Xpenser + Jott = Expense Reporting Made Easy

Let’s be honest, filling out expense reports is horrible.  They are a necessary evil, often put off until the last possible minute.  When I finally get around to filling mine out, I usually find myself removing a mountain of crumpled receipts from my “George Costanza like” wallet and then trying in vein to make sense of it all.  Hours later I finally get the whole mess put in order, plugged into a spreadsheet, copied, and submitted - cursing all the while as I vow never to put this off until the last minute again.  Of course I do put it off, and monthly the process is repeated.

I believe that I have found the answer in the form of xpenser.com

Xpenser.com is a web based tool that allows you to easily track your expenses.  It features a very simple interface, and a few very powerful features.  There are four fields for entry of expenses - Type, Amount, Notes, and Date.  It is clean and easy.  It will convert miles into dollars automatically and the information can be downloaded in numerous spreadsheet formats.  For me, it took all of about 2 seconds for me to see the value of this tool, and hence it was added immediately to my firefox toolbar. It will email or text updates, and you can enter to it via email, text, twitter or directly through the site itself.   It could not be more easy… or could it?

As it turns out, xpenser.com integrates with another one of my favorite web based tools jott.com.  Thus, when it comes to expense reports you can now literally just phone it in.  Call Jott (number 9 on my speed dial), say the name of your expense, the amount, and any notes, and you are done.  Jott will plug everything into xpenser and send you a confirmation verifying your entry.  This is a great way to make windshield time more valueable - calling in the day’s expenses and mileage as you make the drive home.

This combination of free, web based tools is a simple way to make your life easier.   Give xpenser and jott a try and let me know what you think.

Xpenser - Mobile Expense Tracking and Reporting

Save Time, Do More: Jott.com

Recently, I discovered that it’s possible to post to my blog from Jott.com. If you are not familiar with Jott.com, well…it is one of the most amazing and useful services that you can find. Jott offers free voice to text translation. So when you are in your car and think of that great idea, simply call Jott, leave a message, and voila - you get an email with both a text transcription of your message as well as the original audio. Now for safety and convenience, I recommend putting it in your speed dial - mine is in speed dial 9. (Goog411, the other most amazing phone tool I know of, is speed dial 4.) Well, as I stated above, Jott can not only send you an email message, but you can also use it to send messages to others and post directly to Google Calendar, Wordpress Blogs, Toodledo, Remember the Milk, Twitter, and numerous other web tools. Jott is one of the rare productivity tools that actually might make you more productive. What tools will you use to make 2008 your most productive year yet?