Sweldong Pinoy in 2017

Happy New Year! 2017 has been a great year for Sweldong Pinoy. We have released a new Sweldong Pinoy and two new projects: Budget Pinoy and Budget Penny.

New Sweldong Pinoy

We've updated Sweldong Pinoy based on Republic Act 10963 or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) and PhilHealth Circular No. 2017-0024. Learn more about the changes here.

These updates are already available in https://www.sweldongpinoy.com, in version 4.0 of the Sweldong Pinoy Android app, and in our other apps.

Budget Penny

We also developed Budget Penny last year. Budget Penny is your budget assistant. She can help you with your finances. Simply tell her your monthly budget and update her of your expenses as often as you like. Moreover, you can ask her how much is your remaining balance or whether you still have budget.

Budget Pinoy

Earlier in 2017, we released Budget Pinoy, a tool for Filipinos in computing gross and net pay based on user's budget.

Budget Pinoy allows users to input their projected expenses and budget and determine what their asking rate should be. You can try Budget Pinoy at https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.sweldongpinoy.budget. Let us know too how we can improve the app to help you more in your budgetting needs.

2018 and beyond

Sweldong Pinoy will be turning six this year! We'll still continue to update our apps. If you have suggestions on how we can improve them, please send send us a message.

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Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

Budget Penny, your budget assistant

"Okay Google. Talk to Budget Penny."

Last month, Jomar and I had been working closely in building another financial-related application to help people manage their money. We created Budget Penny.

About Celine's Budgeting

I have an every payday salary. Every payday, I know how much I should expect in my bank account, how much is budgeted for each expense, and how much I should have left. I usually spend 5-10 minutes a day, tracking how much money I have left and whether I saved a few dollars out of my allocated funds for the day. With this idea, Penny was born.

Introducing Penny

Jomar wanted to play around Actions on Google and he asked me to think of a possible assistant. Since I would love an assistant to keep track of how much money I have left, a budget assistant was on top of our list. It took us a while to agree on a name (Loonie, Toonie, Centi, among others) but agreed upon Penny.

Initial Release and Future Goals

Right now, on this release, you can ask Penny to set a budget (it's monthly by default), set expenses, and get balance. We also did our best in coming up with a Persona for her. On future updates, we hope to create a web app to track everything and expenses categories, flexibility on time (monthly, daily, or weekly), and useful savings tip so that Penny could help you save more.

Easter Eggs

Jomar and I love 'The Big Bang Theory' and placed a few Easter Eggs. Try asking Penny, "Where is Leonard?" :)

How to access Budget Penny?

To use / talk to Penny:

1. Talk to your Phone. "Okay Google. Talk to Budget Penny" or if you don't want to talk, you can type in "Talk to Budget Penny"
2. If it's your first time using the app, don't forget to set a budget!
3. Inform Penny of your expenses.
4. Ask her how much money do you have left.

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What do you think of Penny? Do you have any feature suggestions on how we could make her better? Please let us know!

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Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog