Purple Beta 2: Taking Things Further 🚀
A few months ago, I shared the story of building Purple - how it started as a weekend project, evolved into something more serious, and eventually launched into beta. Since then, I’ve been quietly working away on the next big update: Purple Beta 2, and I'm thrilled to pull back the curtain and share what’s new.
This release brings a handful of new features and refinements that make Purple feel more complete, more useful, and honestly… a lot more fun to use.
Here’s what’s new.
A fresh coat of paint 🎨
The first thing you’ll notice in Beta 2 is a refreshed UI. I’ve polished various visual elements to make the app feel more cohesive and modern. The goal was to create a more inviting and enjoyable experience without straying too far from the original design.
Automation: Recurring Transactions 🔁
The biggest hurdle for most people when it comes to consistent budgeting is manual data entry. Beta 2 introduces a new feature, recurring transactions, to do the heavy lifting for you.
Whether it's your monthly Spotify subscription, or your paycheck, Purple can now populate transactions automatically on a schedule. Set it once, and let Purple handle the rest.
It’s a small feature on the surface, but it makes day to day usage much smoother.
Revamped Budgets 📝
In previous versions, setting category limits was a bit clunky and far from ideal. You had to manage multiple plans just to track basic spending, and each category limit required its own plan. I'ved fixed that.
The new flexible budgeting system allows you to create a single budget over a period that spans multiple categories. You can allocate limits to each category and track your spending against those limits in a far more intuitive way.
You also see analytics on how well you’re sticking to your budget, making it easier to adjust your spending habits.
Enhanced Reporting 📊
In Beta 2, reports now support month-based filtering, allowing you to:
- Review a specific month in isolation
- Compare spending patterns across different periods
- Spot trends without noise from older data
This makes reports far more actionable, especially if you regularly review your finances month by month.
The Big Picture: Net Worth Tracking 📈
For most people, understanding their overall financial health goes beyond just tracking income and expenses. Beta 2 introduces net worth tracking, giving you a holistic view of your finances.
Purple now lets you see the bigger picture by combining:
- Your accounts
- Your balances
- Your overall financial position over time
Some more goodies 🎁
- Experimental local backup and restore using device storage - Users can now back up their data locally to their device storage and restore from it if needed. This is an early version of backup functionality, with cloud backup planned for a future release.
- App log exports - Users can export app logs to help diagnose issues when reporting bugs.
- OTA update improvements - Users can now receive OTA updates more reliably, with fewer interruptions.
- Various bug fixes and performance improvements - A number of smaller bugs have been squashed, and overall app performance has been improved for a smoother experience.
- Refined onboarding UX with clearer instructions and visuals to help new users get started quickly.
Known Issues
As with any beta release, there are still some rough edges. Here are a few known issues:
- Performance: Some users may experience stuttering animations when swiping between certain screens and extended load times when opening the app.
- Some users may have recurring transactions not being recorded consistently. If you encounter this, please report it on our roadmap page so it can be prioritized for a fix.
Looking Ahead 👀
Beta 2 is a big step forward, but it’s far from the end.
Next on the roadmap:
- More powerful insights and analytics
- Deeper customization
- Performance improvements
- Proper multi currency account support
- Notifications
As always, feedback from beta users is shaping what comes next. If you’re using Purple and have thoughts, ideas, or frustrations I genuinely want to hear them.
Thanks for being part of the journey so far.