EVALUATION OF FINANCIAL APPLICATION SOFTWARE REPORT 

Nhien To 

Kathy Downey 

Ian Elkin 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

October 2012 
1 

EVALUATION OF FINANCIAL APPLICATION SOFTWARE REPORT 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................ 2

1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. 4

1.1 Background 4

1.2 Objectives 5

1.3 Research Questions 5

2. METHODOLOGY................................................................................................. 6

2.1 Study Design 6

2.2 Evaluation 8

3. FINDINGS........................................................................................................... 8

3.1 Household Composition 9

3.2 Percent of Household’s Total Expenses Recorded 9

3.3 Time of Entry 9

3.4 Obtaining Expenditure Information from other Household Members 10

3.5 Total Amount of Time Spent Using the App 10

3.6 Willingness to Participate 10

3.7 Preference for Smartphone App or Paper Diary 11

3.8 Likes About Using a Smartphone 11

3.9 Dislikes About Using a Smartphone 12

3.10 Likes about the Specific App Used 13

3.11 Dislikes about the Specific App Used 15

3.12 Entry of Detailed Information for each Expense 15

3.13 Features that should be included in a Custom Designed CE App 15

3.14 Field Procedures for Implementing a CE App 19

4. CONCLUSION................................................................................................... 19

5. REFERENCES................................................................................................... 24

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. Initial List of 96 Free Expense Tracking Apps 25

APPENDIX B. Participant Booklet 29

APPENDIX C. Compilation of Individual Evaluations 37

APPENDIX D. Focus Group Script and Notes 59
2 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Background 

The Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey Program is in the initial stages of a major redesign. One area of 

particular interest for the redesign is the use of the latest available technology to aid in the collection of 

CE data. With the growing use of smartphone apps among the respondent population, CE is interested in 

exploring the prospects of that specific area of technology. Initial work in preparation for this project 

proved that CE‟s data needs were much too specific for any existing expense tracking app to work off the 

shelf. In order to collect the detailed information needed for the CE Survey, a custom app would need to 

be designed and developed. With that in mind, CE drafted a Statement of Work for a contractor to 

develop a prototype expenditure app that could be used as a replacement for the CE Diary. 

This project focused on researching features and procedures that would be beneficial to implement for a 

custom CE app. The inputs would then be provided to the contractor for development of the app, as well 

as in the future as an internal reference for continued work in this area. 

Methodology 

For this study, only apps that were free or that offered a free “lite” version were selected. Internal CE 

participants were recruited to participate in the study. Twenty participants volunteered. Ten participants 

were single-adult households, 4 were 2-adult households without children, and 6 were 2-adult households 

with children. Based on the number of volunteers and the type of devices they owned, 20 apps were 

selected for evaluation. Each participant was assigned a different app and asked to download the app onto 

their personal smartphone. Each participant was then e-mailed a Participant Booklet (see Appendix B) 

which included an introduction and background information about the study, instructions, examples of the 

detailed information required for each type of expense record, and an evaluation. 

The participants were asked to use their assigned app to record their household‟s expenses for one week 

and answer the questions on the evaluation. The first section of the evaluation asks about the diary 

keeping experience and the second section asks about the specific app that was evaluated. See Appendix 

C for a compilation of the participants‟ individual evaluations. Most of the evaluation questions were 

intentionally left open-ended so that they would not generate bias or limit the participants‟ responses. 

This allowed the participants to think and report freely about the experience and what they liked or 

disliked about it. 

In addition to the individual evaluations, a focus group was conducted to promote discussion and learn 
3 

more about the participants‟ experiences using the app. Due to scheduling conflicts and events beyond 

the team‟s control, only 5 participants were able to participate in the focus group. See Appendix D for 

notes from the focus group. 

During the study, OneReceipt, a specific app which had not been available on the app market and 

therefore not selected for the evaluation was noted for its strong scanning and data extraction capabilities. 

The team made the decision not to make an exception to include the app in its evaluation in observance of 

the fact that new apps are constantly being introduced and that there needed to be a cut off in order to 

move forward with the study. 

Major Findings 

Percent of Household‟s Total Expenses Recorded: Over half of the participants said that they recorded 75 

percent or more of their household‟s total expenses for the week with 8 participants saying they recorded 

90 percent. 

Time of Entry: When asked “When did you enter your expenses?” the responses varied fairly evenly. 6 

said immediately after the purchase, 8 said at the end of each day, 7 said every few days, and 3 said at the 

end of the week. (Note: Some participants selected more than one response option.) 

Obtaining Expenditure Information from other Household Members: Participants were instructed to 

report expenditure information for their entire household, but were not given specific instructions on how 

to do so. Six participants said they asked and entered in the expenses themselves, 1 said they just didn‟t 

ask, 1 said that they used their checking account to verify expenses, and 1 said that both her and her 

husband entered expenses into the app. 

Total Amount of Time Spent Using the App: The amount of time that participants spent using the app 

varied quite a bit. The smallest amount of time that one participant reported was 10 minutes, the greatest 

was 140 minutes and the average was 58 minutes (which was calculated omitting the 10 minutes reported 

by the participant who said that they had a 10 item limit due to using the free lite version of the app).

Willingness to Participate: When asked “Outside of this study, if you were asked to use a smartphone app 

custom designed to collect CE data to record your household‟s expenses, would you be willing to 

participate?”, 18 said yes, 1 said no, and 1 said no unless he didn‟t need to do as much typing. Since 18 

of the participants already owned smartphones the responses may be biased. However, two of the 

participants who didn‟t own smartphones and were using loaned devices, still said that they would be 

willing to participate. 
4 

Preference for Smartphone App or Paper Diary: When asked “If given a choice between recording your 

household‟s expenses using a custom designed app on your smartphone or a paper diary, which would 

you prefer?” 17 preferred using a smartphone, 2 preferred a paper diary, and 1 preferred a smartphone 

only if it synced with a computer. The 2 participants who didn‟t own smartphones preferred a 

smartphone app over a paper diary. 

Likes about Using a Smartphone App: Overwhelmingly, the aspect that they liked most about using a 

smartphone app revolved around just a few similar themes: its ease, availability and portability. 

Dislikes about Using a Smartphone App: The aspects for which they did not like using a smartphone app 

were a bit more varied. The major common themes for why participants didn‟t like using a smartphone 

app was that it was difficult to remember to enter their expenses (which is also the case for entering 

expenses into a paper diary), the lack of specific diary categories and structure for reporting item details 

required them to do more typing and set up of their own categories, entering large numbers of expenses 

(e.g. items from a grocery trip) was difficult and time consuming on a small keypad, and concerns about 

security and privacy. 

Features that should be included in a Custom Designed CE App: 

Over half of the participants felt that a smartphone app should be used in conjunction with a Web 

diary or a paper diary. The app was really convenient for on the spot single entries but very 

burdensome for entering many expenses at once. They would rather have a keyboard option for 

typing in a long list of purchases. If it is not possible to have a web interface, the app needs to be 

designed for it to be easy for a participant to enter many items (e.g. items from a grocery trip) 

Reminders to enter expenses and check with other household members 

Include “smart” features in the Description field to ease respondent burden (e.g. spell-check, 

auto-suggest, speech-to-text) 

Voice recorder 

Camera to photograph receipt/record with ability to parse the text to automatically pull out at 

least some of the information 

Barcode scanner 

Categories to match the paper diary 

Date of Purchase (an easy way for participants to enter in the date of purchase) 

User-friendly “Help” system 
5 

1. INTRODUCTION 

1.1 Background

The Consumer Expenditure (CE) Surveys Program is in the initial stages of a major redesign. One area of 

particular interest for the redesign is the use of the latest available technology to aid the collection of CE 

data. Some technological advances that are of interest are the use of mobile data capture devices, in place 

of or in supplement to the survey‟s current paper diary and interview survey. Mobile data capture 

technologies such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), other “smart” handheld communication devices 

(e.g., smart phones), and receipt/barcode scanners offer a potential alternative approach for collecting 

expenditure data. For CE, these devices may give participants a means of self-reporting purchases at the 

time of purchase. At the same time, financial software might be used to passively record purchases after 

initial account linkage, and/or to produce an initial ledger of family spending, in response to which the 

participant could be asked in an interview to provide more detail on recorded purchases (e.g., for checks, 

which may contain information on amount and date, but not items purchased) and report additional 

purchases not reflected on the ledger (e.g., for cash transactions). 

In 2010, CE began to pursue projects to learn more about new technology. On March 18, 2010, the 

Gemini Conference Team held a Data Capture Technology Forum. The team started by researching 

technologies that could be used to collect expenditure data, such as barcode scanners, receipt scanners and 

accounting/expense software. After researching a variety of technologies, the final Data Capture 

Technology Forum consisted of: 

- NORC: internet-connected PDA, scanner imaging, and audio file capture; 

- Nielsen: barcode scanner and Blackberry; 

- RTI: a Blackjack and iPAQ; 

- Westat: IVR and paper/electronic paper data capture. 

The format of the event was a presentation/demonstration from each company, followed by a question 

and answer session. An estimated 70 people attended. Slides from the presentations are available on the 

Gemini website: http://www.bls.gov/cex/geminimaterials.htm.

In addition to the Data Capture Technology Forum, two demonstrations were given to the Gemini 

Conference Team and Gemini Steering Team. Certify, an online expense management company gave an 

online demonstration of their electronic wallet software, and The Neat Company, a receipts scanning 

company, gave an in-house demonstration of their hardware and software. 
6 

In March 2011, Westat produced the Data Capture Technologies and Financial Software for Collecting 

Consumer Expenditure Data Report; a research report for CE reviewing data capture devices and financial 

software products that were currently available on the market. 

1.2 Objectives

Using the Data Capture and Financial Application Report as a starting guide, CE decided to select a few 

of the hardware and software products reviewed to evaluate their capabilities and whether they would be 

applicable, and if so, beneficial for CE data collection. Originally, the primary focus of this proposed 

evaluation was on specific financial application software and secondarily on the devices used to run them. 

As the project evolved and as priorities changed for CE, the objectives of the project shifted toward a 

more narrow focus. Rather than focusing on both apps available on mobile devices and financial software 

packages available to be installed on personal computers or via the internet (e.g. Quicken and Mint.com), 

the project focused only on the former. With the growing use of smartphone apps among the participant 

population, CE is interested in exploring the prospects of that specific area of technology. Initial work in 

preparation for this project proved that CE‟s data needs were much too specific for any existing expense 

tracking app to work off the shelf. In order to collect the detailed information needed for the CE Survey, 

a custom app would need to be designed and developed. With that in mind, CE drafted a Statement of 

Work for a contractor to develop an expenditure app that could be used as a replacement for, or to 

supplement, the CE Diary. 

