Both in preparation for the future (wink, wink) and to improve the current version, we've redone the Account Settings aspects of billQ.

Previously the Account Settings were displayed in a lightbox-style overlay. We started to outgrow this, and overall it was a bit clunky. So we've created a dedicated Account section located at http://www.mybillq.com/account/.

From this new section, you can edit any of the settings you previously had access to in the Account pop-up — Login Info, Date & Time Settings, Currency Preferences — along with anything related to your billQ Plan (Upgrading, Downgrading, etc.).

In addition you now also have access to your support ticket history. If needed you can look back at any support tickets you've submitted.

This new account section will kind of be your home base as we move forward with billQ and beyond. We wanted to create one centralized place to manage your settings. Hopefully this makes things easier.

Eventually we will more tightly integrate billing information into this section as well. So if you're a billQ Plus user, you'll be able to access your billing history and update your credit card info. But that will come in a later update.

As always, if you run into any issues or notice any bugs related to this update, please let us know at support@mybillq.com, twitter.com/billq/, or in the comments.

Backstory: Even though we planned on having the Free version of billQ be ad-supported, we've been struggling with a good way to handle the ads. We tried Google Ads for a little while, but eventually just scrapped third-party ads all together and instead just ran an ad promoting the coupon code for billQ Free users who wanted to upgrade to billQ Plus.

Part of the problem is finding ads we approve of. We don't want to throw garbage out there, and we'd rather not have to sell our souls and put up ads for things we don't believe in. Plus, we have an app that is designed around saving you money by helping you keep track of your bills and ultimately reduce expenses you don't need. So how do we reconcile throwing ads out there that encourage you to buy more crap? It's a dilemma.

But all that being said, we're still going to try to find something that works and allows us to generate some revenue to invest back into billQ. Starting today, we are again going to try to experiment with some banner ads within billQ and on the billQ blog. (The in-app ad will only show up for billQ Free users of course, and it will be small and static. No animations.)

The system we have in place allows us to approve ads before they run, so we plan on doing so with a heavy hand. We want to only show ads that are more endorsements than anything else. Products or services we think would be actually useful for all of you.

If not, we won't approve them. This means that you may see a blank "Advertise Here" slot 99.9% of the time. If this ends up being the case after the first few months, we'll probably just scrap the ads again. At least until we can dedicate the time to sell the ad inventory ourselves and secure some ads for useful products and services.

So we just wanted to give everyone (mostly users of billQ Free) a heads up that they may start seeing a small banner ad in billQ. If anyone has any questions or concerns about this, please let us know at support@mybillq.com.

And if you happen to be the owner of a useful, well-designed product or service that would match up nicely with the responsible, value-conscious people who use billQ, then please feel free to purchase some ad space.

Want an easy way to stay on top of all things billQ? Follow us on Twitter to receive billQ news and updates. We've been posting links to new blog posts as well as other things of interest, and we'll continue to post about new feature launches, bug fixes, and any upcoming maintenance notices.

We also try to reply regularly as well, so if you have any questions or requests, send them to @billQ.

So go ahead, follow us. Oprah said so.

This just in.

billQ was recently featured on San Francisco-area CBS5's ConsumerWatch. The piece was about web-based tools people can use to stay on top of their bills.

So check out the article: "Easy-To-Use Personal Financial Web Tools". And make sure to watch the video of the broadcast piece as well. It's well done, and you'll get to see one of our awesome users Andrea Ramos give a run through of text message reminders as she explains how they've helped her to pay her bills on time. No doubt she's famous throughout the Yay Area now. (Thanks for letting them interview you Andrea!)

In the Quick Fix section of today's (Mar. 25th) Wall Street Journal, this scenario was presented: "You've been losing track of when bills are due and racking up late fees."

The fix? billQ of course.

They also recommend a few other services, but we were totally first. You can read the the full article here.

The scheduled downtime we had last night to make some software upgrades on our server is now complete. You should be able to access the site now with no problems. But in the event that you do run into some issues, please let us know by emailing support@mybillq.com.

