We’re pleased to announce we’ve just installed a significant upgrade to Active Allowance with the following member-requested features:

• ability to upload your child’s picture: Once uploaded, the picture will show up on your home page, on your child’s home page, and in the not too distant future, on your child’s Checklist page (we’re improving that too, but it will take a little longer). Our kids have seen the test versions and can’t wait!
• a simpler way to enter and modify allowances: Veteran members will still be able to use the budget tool (it’s now called “Advanced Budget”), but there is now a much simpler approach for new members as well as for experienced members with simpler needs.
• a detailed Help guide: This is especially important for new members, but even Active Allowance veterans may find parts of it handy. We’ve incorporated the former “Tip Center” into the new Help Guide.
• Window redesign: a rearrangement and redesign of the controls on the three windows for each child. This should make it more intuitive (tabbed interface, regrouping of buttons, etc).

Other miscellaneous improvements include:

• A rearrangement of the top menu, with several additions
• In Bank Accounts, transactions are now shown in reverse chronological order – the most recent transactions will be at the top of the 1st screen. This will be useful to Active Allowance veterans whose kids may have a lot of transactions – you won’t need to scroll or switch pages. Should save seconds
• Several ease of use guides just for new members, to make their transition from “this is hard” to “this is easy” a lot faster (members tell us that it took, on average, 2 weeks to get used to our previous system; this should be a lot faster)
• Bug fixes

Please let us know what you think – especially if you find any bugs Best regards Leslie and Harvey