Image taken from The Online Mom
I mentioned in my previous post Financial Resolutions For2014 about keeping track of my finances this year as a resolution I so want to keep (so help me God). I stated there how it is
important to monitor your spending on a daily basis. This will give you a clear
grasp if your expenses are greater than your cash flow in which you will have
to resuscitate your wallet or otherwise which is great (Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Halle-lu-yah).
In order to help me with this resolution, I have a notebook where
I get to write down my expenses. This is just a small one so I can carry it
with me even in my smallest bag. At least I won’t have any excuse in
documenting my income and expenses.
However with the advent of technology, keeping track of our
finances is now as easy as texting. Alas you can be able to do this using your
smartphones. To date, there are already tons of finance apps you can download.
Since I am an android user, I am sharing my top three android-based apps. I am in no way connected to any of these app companies nor is this a sponsored post. I am just sharing these apps to help us. On top of it, these apps are FREE (insert The Best Things in Life are Free song cue here). For
iPhone users, I am pretty certain there are also other counterparts of these.
I must tell you this is one straightforward app to manage
your income and savings. This looks like your personal expense sheet. In here,
you simply add new income and add new expense. Then you can view entire transactions with the
aid of the Account Summary and Account Activities.
(Pictures taken from Google Play)
Here are the other things that the app can do based on its
online description:
• Multiple accounts in multiple currencies
• Schedule the payments and recurring payments
• Take a picture of receipt
• Payment alerts
• Budget by day, week, month and year
• Search and reports
• Import and export account activities in CSV for desktop software
• Dropbox and SD Card backup
• Customize expense categories, payer/payer, payment methods, date format, white or black background, button style etc
• Account transfer
• Auto fill
• Convenient tools such calculator, currency converter, tip calculator, sales and tax calculator and credit card calculator
• Charts
• Free and no In-App purchase needed
• Developer support
This has a more graphical approach compared to Expense
Manager. No wonder it was tagged as the best finance app in the android market.
The opening tab lets you add Transaction, History, Pending, Settings and Reminders. The Add Transaction button lets you add an income or add an expense.
What is great about this app is the reminder that you can set. This is really
helpful if you have bills to pay that you will forget like me. Oh hello alarm!
(Pictures taken from Google Play)
Other features that you can appreciate with the app are the
following:
• Customization of categories for both income and expense sources
• Ability to set Reminders
• Facilitated with various currencies
• Widget in home-screen for quicker transactions
• Customized viewing of all former transactions
• Auto back-up every morning at four
• Capture image of payment receipts and bills.
• Manual back-up facility
• Mailing of data in desired format { detailed (.csv), summarized (.xls) and custom (.xls)}
What is lovely about this Expense Manager by Markus
Hintersteiner is its bar graph on expenses. The side bar consists of the Overview,
History, Budget, Distribution and Statistics. You can categorize your expenses
here in terms of Health, Leisure, Transportation, Food and Drinks and Others. By
the end of the month, you can be able to see the distribution of those expenses
by percent.
(Pictures taken from Google Play)
Other features that the app contains:
• Ad-Free
• Record expenses
• Assign categories
• Manage monthly overheads
• Manage categories
• Set a monthly limit
• Homescreen widget for even faster usage
• DashClock Integration
• Expense History
• Spreadsheet Export
• Group your expenses by week, month or year
• Backup/Restore Feature
• Record incomes (In-App purchase)
• Detailed Stats (In-App purchase)
• Expense Distribution (In-App purchase)
I personally recommend installing one of these apps
especially if you want to manage your money. This is one step towards financial
literacy and to our journey towards financial freedom. This is one intelligent approach
to know where our money goes and knowing if we are living within our means. We
can also identify the kind of spender we are.