This project focused on researching app features that would be beneficial to implement for a custom CE 

app. Participants were recruited to evaluate existing apps to learn about the apps‟ capabilities and 

existing features. The inputs would then be provided to the contractor for development of the prototype 

expenditure app. 

1.3 Research Questions 

Although the focus of the project changed, the Research Questions originally asked in the Charter are still 

relevant. The questions will serve as an outline for summarizing the findings from this study. 

1. Does the application meet all of the Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey (CED) data collection 

objectives and output requirements? 
7 

2. Does the application offer features not required by the CED but which would represent potential 

benefits for increasing data quality, reducing respondent burden, or reducing data collection 

costs? 

3. What is the potential for either integrating the technology into the current CED data collection 

methodology, or for replacing the CED with device-based data collection? 

4. Based on the evaluation of the apps and devices, what are the participants‟ and team‟s 

recommendations for features to be included in an expenditure app prototype specifically 

designed to collect CE data? 

5. Based on the evaluation of internal participants‟ experiences with using the apps and devices to 

record their expense, what are the team‟s recommendations for a feasibility test? 

2. METHODOLOGY 

2.1 Study Design 

The team conducted a scan of the current market and identified 96 expense tracking apps that could 

potentially meet CE‟s data collection needs or include features of interest for a custom CE app (See 

Appendix A). For this study, only apps that were free or offered a free “lite” version were selected. The 

96 apps were then divided among 2 team members who conducted a basic review of the app to 

recommend whether the app should or shouldn‟t be candidates for further evaluation. 

Next, the team sent an e-mail to CE staff to ask for volunteers for the study. 
8 

Twenty participants volunteered. Based on the number of volunteers and the type of devices they owned, 

the list of apps selected for further evaluation were prioritized and the top 20 selected. Each participant 

was then assigned a different app and asked to download the app onto their personal smartphone. 

Table 1. The 20 Apps Evaluated in the Study

Operating System App Name Vendor

Android AndroMoney Andromoney

Android Coin Keeper i-Free Inovations

Android CW Money Expense Track Cwmoney.net

Android Droid Wallet William Bruno

Android EasyMoney Handy Apps Inc.

Android ExpenseManager Bishinews

Android Home Budget with Sync Lite Anishu

Android Monthly Budget BRL soft

Blackberry Expense Cloud App7, Inc.

Blackberry Money Lover Bookmark

HTC Certify Wallet Circle Point Solutions, Inc.

iOS ExpenseRec2 Free Ryoichi Shinbori

iOS iXpensit Lite FYI Mobileware, Inc.

iOS Money Care Lite Alessandro Figueired

TO: CE_All

SUBJECT: The CE EFAS Team needs your help! 

Hello,

The CE Evaluation of Financial Application Software Team (EFAS) would like to request your help in an 

upcoming study. 

We are looking for individuals who currently own a smartphone to participate. As a participant, you will be 

asked to install a free app on your smartphone and use it to keep track of your household’s expenses for one 

week. We will not be asking you to provide us with any of the personal data entered; we are only interested 

in learning about your “diary keeping” experience using the app and your evaluation of the particular app 

itself. 

The study will be conducted during the last few weeks in June. Please let us know by June 12th if you are 

willing to participate in the study and if so, which specific smartphone you own (e.g. iPhone, Blackberry).

The results of this study will be used to inform an upcoming contract with a vendor to custom design a 

prototype app for CE. 

Thank you,

Nhien To, for the CE EFAS Team
9 

Table 1. The 20 Apps Evaluated in the Study

Operating System App Name Vendor

iOS MoneyZoom Direct Capital Group

iOS OneExpense LT digitelematica

iOS Pico Spend Lite Dejan Petrovski

iOS ProOnGo ProOnGo LLC

iOS Spending Lite Tekton Technologies

iOS Xtrack - The Expense Tracker Lite e-Zenit s.r.l.

Each participant was e-mailed a Participant Booklet (see Appendix B) which included an introduction and 

background information about the study, instructions, examples of the detailed information required for 

each type of expense record, and a 2 page evaluation. 

During the study, OneReceipt, a specific app which had not been available on the app market and 

therefore not selected for the evaluation was noted for its strong scanning and data extraction capabilities. 

The team made the decision not to make an exception to include the app in its evaluation in observance of 

the fact that new apps are constantly being introduced and that there needed to be a cut off in order to 

move forward with the study. 

2.2 Evaluations 

Participants were asked to use their assigned app to record their household‟s expenses for one week and 

then answer the questions on the evaluation. The first section of the evaluation asks about the general 

diary keeping experience and the second section asks about the specific app that was evaluated. See 

Appendix C for a compilation of the individual evaluations. 

Most of the evaluation questions were intentionally left open-ended so that they would not limit the 

participants‟ responses. This allowed the participants to think and report freely about the experience and 

what they liked or disliked about it. 

In addition to the individual evaluations, a focus group was conducted to promote discussion and learn 

more about the participants‟ experiences using the app. Due to scheduling conflicts and events beyond 

the team‟s control, only 5 participants were able to participate in the focus group. See Appendix D for 

notes from the focus group. 
10

3. FINDINGS 

The feedback obtained from the focus group and from the individual evaluations will be summarized and 

used to recommend features for a custom CE app. It should be noted that the questions asked on the 

evaluations were mostly open ended, which means that the participants comments were quite varied so 

not every point is mentioned in this report (See Appendix C for a comprehensive documentation of all the 

comments from the participants‟ individual evaluations). The fact that the questions were open ended 

also emphasizes the importance of the recommendations as they were not predisposed to any study 

influences. For this reason, if a specific recommendation is mentioned by multiple participants it may 

present a greater strength for that recommendation. 

3.1 Household Composition

Of the 20 participants, 10 participants were single-adult households, 4 were 2-adult households without 

children, and 6 were 2-adult households with children. 

3.2 Percent of Household’s Total Expenses Recorded

Over half of the participants said that they recorded 75 percent or more of their household‟s total 

expenses for the week with 8 participants saying they recorded 90 percent. 

Table 2. Of your household‟s total expenses for the week, about how 

much do you think you actually recorded using the app?

N

None 0

10% 4*

25% 2

50% 1

75% 5

90% 8

100% 0

*1 of the participants who responded 10% only did so because the app 

they used only allowed 10 entries in the free lite version.
11

3.3. Time of Entry 

When asked “When did you enter your expenses?” the responses varied fairly evenly. 6 participants said 

Immediately after the purchase, 8 said At the end of the day, 7 said Every few days, and 3 said At the end 

of the week. 

Table 3. When did you enter your expenses?

N

Immediately after the purchase 6

At the end of each day 8

Every few days 7

At the end of the week 3

*Note: Some participants selected more than one response option.

3.4 Obtaining Expenditure Information from other Household Members 

Since CE is interested in the expenses of all members of the household, it was important to learn how 

participants obtained expenditure information from other household members. Participants were 

instructed to report expenditure information for their entire household, but were not given specific 

instructions on how to do so. Six participants said they asked and entered in the expenses themselves, 1 

said they just didn‟t ask, 1 said that they used their checking account to verify expenses, and 1 said that 

both her and her husband entered items into the app. 

3.5 Total Amount of Time Spent Using the App

The amount of time that participants spent using the app varied quite a bit. The smallest amount of time 

that one participant reported was 10 minutes, the greatest was 140 minutes and the average was 58 

minutes (which was calculated omitting the 10 minutes reported by the participant who said that they had 

a 10 item limit due to using the free lite version of the app).
12

3.6 Willingness to Participate 

When asked “Outside of this study, if you were asked to use a smartphone app custom designed to collect 

CE data to record your household‟s expenses, would you be willing to participate?”, 18 said yes, 1 said 

no, and 1 said no unless he didn‟t need to do as much typing. Since 18 of the participants already owned 

smartphones the responses may be biased. However, 2 of the participants who didn‟t own smartphones 

and were using loaned devices, still said that they would be willing to participate. 

3.7 Preference for Smartphone App or Paper Diary

When asked “If given a choice between recording your household‟s expenses using a custom designed 

app on your smartphone or a paper diary, which would you prefer?”, 17 preferred using a smartphone, 2 

preferred a paper diary, and 1 preferred a smartphone only if it synced with a computer. The 2 

participants who didn‟t own smartphones said that they preferred a smartphone app over a paper diary. 

3.8 Likes about Using a Smartphone App

Overwhelmingly, the aspect that the participants liked most about using a smartphone app revolved 

around just a few common themes: its ease, availability and portability. 

“I don‟t need to wait to get home to record my expenses.” 

“Even though I entered my expenses at the end of the day; I can see the benefit of 

recording expenses immediately after purchasing items.” 

“Availability and Portability” 

“Since I carry my phone everywhere, it was easy to enter my expenses immediately, and 

be done with it.” 

“Accessibility” 

“Ease of use” 

“Flexibility of using it anytime after incurring the expense.” 

“Entering data was fast and fun.” 

“The app is very well organized and easy to use.” 

“It was nice to have it with me so I could plug in my lunch costs right away.” 

“I always have my phone handy, so if I want to enter an expenditure at any time I can.” 
13

“Very accessible, it is always with you.” 

“I always have my phone with me, so I could enter the info whenever I had time (I like 

doing things like this on my commute).” 

“It was very handy to have it on my phone for „on the spot‟ one expense entries like a 

meal away from home or a snack.” 

“In general, the smartphone application made it much more efficient to record expenses 

immediately after purchase (or closely thereafter) than it would be with a regular paper 

diary. Data entry was quick and display was relatively well organized.” 

“It was on me all the time.” 

3.9 Dislikes about Using a Smartphone App

The aspects for which they did not like using a smartphone app were a bit more varied. The major 

common themes for why participants didn‟t like using a smartphone app was that it was difficult to 

remember to enter their expenses, the lack of specific diary categories and structure for reporting item 

details required them to do more typing and set up of their own categories, entering large numbers of 

expenses (e.g. items from a grocery trip) was difficult and time consuming on a small keypad, and 

concerns about security and privacy. 

Difficult to remember

“It was easy to forget since it (the app) was not something I previously used on a regular 

basis, and the app was not something I saw regularly either. I had to remember to open it.” 

