By popular request, added support for subcategories. The app works just as it did in previous releases, with the same category entry per transaction or per split. However you can now enter both a category and a subcategory separated by a colon (:), e.g. “House: Utilities”. Everything up to the colon is treated as the category, and the full text is treated as a subcategory. The pie charts in the reports work at the rolled up category level, but the List view will show both per-category and per-subcategory figures. For budgets, you can enter these at the category level or the subcategory level (or in fact both).

A number of improvements to the CSV import feature: it now detects if you have left a header row in place, and tries to continue from row 2. It copes with negative numbers being in (). It ignores blank columns to the right of your data, and blank rows throughout the file. Also if you leave the category field empty, it will try to autofill this based on your existing transactions. This only works if you have used a single category for each unique “details” field.

You can now have separate cheque numbers for each occurrence of a recurring transaction.

Fixed a bug introduced in my last update that prevented moving accounts beyond the last account (and therefore into a new group).

Fixed a bug where for some regions (e.g. Belgium) the CSV exports included currency symbols – this was not intentional.

This is a relatively minor update to fix a few known bugs, and to make some small improvements.

Enhanced the PDF reports to let you choose between the summary charts, the transactions themselves or everything together.

Added support for PIN recovery. Make sure you set your email address in the settings, as I can only help if you send me an email from this address.

Fixed a bug where the account balance at the bottom of the account screen was not being updated after copying, moving or deleting transactions using the blue buttons.

Fixed a bug where the order of transactions falling on the same day was not following the day order settings.

Fixed an issue with the VND exchange rates.

Fixed a crash when trying to generate very large PDF files. I now catch this and display a warning message that the PDF may be truncated.

If you don’t yet have the PDF Exports feature, just a reminder that this is a ONE-TIME purchase that lets you export PDF reports off your device as often as you want (despite the wording on the AppStore purchase screen). It can be accessed from the Balance Report at the top right of the screen.

This is a relatively minor update to fix a few known bugs, and generally improve the help available in the app.

Added more tips throughout the app. If you are familiar with the way the app works, these can now be turned off in the settings. I have also added quite a few more “frequently asked questions and answers” on my support page, to help new users get the most out of the app.

By popular request, the app now plots last year’s figures even if you don’t have enough readings (the missing figures are assumed to be zero). This lets you compare the most recent periods with the previous year.

Fixed a bug to do with monthly reminders being a day out.

Fixed a crash when adding a new billed units.

Fixed a crash while exporting large numbers of readings as a CSV file.

If you don’t yet have the backups feature, just a reminder that this is a ONE-TIME purchase that lets you backup and restore your data as often as you want (despite the wording on the AppStore purchase screen). You can also use it to share data between your iPhone and iPad, or import existing readings from a CSV file.

A major update of the Database of British and Irish Hills (version 12) was released a short while ago, and I have now updated my app to use it (not yet released). There are a few changes to the minor lists, however version 12 still has Beinn a’Chlaidheimh as a Munro. This hill has been surveyed at 913.96m (2999ft) and the survey results have been accepted by the OS. The SMC has not yet demoted the hill to Corbett.

In speaking to Chris Croker, version 12.1 is due out later this month, so I will release version 3.2 of my app then to include both the 12.0 and 12.1 database changes.

Now that the main database includes Irish hills, it would be nice to merge this data with my current MountainViews lists, although that might be a challenge! Any comments from those of you in Ireland?

I have spent a fair bit of the Christmas and New Year break working on a Mac version of Account Tracker. I have the high level design done, and the app is happily reading the latest backup file from Dropbox, displaying a list of groups/accounts with balances, and for each one a list of transactions in settings order … etc. You can show/hide reconciled transactions, and filter/search the transaction list.

OS X development is a bit of a nightmare compared with iOS (understatement of the year so far!!), and a lot of trivial things have taken days to figure out. However progress is being made, albeit slowly. 🙂

Next steps are implementing the budgets and reports screens, to provide a read-only version for testing. I will provide another update in a few weeks.

There have been three poor reviews on iTunes in the last week, almost all of which are because the reviewers haven’t understood something and they didn’t reach out for help. As a developer this is really frustrating – reviews are completely anonymous so I have no way of responding or helping in any way. The chances of these people reading this post is virtually nil, however in the spirit of helping others …

Sameer9679 – you don’t have to pay for each and every backup, you pay ONCE for the feature and you can backup and restore as often as you want. Almost certainly you have read Apple’s wording as part of the in-app purchase which says something like “Would you like to buy one Backup and Restore”. As a developer I would love to change this wording, but I can’t since its fixed by Apple. It actually means “Would you like to buy one Backup and Restore FEATURE which lets you make as many backups and restores as you want”. I do try to explain this on the previous screen.

