My Business Journ

Journ is a great tool for journaling and sharing expenses when traveling with friends. Journ’s usefulness, however, does not end there.  This app is also ideal for tracking business expenses and creating a daily business journal.  For example, Jason owns a small web design company.  Much of his client communications can be accomplished via email or phone.  Jason, nevertheless, finds occasional face to face meetings improve client relations and satisfaction.  When Jason starts out on his customer visits, he creates a trip within Journ. Voila, the tracking of his business travel, mileage, expenses, meetings, etc., begins. First stop is the fuel station and a purchase of fuel for the car and coffee for Jason.  Both expenses can be entered in Journ and a photo taken of the receipts.  Next stop, a toll booth – another expense to track with Journ.  The first client meeting is at the client’s office. Journ records this location and offers a Note field to add information about the meeting purpose, attendees, objectives and outcomes. Next stop, lunch with a contract web designer where the cost of the lunch is split. Easy to do in Journ. Simply add the contractor, enter the meal cost, who paid and select yourself and the contractor as the splitters. From here, Jason travels to an office supply store to pick up new company cards and brochures. Journ is tracking all of the way.  The supply expenses can be entered into Journ.  Jason wraps up the business day at a networking social. Drink and food expenses can be entered into Journ along with notes on new business leads.  With Journ, Jason now has a record of his business day.  This record makes it simple for Jason to track expenses, follow up on meetings or business leads.  The Journ record can also be used to generate and easily share daily, weekly or monthly reports. Thus, whether traveling for pleasure or for business, Journ is the tracking, organizing and journaling app to have.

Journ - Enhancements in the Works

Some really great enhancements are in the works for Journ*. The most exciting enhancements are improvements to the user interface.

Improved User Interface - Journ 1.0.3 will guide the user through new trip or item entries. For example, to add an expense to a trip, simply press the prominent new "+" button. An amount field will appear. As the amount is entered, "Select Who Paid" and then "Select Who Split" prompts will be present. As these are selected, the Item Type will pop up, followed by Item Name. We've done away with the More/Less approach and now have just a scrollable screen to show all the data about an expense. Less important data is still positioned at the end. And we've made scrolling safer by depicting the date/time as a button so you can't accidentally change the date of an expense with a scrolling gesture.

Additionally, most screens now also work in landscape orientation.

The main menu button has been moved to a more standard position at the left of the top bar. Photos of users/splitters are now fully integrated into the payers and splitters specification process.

We've started allowing Event, Place and Notes items to also have expense amounts associated with them. So no need to create two items if you want to associated an expense amount with one of those journal type entries.

And the larger screen sizes of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are taken advantage of.


Other enhancements include:

• Item payment type (cash, credit card, etc) defaults to what you used on the previous item.
• Splitter’s full name, in addition to button name, included in financial emails.
• Setting added (Settings/Display) for a “Simpler User Interface”. For now, the only thing affected is the buttons bar at the bottom of the main view.
• Totals/Even up Screen is only brought up from the menu now (not from rotating the main view).
• There is a floating “Done” button to finish from anywhere when scrolling in an item screen.
• When editing individual amounts for uneven splits, once a person’s amount has been specified, the background is turned green to indicate that it cannot be changed until the whole set of usage amounts are reset.
• Moved the Even/Uneven split toggle button up to the Payers split area.
• Better layout and sizing of screens on the iPad.
• Touching a track item now brings up the map view of just the track, not including all the items created during the track timeframe (use the under item map button for that).
• Fixed bugs related to incorrect memory management.
• Performance improvements in scrolling the main list and in bringing up the item editing screen.
• Pointed to Trip Splitter Blog and Journ Blog from Settings/Help in all splitters.

Journ 1.0.3 is expected to be released in the next few months. We cannot wait to share this new and improved version with you!


*Journ has all of the expense tracking and sharing functionality of DC Software Arts' popular Trip Splitter app. Enhancements will apply to both apps, as well as Event Splitter, Divyit and Tailgate Splitter.

Journ's Quick Draw Camera

Never miss a special photo on your travels with Journ's "Take Photo on Launch" camera setting.  In this setting, Journ will take a photo each time the app is activated.  Just turn Journ on, point and shoot. 