“It is easily forgettable.” 

“I also didn‟t like that I kept forgetting I was participating. I thought I was being smart by 

putting the icon in a place where I‟d see it every time I used my phone, but I still forgot.” 

“It is still easy to forget to record everything.” 

“Forgot to log some expenses. Forgot to constantly update the info.” 

“Built-in reminders (like ones that come up for other apps).” 

“Have a popup or reminder saying „Did you purchase anything recently? Write it down!‟” 
14

Lack of specific diary categories and structure for reporting item details 

“The categories that my app provided were way too general. I didn‟t like having to 

constantly create categories. For example, I created medical, specific fruits from the grocery 

store, etc.”

“Also, you can‟t add variables, for example who it is for or tax or alcohol included. 

Everything would have to be pushed into notes or there would be a LOT of subcategories that 

would have to be created for each item.” 

“Overall, I liked the smartphone app compared to the paper diary, but it would be beneficial 

to have one that is set up with CE‟s diary categories already provided.” 

“It would have been easier if the app had sub-categories, not only the main categories.” 

“I was satisfied with my experience. Having more spending categories, and fillable buttons 

(eg. for frozen food, canned food, etc.) would be useful.” 

Entering large numbers of expenses

“When there was a large number of expenses (e.g., after a trip to the grocery store), it was 

tedious to enter each item – would have been faster for me to use paper.” 

“There was a lot of typing, especially for grocery receipts.” 

“It takes a while to itemize everything bought, especially for a grocery bill.” 

“It was very cumbersome to use the app for entering many expenses such as weekly 

groceries.” 

Concerns about security and privacy

“Even though it was a free app, I still had to type in an e-mail address. I didn't read the terms 

and conditions but I have some concern that my info will be used for marketing” 

“It was fun exploring the software but I was suspicious of software security and the upload of 

my data to the „cloud‟” 
15

3.10 Likes about the Specific App Used 

When asked about the specific apps they used, the features they liked were: 

“Organization and presentation of expenditures was a nice touch. The application seemed overall 

well thought out. Integration with the camera‟s phone worked well.” (Home Budget with Sync 

Lite) 

“Liked the voice recognition feature, it was much easier than typing on that small keyboard.” 

Voice-to-text (Money Lover) 

“Ease of editing Expenses.” (Spending Lite)

“Ease of use” (CW Money Expense Track) 

“Taking photos of expense records and receipts but it could be functioning better.” (Expense 

Manager) 

“Running list of transactions on the first screen.” (Money Care Lite) 

“The tax function was helpful for making sure that when I broke down transactions into 

individual items the total came out of what was on the receipt. The tax function didn't work 

properly in the app but I'm not sure if that is because it's the free version or not.” (ProOnGo) 

“I liked that the app has a customizable set of pre-specified expense categories, and that these are 

easy to access through a scrolling menu display.” (Pico Spend Lite) 

“The edit feature available directly on the report/review screen is nice – you can easily change the 

description, amount, and date of purchases.” (Pico Spend Lite) 

“The Help items were informative and not overwhelming.” (Pico Spend Lite) 

“It offers a recurring transactions feature for monthly expenses.” (Spending Lite) 

“The cell phone camera filling in some of the data was cool.” (ProOnGo) 

“The ability to read date, vendor, and total cost from receipts was pretty amazing though it did 

take awhile.” (ProOnGo) 

One major common feature that many participants mentioned liking came from some of the more budget 

centered apps which allowed them to see summaries or charts of their spending. Since it is favored by so 

many participants, including a feature like this could be used as an incentive but it risks causing a 

Hawthorn Effect in which participants may change their spending behavior in reaction to seeing their 

spending. 
16

Comments made about the budget summaries and charts were: 

“I liked the daily summaries, and the ability to export it to PDF.” 

“The budgeting feature and related summary reports were the best I've used on my iPhone 

(cleanest and easiest to produce)” 

“I like that it gave me instant feedback in the form of charts.” 

“I also liked that the app totaled up spending for each category, so I could get the benefit of 

seeing how much I spend for each category each week.” 

“I had access to an easy log of what exactly I was spending money on. It made me more 

conscious of where money was being spent.” 

“Graphical breakdown of where money is spent by category.” 

“I liked that I was able to enter a budget, and then see if my expenditures were within budget. I 

also liked that the app totaled up my spending for each category.” 

“Visualization/summary of the expenses that I wouldn‟t realize otherwise. Generally this sort of 

report is sent by the credit card companies at the end of a financial year. Here you have the option 

to see it anytime.” 

“The summary reports (daily and longer) are nice” 

“It should definitely give feedback to the user in the form of graphs, charts, and tables this would 

be an added incentive for participants to use it.” 

3.11 Dislikes about the Specific App Used

Aside from the general disadvantages of using a smartphone app that were already mentioned, the 

features that they did not like about the specific apps they used were fairly minimal. 

“Some of the graphics look a little cheap, blurry.” 

“The screen did not re-orient – it was only available in „portrait‟ mode, but sometimes I like to do 

text entry from the wider/landscape position.” 

“Text entry didn‟t auto-correct/suggest spelling, and did not remember past entries so I had to 

retype things over and over for recurring purchases or purchases of similar items.” 

“There was no (obvious) way to share the app with other HH members (e.g., so my wife and I 

could both have it on our phones, and make our own entries on an integrated account).” 
17

3.12 Entry of Detailed Information for each Expense

Since none of the apps were designed to collect specific CE data, we asked “Did you enter in all the 

required detailed information from page 4 of the Participant Booklet (e.g. alcohol costs for meals away 

from home, packaging type for grocery items, age and sex for clothing purchases) and if so, how did you 

do it?” Most of the participants said that they did not enter in all of the details with specifications of 

“Some but not all” and “Not always” and gave reasons such as “No, too much work” or “No structured 

way to enter” 

3.13 Features that should be included in a Custom Designed CE App 

Two major recommendations echoed among many of the participants. The first was remembering to use 

the app at all and the second was the preference to have the smartphone app be used in conjunction with a 

Web interface. 

Even though many participants said that they liked using the smartphone app to enter expenses, 7 

participants expressed that it was difficult for them to remember to use it. Many of them recommended 

using a prompt or series of customizable prompts to remind them to enter their expenses as well as 

prompts to check with other household members. These could be push-notices that pop-up on the screen 

once daily or several times a day. 

“It was easy to forget since it (the app) was not something I previously used on a regular basis, 

and the app was not something I saw regularly either. I had to remember to open it.” 

“I also didn‟t like that I kept forgetting I was participating. I thought I was being smart by 

putting the icon in a place where I‟d see it every time I used my phone, but I still forgot.” 

Over half of the participants felt that the smartphone app should be used in conjunction with a Web diary 

or a paper diary. The app was really convenient for on the spot single entries but very burdensome for 

entering many expenses at once (e.g. items from a grocery trip). They would rather have a keyboard 

option for typing in a long list of purchases. One participant mentioned that typing in many items on the 

small keypad caused a lot of typing mistakes, which would compromise data quality. 

“Prefer computer/mouse over phone display/keypad” 

“I like to use a mouse, so I prefer websites over apps. I mean, I had to go into the website first so 

I could figure it out anyway.” 

“Can't sync to my desktop” 
18

“By nature of it being a smartphone, it was somewhat harder to do than the web diary. “ 

“Smartphone screens are tiny (and subsequently, have tiny keyboards) making extended data 

entry tiring / cumbersome.” 

“It would be great if the app shared an interface with either a desktop program or website. 

Typing on the little keyboard was tedious.” 

“Having a PC / Web application paired with the smartphone application that would allow deferral 

of larger or more complicated entries into a more comfortable environment would make the 

experience all the more robust.” 

“I‟d rather use the computer website rather than a smartphone app. I like to use a mouse rather 

than getting finger cramping from the apps. My last preference is a paper diary, though.” 

“The hardest part was entering data on the phone. For the first few days I tried entering my 

answers using the pop-up touch keyboard on the screen. This caused a lot of typing mistakes.” 

“Having a PC / Web application paired with the smartphone application that would allow deferral 

of larger or more complicated entries into a more comfortable environment would make the 

experience all the more robust.” 

Other features participants recommended including were: 

Include “smart” features in the Description field to ease respondent burden 

- spell-check 

- auto-suggest 

- speech-to-text 

Easy entry of recurring items 

Voice recorder 

Camera to photograph receipt/record 

- ability to parse the text to automatically pull out at least some of the information 

- caution that users may over-rely on it – e.g., take a picture rather than enter detailed 

information. So, the digital capture would need to be sufficiently sophisticated – i.e., 

either automatically extract necessary information OR be integrated into the data entry 

feature in such a way as to ease respondent burden (e.g., through OCR; having receipt 

available on a portion of the data entry screen to prompt recall; etc.). 

Barcode scanner 

Automatic sales tax calculator 
19

- ability to entered the participant‟s local sales tax rate, like 6 percent and for items that 

were taxed, check a certain box, enter a product‟s original price, like $5.99, and it adds 

the tax automatically 

Categories to match the paper diary 

- participant shouldn‟t have to do any setup (i.e., like adding categories) beyond 

personalizing it to suit their tastes 

Date of Purchase 

- an easy way for participants to enter in the date of purchase 

Re-orient the screen between „portrait‟ and „landscape‟ mode – especially for use with a built in 

keyboard 

User-friendly “Help” system. 

- links to clear step-by-step graphics (with screen shot examples) 

- video (youtube) demonstrations 

- an easy way to email/text questions (and get a timely response from FR!) within the 

system (e.g., “You have one response/message in your inbox.”) 

3.14 Field Procedures for Implementing a CE App 

Participants were asked “If CE was to use a smartphone app to collect CE Data what procedures would be 

best suited for respondents?” 

Participants should use their own smartphones since most participants would not want to have to 

carry around a second phone just for CE. 

While many participants agreed that it would be beneficial to let each member use their own 

smartphone to enter their expenses to ease the burden on one household reporter, it was also 

noted that this would make it more difficult to prevent double reporting of the same expense and 

may lead to less diligent reporting as members would assume someone else will do it. 

Since different household members may be using different types of phones, it would be important 

to make the app function seamlessly across multiple platforms. 

Consider using some sort of incentive system 

Minimize and/or address concerns about security/privacy. This is especially problematic for 

gaining participation from people who are worried the government is monitoring them. 
20

Provide some type of visual reminder. Create something to be a visual reminder (e.g. a 

refrigerator magnet or something on paper that a participant can have sitting out as a reminder of 

participation even if no data are collected on paper). 

