Tigcal Apps and Projects in 2021

This year, I continued working on Tigcal Apps and Projects. Here are the features and updates (arranged alphabetically by app name):

Boto Ko

Boto Ko has been updated for the 2022 National and Local Elections. It also can now automatically update the list of candidates (for the national positions) as soon as they become available. The Clear and Save buttons have also been fixed at the bottom so users can easily use them without scrolling all the way down to all the input fields.

Boto Ko Website and Web App

Boto Ko now has a domain name and website: https://www.botoko.app. The website was also transformed into a web app so that users can use Boto Ko even if they are not using an Android device.

PHostpaid

PHostpaid 2.0, with Dark Theme support and more, has been released this year. I also converted everything from Java to 100% Kotlin, improved the app architecture, and refactored the code.

Pinoy Jokes

Minor updates to the Pinoy Jokes Android app have been released this year. I'm still working on the next big release for the app.

Sweldong Pinoy and Budget Pinoy

Sweldong Pinoy has been updated early in the year for the deferred PhilHealth contribution increase. They were then updated for the contribution increases for 2022.

Other apps

I also updated other apps like Thirteenth Month with small changes, mostly on design and performance.

Comments/Suggestions?

Help us improve our apps! Send us your comments and suggestions by email or by adding a review on the Google Play Store page of the apps.

Sweldong Pinoy in 2021

Sweldong Pinoy is a salary calculator for Filipinos in computing net pay, withholding taxes and contributions to SSS/GSIS, PhilHealth and PAG-IBIG. Here are the updates we have released this year for Sweldong Pinoy, Budget Pinoy, and Thirteenth Month.

Deferring PhilHealth Contribution Increase

Contributions for SSS and PhilHealth have increased but for PhilHealth, it was deferred. We have immediately updated all our apps after the announcement.

Sweldong Pinoy and Budget Pinoy for 2022

Contributions for PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG Fund are increasing in 2022. The Android and web apps of Sweldong Pinoy and Budget Pinoy has been updated. A dropdown was added so users can choose and compare between the current or upcoming rates.

Other Updates

There have been a few updates focusing on design and performance updates to the apps.

Looking forward to 2022

Thank you to everyone who uses Sweldong Pinoy apps and sends us feedback. We're looking forward to adding more features and enhancements to our apps.

If you have comments, suggestions, or messages to us, please feel free to contact us by email, Facebook Messenger, or with the Chatra app on our website. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more updates.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

Sweldong Pinoy in 2020

This year, we have released some new features and other updates to our apps.

Sweldong Pinoy for Self-Employed Individuals

We've added computations for Self-Employed Individuals. You just need to select "Self-Employed Individual" in the employment type and the app will compute the contributions for SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG Fund, tax, and other contributions, and your net pay.

sweldongpinoy.com updated with computations for Self-Employed

Budget Pinoy for Everyone

We have updated Budget Pinoy for Everyone. The web and Android app now has a dropdown for employment type. Users can select their employment type and the app will update the deductions and asking rate accordingly.

Budget Pinoy Android app with Employment Type drop-down

New Thirteenth Month

With the new new Thirteenth Month, users can now input their salaries from January to December to compute their thirteenth month pay. If users have the same salary for the year, they can select "My salary is the same for the whole year" and provide the salary, starting/ending week/month like before. The text fields for the months will be automatically filled up.

You can now provide your salaries per month or select My salary is the same for the whole year

Sweldong Pinoy for 2021/Budget Pinoy for 2021

Sweldong Pinoy and Budget Pinoy were also updated to use the new contribution rates for SSS and PhilHealth starting 2021. In the initial release, we added a dropdown so you can choose the current (2020) or upcoming (2021) rates.

Sweldong Pinoy for 2021

Other Updates

On supported browsers, a share button has been added to the web app for users to share their results.

Sweldong Pinoy Share button; Chrome on Pixel 2

A live chat widget has also been added to the web apps for real-time user support.

Chatra for Sweldong Pinoy

To 2021 and beyond!

Thank you to everyone who uses Sweldong Pinoy and sends us feedback. We're looking forward to adding more features and enhancements to our apps. If you have comments, suggestions, or messages to us, please feel free to contact us by email, Facebook Messenger, or with the Chatra app on our website. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more updates.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

Tigcal Apps and Projects in 2020

Tigcal Apps

I have made some little commits to the Tigcal Apps repository. I have also changed the app icon.

Sweldong Pinoy

A major release for the year is Sweldong Pinoy for Self-Employed Individuals. For 2021, Sweldong Pinoy was also updated to use the new contribution rates for SSS and PhilHealth. On supported browsers, a share button has been added to the web app for users to share their results. A live chat widget has also been added to the web apps for real-time user support.

Budget Pinoy

Budget Pinoy for Everyone: The web and Android app now has a dropdown for employment type. Users can select their employment type and the app will update the deductions and asking rate accordingly.

