Debt balance graph

Hi all,

in case you didn't notice, we added a "debt balance" graph within the friend's details page to let you visualize your balance with your friends. This is one of the requested features by many of you :-) A positive balance means your friend owes you money, whereas a negative balance means you owe your friend money.

update on iOS app

We know that the iOS app has not been behaving well on certain devices. We're trying to get this working better and resolved - thanks for your patience! If you're experiencing trouble, feel free to contact us regarding your issue. Meanwhile, if the app isn't working, please navigate to our mobile site https://www.billsup.com for your bill sharing needs!

Sincerely,
Billsup team

mobile apps and website synchronization

Hi billsuppers!

hello, and a few updates.

Windows Phone app updated
1.0.1 of the Windows Phone app has been released! This version fixes locale issues where the app is not working properly for devices outside of the US locale. We've pushed an update that should have fixed it for other countries.

Having mobile sync issues?
Some users are having trouble with syncing data between their mobile app, please send us more information so that we can help reproduce and diagnose your issues:

• Your billsup accuont id (e.g. tom@billsup.com)
• App version (e.g. Android 1.1)
• Your geographical location (e.g. United States)
• Device model and OS version (e.g. Galaxy Nexus, Android Ice cream sandwich)
• Describe exactly is wrong, what you expect, and what you actually get that's different from your expectations.

Want to help?
If you like Billsup, here's how you can help:

• Share it with your Facebook friends!
• Fan us on Facebook.
• Write a positive review! iTunes - Play Store - Windows Marketplace

If you have feature suggestions, feel free to contact us. 

Billsup team

iOS and Windows Phone apps released

Hi all,

Today we're excited to launch our mobile apps on iOS and Windows Phone!

iOS "1.0 Lite" version on iTunes:

Currently the app is not fully featured, but it does all the basics! What's included:

• See your debt summary with your friends
• offline mode - you can add and view your bills even when you're not connected
• specify multiple payers, and custom amounts for bills
• add and view shared bills, debts, and payments (delete and editing bills is not included, but hopefully coming soon)
• groups support - add your groups easily
• multiple currency support
• available on iPod touch, iPhone and iPad
• Free!

Windows Phone app on Marketplace:

• See your debt summary with your friends
• Syncs with billsup.com and stays up to date
• offline mode - add, view, and edit your bills even when you're not connected
• Specify custom amounts for bills
• groups support - add and view your groups easily
• multiple currency support - over 100 of them
• Native Windows Phone UI - Panorama and Pivots!
• Free, or get the paid version to support our development efforts, thanks so much!

These apps are only in version v1.0, so we definitely would invite feedback or bug reports! As well, if you like our apps, write a review in the respective stores and help us out.

Enjoy!
-billsup team

Site back to normal

Hey all,

Recently our website got compromised and we want to tell you the extent and the impact of the event.

Cause: one of the persons in our team was logging into our server's ftp using normal ftp, so his requests was prone to a sniffing attack. We have educated this person, and he is using encryption with his ftp sessions from now on.

Impact: the damage was minimal as they were only able to access the front-end of the site (i.e. the webpages), not your data. Hence, no data was lost or damaged. (As well, your data is encrypted and stored daily with backups even if the database is compromised)

We apologize about the incident, and we will continue to take every measure to make your experience smooth.

-Billsup team

iOS app progress

Hello all!

It's been a while since our last update! We have been working on backend performance changes and our mobile platforms.

Site Maintenance now
We're currently doing some maintenance on the site, and it may be down for a couple hours.

iOS app preview
Anyway, we wanted to show you some progress on our iOS app, so here are some screenshots. It should be available as soon as the App store approves the app. The first version is minimal and doesn't have certain features, but you would be able to add and view bills on the go at least! Here are some screenshots:

Merry Chirstmas and happy new year!

-Billsup team

Introducing Middleman Debt Transfer

We're excited to introduce a new feature today: we call it the "Middleman debt transfer". It's a simple way to settle up debts with people you don't see very often.

Let me show you how it works by an example:

Let's say Tom, Mary, and Peter goes out on a trip. Peter is Mary's friend, and Tom and Peter don't see each other very often.

After the trip, Peter ended up owing Tom $20.00. However, Peter doesn't see Tom much, so it's hard for them to settle their debts in person. 

However, they both see Mary very often. In real life, Peter would pay Tom back through Mary.  In other words, Peter would pay Mary $20, then Mary would pay Tom $20. Hence, Mary is acting as the "middleman" (or in this case the "middle woman"): she's not really gaining or losing money, but rather passing the money along.

With middleman debt transfer, the concept is similar. We let you transfer your debts so that you can settle through another person (middleman). To use this feature, go to the transfer debts page and select a "middleman" debt transfer. Simply pick:

• a friend (that you don't see very often)
• a middleman (a friend that you would see more often or sooner)
• That's it!

The current debt balances will be adjusted so that your debt with that friend you don't see very often can be settled. Meanwhile, no one loses money.

Cool? Enjoy!
Billsup team

Server upgrade & your help

Some of you might have been affected by the recent downtime.

First off, sorry for the unexpected outage. This is a rare event. It has been our commitment and is still our commitment to provide you with the best bill-sharing service possible. It was a stressful 24-hour event for us trying to get the service back up for you.

What happened

Our old hosting provider (Arvixe) was having some hardware issues and was unable to rectify the problem in good time. Hence, we had to expedit one of our ongoing projects to move to a more salable solution, which is AWS - this solution costs more, but should yield a more pleasant experience as our user base grows (it just means it'll cost us more in terms of operations).

Update: Site should be fully functional at this point :) thanks~!

What to do next time

Here are some tips as to what you can do if the server ever goes down (which shouldn't be normal)

• Check our Facebook & Twitter page: http://www.facebook.com/billsupcom, http://www.twitter.com/billsupcom
• Check our blog: we're now exposing it as a different URL in case there are DNS issues again: http://billsup.blogspot.com
• Contact us via Google forms (this works even when our site is down): http://goo.gl/Us1zO

Our commitment

We really value you, and appreciate your patience with Billsup. We won't just abandon our users. On the web, servers go down once in a while, even to the best of us: what makes Billsup different is that we would do what we can to keep it running. We don't want a similar situation like Billmonk.

How you can help

Bear with us as we continue to upgrade our servers to handle the heavier loads. If you want to support us financially, you can do so here. Any contributions:

• Will help us improve our service: better/faster servers that don't crash. Running algorithms like shuffling debts require powerful servers (and lots of math).
• Will go towards the operational costs and keep Billsup going before we implement a sustainable revenue model.
• Will help support the developers: your contributions will help us spend more time on Billsup instead of our normal jobs.
• Will help us feel appreciated. Perhaps it's a way of saying thanks, especially if you like our features

Thanks again for being with us,
-Billsup team