4. CONCLUSION 

The findings from this study will be summarized in the form of responses to the 5 research questions that 

were originally stated in the project charter. 

4.1 Does the application meet all of the Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey (CED) data collection 

objectives and output requirements? 

None of the apps are able to meet all of the CED‟s data collection needs as they exist off the shelf. 

The major deficiency that all the apps have is the inability to easily enter detailed information about a 

specific purchase (e.g. whether the shirt was purchased for a male or female or whether the broccoli 

was fresh or frozen). This information technically could be captured by having the participant type 

them into a notes or description field, but it would require very detailed instructions and for the 

participant to manually type them on the small keypad of the smartphone (both of which would be 

extremely burdensome). In addition it would be difficult to parse this information into useable 

variables for CE data output. 

On the other hand, because many of the apps had other purposes in mind – reporting business 

expenses for reimbursement or budget information for saving money, it does sometimes ask for a lot 

of other detailed information (e.g. expense category, reimbursable, billable) which is evidence that an 

app could be customized and programmed to ask for the detailed information that CE is interested in. 

The way in which that detailed information is asked or displayed could provide ideas for how CE 

could ask for its detailed information. 

The sample output that was available through many of the apps provide potential ideas for how CE 

may want to customize its output requirements, the information entered can be in many cases 

outputted as a CSV file or an excel spreadsheet and can be very sophisticated. For example, an 

individual‟s business expense reports can be nicely formatted and submitted directly to the 
21

appropriate manager or accounting department and require no further action from the employee. For 

apps that are focused on budget needs, the data entered can be output to create nice graphs and charts. 

Some participants might be interested in seeing this information and it could be an incentive for them 

to use the app. However, the downside is that it may produce a Hawthorn effect and cause them to 

change their spending behavior. 

4.2 Does the application offer features not required by the CED but which would represent 

potential benefits for increasing data quality, reducing respondent burden, or reducing data 

collection costs? 

The apps offer many features that are not required by the CED but could potentially benefit to help 

increase data quality, reduce respondent burden, and reduce data collection costs. 

The ability to capture a photo of a receipt or to photograph a purchased item can help to increase data 

quality by serving as a memento or for clarification if an entry is questionable later. For example, if 

the participant purchases a hotdog, a bag of chips, and a soda from a street vendor that only accepts 

cash and doesn‟t offer a receipt, and he‟s in a rush and doesn‟t have time to enter the details of the 

purchase, he could take a photograph of the items purchased to remind him about the expense later. 

In this example, there are many factors that could have made the purchase easily forgettable – being a 

cash purchase there is no credit card record on a statement or receipt and since it is food that is 

consumed, there is no tangible product that can be seen later as a reminder (i.e. as opposed to the 

purchase of an article of clothing or book). Having a photograph of the items purchased in this 

instance would increase accuracy and decrease recall burden. 

In a situation where a receipt is available and the participant chooses to photograph the receipt, in 

addition to serving as a memento, it can help verify questionable data later. For example, the 

participant may enter an unusually high amount for the hotdog ($22.50) and upon checking the 

receipt, he may be able to see that he accidentally entered a typo and it was suppose to only be $2.50. 

One of the apps evaluated, Certify.com, allows participants to enter information via multiple 

smartphones or via the web. This would allow multiple family members to enter information into the 

same account using a common login and password. This would reduce the burden on one main 
22

household participant by allowing household members to enter their own expenses and see what 

others have entered to avoid double reporting. 

Allowing participants to enter the data themselves would reduce collection costs since it would not 

require coders for data entry. In addition, electronic record keeping makes using the data easier 

because there‟s no keying involved and no handwriting to try and puzzle out. 

Some apps have alerts that can be pushed to the screen. This would serve as reminders and would not 

require interviewers to call and remind the participant. A daily call from an interviewer would seem 

much more intrusive than a daily message that pops-up on the participant‟s screen. 

Once the app is created, it would only require maintenance and updates if participants use their own 

smartphones and would not incur the cost of printing diaries. 

4.3 What is the potential for either integrating the technology into the current CED data collection 

methodology, or for replacing the CED with device-based data collection? 

There are limitless options for integrating a smartphone app into the current CED data collection 

methodology. At a minimum, the app can serve to capture mementos of purchases at the time of 

purchase and used for reference to enter more completely into a paper or web diary at a later time. 

However, it is also possible to develop the app more fully to replace the diary altogether. A 

participant can use the app (perhaps in conjunction with a web version that syncs with entries made in 

the app) to record all of the household‟s expenditures. At present, it may be necessary to still offer a 

paper and pencil option for those unfamiliar or unwilling to use a smartphone (or if they don‟t own a 

smartphone in a Bring Your Own Device data collection environment), but as technology and users 

progress, this may change. 
23

4.4 Based on the evaluation of the apps and devices, what are the participants’ and team’s 

recommendations for features to be included in an expenditure app prototype specifically 

designed to collect CE data? 

Over half of the participants felt that a smartphone app should only be used in conjunction with a 

Web diary (or a paper diary). The app was really convenient for on the spot single entries but 

very burdensome for entering many expenses at once. They would rather have a keyboard option 

for typing in a long list of purchases. 

If it is not possible to have a web interface, the app needs to be designed for the participant to be 

able to easily enter many items (e.g. items from a grocery trip) 

Reminder system 

- a prompt or series of customizable prompts that asked me if I had any expenses to enter 

- a prompt to check with other household members 

Include “smart” features in the Description field to ease respondent burden by minimizing the 

need to type. 

- spell-check 

- auto-suggest 

- speech-to-text 

Voice recorder 

Camera to photograph receipt/record 

- ability to parse the text to automatically pull out at least some of the information 

- caution that users may over-rely on it – e.g., take a picture rather than enter detailed 

information. So, the digital capture would need to be sufficiently sophisticated – i.e., 

either automatically extract necessary information OR be integrated into the data entry 

feature in such a way as to ease respondent burden (e.g., through OCR; having receipt 

available on a portion of the data entry screen to prompt recall; etc.). 

Barcode scanner 

Automatic sales tax calculator 

- ability to entered the participant‟s local sales tax rate, like 6 percent and for items that 

were taxed, check a certain box, enter a product‟s original price, like $5.99, and it adds 

the tax automatically 

Categories to match the paper diary. 

- participant shouldn‟t have to do any setup (i.e., like adding categories) beyond 

personalizing it to suit their tastes. 
24

Date of Purchase 

- an easy way for participants to enter in the date of purchase 

User-friendly “Help” system. 

- links to clear step-by-step graphics (with screen shot examples) 

- video (e.g. YouTube) demonstrations 

- an easy way to email/text questions (and get a timely response from FR!) within the 

system (e.g., “You have one response/message in your inbox.”) 

4.5 Based on the evaluation of internal participants’ experiences with using the apps and devices to 

record their expense, what are the team’s recommendations for a feasibility test? 

Participants should use their own smartphones since most participants would not want to have to 

carry around a second phone just for CE. One participant commented that “My phone is very 

slow, so sometimes I don‟t feel like opening the app to record things.” We have to consider this 

as a possible downside to having participants use their own phones. 

Consider how to measure or control the bias from only collecting expenses from participants who 

own their own smartphones. 

While many participants agreed that it would be beneficial to let each member use their own 

smartphone to enter their expenses to ease the burden on one household reporter, it was also 

noted that this would make it more difficult to prevent double reporting of the same expense and 

may lead to less diligent reporting as members would assume someone else will do it. 

Since different household members may be using different types of phones, it would be important 

to make the app function seamlessly across multiple platforms. 

Many participants agreed that it was difficult to remember to use the app to enter their expenses 

and agreed that having a daily reminder set for entering expenses and checking with household 

members would be helpful. Attempt to measure whether the automatic reminders really work as 

opposed to an interviewer calling. Reminders could easily be ignored as opposed to a call. 

Consider using some sort of incentive system. Not necessarily cash. Perhaps points to purchase 

apps or games or to keep the CE app on their phone? Not sure about this – OMB probably would 

not like it, and we‟d need to look at the incentives/engagement literature more closely – but a 

participant felt like he spent considerable energy gathering and entering expenses for the week, 

and it would have been nice to get some sort of nominal but tangible „thank you‟ at the end, or 

even perhaps half-way through if he was doing a „good job‟ (however defined). 
25

Alleviate concerns about security/privacy. This is especially problematic for gaining 

participation from people who are worried the government is monitoring them. 

Provide some type of visual reminder. Create something to be a visual reminder (e.g. a 

refrigerator magnet or something on paper that a participant can have sitting out as a reminder of 

participation even if no data are collected on paper). 
26

5. REFERENCES 

1. Data Capture Technology Forum Final Report: Internal Report 

Edgar, J. 2010 

2. Data Capture Technologies and Financial Software for Collecting Consumer Expenditure Data 

Westat, 2011 

3. Memo: Recommended Applications for Improving Data Capture with New Technologies 

Lundy, J. 2011 
APPENDIX A. Initial list of 96 free expense tracking apps that could potentially meet CE’s data collection needs or include 

features of interest for a custom CE app. The apps were found using internet search engines and searches of the app stores for 

the respective devices/operating systems. 

App

Device Select for

evaluation? Reason for not being selected

iPhone Android Blackberry WebOS selected not 

selected

requires 

access to 

accounts

too 

business 

oriented

functionality 

is too 

limited

other/notes

Account Book

x x x x

goes to a new screen each time you enter an aspect of the 

expense. This allows you to show examples and provide 

more detail for each aspect of the entry (e.g. for vendor - you 

can list a bunch of different vendors as examples) but is time 

consuming. Pro or con?

Account Tracker

x x

Also known as AccountsFree, nothing special, but good 

functionality.

Ace budget x x Not truly free.. You only get 20 transactions.

aFinance Budget Free

x x

Not a lot here, but nicely streamlines to fit on a phone and 

quickly enter information, also liked password option.

Best Budget Free

x x

Somewhat simple, but liked camera option. Rough around 

the edges.

Bill Tracker Free x x When opened got spam pop-up. Will not open again.

Billings Touch

x x x

Way to business focused, but liked that you could sync it with 

your computer and tax information.

BOSS Expense Tracker

x x x

Also, called tax track. Business expense focused and 

bordering on too simple.

Budget Book x x x Euro centric, tried to make US centric, but was too difficult

budget booklet x x x Way too simple. Also called Home Budget.

