Smartphone applications do indeed provide basic standalone calculations like add, subtract, multiply and divide. There is more. Users can interact directly with data from a huge range of websites hosted on another computing platform.

The Apple iPhone is the champion today with over 150,000 apps and more being added each day. We have all witnessed that technology does not take long to evolve be replicated, enhanced and adding new features. Vendors keep adding to the never ending supply of bigger, faster, better. Please know it is most likely that some of the new will be worse than the old as that is the way of all development. This development platform includes all of the recently and soon to be released devices from Motorola, Nokia, LG, HTC, Palm, Blackberry, Google, Microsoft and a whole lot of others. This includes the soon to be very popular iPad from Apple, as all iPhone Apps will be immediately portable to the iPad on day 1.

The following short descriptions of financial applications can be helpful, useful and functional for the accounting and financial communities. Any list, however, can never be complete and all inclusive.


Units

Units is a very useful app that provides quick unit to unit conversion. Conversions include Area, Currency, Time, Length, Weight, and Volume. What is good about the App is that for any conversion you enter one number, such as distance in feet and the program converts As an added bonus Units also has a built in ruler, for doing small, quick measurements when the need arises.

Formulator Series    http://www.multieducator.net

The Formulator Series by MultiEducator, Inc. is a series of different apps for different disciplines from finance to engineering to builders. Individual Formulator packages are priced from $5 to $20. Higher priced packages include content about professional regulations.  The Personal Financial Formulator program ($.99) is a calculator with 30 built-in formulas such as calculating a percentage on a bill for tips or commissions; calculating insurance rates.

The more advanced App , Finance Formulator ($4.99), combines a financial terms dictionary with over 120 financial calculation formulas. These include mortgage and lease formulas, interest formulas, stock valuations, bonds, cash flow analysis, sales ratios, debt ratios, acid test analysis, Z credit score analysis. ''

Personal Assistant

This very usable App has both a free and premium version. The key process is to have instant access to balances in all financial accounts – credit cards, shopping sites, Starbucks and more. Some banks, like mine in Colorado, do not yet have a direct interface. 

The program lets you view summaries or detail of all financial transactions. When one is mobile, this can replace going to each individual website to check any balance and latest transactions. In addition to finance, you can track other transaction based information such as purchases on Amazon and your film queue on Netflix.

The Premium version ($7) adds some security with a PIN number. In addition there are resources for travel itineraries, minutes tracking and alerts. I like the alerts feature as it sends an email about upcoming due dates for credit cards and other financial payments. This feature alone has saved me some interest and late fees. 

All of the features of Personal Assistant is concurrently available through their web site. This translates to easier typing when adding accounts or doing anything other than viewing. This will also allow for a bigger screen and quick access to printing.

BillMinder

Another App to track your recurring bills, bills paid, bills unpaid, and manage information about the vendor. BillMinder has assembled a set features that users find easy. For example, you can enter bill details including amount due, due date, and payment date. The interface is easy to learn with big buttons for when you want to enter information like “paid”.  The full screen calendar surrounds the bill due dates with red circles, making it hard for you to miss that something is supposed to be done on this date. If you do not need glasses, you may see that circle gets darker as the number of days between today and the due date get smaller. Of course, you do have to open this application frequently to receive its benefits. If opened once per month, the calendar and other financial information will not be able to support daily or weekly financial analysis. 


HyperOffice

HyperOffice is an all in one applications that can truly justify reasons  to buy the Smartphone that it runs on. This App is all about coordination and collaboration The App delivers tools for all the sectors on the wheel from documents to calendars to contacts to project management.
Without going into all of the aspects of Cloud Computing and SaaS applications, HyperOffice provides small businesses the capability to collect and store data from all corners of their enterprise. Specific security permissions can be attached to every file and document that will control who does or does not view data. Authorized users can access individual and company-wide calendars, inboxes, document storage, contact lists, discussion groups, and more. As an extra price option, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption is available. This 128 bit encryption can protect the most sensitive data.

