Picking a name can be extremely easy or incredibly hard. Mike and I make it much harder than it should be because we always like to look for plays on words and secondary meanings in our titles. But, we always try to stick to a few basic rules when we name things:

• Easy to spell
• Easy to say
• Related to simplicity (small, slim, simple, etc)
• Appropriate domain is available at a reasonable cost

If we can satisfy those criteria we will try to push things a bit and make a play on words. SmallChange, for example, refers to a few coins or a simple change to the way you do things. A play on words that is applicable to our application! 

Here are a few of the names we didn’t think made the cut: Continue reading…

As Mike mentioned, we have come up with hundreds of ideas for web applications. Some are good and some are so terrible it is embarrassing to even go back and read them (those are mostly my ideas). But what makes a good idea worth the time to create it? For Mike and I, it was down to a few criteria:

• We both used an expense tracking software we were not 100% satisfied with
• The time required to create something tangible seemed achievable 
• There were many popular examples to follow if we got stuck
• None of the popular examples are functional for us Canadians

Mike also happened to be taking a class on software usability. This project fit in quite well, so it allowed us to justify spending a bit more time on it than we could have otherwise. All together, we had a very convincing case to move SmallChange from the idea stage to reality.

We are proud to present a new feature for SmallChange: Reports!

SmallChange is a simple tool for making sense of your income and expenses.

However, until today, there was no way to make sense of your data - at least not a simple way.  All you could do was enter data… enter some more data… and then admire that data.

Understanding Your Money

We do not intend for reports to be an all-knowing, fortune teller.  Simply, they help you decide if your money is going where you want.