q. Is there a way to setup recurring transactions?
A. No. See Future Enhancements. There is a way when setting up a payday you can record the date of the next payday. When that day arrives, a message prompts you to record the payday and the next “next payday” will move out the same amount. So if you get paid every two weeks, you record a payday on Nov. 5th and set the next payday for Nov. 19th. When you enter the payday on Nov. 19th, the next payday will default to Dec. 3rd. etc.
Q. Is there a way to archive data?
A. Yes. You can send an email with all your data as text. On the main screen click the … button for more options, then click “send email with data” and enter the email address you want to send the data to.
This is for personal use and the data cannot be restored back into Spending Money. See Future Enhancements. Also note that this data is plain text and anyone with access to your email can see it.
Q. Is there a way to backup data?
A. No. See the question about archiving data and Future Enhancements. Currently if you haven’t archived and you lose or break your phone, the data is lost.
Q. How can you use Spending Money for vacations?
A. Decide on a budget for spending money for the vacation, for instance $500. I don’t include things like hotel and airfare since they are settled before hand. I archive and then clear out all my usual phone data and I put in a $500 “payday” with a “Plan Next Payday” for the end of the trip. This will give you a “days remaining” for planning ahead on the vacation. I enter in all the money I spend with credit cards, cash or checks for meals, parking, tickets to special events, tips, etc. The app shows how much money I have left for the rest of the vacation and records how much I spent and on what.
After the vacation I send the data with a “Vacation Ocean ‘09” subject and go back to my usual spending money allowance. When planning the next vacation, I bring up the email and can make a better estimate of expenses and know where I should cut back and where I can splurge to get the most out of my budget.
Q. Why not just get $100 cash once a week and you don’t have to worry about your budget?
A. Perhaps the best way to force yourself to stick to a strict budget is to pay for everything in cash and never spend more than is in your pocket. I’ve found that a cash budget has limitations
-Some things can’t be paid for with cash, like anything ordered online
-There is no record of where the cash is spent
-Sometimes you need to buy things that aren’t part of your budget, like when your wife asks you to pick up formula on the way home
-It can be dangerous to carry around cash, where it can be stolen or just lost
-Sometimes you have cash that isn’t part of your budget, like when your neighbor hands you $50 to pay for half of the snow plowing
-Sometimes you need to go over budget for some special case, like an unexpected dinner with friends, but you want to keep track of it
Spending Money fixes these problems. It frees the physical medium from the concept of the budget, so you can keep track of what you want to no matter how it is spent.
Q. How do you use it to track an allowance?
A. Here is the “Brian” scenario: On Sunday, Brian and his wife decide he gets an allowance of $100 per week and that includes lunches and gadgets but not utilities or rent. Monday, he starts Spending Money for the first time and sets a payday of $100 and checks “Plan Next Payday” with a date of next Monday. Brian records everything he spends that is part of his budget using cash, checks or cards, whether he buys lunch at the mall, downloads an app from the Marketplace, or orders new headphones online. If he wins a $5 gift certificate in a raffle he can enter it in as a payday and add it to his budget for the week. He sees his balance go down throughout the week until the next Monday when, whether he is above or below his budget, he will be prompted to add another $100 to his budget. About once a week Brian archives his current data by sending it to himself and his wife via email and regularly reevaluates his budget to see where he can save.
Q. How much data does “clear old data” keep?
A. It depends how much data you have. A warning message will clearly show how much data will be kept before the clearing is confirmed. If you have more than one month it will keep only the month. If you hit “clear old data” again it will keep only a week. If you hit “clear old data” again it will keep remove one day of data until only a single day remains.
Q. How many transactions can I keep?
A. 500 transactions can be kept at any one time in the full version. This limit is to guarantee acceptable performance. Once you hit 500 you can view stats and archive but you can’t add any more transactions. In trial mode, only 8 transactions can be kept at a time and a total of 100 transactions for the entire lifetime of the trial.
Q. What do I have to do to get my live tile updating?
A. Just go through these steps to troubleshoot the problem. If it still doesn't work, contact us at spendingmoney@devfirst.com.
Q. What are some future enhancements?
A. We are keeping a list of possible future enhancements to include and we are working on ways to include the enhancements without over-complicating the user experience.
If you want to "vote" for any of these enhancements, or have anything to add to the list, send us an email at spendingmoney@devfirst.com.
A. spendingmoney@devfirst.com is the best place to start. If you need a phone number or physical address, it can be requested through email. We love to hear from our users!
Q. How can I download the app?
A. Click Spending Money App to take you to the Zune App Marketplace or use the tag to the right.
Q. How do I remove transaction without deleting all data?
A. There are two ways. 1) Select the transaction and click ... to bring up the main menu, then click Delete. 2) Press and hold on the transaction. A context menu comes up with options to delete or copy it.
Q. Can the app be used to tracking a checking account balance?
A. Yes! (as of v 1.5) Any spending event can be tagged as a check and can later be cleared. Just check the "Check/Cheque" box when adding a transaction.
Q. Is there a way to setup recurring transactions?
A. No. See Future Enhancements. There is a way when setting up a payday you can record the date of the next payday. When that day arrives, a message prompts you to record the payday and the next “next payday” will move out the same amount. So if you get paid every two weeks, you record a payday on Nov. 5th and set the next payday for Nov. 19th. When you enter the payday on Nov. 19th, the next payday will default to Dec. 3rd. etc.
