TELEPHONY - MOBILE PHONES - 13.10.2011

Good budget management apps

HomeBudget

HomeBudget (http://www.anishu.com) is an easy-to-use iPhone app which helps you to track your expenses and income. This is done via neat reports and graphs which chart the evolution of your budget at any given moment. There are categories such as Expenses and Income where you can enter all the details. We also like the Budget section: you can enter amounts for your overheads, such as the rent for your house or shop, electricity and water consumption, your mobile phone and Internet subscriptions etc. Reports presents clear reports, and the F button at the top shows a forecast of your budget. The latter function isn’t flawless, of course, but it does give an indication of your financial situation as it’s expected to be at the end of the month.

There’s a free Lite version of HomeBudget, but we think it’s a bit too light as it only allows you to enter very limited details. Still, this free version gives you a good idea of all the possibilities the app has to offer. When you’re convinced, you can switch to the chargeable version, which only costs £3.99.

Pocket Budget

Pocket Budget (search for this term in the iTunes Store or in the Android Market) runs on iPhones or Android devices. It’s a free and user-friendly app which also allows you to manage your daily expenses efficiently. Here again you can enter income and expenses per category, and this tool then constantly monitors the balance. The application calculates the breakdown of your expenses by category, the remaining total amount and the daily budget you have at your disposal. Finally, it also lets you export all the data to your computer.

PayPal Mobile

When buying something online, you will typically see PayPal as the payment option. This easy and safe system can also be used for payments between people. For example, the dedicated PayPal Mobile smartphone app (https://www.paypal-marketing.co.uk/mobile/index.htm) lets you share a restaurant bill with friends. Here’s how: one person pays everything to the waiter (cash or credit card) while the other table companions immediately transfer their contribution to the first person’s PayPal account via their smartphones.

Tip. This payment can even be done through the handy “bump” function, which lets you effect payments simply by “bumping” one smartphone against the other. If you use the PayPal Mobile app, people will no longer have to go and collect money from the hole in the wall or exchange bank account numbers. And they will be less likely to “forget” to pay. The condition is, of course, that all participants should have a PayPal account. This app is free and runs on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android.

Bill reminders

Do you use an online calendar but still forget to pay the odd invoice? Check out the iTunes Store or the Android Market for “bill reminder”. You will find several apps which let you enter the deadline for certain invoices. You can set an alert which informs you in time.