Thirteenth Month

The new Thirteenth Month app was released. Users can now input their salaries from January to December to compute their thirteenth month pay. If they have the same salary for the year, they can select "My salary is the same for the whole year" and provide the salary, starting/ending week/month like before. The text fields for the months will be automatically filled up.

GDGPH Chrome Extension

A new update to the Google Chrome Extension for Google Developer Group (GDG) Philippines (version 3.1) was released. This included the following: adding events tab to display events from the Meetup Page, updating GDG logo, updating links, and removing blog and video tabs.

GDG Philippines 4.0

After updating the GDGPH Chrome Extension, I spent some time updating the Android app. I migrated the code to Kotlin and used Retrofit, Coroutines, and ViewModel to fetch the events from the Meetup API. Other changes include the Dark Theme and updates to chapter links.

The events tab on a mobile phone: light theme (left) and dark theme (right)

Tigcal Apps and Projects in 2019

Tigcal Apps and Projects

The repository for Tigcal Apps has been open sourced on Github. Tigcal Apps has served as my sandbox project for learning and working on Material Design Components, AndroidX, Kotlin, Dark Theme, and more.

Sweldong Pinoy

There has been two major updates to Sweldong Pinoy this year. The SSS contribution was updated based from Republic Act No. 11199 (The Social Security Act of 2018). PhilHealth contribution was also updated based from the Universal Health Care Act (Republic Act No. 11223) and PhilHealth released Circular 2019-009. Other updates included design improvements and Dark Theme for the Android app.

Budget Pinoy

We have also released the new version of Budget Pinoy, which now has a web app at https://www.budgetpinoy.com other than the Android app.

Budget Pinoy is a tool for Filipinos in finding out how much their asking salary should be based on their budget. Users can input their budgets and specify if they are Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Annnually. These will be totalled and the app will show the user the asking rate they need to earn enough for their budget. The net pay and deductions are computed using Sweldong Pinoy.

Boto Ko

Boto Ko was also updated for the 2019 National and Local Elections in the Philippines. The candidates for senators and party list representatives have been added in a list so it will be easier to select. In the party-list selection, there is an additional button to view the party list's nominees.

Tigcal Samples, Tigcal Utils

I also added in my Tigcal Samples repository the Android projects I've worked with in the past few months and the Bill Calculator I removed from Tigcal Utils. A separate repository was also made for my Tigcal Utilities app.

Sweldong Pinoy in 2019

The year is almost over. In 2019, we have done some design and performance improvements to our Sweldong Pinoy apps. We  also worked on new features and new projects. Here are some of our major highlights for 2019.

SSS Contribution Increase

Republic Act No. 11199 (The Social Security Act of 2018) was signed earlier this year by the president. Under the law, the monthly contributions of SSS members will be increased from the current 11% to 12%. We have updated https://www.sweldongpinoy.com and released Version 4.1 of the Sweldong Pinoy Android app to use the new rates. Learn more here.

PhilHealth Contribution Increase

The Universal Health Care Act (Republic Act No. 11223) was signed into law last February and PhilHealth released Circular 2019-009 announcing the new premium contribution schedule effective December 7. We have updated https://www.sweldongpinoy.com and released Version 4.2 of the Sweldong Pinoy Android app to use the new rates. Learn more here.

Source: https://twitter.com/teamphilhealth/status/1200200278508625922

New Budget Pinoy

We have also released the new version of Budget Pinoy, which now has a web app at https://www.budgetpinoy.com other than the Android app.

Budget Pinoy is a tool for Filipinos in finding out how much their asking salary should be based on their budget. Users can input their budgets and specify if they are Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Annnually. These will be totalled and the app will show the user the asking rate they need to earn enough for their budget. The net pay and deductions are computed using Sweldong Pinoy.

Dark Theme

We have been experimenting with adding Dark Theme alongside the design changes we're adding on our apps. The latest release of Sweldong Pinoy Android App and the new Budget Pinoy app now have Dark Theme support.

Sweldong Pinoy

Budget Pinoy

We'll continue to improve the designs for both Light and Dark Themes. The next version of Thirteenth Month Android app and our other apps will include Dark Theme. We're also experimenting on adding Dark Theme support on our web apps.

Sweldong Pinoy on Instagram

Sweldong Pinoy is now on Instagram! Follow us at https://www.instagram.com/sweldongpinoy.

2020 Vision

Thank you to everyone who uses our apps and sends us feedback. We're looking forward to more improvements, additional features, and more apps. Feel free to send us your comments, suggestions, or messages. If you are on Twitter, follow @SweldongPinoy and if you are on Facebook, like our Facebook Page.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

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.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

Sweldong Pinoy in 2015

Most of the changes to Sweldong Pinoy this year was on performance improvements and design enhancements. Here are some of the updates to Sweldong Pinoy throughout 2015.

Sweldong Pinoy Updates

We have released Sweldong Pinoy for Minimum Wage Earners on April. Our apps our apps will no longer deduct withholding taxes for employees earning minimum wage if you select "Minimum Wage Employee" in the Employee Type.