Q. Is there a way to archive data?
A. Yes. You can send an email with all your data as text. On the main screen click the … button for more options, then click “send email with data” and enter the email address you want to send the data to.
This is for personal use and the data cannot be restored back into Spending Money. See Future Enhancements. Also note that this data is plain text and anyone with access to your email can see it.
Q. Is there a way to backup data?
A. No. See the question about archiving data and Future Enhancements. Currently if you haven’t archived and you lose or break your phone, the data is lost.
Q. How can you use Spending Money for vacations?
A. Decide on a budget for spending money for the vacation, for instance $500. I don’t include things like hotel and airfare since they are settled before hand. I archive and then clear out all my usual phone data and I put in a $500 “payday” with a “Plan Next Payday” for the end of the trip. This will give you a “days remaining” for planning ahead on the vacation. I enter in all the money I spend with credit cards, cash or checks for meals, parking, tickets to special events, tips, etc. The app shows how much money I have left for the rest of the vacation and records how much I spent and on what.
After the vacation I send the data with a “Vacation Ocean ‘09” subject and go back to my usual spending money allowance. When planning the next vacation, I bring up the email and can make a better estimate of expenses and know where I should cut back and where I can splurge to get the most out of my budget.
Q. Why not just get $100 cash once a week and you don’t have to worry about your budget?
A. Perhaps the best way to force yourself to stick to a strict budget is to pay for everything in cash and never spend more than is in your pocket. I’ve found that a cash budget has limitations
-Some things can’t be paid for with cash, like anything ordered online
-There is no record of where the cash is spent
-Sometimes you need to buy things that aren’t part of your budget, like when your wife asks you to pick up formula on the way home
-It can be dangerous to carry around cash, where it can be stolen or just lost
-Sometimes you have cash that isn’t part of your budget, like when your neighbor hands you $50 to pay for half of the snow plowing
-Sometimes you need to go over budget for some special case, like an unexpected dinner with friends, but you want to keep track of it
Spending Money fixes these problems. It frees the physical medium from the concept of the budget, so you can keep track of what you want to no matter how it is spent.
Q. How do you use it to track an allowance?
A. Here is the “Brian” scenario: On Sunday, Brian and his wife decide he gets an allowance of $100 per week and that includes lunches and gadgets but not utilities or rent. Monday, he starts Spending Money for the first time and sets a payday of $100 and checks “Plan Next Payday” with a date of next Monday. Brian records everything he spends that is part of his budget using cash, checks or cards, whether he buys lunch at the mall, downloads an app from the Marketplace, or orders new headphones online. If he wins a $5 gift certificate in a raffle he can enter it in as a payday and add it to his budget for the week. He sees his balance go down throughout the week until the next Monday when, whether he is above or below his budget, he will be prompted to add another $100 to his budget. About once a week Brian archives his current data by sending it to himself and his wife via email and regularly reevaluates his budget to see where he can save.
Q. How much data does “clear old data” keep?
A. It depends how much data you have. A warning message will clearly show how much data will be kept before the clearing is confirmed. If you have more than one month it will keep only the month. If you hit “clear old data” again it will keep only a week. If you hit “clear old data” again it will keep remove one day of data until only a single day remains.
Q. How many transactions can I keep?
A. 500 transactions can be kept at any one time in the full version. This limit is to guarantee acceptable performance. Once you hit 500 you can view stats and archive but you can’t add any more transactions. In trial mode, only 8 transactions can be kept at a time and a total of 100 transactions for the entire lifetime of the trial.
Q. What do I have to do to get my live tile updating?
A. Just go through these steps to troubleshoot the problem. If it still doesn't work, contact us at spendingmoney@devfirst.com.
- Install version 2.5 or later.
- Make sure the Spending Money application is pinned to the Start menu. Just tap and hold on the app and select "pin to start".
- Make sure you have wifi or cellular coverage.
- Go into the application, tap the ... to bring up the menu, and click settings. Then turn on Live Tile Updates and save.
- Windows Phone can only support 15 apps doing push notifications. If you already have 15 apps doing notifications, you will not be able to get updates in Spending Money. Our app counts against this 15 limit if the option is turned on even if it is not pinned to the start screen.
- We will retry sending the update for 2 minutes, if you don't get it by then, try resetting the option and saving again.
Q. What are some future enhancements?
A. We are keeping a list of possible future enhancements to include and we are working on ways to include the enhancements without over-complicating the user experience.
- DONE in v2.2- Support for multiple accounts.
- DONE in v2.2- Allow assigning transactions to categories.
- More granular control for the +/- keys on the transaction screen.
- Ability to backup and restore data.
- More reports of spending habits.
- Companion web site to enter information and show reports.
- Custom keyboard for entering transaction amounts with less clutter.
- Ability to transfer money from one wallet to another in a single transaction.
- Ability to share wallets between users.
- DONE in b2.5- Live tile of current wallet balance.
If you want to "vote" for any of these enhancements, or have anything to add to the list, send us an email at spendingmoney@devfirst.com.
