Beta 3 is now available

Fixes include:

• Sorting in list view now works as expected
• Fixed issue with budget info not drawing background properly
• More small visual tweaks

Beta 3 is more of an intermediate release covering a few small fixes.  We are now hard at work on Beta 4 which will bring importing improvements and the smart import rules editor.

We are pleased to announce that Cha-Ching 2 Beta 2 is now ready for download. We have fixed a number of issues from Beta 1 and squeaked in several new features as well.

Highlights:

• Fixed crash when filtering/searching
• Fixed smart vaults not remembering criteria properly
• Fixed todo source list item contextual menu
• Fix the “edit window always on top” bug
• Fixed screen refresh issues during online browsing
• Fixed issues with printing not sorting properly
• Further enhanced database speed
• Fixed color picker not showing properly when creating a new calendar to sync with
• Added “duplicate” item to the toolbar
• Fixed issues with the balance bubble not auto-updating
• Added reconciled total to the bottom status text for reference when browsing online banking
• Status text now updates with correct item totals when filtering
• Fixed Welcome Window not honoring preference to hide on launch
• Fixed About panel staying on screen (now you can click anywhere off the window to close

Interface Enhancements and New Features:

While we spent most of the past week fixing bugs that were found during the initial release we also added several new features.

• Enhanced (actually useful) coverflow view that allows you to view info based on month, week, year and tag (This allows really quick and easy viewing of spending habits in coverflow view)
• Aforementioned interface enhancements and another big speed boost
• Added status, flagged and attachment badges to the list view
• Fix tag editor drawing off screen when in fullscreen mode
• Added toolbar and moved search/view controls to the top of the interface

Please note this is not an exhaustive list but covers most of the major changes.

There are a few outstanding issues from B1 and these include:

• Scheduler not updating when items are edited/paid

(We still haven’t quite figured out what is going here. The changes are definitely reflected in the database behind the scenes but for some reason those changes don’t get reflected on screen. A work around for now is to either change filter options or switch to an account and back to scheduler to see your changes.)

• List view still doesn’t sort properly (yet)
• Editing a smart vault’s name in the sidebar causes a crash

We didn’t want to hold up this release any longer but we are still working hard on fixing these issues and should have a fix in place soon.
So anyhow here is the link.  Enjoy :)

Download Beta 2

Also remember that anyone who purchases a license to Cha-Ching 1 from here on out will automatically be upgraded to Cha-Ching 2 when we ship the final version at the end of the summer.

Please feel free to comment and provide feedback in this thread on the forum:

Beta 2 Release Thread

Cheers and Happy Downloading :)

Greetings from Midnight Apps. As most of you know we have been working on Cha-Ching 2 for the past 8 months or so. We are pleased to announce that the first public beta of Cha-Ching 2 is ready for some real world trials.

What is in Cha-Ching 2 Beta 1?

• Improved interface
• New transaction editor
• To-Do Support
• New Scheduler
• New and Improved Sidebar with Nested Folders
• New Tag Editor
• New Balance Bubble
• New Online “Tab”
• Faster Database
• New Smart Searching/Filtering
• New Photo Browser
• Split Transactions
• New Ability to Flag Transactions for Review
• Many other great features…

What is NOT currently in Cha-Ching 2 Beta 1 (but is planned and currently being implemented for the final release at the end of the summer)

• Multiple Currency Support (We are definitely working on it, just not quite ready for public consumption)
• All New Transaction Importer with Smart Import Rules/Auto Tagging
• New Reporting Features
• Stock/Loan Account Support
• Improved Budget Creation
• Tag Cloud View
• Other Misc Improvements

We are very very excited to be bringing this release to the public.  It definitely represents the hard work we have been doing to make Cha-Ching the best there is.

You will notice that this beta will expire on July 31st but we will have beta 2 ready to go when that date rolls around.  Also Cha-Ching 2 creates a new database and leaves your current Cha-Ching 1 database intact should you need to roll back for any reason.

Over the next several weeks we will be focusing heavily on the import process so if you are having difficulty with any type of file please post in this thread in the forums:

Cha-Ching 2 Import Issues

There is also a new category in the forums for all Cha-Ching 2 related discussion so please post anything you find relevant in this thread:

Cha-Ching 2b1 Release Thread

Please try it out and let us know what you think!

