[Note 10/12/10: Expenditure has since been updated to v1.1 and has addresses many of the issues I had with it in this review.] Expenditure may not display as much on-screen information as I ‘d expect from a finance app, but it ‘s such a pleasure to use that I almost don ‘t mind having to […]
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Review: Expenditure for iPhone

Jul 14th 2010 by

[Note 10/12/10: Expenditure has since been updated to v1.1 and has addresses many of the issues I had with it in this review.]

Expenditure may not display as much on-screen information as I ‘d expect from a finance app, but it ‘s such a pleasure to use that I almost don ‘t mind having to swipe across a few pages to see what I normally would on one screen in MoneyBook.

I ‘ve been a loyal user of MoneyBook for the last couple of months, but Expenditure ‘s approach to personal budgeting was presented so beautifully in this video that I absolutely had to give the app a try.



Your Personal Budget

Expenditure is designed to track the money going in and out of your life. The big number at the top of the main screen represents your current budget, and the transactions you make will either add to or subtract from that number. That’s the gist of it, really, and everything else is gravy.

I Like Gravy

Transactions can be classified as either income or expense, and typing them in on the digital numpad is plain awesome. Every key on the number pad clicks with mechanical precision, and this is something I always appreciate a developer including.

After you’ve finished entering an amount, you can specify a date, category, note, and even append a photo to your transaction. Entering each bit of information is easy enough, but I do wish that the buttons in this section of the app were a bit bigger.

Once you’ve saved a transaction you’ll head right back to the main screen, and your budget will have already adjusted to your newest expenditure.

Tapping on a completed transaction will bring you to a special paginated view, which starts with a “printout” of your expenditure. You can choose to pull the printout downwards to rip and delete it, or swipe left on the screen to view an appended note or photo (if applicable).

Transaction History

The budget shown in Expenditure changes every time you record a transaction, and you can see a monthly history of all of your transactions by tapping on the bottom of the screen. The main screen also shows a limited history of your top spending months or categories, or a list of the last five items you logged.

One thing that bugs me about this setup is that it doesn’t seem to remember which view you last selected, and Expenditure always defaults to Top Categories when you reload it. This should be fixed when the app gains iOS 4 fast app switching, although I also hope the developers see fit to show the notes in the “most recent” view, instead of only showing the categories. This would allow me to see that I bought a “chocolate bar” and “Calcbot for iPhone”, instead of simply seeing “Food” and “App” in the recent transactions list.

Repeating Transactions

Expenditure also supports repeating transactions right out the door, allowing for regular adjustments to your budget (like your paycheque, for example). You can set any transaction to repeat itself (based on your criteria), and you can even see a list of all of your repeated transactions by tapping on the bottom right of the main screen.

Conclusion

Expenditure is a v1.0 app, but it’s already perfectly usable for entering transactions and tracking your personal budget. The app is relatively bug-free, although there is a small error with the magnifying glass when editing a transaction note (it won’t display any text).

I do think the app could display individual pieces of information better, though. The design feels just a little too empty in certain areas, and I wouldn’t mind if the developers jammed a little bit more information onto the screen when viewing individual transactions and recent items. I also would like an option to have sound effects throughout the app, but that’s really because I like the mechanical feel of the UI so much.

The only major caveat is the lack of any backup solution in Expenditure. There is no way to email or otherwise export your financial information, so you had better make sure that you back up regularly through iTunes.

On the whole, I do think that the developers at Shape Aps have shipped a very solid finance app. Expenditure may not be as feature complete as other solutions at the moment, but it’s already quite capable right out the door, and there’s really no discounting how beautiful and tactile the interface design is. I’ve “complained” in other posts about how difficult it was to choose between Convert and Convertbot or Simplenote and Evernote, and now, thanks to the developers at Shape Aps, I’ll have to decide between my old favourite, MoneyBook, and the newcomer, Expenditure.

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Expenditure is available for $1.99 on the App Store.

This app was provided by Shape Aps for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.

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