# Idea: sotfware to help categorise & record spending thus automating budgeting



## mmclo (22 Aug 2011)

I see there is a move towards more contactless payments so soon all transactions could be electronic. 

Couldn't the banks and payment organisations introduce sotfware to help people categorise and record their monthly spending thus automating personal budgeting?
 Bar codes could transmit the type of item i.e. food, entertainment etc. surely retailers have this or similar software already?


----------



## ontour (22 Aug 2011)

search for PFM  - personal financial management.  There are lots of different types of PFM solutions, Mint.com is a good example of one wich is more from the bank side.  Retailers have used their loyalty schemes to track this sort of data.  With Tesco expanding their banking services, I think that you will see a lot of innovation from them in the area you suggest.  That is not to say that there are not opportunities for more/ different solutions in this space.


----------



## ajapale (22 Aug 2011)

Ive down loaded some iphone apps which promice to do just this. I havent used any of them though! Im afraid I just save the reciepts and plug them into an excel sheet or mark the prices up on a white board in the kitchen.

RedLaser
Frugal
Pic2shop
ShopListFree

Some reviews here:

http://financialsoft.about.com/od/pdasoftware/tp/iPhone_Apps_Personal_Finance.htm


----------



## losttheplot (22 Aug 2011)

One of the UK banks do something like this, can't remember which one. I think it would be a great innovative feature on internet banking - if they even made the data easy to download it would be a help.

I previously used one called homebank but was very time consuming as most of the transactions were manually entered - just as handy to use a spreadsheet.

I'm surprised Google haven't done this yet, although would you want Google to know what you spent your money on.


----------



## mmclo (23 Aug 2011)

Isn't there work needed from the retailer side? surely most current software means the cardholder categorising stuff etc. I'm thinking like what the Supermarkets can do with bar codes but straight to your own spreadsheet, most merchants would have to offer it to make it worthwhile


----------



## losttheplot (23 Aug 2011)

You could have it setup to recognise certain transactions by keywords like "Tesco" in a credit card transaction would be categorised as shopping. If you tend to use the same filling stations and pay by card, you could set these to be recognised as "Fuel".


----------



## zag (5 Jan 2012)

I'm using gnucash at the moment for tracking my expenditure.  It can be a little over the top at first, but after a month or two of playing around with it I think it's pretty good.

I started off with some basic accounts (credit card, current account, salary, groceries, petrol, insurance, entertainment, sundry and a few others) and have added in a few more as time has progressed.  Withdrawals from the ATM just get charged to a sort of sundry account.  If I know that I spent (say) €50 cash on dinner then it will get charged to "eating out" and not just get lost in the general cash expenditure.  However, if I spend €2 on a newspaper it just shows up as general cash expenditure.

I now have a few months worth of transactions entered in and a reasonable idea of how much I spend on groceries, petrol, etc . . . per month.

When we went away on holidays, I charged everything that we spend directly on the holiday against a seperate holiday account so I know that going away for that week cost us (say) €1,500.  Before, this would have been lost in a mix of ATM withdrawals, hotel charges, train fares, etc . . .

Now, when I go into my credit card account and enter (say) Maxol, it automatically knows that this is going to be charged to expenses:motor, and when I enter in Tesco it knows it will get charged to expenses:groceries.  This speeds up entering in the details.

z

p.s. I forgot to add - this sort of categorisation would be easy enough for the banks to do and would add to the user experience.  I think AMEX used to do something like this a long time ago on their statements - at least for airfares which they would list out separately.


----------