Budget Me Free x x Good use of screen space, simple yet worthwhile.

Budget Tracker x x x checkbook oriented - basically an account ledger

Budget! Lite x x Wouldn't work

BudgetIT x x Couldn't find

Budgetize x x the first thing it does is require you to set up budgets

Captoom x x x x x x geared towards business travel

Cashbook Expense Tracker x x x Could not find free version for Android, app is $4.99

Cashish x x no longer available for free

Certify Wallet

x x x x x x

for each entry, you always have to select for "reimbursable" 

or "billable"

concur x x x x geared towards travel

Cut Expenses x x x too simple, amounts are preset $3, $5, $10

Droid Wallet

x x

Easy to use, may be too limited, but worth further review by 

team members. Does not have picture functionality.
28

App

Device Select for

evaluation? Reason for not being selected

iPhone Android Blackberry WebOS selected not 

selected

requires 

access to 

accounts

too 

business 

oriented

functionality 

is too 

limited

other/notes

Easy Spending x x may be too simple but worth checking out

EasyBudget x x x x x no longer available for free

EasyMoney

x x

Really well done and the most robust of the apps that I have 

tested. I liked how you could split by type of payment and the 

bill reminder.

Exgis Expense Tracker x x no longer available

ExpensAble Mobile

x x x x x

requires your company to use it and be a "user" for you to 

access

Expense control x x x x no longer available

Expense IT

x x x

Seemed robust, but too business focused. Also, only first 25 

days are free.

Expense Management

x x

this could use special team review, as is it doesn't work for ce 

but the set up is interesting and worth checking out. It's 

organized by "accounts" - perhaps instead ce could use the 

setup and replace "accounts" with "categories"

Expense Manager

x x x

Worthwhile app. Has camera functionality, expense/income 

reporting, and you can schedule a repeating transaction.

Expense Plus x x x no longer available

Expense Recorder x x no longer available

ExpenseCloud x x x x x too business oriented and not very customizable

ExpenseRec x x x same as ExpenseRec2, but more limited

ExpenseRec2 x x highly customizable

Expenses Lite

x x x

way too simple. Does not show individual entries after it's 

been added - just the cumulative

Expenses Tracker

x x

too many ads (that cover the function buttons) and too 

cluttered with icons

ExpenseWatch Mobile x x x x x designed for creating business expense reports

Expensify x x x x x x too business oriented and not very customizable

Ez Budget Envelopes x x too budget oriented

FGB Budgeter x x x x too limited

Financisto

x X

Seems fine except that it makes you put a starting amount of 

money which I doubt respondents want to do.

Flash Money Manager x x x Too limited, but use of voice commands worth testing.

Free Home Budget x x too budget oriented and monthly oriented

FYI Expense Tracker

x x

budget oriented and also has a poorly designed interface -

too cluttered and not useful

Hello Expense x x x Too limited.
29

App

Device Select for

evaluation? Reason for not being selected

iPhone Android Blackberry WebOS selected not 

selected

requires 

access to 

accounts

too 

business 

oriented

functionality 

is too 

limited

other/notes

Home Budget

x x x x

allows you to split an expense but the interface is poorly 

designed, worth checking out and learning from

iMoney Tracker

x x

not a great layout but worth checking out. The full version 

allows you to customize the categories

iSpend x x x x x too limited

iSpent x x allows you to customize categories and HH members

iSUM x x no longer available for free

iXpenseit

x x

has a category and subcategory option, but may be too 

complicated

Lemon x x x x x x captures receipt totals, cannot itemize

Mastro Bolletta x x x too limited

Memo 4 the Household x x x Too limited, but foreign language ads are interesting...

Mind Your Money x x too budget oriented

MM x x x Couldn't find

Money Care x x attractive interface, some unique ideas

Money Journal x x interesting user interface

Money Lover - Expense Manager

x x x

Robust app; however, annoying reminders about account 

stuff hinders operation and may be annoying for 

respondents.

Money Manager

x x x x x

There a re a number of Money manager apps, many of which 

are not free. Seems to want your account information to be 

able to do anything and it's not very robust, password 

feature is nice though

Money Smart

x x

too budget oriented to use as is and may require too much 

detail, but it's highly customizable and worth checking for 

ideas

Money Tracker x x x x simple, easy to use - worth checking out. 

MoneyCalc x x x x Doesn't really add anything or do anything better

MoneyMenttor

x x x

does not connect to actual account but requires you to select 

an account money is coming from

MoneyNote 

x x

screen is too cluttered and not userfriendly. An example of 

what NOT to do?

MoneyZoom 

x x

too budget oriented but can customize categories and sync 

with an online account

Monthly Budget x x Nice start screen, also allows for data backup

myExpenses x x x too basic

Nice Money Book

x x

Good flexibility and options; however, may be too difficult to 

use and may have too much going on the screen.

OneExpense LT x x simple, but may be in a good way and is customizable
30

App

Device Select for

evaluation? Reason for not being selected

iPhone Android Blackberry WebOS selected not 

selected

requires 

access to 

accounts

too 

business 

oriented

functionality 

is too 

limited

other/notes

Pennies x x no longer available for free

Pico Spend

x x

has an interesting category column on the side to scroll down 

and select

Piggie x x x too simplistic

Plendi Expense Tracker

x x x x

it's not really free. There is a trial period to capture your 

receipts but in order to access them at the end of the trial 

you have to pay. The idea is different though. You take a 

photo of a receipt, send it to them, and a real person on their 

end types up the info and puts it into your account.

Pocket Expense x x too budget oriented

Pocket Garage x x literally about cars, not expenses

pocketmoneylite x x too budget oriented

PriFi2go x x Couldn't find

ProOnGo x x x x can read a receipt and allows you to split an expense

Quick Receipt X x x no longer available for free

Receipts x x lots of customization options available

Shared Expense Book x x no longer available

SJH Money Manager x x no longer available

Spendings x x interesting screen by screen entry idea

T2Expense

x x

Starting screen is too busy. Plus, doesn't seem to run very 

well on my phone, and I have a newer phone.

Toshl Finance

x x x

Requires email account information, did not feel comfortable 

giving out this information to random phone app., looked like 

it might have potential.

Touch Money x x not a user friendly interface

Unvired Expense Manager

x x

requires registration to connect to Univired server and the 

blackberry wouldn't connect

Venmo

x x

designed for making/collecting payments from other people 

by linking a credit card to the account

Where is my Money x x x x no longer available for free

Xpenser x x x x x no longer available

Xtrack x x category interface is interesting
31

APPENDIX B. Partcipant Booklet 

Expenditure App Study 

Participant Booklet 

CE Evaluation of Financial Application Software Team 
32

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this study! 

For this study, you are asked to download an assigned app to your smartphone which you 

will use to record your household’s expenses for 1 week. 

The purpose of this study is two-fold: 

1. To learn about the general “diary keeping” experience using an app.

2. To learn about specific app features that would or would not be beneficial for 

collecting CE data. 

Each participant will be assigned a different app with the goal of gaining insight into a wide 

variety of existing ideas and features. The apps selected are free, off-the-shelf apps and are 

therefore not catered to collecting CE specific data. As a result you, as a participant, will 

likely spend some of your time “playing” with the app and considering ways in which it 

could be customized to meet a CE respondent’s expense reporting needs. Since some of the 

apps were designed to report business expenses or for maintaining a budget, it may have 

features that you will either need to ignore or it may give you ideas for how those aspects 

could be altered to suit CE’s needs. In some cases you may need to enter a fictitious budget 

or add expense categories for it to work. Also, because they are free they may have popups to ask you to purchase the full version or have ads along the sides of the screen – please 

ignore these. The lessons learned from this study will be used to inform an upcoming 

contract with a vendor to custom design a prototype app for CE. 

Instructions: 

1. Download the specified App onto your smartphone. Check to be sure it is the Lite/Free 

version (You will not be reimbursed for any apps you pay for). 

2. Fill in the information on Page 2 of this booklet. 

a. Pick a day to begin recording your expenses (no later than Monday, June 25, 2012) 

b. List the names of the people in your household and record the expenses for everyone 

listed. 

3. Familiarize yourself with the information on Pages 3-4. 

4. Using the app, record your expenses for 1 week. We will not be asking you for the data you 

enter – just that you complete an evaluation form and participate in a focus group after you 

complete the week. 

5. During the week, if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions about the experience or 

about the app itself, please note them on the last page of this booklet. 

6. Complete the Evaluations on Pages 5-6. Page 5 asks you to evaluate the general “diary 

keeping” experience while Page 6 asks you to evaluate the specific app that you used. 

7. Once you have completed the Evaluations, please e-mail the booklet to me. 

8. If at any point during the week, you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 

202.691.6866 or e-mail: to.nhien@bls.gov. 
33

Participant Name:

App Name:

Device:

Recording Period:

Start Date: End Date:

Household Members:

The members of your household that you will be recording expenses for are:
34

Entry Level Details 

Every app is different and has specific features and options. Your app may or may not 

allow you to customize the categories or other characteristics. In either case, we would like 

you to attempt to enter your expenses with the detailed characteristics currently collected 

in the paper diary. Page 4 shows sample pages from a diary and the level of detail that is 

asked for. Below is also a summary of the detailed information needed. In many cases, this 

information may simply need to be entered in the “description”, “notes”, or a “memo” field 

in the app. However, if your app allows you to customize categories, create subcategories, 

or make any other modifications to help report these details, please do as much as you are 

willing to. 

I. Food and Drinks Away from Home

1. Description of what was purchased

2. Total Cost with tax and tip

3. Meal Type: breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack/other

4. Vendor: Fast-Food, Take-Out, Delivery, or Concession; Full-Service Places; 

Vending Machines or Mobile Vendors; Employer or School Cafeteria

5. Alcohol type (if included): wine, beer, or other

6. Alcohol cost (if included)

II. Food and Drinks for Home Consumption

1. Description of what was purchased

2. Total cost without tax

3. Whether the purchase was for someone outside of the household

4. Packaging: fresh, frozen, bottled/canned, or other

III. Clothing, Shoes, Jewelry, and Accessories

1. Description of what was purchased

2. Total cost without tax

3. Whether the purchase was for someone outside of the household

4. Whether the item was for a male or female

5. Was the item for someone under age 2, 2-15, or 16 and over

IV. All Other Products, Services, and Expenses

1. Description of what was purchased

2. Total cost without tax

3. Whether the purchase was for someone outside of the household
35

Sample Expenditure Entries
36

Evaluation of the “Diary Keeping” Experience 

1. Of your household’s total expenses for the week, about how much do you think you actually 

recorded using the app?

