Option of Total or Unit Price

[Charon]

I would like to have the option to add fuel price as a total instead of a unit price ($/gallon). Fuelly calculates the total from the unit price and quantity, but it should be just about as simple to calculate unit price from the total and quantity.

[pb]

Thanks for the suggestion—this is something we're thinking about.

One reason we haven't gone with it is that we'd like to keep the fuel-up form as simple as possible. So for as long as the site has existed, we've asked people to enter the cost per unit.

Once we add another option it complicates that message. Folks will either need to select their preference in their profile, or we'll need to complicate the fuel-up form with another option. That will lead to misunderstandings and confusion. People will either forget which one they have selected, put the wrong numbers in the wrong box, or the right numbers in the wrong box. We have other input methods like Fuelly Mobile and SMS where simplicity is even more key. So instead of having people worry about/remember which option they're using we made the choice to select one and stick with it.

We're not against living with this complication eventually. I think it might be a nice feature and worth this pain of implementing and instructing people. I just wanted to let you know our thinking behind selecting a single option.

[vr4Legacy]

+1, I understand the possible confusion, but I think adding it as an option in the profile might be the easiest. Then one would have to consciously change it to work.

Also it seems you have pretty good filters in place to catch if someone accidentally keyed $56.93 for unit price (/gal) and vice versa. Maybe save the data and send an e-mail saying the numbers look off?

[pb]

It gets tricky with international currency. Prices are all over the place. It's not an impossible problem, just trickier than if we were dealing with US dollars only.

We're probably not likely to start an asynchronous error system like that.

I hear what you're saying. For a certain number of people this would be a killer feature. I'm not completely against it. We just have to decide if it's worth the confusion and headaches that would be involved. We're not ready to make that call right now.

[Charon]

I have been recording the total price for years, but never bothered with unit price. When I use Fuelly, I have to remember to either record another number, or back-calculate. I am tired of bothering with that, and if I cannot enter price as a total I won't enter it at all.

[pb]

Sorry about the hassle, Charon. We appreciate the feedback.