Mobile Technology In Expense Reporting

Since last week I was discussing ways to track expenses, I figure this is the perfect edition to that topic. So, I have been keeping track of my expenses as promised. I have only been doing it since Monday and today is Thursday, so about four days. In those four days I have already found a tool that will help me on my way to successfully keeping track of expenses. That tool is a app on my Palm Pre Plus cell phone.

Actually, I reviewed two apps. One was AppBox Lite, which was free. The other free app was Expensify.

Expensify has some intriguing features. One of those intriguing feature was it updates all of your expenses on its website. You can then easily email your expense reports to your boss. It also had a very nifty feature to take pictures of receipts. The pictures of receipts was my favorite part. However, this program was a little more than I wanted for my needs and it was also less than I wanted in other needs. The first issue was that it tracked all of your expenses on their website. I didn't really like sharing all of that information to anonymous strangers. That honestly didn't bother as much as the next snag. That simple snag was that once you inserted you expense entry, the ONLY way you could see it again is to go online. That's a pain in the but if you just want to view your expenses.

For that simple reason the Appbox Lite has my vote for keeping track of expenses.This app is a collection of other apps actually. Each app is very rudimentary in form but very versatile for basic needs like mine. Under the Expense app it allows you to put in date, amount, notes and whether it has been cleared or not. There is not a way to take a picture of any receipt. I liked that feature but it was probably one of those things I would only use occasionally. For ease of use and the ability to see past entries, I choose the Expense App in the Appbox Lite as the best way to simply track expenses.

UPDATE 11/1/10
I have since used this for about a week now. The app has the major downfall of all "Lite" apps - you have to pay for it if your actually going to utilize its features. It only lets you do a small amount of entries before your entries expire.