Capt Bean – I have no idea what you mean by placeholders (they aren’t needed), and the app most certainly DOES save readings. However you do have to press Save first!! It is really trivial to add readings – simply tap +, set your reading and tap Save. You will then be prompted to move to the next meter, otherwise tap Done. I’m not sure how it is possible to make it any easier!

matcha111 – adding rates is covered on the 2nd screen on the Getting Started tour. It is also right at the top of the user guide (under Meters and Rates). Just tap on the Meters button then use the BLUE buttons next to each meter. The text on the Meters screen even explains this (right in the middle).

Meter Readings has had 354 written reviews so far …

★★★★★ 272
★★★★ 56
★★★ 9
★★ 8
★ 9

As 2011 comes to a close, my apps have had a pretty good year, the highlight of which has got to be Meter Readings being chosen by Apple as their iPad App Of The Week!

Here are some more highlights by date …

26th January – money.co.uk featured Account Tracker in their article Top 10 iPad Financial Apps.

9th February – msn money featured both Account Tracker and Meter Readings in their article 12 great money-saving apps for your mobile.

10th February – busiest day on my website, with 1,433 hits!

13th February – The Sunday Times did a big feature called The Top 500 Apps In The World. Account Tracker was voted the Best Personal Accounting app, and Meter Readings was also featured.

26th February-5th March – following the New Zealand earthquake, appappeal.co.nz was set up to raise funds for the NZ Red Cross. I donated a week’s sales proceeds for Meter Readings and raised £204 (NZ$450).

March – Apple picked Meter Readings as their “iPad App Of The Week” in the UK and Ireland.

June – my website got its 100,000th hit!

29th September – The Register picked Meter Readings as their iOS App of the Week.

November/December – Trail Magazine featured Hill Lists as “Best for Baggers” in their article “Hillwalking apps”.

December – Apple picked Meter Readings as one of their favourite iPhone finance apps of 2011 in the UK and Ireland as part of “AppStore Rewind 2011”.

Finally I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and a healthy and prosperous 2012!

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday period, and for those of you who celebrate Christmas, that Santa gave you lots of Apple goodies or iTunes vouchers to spend! 🙂

As a reminder, PLEASE don’t leave questions or support requests on iTunes as developers have no way of contacting you if you do (since reviews are anonymous). A lot of poor reviews are from people who simply get stuck and don’t reach out for help. Take for example this recent 1 star review for Meter Readings: “maybe I’m being stupid, but how do you add the prices per unit?”. I have no idea how they expected to get an answer, however the following steps would have helped them …

1) Account Tracker and Meter Readings both have Getting Started tours that are launched the first time you run the app. They only take a couple of minutes, and the question above was answered on the second screen! You can re-run these tours at any time.

2) All of my apps have built in user guides, covering all the main screens and features.

3) I appreciate that it can be difficult to read a user guide on a small screen, so they are also on my website, together with helpful screenshots. You have already found my website, but for the record there are links from each of my apps and from iTunes (the latter applies to all apps).

4) In the support page for each app, I have answered some frequently asked questions at the top, but there are also lots of user posted questions and answers. Chances are someone else had the same question as you, so you might just find your answer right there.

5) Failing all of the above, please use my contact page to send me an email. I usually respond in minutes (unless I am offline, driving or really busy). If I don’t respond within 24 hours, chances are you mistyped your email address (sadly this happens quite often!).

I hope this helps get you started (or unstuck!), and that you find my apps useful.

I have had a Twitter account (@ghaley) for a number of years, however I have not used it much (so far). If you prefer to get updates about my apps via Twitter, you are welcome to follow me here.

I have permanently reduced the price of my PDF Exports in-app purchase, so if you haven’t bought it so far, now would be a good time! I apologise to those of you who bought it straight away – I really thought it would have been a popular addition to the app, but in-app purchases never seem to do that well (at least for me!!).

Also in my “Man 3” app (for building professionals in the UK), the Save Readings in-app purchase is currently on sale for £4.99, which is 50% off. This unlocks the app so you can continue to use it after the initial month of usage.