Exactly what it says it is, does it pretty well...
This app is just about perfect for tracking expenses while traveling on business. I suspect the users who gave this a 1-star rating expected it to be more like a budgeting app, which is most definitely not. And thats why I like it; it does what it does, and for the most part it does it pretty well. I paid $4.99 for another so-called travel expense app, and that one was simply a re-wrapped budgeting app that didnt even let me change the dates on entered expenses, so if you entered an expense the day after it was incurred the date was wrong...
Pros:
* you can take the free version for a test drive; its limited to 5 entries, but its a 1-step process to export those 5 entries to the paid version if you decide you want to buy it. IMHO, this is a perfect example of what should differentiate a free vs. a paid app.
* you can easily take a picture of a receipt and associate it with an expense; the person I submit to accepts these, so I dont have to submit the actual paper receipt. I enter the receipt as I collect it, and the only reason I keep the receipt is in case I lose my phone before I get a chance to submit the report. Once I submit and its accepted, I toss the bundle of unsorted receipts away. No more sorting receipts!
* when I contacted support on a couple of issues that turned into feature requests, I got mail back within an hour. Nice touch.
* expense entry widget is also a currency conversion calculator. I checked the supplied exchanges rates against xe.com, and theyre pretty close, and you can enter your own exchange rate if you feel its out by too much.
* you can customize the currency list to only include relevant currencies.
Cons (nothing thats a show-stopper here, just the difference between a 4-star and 5-star rating):
* some of the UI elements are difficult to select; Im guessing the target area on the display is quite small. An example if when you are viewing the expenses grouped by category or date for a trip. The red triangle icons on the left of the interface to roll-up or expand the group are difficult to hit, and I continually hit the "back" button instead of the upper-most triangle icon. You should be able to roll-up the group by tapping anywhere on the group bar
* you can set a default currency for the app, and you can override the default currency for a trip, but you cant submit a report in a currency thats different from the trips currency. So if I need to submit in USD but travel to the UK, I have to choose whether to convert to $US when I enter, or submit in GBP and ask the accountant to perform the conversion against the whole report.
john.d.burk about BizExpense, v1.3.0
