While we know how much cash we have, we rarely keep records of how we spend it. When we are low on cash, we head to the nearest ATM to get more. We are more likely to record ATM withdrawals in our checkbook, and we do record the checks that we write. If we make debit card purchases, we record them in our check register. As long as all the amounts are correct, and there no math mistakes, our check register is an accurate reflection of how much money we have in our checking account. When it comes to credit cards, we rarely record individual transactions, and depend on the monthly statement to know our credit balance. We often talk about budgets, but rarely make the effort to track our expenses to the detail required to compare the budget against actual expenditures. How many of us actually maintain an accounting system, and actually record all income and expenditures? How many of us track expenditures on vacations, especially credit card expenditures? The problem with cash, debit cards, and credit cards is that there is too big of a gap between incurring the expense and recording it. Android apps can help reduce that gap, and can help maintain a more accurate picture of expenses versus budget. All Android apps listed in this article support multiple currencies, including colones.

DailyCash is the new version of the popular MoneyManager Android app. The free version of DailyCash supports a single account, which I created as a cash account in colones. I setup my income categories, and my expense categories. While the income and expense categories are separate, they cannot have duplicate names. There is a limit to the number of categories in the free version, but there is no documentation that states the limit. The free version has only two reports, and does not support using the camera to take a picture to associate with the entry. Daily Cash Pro ($3.26 USD) supports multiple accounts, unlimited categories, two additional reports, and photos linked to entries. Plus, it eliminates the ad bar at the bottom of the screen. Both versions allow you to password protect the application. I found that the password entry was very slow, compared to the snappiness of the rest of the app. Data entry is real simple. While the app supports multiple currencies, it does not support currency conversion, when transferring between accounts with different currencies. This app does not support on-line connection to your actual bank or credit card accounts. It is really just a very simple income and expense application. The big advantage is that it supports immediate and simple entry of expenses.

EasyMoney is a 30-day free trial version of EasyMoney 1.0 ($9.95 USD). The trial version is fully functional, so you get to try out all the features during the trial period. It has all the features of DailyCash, plus a lot more. EasyMoney is a much more polished app than DailyCash. It comes with a predefined set of income and expense categories, with the ability to add categories. EasyMoney allows you to create a budget, and has six different reports. The one weakness of EasyMoney is that you cannot transfer money between accounts with different currencies. It means using a dummy expense category on the source account, and a dummy income category on the destination currency. If you make a colone purchase on a USD credit card, you would have to enter the USD amount. This is actually a difficult problem to solve, as currency conversion rates vary depending how you converted between currencies. For example, banks offer better currency conversion rates than credit cards. Plus, some financial institutions charge a separate conversion fee. These variations make accounting a lot more difficult.

Financisto (Esperanto for financier) is a free Android app, with the most features. Financisto is closer to a full-blown accounting application that even supports projects, and the GPS location where the transaction was entered. It not only supports multiple categories, but the splitting of a transaction across categories. It tracks bills, and payment dates. Financisto has the most options for reports. It is the only Android app that provides for currency conversion for account transfers. The trick is that you need to create a conversion table. While not 100% accurate due to daily rate changes, it does allow you to setup different conversion rates for ATM withdrawals, credit card charges, and cash accounts. You can edit the transaction to reflect the actual exchange rate. Although Financisto has more features, it is not hard to use. For the international business traveler, it makes expense reporting a lot easier. For the home user, you can just ignore the project features.

If you make a habit of using these apps at the time you make the transaction, your money management just became a lot easier. Overtime, you will be able to create more accurate budgets. Staying within the budget is another story.