Other updates:

• For employees with daily pays, you can now provide the actual number of days and the app will compute your salary based on this instead of the previous default of 20. This is because not everyone works for 20 days in a given month.
  
• We have also improved the computation for the hourly and daily rates which are being used in salary computation, like the night differential and overtime pays.
• The apps now compute night differential based on number of hours instead of the days
  
• Minor changes like moving compute button to right and clear button to the left

Thirteenth Month Updates

For Thirteenth Month, we had two updates to the apps: setting the ceiling for non-taxable thirteenth month to 82,000 pesos (pursuant to Republic Act No. 10653, which was approved on February 12, 2015) and computing for thirteenth-month pay based on the actual weeks inputted by the user.

Thirteenth Month Android (running on a 7" tablet)

Project X

We are also working on another project. It is still in its early stage and we will let you know about it soon!

Help us Improve Sweldong Pinoy

We are continuously updating and improving the app. If you have used or are using any of our apps, help us improve by filling up our survey at http://survey.sweldongpinoy.com. You may also contact us directly.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

Sweldong Pinoy in 2014

It has been a great year for Sweldong Pinoy. There were major and minor updates to the apps and we released a new app.

Computation Updates

The year started with increases in the deductions for PhilHealth and SSS contributions based from PhilHealth Circular 27 s.2013 and SSS Circular 2013-010. Sweldong Pinoy apps were updated on January 4 to compute the new deductions based on these new tables.

Android Tablet App

After a bit of delay, the tablet-optimized version of the Sweldong Pinoy Android app has been released.

Swedong Pinoy Android App on a 7-inch tablet

Sweldong Pinoy for Government Employees

Sweldong Pinoy was updated for Government employees. Instead of SSS deductions, what the government employees have is GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) contributions. Government employees will just select "Government Employee" in the Employment Type and the app will compute the GSIS contribution instead of the SSS contribution, other deductions, and net pay.

Sweldong Pinoy Android App showing the Government Employee Employment Type input

Sweldong Pinoy for RHQ/ROHQ Employees

The Sweldong Pinoy apps has been updated for employees of Regional or Area Headquarters (RHQs) and Regional Operating Headquarters (ROHQs). RHQ/ROHQ employees will just select "RHQ/ROHQ Employee" in the Employment Type and the app will compute their withholding tax, other deductions, and net pay.

http://www.sweldongpinoy.com with RHQ/ROHQ Employee as a selection in Employment Type

Thirteenth Month Apps

We have developed Thirteenth Month, a tool for Filipinos in computing their 13th-month pays. It can be accessed at http://13thmonth.sweldongpinoy.com. The Android app is also available on Google Play

Thirteenth Month Android App 1.0 Input Screen

Sweldong Pinoy in 2015 and beyond

It has been a wonderful year for Sweldong Pinoy. There are still a lot to be done and things under development. If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to send us a message.

---

Originally published at the Sweldong Pinoy Blog

2013 Personal Apps

2013 has been another busy year at work, in events, and in other activities. But I did find some time to work on a few personal apps.

Boto Ko Android App

I started working on Boto Ko in April for the 2013 National and Local Elections (May 13) and released another update for the 2013 Barangay Elections (October 28). With Boto Ko (Boto 'ko or My Vote in English), you can list the candidates you want to vote and update it anytime. Also, you can share your list anytime with ease via SMS, email, and many more. This removes the need to list it down on paper and erasing it or making a new list when you need to update it.

Sweldong Pinoy Firefox OS App

I applied in Mozilla's Firefox OS Phones for App Ports and received a Geeksphone Keon Firefox OS developer preview phone. I wasn't able to port my HTML5 app within 31 days but I was able to port Sweldong Pinoy before the year ends. It is now available in the Firefox Marketplace.

Apps Updates

• Sweldong Pinoy Web App Redesign
  • Made the app responsive by using Twitter Bootstrap
  • Adding night differential and overtime pay computations
  • Updating computations based on new tables
  • Adding social media icons
  • Improving layout and design
• Sweldong Pinoy Android App
  • Use of Action Bar Sherlock for action bars on devices whose OS version is lower than Android 3.0
  • Adding night differential and overtime pay computations
  • Updating computations based on new tables
  • Hiding the night differential and overtime input field and adding checkbox to show them
• GDGPH Android App
  • Adding Posts and Events
  • Adding navigation drawer for posts, events, and chapters
  • Cleanup and removal of unused codes
• Pinoy Jokes Android App
  • Use of Action Bar Sherlock for action bars on devices whose OS version is lower than Android 3.0
  • Adding tab for favorite jokes
  • Making the loading of favorites and jokes list faster
  • Bug fixes and optimization

Hopefully, I will have more time for apps development this 2014: for developing new apps and for updating my other apps.

---

Originally published at Jomar Tigcal's Blog