Best iOS expenses app

[rtyuiop]

Hi folks,

I'm getting back into business travel after a year off, and am thinking the time may have come to move into the 21st century with an expense tracking app on an iPhone/iPad combo. I don't need fancy export options to any specific accounting package, or the ability to log into my bank and retrieve transactions (actually as an IT security guy the idea fills me with horror!).

Must be able to deal with multiple currencies sensibly, and output an easily readable Excel file. Ideally without network access!

Contenders so far:

Expensify - seems to scan and OCR receipts which would be cool, but I have a suspicion it might be too US-centric, and charges per-receipt (I think?). I suspect it needs access to the net to OCR, which could be a bit of a hassle overseas.
Abukai Expenses - $99/year, which is OK but needs justification. Would like some more info on how it works.
iReceipt - cheap, seems like it's trying to be simple and fast which I'm a fan of. This might be the leading contender if it works as advertised!
ExpenseMagic - Seems to rely on uploading photos and then (I assume) get some folks in a sweat shop somewhere to do data entry, which I can't say I'm a huge fan of, but looks more polished than some of the others. Charges not cheap, but again do-able if it's justified.
Xpenser - again seems polished, but I haven't been able to find much information about how it works - if it's OCR or sweat shop-style...

Anyone have any experience with these or others?

Cheers,

Danny

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Personally I use TravelWallet. It can sync your trips in from TripIt (though you can still use this as a general expenses app - it's handy if you want to split up expenses by trip though!), you can set budgets and see how you're going with a progress bar, and it colour-codes expenses to see which expense type is costing you the most. You begin by selecting the expense type (defaults are "out of pocket", as well as beverages etc etc...), and you can also categorise expense types. I have customised it to add gifts, business expenses, different types of shopping (artwork, fashion etc), meals, entertainment, transport, lodging, and communications. You can select your payment type (I have set mine to cash, and then a different option for each credit card I have). There's no need to have a different 'cash' payment type for each currency (unless you particularly want to) either, as it handles multiple currencies with ease, even on the same trip. You can then enter the txn details (business, address, notes/comments, exchange rates (which can be downloaded), and you can select yes/no to the "Is personal expense?" question). Finally, it allows you to attach a photo of the receipt if you need to keep everything together.

Export options are HTML, PDF and also direct AirPrint if you have the hardware. No Excel, though I'm sure you'd be able to import the HTML file into Excel somehow.

 

[rtyuiop]

If anyone else is thinking about the same question, I just gave BizXpensTrkr a go for a couple of (trivially simple) expense reports - seems pretty good, actually. The OCR had a 0/5 success rate, unfortunately, but it was under terrible lighting with an old camera phone, so I'll give it a try again another time. OCR does take a few seconds, so if the success rate isn't great it won't be worth trying, but it can also be switched off simply.

The .csv export works OK - xls/xlsx export would be better, but I suppose you can't have everything...

Cheers,

Danny

 

[Beta4Me]

Personally I use TravelWallet. It can sync your trips in from TripIt...

Sounds great! Link please?

 

[medhead]

I use iXpenselt. No way I use all the functionality. But it sounds like it has many features already mentioned.

Sounds great! Link please?

Probably quickest to do a search in ITunes.



Sent from the Throne

 

[greenfrog86]

Personally I use TravelWallet. It can sync your trips in from TripIt (though you can still use this as a general expenses app - it's handy if you want to split up expenses by trip though!), you can set budgets and see how you're going with a progress bar, and it colour-codes expenses to see which expense type is costing you the most. You begin by selecting the expense type (defaults are "out of pocket", as well as beverages etc etc...), and you can also categorise expense types. I have customised it to add gifts, business expenses, different types of shopping (artwork, fashion etc), meals, entertainment, transport, lodging, and communications. You can select your payment type (I have set mine to cash, and then a different option for each credit card I have). There's no need to have a different 'cash' payment type for each currency (unless you particularly want to) either, as it handles multiple currencies with ease, even on the same trip. You can then enter the txn details (business, address, notes/comments, exchange rates (which can be downloaded), and you can select yes/no to the "Is personal expense?" question). Finally, it allows you to attach a photo of the receipt if you need to keep everything together.

Export options are HTML, PDF and also direct AirPrint if you have the hardware. No Excel, though I'm sure you'd be able to import the HTML file into Excel somehow.

This app sounds great...

The description in iTunes indicates you can have the HTML output for full detail (including images) or you can have an XML file, so this would seem to eliminate some people's concerns.

As an avid personal traveller I've been looking for something like this to reconcile personal expenses while OS...

 

[Beta4Me]

I use iXpenselt. No way I use all the functionality. But it sounds like it has many features already mentioned.
Probably quickest to do a search in ITunes.

I don't know what I was doing before, but I found it easily this time :3

 

[Edge]

I used to work with the guys who started up Abukai. Haven't used it myself and I'm not sure how the others compare, but the idea behind Abukai is you just take a photo of the receipt and it uses image recognition to download it all. There's no inputting of data. Not sure how these others work?