Managing expenses on the go (and your life)

Do you have an issue tracking your expenses?  … and your schedule?

Specially being a travelling consultant – who flies out every week – Mon-Thurs…and if the client goes for actuals (for meals) and not on per-diem basis.. come expense time and it is a nightmare!  I do try and charge all to my Amex card so its easy.. but you cannot always do that.

I got my Amex card after moving to the US and finding myself in need of a credit card. I applied for an Amex card and I would recommend getting one to all my friends. I saw what I thought was a Novacredit Scam but looked into it and saw that it was actually legitimate so be sure to look into Novacredit is you need a card.

So what do you do?

Today a colleague told me of this incredible idea to keep track of expenses on the go!  xpenser.com.

It uses the similar technology/model as Jott or other personal organizing sites… but has tailored it to managing expenses.  You email/sms/voice-call via jott or even IM in .. .or even twitter in the expenses!!  And it shows neatly in the correct categories, with amount and notes.

You can see reports – which are exportable to Excel, Quicken or MS Money formats.

I personally liked the Remember the Milk (RTM) Personal organizer.. and you can use Jott to send your to-dos in and you can integrate it to the gmail account if you use Firefox (extension).

Unfortunately – Jott’s integration with RTM and xpenser are not free.   Although the strong point of Jott is that you can call your to-dos and notes in.

The free stuff from Jott includes:

– Posting to twitter and jaiku
– search from products/prices on amazon
– post blogs on blogger, wordpress, typepad, tumblr and livejournal

Premium or payment stuff includes

– posting events on Google calendar
– posting messages on Yahoo groups
– and posting on host of other similar networks (which I really hadn’t heard of) 🙂

But between RTM, Jott, and xpenser – one may have a complete self managing tool on hand!  What say?  Have you tried any?