None 10% 25% 50% 75% 90% 100%

2. When did you enter your expenses?

a. Immediately after the purchase

b. At the end of each day

c. Every few days

d. At the end of the week

3. How did you obtain expenditure information from other household members?

a. N/A (I am in a single member household)

b. I didn’t 

c. I asked them and then entered the expenses myself

d. They entered the expenses into the app themselves

e. Other, specify

4. Approximately how much time did you spend using the app? 

minutes

5. Outside of this study, if you were asked to use a smartphone app custom designed to collect 

CE data to record your household’s expenses, would you be willing to participate?

a. a. Yes

b. No

6. If given a choice between recording your household’s expenses using a custom designed app 

on your smartphone or a paper diary, which would you prefer?

c. a. A smartphone app

d. A paper diary

7. What did you LIKE about using a smartphone app to record your household’s expenses?

8. What did you NOT LIKE about using a smartphone app to record your household’s expenses?

9. If you did not like using the smartphone app, is there anything that could be done differently 

to persuade you to use the app to enter your expenses?
37

Evaluation of the Smartphone App 

10. What were you general impressions of the app?

11. What features did you like?

12. What features did you NOT like?

13. Did the app allow you to make any customizations (e.g. adding or deleting categories/

subcategories, adding personal information such as household member names) and if so, did 

you make any customized changes?

14. Did you enter in all the required detailed information from page 4 (e.g. alcohol costs for meals 

away from home, packaging type for grocery items, age and sex for clothing purchases) and if so, 

how did you do it? 

15. What problems did you experience entering your information into the app?

16. If CE was to design an app to collect CE Diary Data, what features should it include? (e.g. a 

camera to take a photo of a receipt)

17. If CE was to use a smartphone app to collect CE Data what procedures would be best suited 

for respondents (e.g. having individual household members use their own smartphones)
38

General comments about your app experience 
APPENDIX C. Compilation of Individual Evaluations 

1. Of your household’s total expenses for the week, about how much do you think you actually 

recorded using the app? 

N

None 0

10% 4*

25% 2

50% 1

75% 5

90% 8

100% 0

*1 of the participants who responded 10% only did so because the app they used only allowed 10 entries in 

the free lite version.

2. When did you enter your expenses? 

N

Immediately after the purchase 6

At the end of each day 8

Every few days 7

At the end of the week 3

3. How did you obtain expenditure information from other household members? 

N

N/A (I am in a single member household) 10

I didn‟t 1

I asked them and then entered the expenses myself 6

They entered the expenses into the app themselves 1

Other, specify 1

Blank 1
40

4. Approximately how much time did you spend using the app? 

minutes N

10 1*

20 3

30 6

40 1

60 1

75 1

90 1

105 1

120 2

140 1

Blank 2

*The participant who responded 10 minutes only did so because the app they used only allowed 10 entries 

in the free lite version.

 

5. Outside of this study, if you were asked to use a smartphone app custom designed to collect CE 

data to record your household’s expenses, would you be willing to participate? 

N

Yes 18

No 2*

*1 Participant said No, unless they didn‟t have to do as much typing

6. If given a choice between recording your household’s expenses using a custom designed app on 

your smartphone or a paper diary, which would you prefer? 

N

Yes 18*

No 2

*1 Participant said Yes, only if it synched with a computer
41

7. What did you LIKE about using a smartphone app to record your household’s expenses? 

App Name

AndroMoney If I‟m eating out, buying things with friends, etc, I don‟t need to wait to get home 

to record my expenses.

Certify Entering data was fast and fun.

Coinkeeper It was on me all the time.

CW Money Expense Track • Accessibility

• Ease of use

• Flexibility of using it anytime after incurring the expense. 

Droid Wallet I always have my phone handy, so if I want to enter an expenditure at any time I 

can. I also liked that the app totaled up spending for each category, so I could get 

the benefit of seeing how much I spend for each category each week. 

EasyMoney I always have my phone with me, so I could enter the info whenever I had time (I 

like doing things like this on my commute).

Expense Cloud I did not like it. I found it too cumbersome.

Expense Manager Electronic recording of information including supporting documentation in an 

organized single location. 

ExpenseRec2 It was very handy to have it on my phone for “on the spot” one expense entries 

like a meal away from home or a snack.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite In general, the smartphone application made it much more efficient to record 

expenses immediately after purchase (or closely thereafter) than it would be with 

a regular paper diary. Data entry was quick and display was relatively well 

organized.

iXpenseit lite The app is very well organized and easy to use. The budgeting feature and 

related summary reports were the best I've used on my iphone (cleanest and 

easiest to produce)

Money Care Lite I had access to an easy log of what exactly I was spending money on. It made 

me more conscious of where money was being spent.

Money Lover Liked the voice recognition feature, it was much easier than typing on that small 

keyboard.

MoneyZoom I like that you could create as many categories and subcategories as you wanted.

Monthly Budget Very accessible, it is always with you.

One Expense LT

Pico Spend Lite Since I carry my phone everywhere, it was easy to enter my expenses 

immediately, and be done with it. I liked the daily summaries, and the ability to 

export it to PDF. Use of customizable, pre-specified categories was nice, too.

ProOnGo The cell phone camera filling in some of the data was cool. I like that it gave me 

instant feedback in the form of charts. It was nice to have it with me so I could 

plug I my lunch costs right away. Once I got some categories set up it was 

easier.

Spending Lite Ease of editing expenses. Much easier than writing them down and crossing out 

if necessary. Plus, even though I entered my expenses at the end of the day; I 

can see the benefit of recording expenses immediately after purchasing items.

Xtrack Availability and Portability
42

8. What did you NOT LIKE about using a smartphone app to record your household’s expenses? 

App Name

AndroMoney My phone is very slow, so sometimes I don‟t feel like opening the app to record 

things. I did almost every time, though.

Certify The app would occasionally kick me out, and there was a learning curve on 

entering data accurately.

Coinkeeper It is easily forgettable

CW Money Expense Track Nothing specific

Droid Wallet It takes a while to itemize everything bought, especially for a grocery bill. 

EasyMoney By nature of it being a smartphone, it was somewhat harder to do than the web 

diary. 

Expense Cloud Using the phone keys to record data.

Expense Manager It was fun exploring the software but I was suspicious of software security and 

the upload of my data to the “cloud”. I also did not like some of the software 

behaviors such as after uploading the data from one device to the “cloud” 

through the drop box synchronization, the data download by a second devise 

caused all the previously entered data on the second device to be overwritten by 

what was downloaded. I also was not sure how data from two separate devices 

will be easily merged and checked for consistency and double recording, I did 

not see the software is doing anything in this regard. 

ExpenseRec2 It was very cumbersome to use the app for entering many expenses such as 

weekly groceries. I also didn‟t like that I kept forgetting I was participating. I 

thought I was being smart by putting the icon in a place where I‟d see it every 

time I used my phone, but I still forgot.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Smartphone screens are tiny (and subsequently, have tiny keyboards) making 

extended data entry tiring / cumbersome.

iXpenseit lite It was a little tedious to record all of your expenditures when you can simply 

download a copy of your bank statement listing each purchase but not all 

participants use debit/share check cards, nor is this problem unique to an app vs 

paper diary.

Money Care Lite It is still easy to forget to record everything.

Money Lover I am not a SmartPhone person, so I am not used to carrying a phone around and 

having it on all the time.

MoneyZoom I like to use a mouse, so I prefer websites over apps. I mean, I had to go into the 

website first so I could figure it out anyway. Also, you can‟t add variables, for 

example who it is for or tax or alcohol included. Everything would have to be 

pushed into notes or there would be a LOT of subcategories that would have to 

be created for each item.

Monthly Budget Forgot to log some expenses. Forgot to constantly update the info.

One Expense LT It was easy to forget since it (the app) was not something I previously used on a 

regular basis, and the app was not something I saw regularly either. I had to 

remember to open it.

Pico Spend Lite When there was a large number of expenses (e.g., after a trip to the grocery 

store), it was tedious to enter each item – would have been faster for me to use 

paper. Lite/Demo version didn‟t allow some features (e.g., looking back more 

than 3 days); also no easy way to add forgotten expenses for a given day.

ProOnGo There was a lot of typing, especially for grocery receipts. Even though it was a 

free app, I still had to type in an e-mail address. I didn't read the terms and 

conditions but I have some concern that my info will be used for marketing
43

App Name

Spending Lite The categories that my app provided were way too general. I didn‟t like having 

to contantly create categories. For example, I created medical, specific fruits 

from the grocery store, etc

Xtrack Can't sync to my desktop

9. If you did not like using the smartphone app, is there anything that could be done differently to 

persuade you to use the app to enter your expenses? 

App Name

AndroMoney No, I liked it.

Certify The app should provide an easy way to categorize items, including meal type, for 

whom the purchase was made, and the age of that person.

Coinkeeper

CW Money Expense Track I liked it

Droid Wallet N/A

EasyMoney

Expense Cloud No.

Expense Manager A specific customized application can always help making the experience much 

smoother.

ExpenseRec2 A barcode scanning option would have helped quite a bit on the groceries even 

though I would have still needed to enter the prices.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Having a PC / Web application paired with the smartphone application that 

would allow deferral of larger or more complicated entries into a more 

comfortable environment would make the experience all the more robust.

iXpenseit lite

Money Care Lite

Money Lover

MoneyZoom Don‟t know

Monthly Budget I liked it. I suggest that the app have a popup or reminder saying "did you 

purchase anything recently? Write it down!"

One Expense LT Built-in reminders (like ones that come up for other apps).

Pico Spend Lite Pico Spend Lite had main categories you could customize, but my data entry 

would have been made easier if it also had customizable, pre-specified subcategories (e.g., types of food for home) and if text description fields had autospell correct and/or smart features (e.g., remembering and learning from previous 

entries).

ProOnGo It would be great if the app shared an interface with either a desktop program or 

website. Typing on the little keyboard was tedious.

Spending Lite Overall, I liked the smartphone app compared to the paper diary, but it would be 

beneficial to have one that is set up with CE‟s diary categories already provided.

Xtrack
44

10. What were you general impressions of the app? 

App Name

AndroMoney Simple, very easy to use

Certify It was easy to use and enjoyable.