To activate the Take Photo on Launch setting, get the Journ camera going by touching any of the camera buttons (e.g. the camera icon of the under-item buttons on the main screen or from the item details screen). Touch the middle icon on the bottom row of the camera screen (it looks like an on/off button pointing to a photograph). If the on/off image is gray, the mode is off, if it is black, then Journ is in the "Take Photo on Launch" mode and you can exit Journ or turn off your phone. When you turn back on your phone, Journ will take the first photo that it can after focusing.

Now, you will never miss an opportunity to photograph a special moment of your journey.

Journ – Use it a Little or a Lot

Journ users vary from the minimalist (track and shoot) to the avid journaler (Full Journal) to somewhere in between. Read on to determine which level of use fits your needs.

Track and Shoot – Use Journ to record your daily walk, bike ride or run. The Track and Shoot user creates a track and sets out.  Along the way, this user stops to take photos. At the end of the track, the user has a map of the track, distance traversed and photos taken along the way.

Track, Split and Shoot – This user could be anyone who travels and has a need to document the trip and expenses. For example, Journ allows a businessman to focus on business and not tracking expenses, mileage or accumulating piles of receipts. Journ can also be used to take photographs at meetings, record notes of meeting attendees, accomplishments or action items. If you are traveling with others and sharing expenses - not a problem. Journ is a master at expense management and sharing.  A photo of the receipt can be taken and saved with your trip information. In addition, a trip report can be quickly created complete with photos and emailed to interested parties. Journ can be similarly useful to those traveling for enjoyment.

Full Journal – This level of user takes advantage of each and every feature of Journ.  Their life is the journey and they wish to document every moment of it.  Journ can record the occurrences of each day – tracks, events, dining, entertainment, photos or other items. At the end of the day, Journ creates a complete recap of your day.

Regardless of your level of usage of Journ, the outcome is the same – a memorialization of your life. Journ creates a map of your travel complete with photos, expense reports, notes, etc.  Further, Journ makes sharing of any portion of your trip quite simple via social media, email or archive your memories to Evernote.

Journ's Super Enhanced Camera

Journ  is an travel app which simplifies trip photo taking, management and sharing. This app offers a super enhanced camera to ensure the best shots. In addition, Journ uncomplicates the culling, captioning and managing of photos.  Finally, Journ facilitates sharing your trip tracks, photos, captions and notes with others via email, social media, PicasaWeb and Evernote.

Camera Features - To memorialize a trip, one must have a good camera.  Journ fulfills that need and then some.   In addition to normal shoot and self-timer photos, Journ offers a “Guest Taker” mode. This mode allows someone outside the group to take a photo and even thanks the Guest Taker. In the “Clean Screen” mode, all the buttons disappear and touching the screen anywhere takes a photo.  If a lit screen could bother others, activate the Journ “Stealth” mode and touch anywhere on the screen to take a photo.  The “Take Photo on Launch” mode is perfect for the tired traveler. In this mode, a photo is taken each time Journ is launched.  Further, the number of exposures can be set to 2 or 3. Photos are taken one second apart and which ensures a  greater chance at the perfect shot.

Managing Photos - Often on a trip, many photos are taken. Some good, some not so much.  Journ includes a photo rating feature which allows the user to quickly rate each photo none, 1 or  2 (best) stars.  The starring facilitates the selection of which photos to use in slide shows, social emails, posting to social media and archiving to PicasaWeb, Flickr and Evernote.  

Photo Captions - Journ allows captions to be added to photos and even does some of the work for you. Journ tags photos with time taken and GPS location. Further, Journ contains an interface with Google Places which will suggest the name of the photo location.  The GPS interface allows a map of your trip to be created with points of interest and accompanying photos.

Sharing - Not only does Journ create a detailed trip journal, Journ makes sharing the trip with others quite simple.  Any part or all of a trip map and photo journal can be easily shared via emails, social postings, slide shows, PicasaWeb or by posting a  nicely prepared journal entry to Evernote.  

If you are a person who not only loves to travel, but loves to share and remember travels, Journ is the app for you.  With Journ, the trip is never over. It can be relived through your travel maps, item descriptions, events, notes, photos, captions and slide shows.

Life is a journey. Capture yours with Journ.

Camera Icon Key and Functions

Understanding the Journ 1.0.2 Trip Main Screen