A Fun Way to Capture your Expenses

Capturing all business expenses has always been a challenge for me -- that is, in the past. But since I am self-employed and organize dance parties and mixers, it is extremely important for me to stay organized and record all expenses.

Now I find it fun and easy. What's my secret? Two great free websites:

Jott.com
and...
Xpenser.com

I suggest you first join Jott.com and get familiar with how you can send short email messages with your cell phone with voice to text technology. You can send email to yourself or others in seconds without typing anything. You talk, it types. The transcription is not always perfect, but its good: good enough to be very useful. Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.

Once you have Jott set up, register with Xpenser and add Xpenser as a link within Jott. Then you can call Jott. (It's best to set up a speed dial button for this) Jott will say:

Who do you want to jott?
You can reply "Xpenser"
Jott will confirm, "Xpenser, is that correct?"
You reply "Yes."
Jott will say: "Go ahead record your Jott"

You can say something like "24.95 for lunch meeting with Nike to discuss Party at Golds Gym."

Xpenser will automatically date your entry. Once a week or so, you can log in to Xpenser and edit the log and create reports. You can export them to a spreadsheet if you want. Just do this! It could save you a lot time and money.