Coinkeeper It is a budget tracking app. Not easy to enter expenses. Have to create 

everything. It's not intuitive.

CW Money Expense Track There wasn't any at the beginning. After using it though, I would recommend it 

to everyone

Droid Wallet The app was a good start, but would not suit the needs of CE. 

EasyMoney Generally very easy to use. It was pretty intuitive and didn‟t take much to pick it 

up and start using without having to read instructions. 

Expense Cloud Didn‟t like it. 

Expense Manager The application is to help manage expenses through budgeting. It allows user to 

set up accounts and categories of spending. The application has many bells and 

weasels that are not needed for the CE survey purposes. 

ExpenseRec2 It was ok. I thought this app required too much manual entry when I know that 

barcode scanner technology is readily available in apps.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite In general, the application was relatively well thought out but seemingly 

attempted to put aesthetic design over functionality in a number of cases. It was 

simple enough to add data once the proper settings and buttons were uncovered 

(not that this was a difficult task itself, but at least one that stood out in memory).

I have no basis to compare my experiences against, however.

iXpenseit lite In general, I understand why the app is so highly rated in the app store, It is very 

well laid out, user-friendly, and I even thought that the budget summary 

reporting could be veryuseful. 

Money Care Lite It was easy to use. But there are some quirks in the design. It felt like it was 

originally designed by someone for their own who then decided to try and sell it. 

It was hard to get a full impression of the app since some features seemed to be 

disabled in the free version.

Money Lover Pretty quick and user friendly.

MoneyZoom Very clean format. Has reminders that you can set – daily or weekly.

Monthly Budget It is a very good app. I like it a lot. I just need to be more mindful of updating it. 

One Expense LT Meh. It was clearly built toward cash flow. The types of items purchased 

seemed like secondary information. 

Pico Spend Lite The app is pretty nice. The interface is simple and intuitive – there are four basic 

menus (new expense, daily expense summary, longer summaries/comparisons, 

and general/admin), and the data entry keys/functions are accessible/usable. 

There is not a big learning curve. 

ProOnGo It was good. It took a lot of work up front but got easier once I had entered 

categories and vendors I could reuse. There was a small learning curve as well.

Spending Lite It was pretty easy to operate. It provided the amount you have spent. Even 

though, I didn‟t like constantly adding categories, it was pretty easy to do so. 

Xtrack I can work while the family is shopping and instead of getting bored or rushing 

my wife and children I sit outside the shop collect the receipts enter the figures 

do the math once the limit is reached, I text my wife to shop to meet where am 

sitting in the mall, If l don‟t a response l block the accounts. 
45

11. What features did you like? 

App Name

AndroMoney You can be as specific as you like when entering things, since you can make 

your own category for the expenditure.

Certify Data entry was fast and easy once I got accustomed to the phone.

Electronic record keeping makes using the Data easier, there‟s no keying 

involved and no handwriting to try and puzzle out.

Coinkeeper

CW Money Expense Track Visualization/summary of the expenses that I wouldn‟t realize otherwise. 

Generally this sort of report is sent by the credit card companies at the end of a 

financial year. Here you have the option to see it anytime. 

Droid Wallet I liked that I was able to enter a budget, and then see if my expenditures were 

within budget. I also liked that the app totaled up my spending for each category.

EasyMoney Ease of use. The ability to categorize whether something was credit card or cash 

was a nice feature. 

Expense Cloud None.

Expense Manager Taking photos of expense records and recipts but it could be functioning better.

Adding main expense category and a second layer of subcategory but it could be 

made better by allowing more than just a second layer of subcategories. 

Showing totals and subtotals by expense categories.

ExpenseRec2 Nothing in particular. The app was just ok.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Organization and presentation of expenditures was a nice touch. The application 

seemed overall well thought out. Integration with the camera‟s phone worked 

well.

iXpenseit lite Recording expenses and income is extremely easy and with few exceptions 

covers all pertinent information that I would like to incorporate and record in my 

budget. Of course, this does not mean that the app records all information 

pertinent to CE Diary, but you can record this information in "notes" etc.

Money Care Lite Running list of transactions on the first screen. Graphical breakdown of where 

money is spent by category.

Money Lover Voice recognition

MoneyZoom Like adding the categories. 

Monthly Budget I liked how it allowed you to add/update categories and add/update budgets. The 

bills feature is also extremely helpful.

One Expense LT It was relatively easy to “add” an expense – push a button and then type in the 

amount on a calculator. 

Pico Spend Lite • I liked that the app has a customizable set of pre-specified expense categories, 

and that these are easy to access through a scrolling menu display. 

• The summary reports (daily and longer) are nice, though on the Lite version 

you can only go back over the last three days. 

• I like that it gives you the option to export to/view in PDF, though it‟s unclear 

how you would send the PDF to another app or someone else.

• The edit feature available directly on the report/review screen is nice – you can 

easily change the description, amount, and date of purchases.

• The Help items were informative and not overwhelming.
46

ProOnGo The ability to read date, vendor, and total cost from receipts was pretty amazing 

though it did take awhile. The tax function was helpful for making sure that 

when I broke down transactions into individual items the total came out ot what 

was on the receipt. The tax function didn't work properly in the app but I'm not 

sure if that is because it's the free version or not.

Spending Lite Ease of adding expeditures. Has a spending history feature to track your 

expenses. It offers a recurring transactions feature for monthly expenses.

Xtrack The interface it has all the categories that suite my life style including the 

children‟s features and subsections with the ability to customize 

12. What features did you NOT like? 

App Name

AndroMoney Some of the graphics look a little cheap, blurry. I wish there was a better 

calendar view. When I click “month” or “week”, it only shows my expenditures 

as a large list.

Certify • -Occasionally the app would go back 1 screen and I would lose the data just 

entered.

• -Sometimes the app did not advance to the next line when I hit enter.

• -If I made a spelling mistake it seemed too much work to erase and correct my 

answer.

• -The app did not fill in a leading zero; a fifty cent item had to be typed in as 

“0.5, “ not just “.5”

Coinkeeper You have to create accounts and categories in order to enter any information. 

You cannot enter information until you build your categories.

CW Money Expense Track Nothing specific during the time used. There could be chances of finding issues 

if more time is spent using it.

Droid Wallet I wished I could have created my own categories, instead of entering 

information, such as food away and food at home.

EasyMoney Having to manually enter everything was a pain. I‟m glad I didn‟t make too 

many expenditures throughout the trial week. 

Expense Cloud All

Expense Manager Having to type in all the items and their detailed information.

Even with customizations like creating expense accounts and categories, the 

application is unable to easily capture the kinds of details the CE survey is asking 

for. I ended up utilizing the expense description field to squeeze the information 

in.

Application did not allow the use of comma in the name of the expense 

categories, spaces instead of the commas worked though.

When I initially started setting up the categories based on the four categories in 

the CE Diary survey, I tried creating a separate expense account for each 

category. The application ended up with creating separate expense account 

categories for each of the following (simply it took the comma in the expense 

category name and treated it like a separator of a category and created this many 

accounts): Clothing, Shoes, Jewelry, and accessories. I ended up with 4 accounts 

for the above CE survey category. I guess this is an intended feature of the 

software if it is used properly. 
47

App Name

ExpenseRec2 The manual entry.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Buttons to navigate through options or even add new expenditures were quite 

small and tucked in the corner. Such major activities should have been far easier 

to access. 

iXpenseit lite The "vendor" category is too specific as it requires you to write out the exact 

vendor (McDonald's etc.) that you purchased from. I believe you should have 

the option ofrecording the exact vendor if you choose, however, in general it 

would be better to just select which category it is. 

Money Care Lite Requiring „notes‟ to be entered everytime. When you enter a note that was used 

before, all of the information from the previous transaction that used that note 

comes forward, overwriting what you might have entered. It was not clear that 

you should enter the note first. It seemed that notes were some time of ad hoc 

category and categories are really sub categories.

Also it is not clear how to switch from month to month. It looks like you can 

press the arrows on either side of the month, but that does nothing. You have to 

swipe in the middle on the screen. 

Money Lover Small keyboard for typing. Made a few typing mistakes especially when typing 

the “.” which is right next to the “done” key.

MoneyZoom I like to use a mouse, so I prefer websites over apps. I mean, I had to go into the 

website first so I could figure it out anyway. Also, you can‟t add variables, for 

example who it is for or tax or alcohol included. Everything would have to be 

pushed into notes or there would be a LOT of subcategories that would have to 

be created for each item.No help menu (!?!), no contact info, and is based in 

Poland.

*might look fishy to some participants.

Monthly Budget N/A

One Expense LT From a CE perspective, I don‟t like seeing the „income‟ option since we aren‟t 

really interested in their cash flow.

Also, I originally downloaded the app to my iPad, but then it was later 

automatically downloaded to my iPod. In hindsight, it would be awesome for it 

to have also automatically downloaded the data from the iPad as well so that the 

two were consistent.

Finally, the converse of #11 above – you could just enter an expense amount and 

hit save. It did not require any description or categorization for the expense. 
48

App Name

Pico Spend Lite • The screen did not re-orient – it was only available in „portrait‟ mode, but 

sometimes I like to do text entry from the wider/landscape position.

• There was a 25 character limit in the text entry description field; often I needed 

to have more than 25 to capture necessary attributes of the expense.

• On the report screen, the text description often overlapped with the dollar 

amount (since text descriptions often had to be long), making it difficult to see 

dollar amounts.

• Text entry didn‟t auto-correct/suggest spelling, and did not remember past 

entries so I had to retype things over and over for recurring purchases or 

purchases of similar items.

• It would have been easier if the app had sub-categories, not only the main 

categories. 

• App doesn‟t sub-total expenditure amounts by category, only gives the percent 

of total expenses that was spent in the category over a specified time period. 

• No way to change the date of purchase in „new expense‟ entry screen. You can 

edit date from the „report‟ screen, but this is an extra step and was tedious when I 

had to enter a number of items purchased on a previous day.

• There was no (obvious) way to share the app with other HH members (e.g., so 

my wife and I could both have it on our phones, and make our own entries on an 

integrated account).

ProOnGo The app is mainly set up for transactiosn but does handle individual items. At 

the outset, the app wasn‟t set up in the way I needed so I had to type in 

Categories I wanted, each vendor I visted, etc. Things got easier when I could 

reuse categories. The program had a lot of bugs. It would erase info I had typed 

in This would have to be fixed in a CE instrument because I was almost 

frustrated enough to quit. 

