TECH TALK
EXPENSE forms are the bane of the City trader’s life. Whether you’re claiming for a business lunch or filing your tax return, the fiddle factor costs you time and money.
Nine in ten City workers loses fifty pounds a month through mislaid receipts (source: IT in Context) with petrol receipts the most likely to go missing.
MyAccountantFriend is an iPhone app that minimises these tragedies. You take a photo of your receipt and this is instantly uploaded to the web site, from which your accounts are managed for you. It comes as part of an accounting managed service that costs £60 a month, which makes financial sense if you’re cash rich and time poor.
If you’re worried about cutting your bills, Halo is a godsend. Use it to manage everything in your house (your CCTV, the locks to the front door, your gas and electricity) from your phone. If you’re off to Hong Kong for two weeks, with Halo you can use your phone to switch everything off while you’re in the lounge at Gatwick. You can text a command to open the door to your cleaner too, once you’ve identified him or her on the CCTV picture on your phone.
It works with all smart phones, but the iPhone has the best tools. Maker Intamac is creating an Android version too.
How can you make better use of all the hours you spend on a train each week? You could get your personal banking done with the Orange Credit Card, an app from Mobinetic, which lets you manage your finances on your mobile. Or try Ascendo Money, which synchronises your Windows PC with a Blackberry.
Don’t spend hours dialling out and retrieving every tedious phone message on your system. Use Hullomail to read them instantly – it saves you having to listen to people rambling on and taking hours to get to the point before blurting out their contact number.
Once the train is in the station, don’t waste time fighting for a cab. Use Ubicabs.com to find a where the taxis are and pre-book. The system tells the cabbie where you are too. Taxi!
Nick Booth, editor of www.mobileb2b.co.uk