Your Credit Profile Guide: Balances

Did you know that spreading your debt over many accounts can improve your credit score? It is always recommended that you spend no more than 25% of your available credit on any revolving credit account. Keeping your balances as close to or below this percentage is a guaranteed way to improve your credit profile. You can also refer to this percentage as "credit utilization". To calculate your credit utilization, you simply take the balance of your account and divide it by your credit line or credit limit. Here is an example:

Credit limit: $1,000
Balance: $250

Formula:
$250 / $1,000 = 0.25 which is 25%

Likewise, to calculate how much of a balance to carry on your credit account, simply take the credit line or credit limit and multiply it by 25%. Here is an example:

Credit limit: $4,000

Formula:
$4,000 * 0.25 = $1,000

Based on this calculation, you should not exceed a balance of $1,000 to maintain an improved credit score.

With Bill Tracker these calculations are done for you automatically and are viewable in your bill details. Keep your information up-to-date with Bill Tracker and you'll always have a live snapshot of your current credit utilization for individual accounts as well as total utilization of all revolving credit accounts.

Bill Tracker v2.2 released

Version 2.2 of Bill Tracker has been released today. We have put the release through extensive testing however, bugs are still possible. If you encounter an issue, please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know. The following is an overview of this latest release:

• Ability to save statement dates


• Set a fixed page width for the style of the site. We feel this will strain your eyes less for those who have very wide screen sizes


• Fixed a graphical issue with the main navigation bar buttons


• Fixed linking issues from the home page to certain blog articles


• Fixed an issue with logging in while viewing the blog


• Added recurring statement date feature. This will allow you to enter any statement date in the past and the system will automatically update your statement date every month. This works well for fixed non-revolving loans like car loans or mortgages that have the same statement date every month.


• Added recurring due date feature. This will allow you to enter any due date in the past and the system will automatically update your due date every month. This works well for fixed non-revolving loans like car loans or mortgages that have the same due date and payment every month.

We plan on one more release either late this month or early June. Stay tuned for more updates and thank you for using Bill Tracker Online.

What's coming next: May 09'

May is finally here and we have some additional features that we would like to announce for our upcoming release of Bill Tracker. Before we get to that, we would like to personaly thank the members that have given us very helpful and informative feedback so that we can make our service better for everyone. Now for the updates:

• Set a fixed page width for the style of the site. We feel this will strain your eyes less for those who have very wide screen sizes


• Fixed a graphical issue with the main navigation bar buttons


• Fixed linking issues from the home page to certain blog articles


• Fixed an issue with logging in while viewing the blog


• Added recurring statement date feature. This will allow you to enter any statement date in the past and the system will automatically update your statement date every month. This works well for fixed non-revolving loans like car loans or mortgages that have the same statement date every month.


• Added recurring due date feature. This will allow you to enter any due date in the past and the system will automatically update your due date every month. This works well for fixed non-revolving loans like car loans or mortgages that have the same due date and payment every month.


• Ability to view the payoff goals. If you have provided a due date and an interest rate for your account, the system will calculate an estimated payoff date for that account. This works well for all types of revolving credit accounts.


• Ability to filter your bills based on certain criteria such as view bills due only or bills due within 7 days.

That wraps up this issue of "What's coming next". We hope to have these new features released within the next month, so keep an eye out for these updates.