Which apps should you use to track your expenses?

livemint.com:

₹600." When Bathla started earning in 2020, he felt the need to discipline his spending habits like his father. So, he opened an account with Notion (a note taking app). At the end of each day, he would painstakingly key in his spends in separate categories that he created.

This lasted for about four months till he felt the need for a simpler process. Bathla told Mint that he started searching for apps that could automate this process. He soon found some apps and figured two ways to keep track of expenses.

One was by giving the apps access to your SMSes (phone messages), and emails. The second was to give access to your data through the account aggregator (AA) system. Many people feel uncomfortable giving a third party access to their personal SMSes/emails, as did Bathla.

He thought giving access to his financial data through the AA system which is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would be more secure. He downloaded the Jupiter app that relied on the AA system to track all his expenses. Jupiter would also automatically categorize his spends.

The app leverages intelligence developed in-house to figure out what each transaction was used for: food, travel, shopping, or paying monthly rent. But after a few weeks of using it, Bathla realized this system had its own limitations (see graphic). The SMS/emails route Patanjali Somayaji, chief technology Officer at axio (formerly Walnut), explains how the SMS expense tracking system works.

For instance, he told Mint, let’s assume a user buys petrol from a BPCL pump. The user’s bank will send an SMS confirming the payment (debit) and the axio app gets to know the merchant details. If the app is given location access, it can even map the spend accurately to the suitable