Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Apps’

Spending less time searching for what’s lost

Misplaced items produce negative emotions like nothing else. I’ve felt the frustration of not being able to find matches when it’s time to light the birthday cake candles, the anxiety of my eyeglasses falling behind the dresser, and the panic of not knowing where my phone is when it’s time to leave for work (only to realize it was in my pocket the whole time). Over the last few years, technology has helped me quickly and calmly find those things that commonly vanish:
  • For a lost phone that’s nearby, nothing is easier than making it sound right from your wrist. I’ve used my Apple Watch to ping my iPhone countless times. Another trick is to use a skill with an Amazon Echo to call a phone with simply, “Alexa, find my phone.”
    Tiles for finding lost things

    Tiles

  • I have several Tiles (see picture above) I can slip on a key ring to sound upon command from the Tile app on my phone. If a Tile is within Bluetooth range, it will play a tune until I find my keys, wallet, or whatever I’ve tied to the Tile. If the Tile isn’t within Bluetooth range, the app will tell me where it last had contact with the object (for example, that I left my briefcase at the office). Now, if I could just figure out a way to attach a Tile to my TV remote without duct tape…
  • I know people who are constantly forgetting their passwords, or writing them down and losing them. Stop those bad habits and use a secure password manager like LastPass.
  • Receipts are easy to lose, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Since I’m an accountant, it should come as no surprise that I’m ultra-organized and completely digital with my personal finances. This comes in handy when I’m at the auto repair shop and asked when I last replaced the tires. Hubdoc has helped to automatically organize my financial documents, and one of its best features is recognizing the text within receipts. So all I have to do is search my Hubdoc account for “tires” and wallah!
With these tools, I can confidently say with my best Liam Neeson impression, “I will find you.”

Smart accounting is as cool as a smart home, but not as easy to show off

The latest gadget addition to my home is the Amazon Echo, a speaker that responds to voice commands similar to Siri and Cortana, but is completely hands-free. By default, the Echo goes by the name of Alexa. For example, she reads the day’s NPR news briefing if I say, “Alexa, what’s the news today? ” It responds to commands to play music, read the weather report, tell me how bad traffic is, set timers, and many others. Beware if you have toddlers at home, as my young sons have conspired with Alexa to add a number of toys to my shopping list. The Echo is especially useful connected to other smart devices in my home. Paired with my Nest thermostat, the Echo can help me set the temperature without having to get out of my bed. With my WeMo switch, I can turn the light on by just saying, “Alexa, turn on the bedroom lamp.” Guests to my home are amused by the magic show, but the benefits of these smart devices goes far beyond being able to show them off. For example, I can turn on the air conditioner a half-hour before coming home or have the lights turn off automatically when I leave. A smart home can conserve energy. I am equally excited about today’s accounting software add-ons and apps that reduce data entry and gather all my documents in one place, as well as banking features like mobile deposit and autopay.  Sadly, it’s not as easy to show off.  For one, accounting documents contain personal information that someone might not want the rest of the world to see.  Second, accounting apps can’t tell jokes like the Echo can. Someday, I’d like to say, “Alexa, what were my sales yesterday and what bills do I have to pay? … and tell me in a Donald Duck voice.” Both my kids and I would certainly be impressed by that.

No paper for a receipt? Take a picture of the gas pump

In a prior post, I wrote about how I use document management software to push transactions and the supporting documentation into accounting software. As I’ve developed this method of doing my accounting, I’ve realized that the key to keeping accounting in real-time is using the document management software for every transaction, if possible. It also helps me make sure every transaction that goes through my bank account is legitimate. So what do you do when you can’t get a receipt?Gas Pump This week, after I fueled up my car at the gas station, the screen on the pump said it was out of paper. I hate it when that happens! Since I couldn’t walk away with a receipt, I took this picture of the pump. With paper receipts, my document management software extracts information like the date, vendor and amount automatically. I wondered what it would do with this picture. Hubdoc used the date I submitted the receipt, but as it usually does with non-receipt documents, it didn’t capture anything else.  Still, it didn’t take long to publish it to my accounting software after entering the vendor and amount. Receipt Bank captured the amount from the gas pump, but didn’t get the vendor right. Strangely, it picked up “Department of Agriculture and Food” from the weights and measures sticker on the pump, even though the Sam’s Club logo was on the screen. Taking a picture of the pump instead of a receipt isn’t ideal since it requires more data entry, but it’s better than nothing.

