What's new in ClearCheckbook v5?

This is one of the largest updates we've made to ClearCheckbook since it launched in 2006. We completely upgraded the site to a new framework and updated to the latest versions of all the software and languages the site is built upon which will help us to create better tools and features in the future.

Below is a list of many of the new features, tools and updates we've made to ClearCheckbook version 5. We're extremely proud of this update and what it means to the future-proofing of ClearCheckbook. If the item is prepended with a it means that item is available to ClearCheckbook Premium members.

New Features / Tools

• Asset Tracker: Manage and track assets such as homes, vehicles and other tangible assets.
• Account Text Reports: reports similar to the Category text reports but for accounts.
• Payee Text Reports: again, reports similar to the Category text reports but for payees.
• Dark CSS theme: ClearCheckbook can be switched into dark mode to make it easier on the eyes.
• Trusted Devices: In conjunction with 2 factor authentication, this allows you to set a computer or device as trusted so you don't have to authenticate from it.
• Net Worth Reports: See how your net worth has changed over the past 2 years with this new report.

Updates to Existing Features

• Auto-complete updated to show more information (such as which account/category will be auto-filled)
• Ability to disable auto-complete auto-fill features so it only fills the text
• Manually enter ‘last price’ for investments that aren’t automatically updated
• Hide suggestions in the Import auto-categorization tool
• Reminders will post deposits before withdrawals
• Added a basic Search Transactions gadget
• Net Worth gadget update to include assets from new Assets tool
• Payee beta reports - ability to sort by sum column
• Monthly Summary - fixed bug that was preventing accounts and categories from showing up alphabetically
• Transaction History tool - link to view the current transaction so you can see what changed
• Debt snowball - additional payments can now have a date associated with them
• Reconcile tool - you can now edit or delete reconciliations
• Separate withdrawals and deposits sums in a reconciliation report
• If you change the number of transactions to view per page on the register, that setting is saved instead of resetting each time you log out
• Profit & Loss report - updated colors to make it easier to identify positive and negative numbers
• Latest Transactions gadget - selection to view only transactions for a specific account
• You can now categorize transfers when creating them
• Updated how the 'lost password' form works to make it more secure
• Budgets - you can now see a breakdown of how the amount spent is being calculated
• Payee reports - export to CSV functionality
• 2FA bypass - allows you to have a bypass code sent to a trusted contact method in case you can't access your authenticator app
• Investment Portfolio - autocomplete for symbol and note fields in Add Investment form
• Income Budgets - show the amount differently if you generate more income than the budget limit
• Debt Snowball - you can now see how much you've paid toward principal and interest for each budget by expanding the history
• Debt Snowball - you can now see which snowball methods will save you the most money or be paid off the fastest
• Ability to assign all No Account transactions to an existing account from the search results page
• Made it easier to delete all No Account transactions
• Ability to quickly delete all expired reminders
• Ability to turn an existing transaction into a recurring transaction

Other Updates

• New Framework: We switched to using Laravel as our backend framework.
• Database optimization: We greatly reduced the number of database calls which will help speed up page load times
• Asset caching: Javascript and CSS files are stored and cached in a way that should prevent them from being blocked and failing to load in some cases
• ClearCheckbook Knowledge Base: We've updated the Help / Support section to make a much more informative Knowledge Base with screenshots and much more detailed instructions on how to use the site.
• Latest code versions: We're using the most up-to-date and secure versions of PHP and PostgreSQL
• Tweaks + Bug fixes: Over 45 small tweaks and bug fixes to help make the site perform as expected