Accounting App

HomeBudget (http://anishusite.appspot.com) works on all three platforms. You can organize it however you like, Travel can be one expense or you can have 100 sub-categories under Travel. We use it for everything.

I use a paper app -- a small notebook where I write down every expenditure, then balance out the cash in my money belt + coin purse to the prior day's cash plus any ATM withdrawals less expenditures. Doing this daily means I can see whether I have forgotten something and I can judge when I need to find an ATM before it's an emergency.

At home before the trip I have made a day-by-day spreadsheet of the big expenses (hotel, plane, train, auto rental, city passes, estimated daily food cost, dog-sitter) in both Euros and USD to get my overall expected trip cost.

Afterwards I use Quicken to track actual USD costs as they are incurred, with each trip being a separate category -- input from credit card statements and ATM withdrawals -- so I have a final reckoning after the trip is done to use for estimating the next one.

And yes, I WAS an accountant. ;-)

lp,

I also like to keep track of expenses, and have been doing so for many years. Until now I've been using Quicken on my desktop computer and Pocket Quicken on a Palm PDA, which sync's with the desktop. It's been an extremely easy system to use and provides lots of information. Unfortunately, Pocket Quicken is no longer offered for sale on any platform, so I've been giving some thought to upgrading my financial tracking system to something newer. I use an iPhone so have only looked at app's for that platform, so can't comment on Android or Windows app's.

One system that I've been looking at is Quicken 2015, which also provides a free mobile app for iPhone, iPad or Android devices. I tend to favour that product, given the fact that I've been using Quicken for many years and really like the way it operates.

There are a lot of accounting and money app's available for Smartphones, some of which have an optional desktop companion program. In researching these, I get the impression that some of these work well and some are a bit "awkward" to use. Another one that looks very promising is MONEY which has been featured by Apple in adverts. It appears to be very easy to use, but I haven't spent any time working with it, so that's only an initial impression.

Good luck with your decision.

Hi,

Thanks for all the advice :-)

I'll download trial versions of the two apps mentioned and see if they work for me :-)

I have used a "paper" app until now, but my problem is that it takes a long time to register it when I get back from my vacation so I can do all the statistics I want :-) OK - I'm a bit of a nerd on this lol

And this summer my entire collection of notes - 6 pages - were destroyed by rain :'( I hope I will be more careful with a smartphone.

Implementation of apps and the feel of them is different between different operating systems. Similar, but a little different.

Within Android, it is sometimes a case of finding the right release.

In most cases I have found apps on iOS tend to run straight out out of the box.

The reason there is variety in Android is that there are quite a few flavours of Android out there, and some manufacturers tweak another layer on top.

I use both systems with iOS 7 on my phone (still waiting for 8 to settle) and Android, a very recent one, on my tablet. I like them both.

I have a Blackberry phone, but not a recent one, and it isn't smart. I have heard good things about Blackberry 10 but never used it, and there are only a few apps available.

I've never used a Windows phone or tablet. I wouldn't be sure, and there are only a few apps on that platform.

For years I traveled with a company I worked for and had to fill out paper expense reports. Now I have duplicated those forms on a spreadsheet that's on my netbook (I think I could also get a spreadsheet for my pad, but I like having a real keyboard). Not only does it keep track of my expenses as I go, but, at the bottom, it tracks how much I have spent on average in each category (meals, accommodation, transportation, etc), in both euro and dollars.

I have a second sheet with all my known expenses filled in (I have room reservations and have planned my travel, so I know what to put in for those expenses, and I know from past trips just about what I will spend for meals). As I pay for these things, I delete them from the sheet, so at any time it shows how much cash I need to finish my trip.

An advantage of making your own spreadsheet is that you can customize it to your liking.

My husband keeps the receipts in an envelope (by city). I then input the expenses into a spreadsheet.

On our upcoming trip, I am going to try an iPhone app called "Easy Spend". I like to be able to enter a money amount when we go to the ATM and then list our trip expenses by several different categories. This app looks like it might do that better than the one I tried last time. It seems very simple but also customizable. I usually just set a few general categories: sightseeing, food, transportation, lodging, gifts. This app lets you add custom categories and delete the ones you don't use. I don't know if this app is also available for other operating systems.

I use iBank. It has both a computer (desktop) app and a mobile app, with the ability to sync the data between the two. I like that I can enter a transaction in a currency other than USD and then do the conversion/reporting when I'm back home. As long as I stay on top of things and enter each transaction as I go, the mobile app is fairly quick & convenient. (But, as others have commented, the "annotated envelope" is also an easy way to stay organized and keep a 'locker' of receipts & transactions throughout the trip!!)