Awesome Apps for Accounting: IF by IFTTT

IF by IFTTT (“If This Then That”) has been an extremely useful tool in my web automation efforts. Through this website and app, I create “recipes” so that when a certain event happens in one app, an action is automatically triggered in another app. I use it for some social media activities, for example, posting Instagrams as Twitter photos.  Here’s another one: by sending a text to my phone number, I can turn the volume up.  Since I mute my phone often, this one is a life saver when it decides to play hide-and-seek between the couch cushions. Business owners and accountants could use IF to create custom alerts and make accounting easier.  Here are a few I found:
  1. A business owner using Square point of sale software to accept credit card payments might want to be alerted when large refunds are issued.IFTTT Recipe: Refunds over $____ send an email to any address you choose  connects square to gmail
  2. A company using Stripe to process online payments can add each sale automatically to Google Sheets.IFTTT Recipe: If New Stripe Payment to Add Row to Google Sheets connects stripe to google-drive
  3. Do you ever forget to pay your phone bill?  If you get the bill via e-mail, this recipe will put an appointment on your calendar to pay it.IFTTT Recipe: When I get an email about my phone/internet bill, my calendar reminds me to pay it within 5 days connects gmail to google-calendar
  4. It’s not easy to keep a manual mileage log, but IF pairs Automatic (a device you plug into your car) with Google Drive to document your miles.IFTTT Recipe: Automatic - Milage for Tax Deduction connects automatic to google-drive
  5. Based on your iOS location, this recipe will log your work hours.IFTTT Recipe: Log work hours to a google spreadsheet connects ios-location to google-drive
It’s disappointing that there isn’t any accounting software listed in the IFTTT channels.  There could be many useful accounting recipes. It would be cool if an e-mail were automatically sent to a bookkeeper if a bank account hasn’t been reconciled for two months, or if an income statement could automatically be posted to Dropbox every month. Could this be something we see in the near future? If you use IF in your business and have great tips to share, please leave a comment below.

Awesome Apps for Accounting: Genius Scan, Hubdoc and Xero

In my search for a fully automated, completely paperless, and mobile-friendly accounting system, I’ve discovered three apps I love that have almost made it a reality. Genius Scan, Hubdoc and Xero Unless I’m near a desktop scanner, every receipt or document enters my virtual file cabinets through Genius Scan.  I don’t know how it does it, but it turns my iPhone’s camera into a high-quality PDF scanner.  I love being able to crop my receipts, make them black and white, and make the PDF file sizes less than 100 KB (while image files from the camera are normally several megabytes).  I then use the app to easily upload documents to programs I use to organize them such as… Hubdoc recognizes the text on the receipts and puts them into a list showing the vendor name, date and amount of each receipt.  It also automatically gives them file names (such as Wal-Mart_20150126_$20.00) when I download the files.  Hubdoc DIETA VEGANA E CARROCERÍA generic zovirax por generic en espana acyclovir bodybuilding – día a díahas some good organizational tools for marking documents as paid, adding tags and notes, and putting documents into folders.  Hubdoc also automatically pulls online statements from my Amazon, credit card and utility accounts and similarly names and organizes those documents.  Hubdoc exports the electronic documents and transactions into online accounting systems such as… Xero has been my personal accounting software for some time now.  I’m a fan of the beautiful web interface and the mobile app that lets me reconcile transactions on my iPhone. I have a wish list that would make the process perfect:
  • Genius Scan can automatically upload to several apps, but Hubdoc is not on that list.  I currently e-mail each receipt to my Hubdoc e-mail address to do the job which isn’t too much of a hassle.
  • I’ve created many bank rules in Xero to automate how it classifies bank transactions it downloads, but they don’t apply to transactions coming from Hubdoc.  Although the two programs do an amazing job auto-categorizing them, I wish I had more control.
  • The Xero reconciliation screen doesn’t show me how the transactions from Hubdoc are categorized, so I have to drill into the reports to find them and make sure they’re categorized right.
Please leave a comment below if you have a different set of accounting apps and processes to share.

Consuming content on tablets with Google Currents

For a guy that enjoys new technology, I entered the realm of tablet computing a little late.  I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 with a 10.1 inch screen. The tablet fills a unique role among the other devices I own.  It is more portable and boots up faster than my laptop.  The larger screen makes it a much better device for viewing web pages and PDF files than my phone. Unlike my desktop and laptop computers, the tablet is not an ideal device for working and typing.  It is not as portable as my phone, which follows me everywhere like my shadow (my tablet won’t be so lucky).  However, its characteristics make it my preferred device for consuming web content.  Up to this point, I have used my tablet primarily for reading news, books, blogs, and other social media. Although I use Google Reader for most of my online reading, I have discovered Google Currents to be an awesome app as well.  Google Currents puts my reading material into a newspaper or magazine-like format, adapts the content to the screen size of a tablet, and makes it available offline.  See the below screenshot of one of my favorite tax blogs, the Roth & Company Tax Update Blog by Joe Kristan.  How do you like the layout, Joe? Google Currents Screenshot