There is very convenient way to encode identification of builds into applications. Then, for instance, you can show in about dialog something like: Version 20100609. Here is snippet of code:

QString buildId()
{
    QString embeddedDate(__DATE__);
    QString m = embeddedDate.left(3);
    QStringList months;
    months << "Jan" << "Feb" << "Mar" << "Apr" << "May" << "Jun"
           << "Jul" << "Aug" << "Sep" << "Oct" << "Nov" << "Dec";

    int month = months.indexOf(m) + 1;
    int day   = embeddedDate.mid(4, 2).trimmed().toInt();
    int year  = embeddedDate.mid(7, 4).trimmed().toInt();

    return QString::number(year*10000+month*100+day);
}