Also, you may want to clear your cache and delete your cookies just to be safe.

Thanks for your patience during this downtime! Luckily, everything seems to have gone smoothly.

In preparation for some upcoming updates to billQ, we are planning server maintenance and software upgrades this weekend. This will result in some downtime beginning on Friday night (March 13th).

We expect the downtime to begin around 9pm eastern time on Friday and last through Saturday and possibly to Sunday. The extent of the downtime depends on how long it takes the nameserver updates to resolve. Ideally this will happen by Saturday afternoon, but depending on your ISP it could take longer.

The goal is to get everything back to normal by Monday morning.

Reminders should continue during this downtime as only the site will be unavailable, but you should take care of any billQ related things before Friday night just to be safe.

If anyone has any question, post a comment or send an email to support@mybillq.com

We just made an update to the Reminder Settings that some of you should find useful. Previously when choosing a date in advance of your due date to receive your reminder, it was a start date. This meant that if you chose to receive your reminder starting 7 days before your due date, you would also receive it every date in between then and the due date (until you paid or deleted the bill or stopped the reminder). Some people found these continual reminders annoying.

Well, we listened, and now there is an additional drop down on the Reminder Settings page where you can choose either "starting" or "only" along with the date in advance of your due date you want to receive your reminder.

The "starting" option works exactly the same as before (you receive the reminder every day until the due date). But the "only" option will only send the reminder on that date (for example, 7 days before the due date), and then on the actual due date. Not every day in between.

Hopefully these options allow you to find your own balance between the usefulness of the reminders and any annoyance they may cause. (If your anything like us though, that annoyance might be a key factor in forcing you to actually get around to paying the bill. So you can keep things as is with no worries. The "starting" option is the default.)

For those of you who are concerned about your FICO score (which is probably everybody), there is some good news and some bad news.

First the good news.

The Fair Issac Corporation — who created the FICO score used by almost every lender for determining your credit standing — is updating how it compiles your score. The new score, called FICO 08, still has the same range (300 to 850) but it will now take more of a big picture approach to your credit situation. This means that small, isolated mistakes are less harmful, but patterns of repeat negligence are more harmful. Additionally, the new score is more sensitive to different kinds of debt: the "good" kind (mortgages and student loans), and "bad" kind (auto loans and credit card debt). For a full description, check out this Wall Street Journal article.

Now the bad news.

Experian, one of the three companies who contribute data to the overall FICO score, is no longer providing this information to consumers as of February 14th. Lenders will still have access to the Experian portion of the FICO score, but we will not. Pretty criminal if you ask me.

So if you want to get the full set of data that makes up your credit score, make sure you do it before the 14th. After that point, you will only have access to the Transunion and Equifax data within your FICO score.

Also, something I need to mention: As you look into getting your credit score, do beware of scams. Often times a site will say it offers your score for free, but you'll be automatically enrolled in some other crap that has a monthly or annual fee. And make sure you're getting your credit score, not just the report. The two are different. The report is just the credit history, while the score is the specific FICO number compiled from that data.

If you want just the report, go to Annual Credit Report. It's the site for the government program that grants you 1 free report every 12 months.

If you want the score, I'd recommend myFICO. You are basically going to the source, and they have a few different credit score packages to choose from. (To see how the Experian situation affects their packages post-Feb. 14th, read this notice.) They also have some good resources about understanding and improving your credit score once you receive it.

If you have Bank of America checking, then look into their Privacy Assist program. It has a free trial, so you can just get your score, and then cancel the monitoring before the 30 days are up. So that basically gives you a free score (just remember to cancel!).

The more you know.

We are currently experiencing some performance issues — as you've probably noticed. The login process visibly slow and the individual page loads and response times within the app are sometimes slow as well. Everything is functioning correctly (reminders, etc.), and we are working on the issue, so please bear with us. Sorry for the inconvenience.