Cha-Ching 2 is available as a self expiring beta and requires Leopard 10.5.4
We will be pushing out auto-updates using sparkle as the beta progresses.

Thanks for downloading!
Download Cha-Ching 2 B1

The first new feature we will be covering is Cha-Ching 2’s enhanced balance bubble. One of the major shortcomings of the initial version of the “bubble” has it has come to be known we the inability to easily see how much money you had in a given account.

You could of course use the filter controls to only show “Reconciled” or “Pending” but this did not give you a truly accurate picture of the current state of things within your accounts. With that in mind we overhauled the way transactions are displayed. By default Cha-Ching now shows Reconciled transactions (items that have posted to your account) and Pending transactions (items that you have submitted for payment like checks and debit card purchases that have not yet cleared your account). We have come up with a new way to display scheduled/upcoming transactions that we will cover in a later post.

Along with this new default view we have created a brand new “bubble” to better display account balance information. The new bubble can now display both the total of your “Reconciled” transactions as well as “Reconciled + Pending” which is also known as “Available Balance.

This way you will always know exactly how much money you have available to you at any given time.

We have also enhanced the bubble by providing a color change when your balance becomes overdrawn or when you are “filtering” an account and thus only displaying part of your total balance.

While these are small changes they really go along way to making Cha-Ching much easier to use.

Hope you have enjoyed this first “Feature Peek” more to come soon!

This post has been a really long time coming (we have been doing really heavy work for the past 7 months) but we are finally happy to be able to shed some light on Cha-Ching 2.  This is going to be the biggest update we have ever shipped. We have added dozens of new features covering both user requests as well as things that have been planned from the very start.

Obviously this beta path has not been without hardship but it has really come together. We had high hopes initially to get the beta ball rolling early but it quickly became apparent that this was not going to happen. We should have done a better job of communicating this to you the user (huge understatement here) but there turned out to be some huge hurdles we needed to get past in order to make Cha-Ching 2 happen.  

The biggest issue we had revolved around the most important part of Cha-Ching, the database.  Without going into too much detail we needed to update the database in order to allow us to implement all the neat things we had planned.  Unfortunately this meant migrating the database and moving all the data from the previous database into a new one.

After an excruciatingly long period of debugging we now have a very stable, easily upgradable database that loads incredibly quickly and is very flexible.

The first time you launch Cha-Ching 2 there will be a slight delay while the database gets migrated and then you will immediately be able to see the speed enhancements that the new database brings.

So with that out of the way we were finally able to get back to planning and implementing new features.

We have been planning for Cha-Ching 2 since before we launched Cha-Ching 1.  There are many features that just didn’t make the cut for our 1.0 app and a host of others that we just did not get quite right.  With that in mind we began building our feature set for 2.0 which we knew was going to be huge.

We started with some of the most frequently requested features like multiple currency support, better downloading, more efficient editing, split transactions, easier tagging and more intuitive adding of photos.  We are very pleased to say that we will be tackling all of these features when 2.0 ships in its final stage at the end of this summer.

We have already implemented many new features and requested enhancements and will be shipping Cha-Ching 2.0 B1 this week

Over the next few days we will be posting in depth articles about many of the new feature we have planned for Cha-Ching including:

• Brand new editing interface
• Completely overhauled scheduler
• Syncing with iCal
• Built in ToDo Support
• Enhanced Tag Edit Window
• New view options including list view
• New Keyboard shortcuts
• New smart filter options with built in predicate editor.
• Enhanced Online tab
• Brand new balance bubble that is able to show both Reconciled and Available balance
• Enhanced Interface
• Ability to have nested folders in the sidebar
• Coverflow View
• New photo edit panel
• Core Animation
• Much faster database
• Split Transactions

In addition to these great features we have also begun implementing the following features for the second beta which will ship after beta 1.

• Multiple Currency Support
• Smart Import Rules
• New Import Panel w/duplicate detection
• New account types including loans and stocks
• New Tag Cloud View
• Reports

Stay tuned!