Paula has been a fantastic user, providing us with lots of feedback. We asked her to tell us more about she’s been using Xpenser, and she was kind enough to send us the following description. If you have interesting stories please send them our way at feedback@xpenser.com so we can share them.

We love feedback, by the way, and actually implement changes you suggest – we have a slice of time set aside in every release cycle for user feedback. So don’t be shy, tell us what you want to see fixed/improved/added at feedback@xpenser.com .

After my separation I had been trying to get my budget in order for months. This was the first time in my life I needed to have a budget.

I knew I was falling in the red each month but didn’t really know by how much, where my money was going; let alone how to improve my situation.

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person but for some reason I wasn’t able to get a hold at tracking my expenses.

I tried free services like quicken which give me some idea, but I was limited on how was expenses entered and organized.

I evaluated paid services like mvelopes, but it was still more work than what I was willing to put in, the interface was too dry. I tried my own excel formats…

Each method would help a little but I was still in the dark when it came to the details and I felt overwhelmed by the actual task of tracking.

I read budgeting for dummies type books, talked to a financial advisor and participated in personal finances classes in church. What was missing?

In my frustration I continued pounding Google for personal expense tracking solutions. A sponsored link led me to Xpenser.

I was too easy and fun! Soon I was registering my expenses via text and email, every day. It was so exciting to see the entries on my Expenses page!  Before I knew it I had been fully and accurately tracking for 15 days (a first for me). Just two weeks gave me enough information to start making changes for the better!

Then I took it a step further, I assigned budget amounts to each category. Xpenser allows me to have a separate Report for each category. Gas, with a starting balance of $100, Tolls, with a starting balance of $35, etc.

In one shot, I can see how much money is in the bank and how much do I have in each allocated budget category.

In top of that I created a Report for each one of my debt accounts, I can happily see those numbers decrease their way to the so desired “Zero Balance”.

In top of all these, Xpenser has a superb customer service, they have replied to each one of my inquiries (which have been many) in less, actually quite less than 24 hours and the answers are always right on the money.

This is how I do it:

At the beginning of my pay period I enter my salary. Then I subtract the allocated money for each category.

Let’s say I bring $500 home on a given week.

I create a expense for each category for the week.

• Groceries 50
• Gas 25
• Car Payment 300
• Phone Bill 50

That leaves me a balance of $75 in the bank (50+25+300+50=425).

Gas and groceries might not be exact, but I allocate the money already, my working balance is $75

Then, as the actual expenses happen, I start recording on its own category

Let’s say:

• I buy $42 in groceries
• Put $14 of gas
• Pay my phone bill
• Make my car payment

My Xpenser will show what I have available until my next pay check:

• Checking account $75
• Grocery budget $8
• Gas Budget $11

Beautiful!

Regards,

Paula, Miramar, FL

Well, it’s about time.

As those of you who have been using them for a while know, Xpenser has had a nice set of APIs for some time. They’ve been getting more and more use, and we finally managed to stop procrastinating, documented them, and have opened them up for general use. Go forth and integrate, create new interfaces, have fun. [Updated link to point to new developer wiki]

One of the major motivators was our integration with Outright, a fantastic online bookkeeping system. Outright impressed us from day one with their passion for simple, understandable interfaces – create an account with them and you’ll be shocked at how quickly you’re looking at a profit and loss statement. Having used a few other accounting packages who shall remain nameless, I can tell you this is really good stuff.

We also had a chance to spend time with them at TechCrunch50 and Finovate conferences, and I can tell you they are good people. Go open an Outright account if you don’t already have one and see for yourself.

With today’s integration, Outright allows you to automatically pull in your Xpenser expenses into their system,  making it even easier to keep your accounting straight. Look for the “Mobile Expenses” button on the Account Import page. Follow the simple setup steps and you’ll be enjoying synchronized expenses in no time.

…

Which brings us back to the APIs – we implemented OAuth to allow easy integration with Outright, and added the ability to request expenses by creation and modification date. These are particularly nice in scenarios where you want to implement synchronization, allowing you to only deal with items that have changed since you last synchronized.

Now that APIs are documented and available, there is no excuse: integrate away. There’ve been several requests for an Adobe Air Xpenser client, which I personally would love to see. We also had several requests from folks who wanted to integrate the time tracking interface into their apps – now you can.

And for the non-technically inclined: leave a comment or let us know at feedback@xpenser.com what applications and integrations you’d most like to see, and we’ll get the word out.