6 Essential iPhone Apps For Managing Your Finances

Ever since the App Store was opened to the public, developers from around the world have been working feverishly to write new applications for the iPhone to improve its already impressive capabilities. It is true that iPhone games are typically the most anticipated apps to be released and publicised. However, there is a plethora of other apps to explore, some of which have particular relevance to managing your personal finances.

So if you want to keep track of your personal stock portfolio, set a budget for the incoming month or even log your miles, there’s an iPhone app for you!

We’ve picked out six of the finest financial apps for your iPhone, many of which are free. So hit the store and get downloading!

Bloomberg LP
At the time of writing, the Bloomberg LP app is the most popular of all the finance apps in the store. Maybe that’s because it’s free to download, but perhaps it’s because this app is actually extremely useful. If you have investments in stock, or are tracking a stock before buying in, then this is an absolute for you. Bloomberg LP manages to pack in a frightening amount of financial data within the iPhone’s screen area with everything from share prices, a 52 week summary chart, volume and news related to the stock. Make no bones about it: if you are dabbling in shares then this app should be on your iPhone!

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Balance
If you want to keep an eye on your bank accounts then Balance is something you should look into. With Balance, the days of keeping track of your incoming and outgoing funds are over, it can all be done with this little app.

Every time you make a debit from or credit to your account with Balance, the app will automatically recalculate your account’s balance so you won’t get carried away and overspend your way to a nice overdraft fee! Balance is also free, which can’t be bad.

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Spend Lite
As the world economy contracts and home finances are being stretched it is more important that ever to set a budget and stick to it, which is much easier said than done! That’s where Spend Lite (the free version of Spend) comes into play.

With this free version you can only set yourself 5 weekly budgets for food, entertainment, going out or whatever else you want. Then any time you spend money you enter it into Spend, which will update your budget to show how much you have left to spend.

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Tripometer Mileage Log
When you work for a company and have clients scattered all around, you soon rack up the miles. The problem is that it is all to easy to do the miles, pick up the tab for the fuel, seal the deal with the client and never claim back your mileage expenses. With Tripometer Mileage Log on your iPhone you can easily track what a trip was for, who you met and how long you travelled. In other words, everything you need to get that mileage claim in.

There are some nifty features built in, including the ability to setup favourite destinations or pull details on origin and destination from the iPhone address book. Even better, Tripometer Mileage Log can export your trips for use with your favoured spreadhseet application and email reports to your finance manager.

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Bill4Time Mobile
If you work for yourself then you’ll know just how important it is to track time because being a successful freelancer relies on cashflow, which means efficient invoicing. Bill4Time Mobile, a free addon for the bill4time.com service, lets you track time spent on a project (both labour and travel time), expenses incurred, notes related to the project and scheduled tasks that can be converted into completed time entries.

All in all, this is a solid application and if you happen to use their services already then it is indispensable.

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Currency
If you do travel frequently or just make purchases on the internet in foreign currencies, then it’s always a good thing to know exactly what the exchange rate. This is exactly what Currency does. And it’s free!

PS. Here’s a free & simple web-based online currency converter.