The system is usable from an iPhone so that these elements can be shared from any phone or computing device. This app has a form builder function that enables creation of specific data elements, files and databases.  For example, HyperOffice has a time sheet module that all staff can use to track work done by client and project.

With full intranet and extranet capabilities, HyperOffice can be used as a web portal for staff and/or client interactions. Documents can be shared with multiple people. At this time, only one person can make changes to a document at a time. Once the changes have been made and saved then other authorized users can view the document. All this without the need to share or manage SharePoint from Microsoft. These Intranet and extranet pages can also be optimized for the iPhone.

HyperOffice is not an accounting application with expense accounts and recording of financial transactions. The focus is on the contextual data like contact information, email messages and project support. The target market are businesses with five to 250 employees. The monthly subscription fee for HyperOffice is based on a per user per month of approximately $8. The more users the lower the per person fee. Annual subscriptions are available.

HyperOffice works with browsers on Windows or Macintosh. There are few usability differences between the different hardware and operating systems. Whether you are dragging files or selecting from a list is not a major concern. 

Also new are color-coded calendars, more robust project management capabilities and tabs that let employees open multiple e-mail messages at once.

HyperOffice is announcing a new application called HyperSynch that will support almost all mobile and remote devices. This includes synching email, calendars, contacts and tasks with firm wide office applications. Synching can also be done wirelessly among mobile phones, PC and Mac .

SnapTax

Intuit has released SnapTax to support the very simple EZ returns in California. The app scans a photo of a W-2 using the built-in camera. After scanning, the user answers a few questions and then proceeds to e-filing of the Federal and State tax returns. With a retail price of $10, SnapTax is for the alone and do not do very much set. There is absolutely no capability to synch information on SnapTax with any other version of Inuit’s tax applications.

With Intuit’s marketing clout, there will be other states added to the list for 2011. The problem is the use of SnapTax can be for people who have very few sources of income and very few deductions of any kind. Young adults with lemonade stands or newspaper routes may find this App usable.

Mint

This personal finance tool was first just a tool to track budgets and deliver some personal financial information. With over 1 million subscribers, Mint has found a niche for people that want to do their finances from their mobile smartphone.

Mint provides access to your accounts along with alerts that you have established for low balances, high balances and due dates. You will have to set up an web based Mint account. This app is a simple way to follow your cash flows from your Smartphone.

Red Laser

The perfect comparison shopping app, simply scan any barcode to get a list of competing prices from a variety of sources. You can email yourself a list of scanned products for comparison shopping later and you can add custom URL’s to search for if there’s a retailer that’s not in their database.

News, News and More News
Pick a newspaper, pick a category, pick to check it daily or weekly, They are all available and all can provide more data about more subjects, financial, non-financial, accounting source, every source.




Wall Street to Main Street and all points in between can be gathered from a ton of Smartphone Apps. These resources can assist real-time financial analysis, portfolio reviews, trading, company descriptions, trend analysis. You can insert personal information and have the Apps track your information or just play what-if and research a possible investment. Local news outlets and all TV networks are included in your research sources.


Banking

It is very likely that your bank already has a Smartphone App that will permit access to your account transactions. Setting up a username and password delivers a contact with your transactions on close to a real-time basis. Large, small and all other sizes have their own App or some generic App that is provided as a service.

MasterCard delivers an App that assists with finding the ATM machine that will support your immediate cash needs. 





Who Wants More? CPAs, Clients, Friends, Colleagues, Family, et al

More apps for the Smartphone are arriving hourly. Of course, for those who shout from the rooftops that the only way the world will ever rest “MY SMARTPHONE” is from my cold dead hand, there will never be enough applications. For those of us who can chew gum and take showers without the Smartphone in our grasp, find the Apps that work and use them. Sometimes too many choices create complexities that are not needed as we try to be competent accountants and even better people.