Spending Lite Limited categories. Had to add many categories to match the paper diary.

Xtrack The scroll, select and click feature category to enter my expenses so l didn‟t have 

to re-label or create a new subtitle

13. Did the app allow you to make any customizations (e.g. adding or deleting 

categories/subcategories, adding personal information such as household member names) and if 

so, did you make any customized changes? 

App Name

AndroMoney Yes, I did. I bought some wine, and realized there was no “alcohol” category, 

like there usually is on the real CE.

Certify No

Coinkeeper You had to add everything. No categories exist until they are added.

CW Money Expense Track yes. Added „Transportation‟ as a category and „Public‟ as sub.

Droid Wallet No, no customizations were possible.

EasyMoney Yes – The categories available were not detailed enough for what is used in CE, 

so in order to get into the specificity that CE would need, I had to create new 

categories. I gave up doing this after the first several because it was too time 

consuming to create the additional categories. 

Expense Cloud If it did, I didn't figure it out
49

Expense Manager Yes, I added new categories and subcategories to mimic the CE Diary survey as 

much as possible. I had to use the description field to include the expense 

details. The application did not allow adding more than two layers of a category 

and its subcategories. The software did not allow adding household member 

information.I tried creating subcategories by each of the possible scenarios of 

each CE expense categories as a compromise instead of entering the expense 

details in the description field. For example under the clothing category, I tried to 

create two sub categories for inside CU and outside CU so later I could add male 

and female subcategories under each as a third layer subcategory and then adding 

the age group subcategories. I could not set this up as the application is limited to 

only a second layer of subcategories. 

ExpenseRec2 The categories were acceptable to me so I didn‟t make any changes to that. I 

used the Memo section to enter my specific descriptions.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Yes, I made categories to match the Diary categories

iXpenseit lite Some. For example, some of the useful customization features that I used were 

defaults which allowed me to set default accounts (Personal vs. business) 

expense category and subcategory. This did help save time in recording 

expenses. You can also customize a reminder to record expenses daily.

Money Care Lite Yes it lets you setup categories.

Money Lover Yes, I added a category for Food Away from home, separate from Food.

MoneyZoom Yes. I could make some of the changes to match the diaries categories (but not 

all of them). Please see next page.

Monthly Budget Yes, I added a category for toiletries

One Expense LT It did allow adding/deleting categories, but not subcategories within categories. It 

also allowed adding/deleting different “accounts” (the defaults were „corporate‟ 

and „personal‟) and payment types (defaults were „cash‟ and „credit card‟). So, I 

guess you could set up the „accounts‟ as different household members.

I, however, did not add any categories to my entries.

Pico Spend Lite Yes, the app comes with 15 – 20 pre-specified categories and it is easy to delete 

those you don‟t want, edit existing categories, or add your own. I did this to 

conform to main CE categories (e.g., “Food Away from Home,” “Food/Drinks 

for Home”). The app did not have any customization for HH member or other 

tailored information

ProOnGo

Spending Lite Yes, I added categories.

Xtrack Yes it l didn‟t have to make any but if l did l could

14. Did you enter in all the required detailed information from page 4 (e.g. alcohol costs for meals 

away from home, packaging type for grocery items, age and sex for clothing purchases) and if 

so, how did you do it? 

App Name

AndroMoney No, there was room for notes, but I didn‟t feel the need to write anything. I 

probably should have :). I tried to describe my purchases as accurately as 

possible via the categories.
50

Certify • -For Alcohol yes, for grocery packing type not always, clothing gender yes.

• -It does raise questions about how we collect the data. For example is age not 

necessary since everyone in my CU is over 18? Should the alcohol bill be 

included in the restaurant total and then also reported separately? One category 

was unclear – is a “church carwash $25” considered a charitable contribution?

Coinkeeper No you cannot enter that information except as a note.

CW Money Expense Track No

Droid Wallet Yes, I just wrote in those details for the notes.

EasyMoney (see above answer)

Expense Cloud Yes

Expense Manager See response under #13 above please. This was a pain to type all of the details in 

the description field. I do not know how useful this detailed information will be 

under the description.

It was not clear how to enter the expense information for each member in one 

device. Probably setting up a separate expense account for each member might 

work.

ExpenseRec2 I started to enter the packaging types for food at home but I gave up after a while 

because it was taking too long. For food away I put the location but not the 

meal. I did really realize that until just now.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Yes, a (limited) notes section was added to provide such detailed information

iXpenseit lite I did enter some detailed information for example, alcohol costs, but I did that in 

"notes". This does not break down the cost of food vs. alcohol. The app does 

not allow even a breakdwon for groceries purchased, much less a feature to 

record package type.

Money Care Lite No the app does not provide a way to record that level of detail in a structured 

manner.

Money Lover Generally I forgot about it.

MoneyZoom Kathy‟s Notes: The application has the following variables. I couldn‟t tell how 

to add variables (Plus there is no help menu or manual online.) You can add 

categories and subcategory for the “category” of expense. The category is not 

check all that apply, so you would have to put some data in the „notes‟ which is 

so messy.

1. Category/subcategory

2. Amount

3. Date

4. Vendor (editable list)

5. Payment form

6. notes

Monthly Budget Yes, Just used the expense entries option on the app. Any additional infor that I 

had I just put in the "notes" secion. It allowed me to be more specific abut the 

purchase. 

One Expense LT Not really. I entered item descriptions that were sufficient in identifying the 

items, but I didn‟t specifically mention packaging types for grocery items. For 

instance, some of the grocery item descriptions I entered were “baby carrots,” 

“skyr,” “cream,” and “ice cream.” The first three are only commonly sold as 

fresh items, so it seems to me that the descriptions were sufficient without adding 

“fresh.” Similarly, with ice cream.

Pico Spend Lite Yes, I made an effort to try to capture the level of detailed required by CED, but 

occasionally - due to character length restrictions in the Descriptions/Notes field 

– I could not. I had to type out everything except the major category label.
51

ProOnGo

Spending Lite No. Age and Sex for clothes were not available and also packaging type.

Xtrack Yes , l could do subtitles for myself, my wife, 1 boy and 2 girls their ages ,sex 

and how much we sent as a family for books, clothing, toys, shoes, socks, and 

grocery, do our predictive analysis of how much money we need to run the 

family now and the future.

15. What problems did you experience entering your information into the app? 

App Name

AndroMoney “Books” weren‟t where I thought they would be. I feel like the “entertainment” 

and “publications” categories could be merged.

Certify • -Sometimes the app would not capture the description and would kick me out 

of the app entirely.

• -There was no uniform way to enter all the required categories, especially since 

there is a different level of detail for different groups: food = no tax, restaurant 

meals include tax, age, sex, and gift status required for apparel.

• -According to my receipt from the store, I spent $1.75 on”ss clsc visz” . I had 

no idea what that was, and still don‟t. I gave up and just typed in the cryptic 

description. “Stainless Steel Classic Vizene” was not in my shopping basket.

Coinkeeper It was not intuitive. No real directions,. Easy enough for simple things like 

"dinner at taco bell" . Don't want to have to enter grocery bill.

CW Money Expense Track Nothing specific. It takes time to get started and be familiarized with the 

categories. After that, it‟s pretty quick to add the data. 

Droid Wallet It was cumbersome to enter all the required data into the notes section. It would 

be nice if there were checkable buttons (or something along those lines) for the 

extra detailed needed.

EasyMoney None. It was easy to download, install, and get started.

Expense Cloud Typed wrong keys too many times.

Expense Manager Setting up expense categories to mimic the CE categories with the required 

details.

Merging data from two separate devices was a problem, after uploading the 

information from one device to the cloud and downloading the data back to the 

second device overwrote the information in the second device completely. This 

process was not managed well.

When taking photos of expense receipts, the photo was not readable. The 

telephone camera was to be set on text mode before taking the photo manually 

for each photo; this was not convenient for the user. The application should 

automatically detect the text and set the camera setting on text through the 

application. 

ExpenseRec2 None really. The app was easy to use.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Data input, in general, was cumbersome. While the presentation was clean, it 

was initially difficult to even press the buttons to add an entry or accept changes 

– mainly because they were tucked away into a far corner of the display.

The layout of the actual interface to input data also left something to be desired; 

it was done in a style emulating a calculator – fine for most things – but managed 

to not have an obvious way of committing the values back to the forms.
52

iXpenseit lite With this app, you cannot (easily) record alcohol type and cost, snack under 

mealtype, style of vendor (app records specific vendor, i.e. starbucks), whether 

purchase was for someone outside of household, male or female, or their age. 

All of this information would need to be recorded as a note.

Money Care Lite See question 12.

Money Lover Typing the amount

MoneyZoom Kathy‟s Notes: The application has the following variables. I couldn‟t tell how 

to add variables (Plus there is no help menu or manual online.) You can add 

categories and subcategory for the “category” of expense. The category is not 

check all that apply, so you would have to put some data in the „notes‟ which is 

so messy.

1. Category/subcategory

2. Amount

3. Date

4. Vendor (editable list)

5. Payment form

6. notes

Monthly Budget Sometimes, when editing an expense, even though I changed the category, it 

defaulted back to what was originally inputed. I had to do it twice for it to go 

through.

One Expense LT The aforementioned 8 item limit. So, I couldn‟t really test it beyond the first 8 I 

entered without deleting previously entered stuff. 

I found it odd that the app had only four default categories listed (Car, 

Household, Shopping, and Travel), and I forgot to add ones that would be more 

pertinent. 

Pico Spend Lite On the first day, I encountered an error message that I didn‟t comprehend –

something to the effect of „Cocoa error 15” – it didn‟t make sense, but did occur 

when I was trying to enter in and then edit soda purchases. The error initially 

prevented the app from saving any new entries. I simply quit the app and reentered it, and never saw the error message again. Other than that, there were no 

problems.

ProOnGo

Spending Lite No major problems. Adding expenses were pretty easy. 

Xtrack Tinny interface keys to navigate the interface menu 

16. If CE was to design an app to collect CE Diary Data, what features should it include? (e.g. a 

camera to take a photo of a receipt) 

App Name

AndroMoney Notes section, automatic sales tax calculator (eg, you‟ve already entered your 

local sales tax rate, like 6%, for items that were taxed, check a certain box, enter 

a product‟s original price, like $5.99, and it adds the tax for you), a barcode 

scanner perhaps.

Certify A way to select the correct category would help (food at home, restaurant, 

apparel, etc) since the required level of detail varies.

Coinkeeper Camera fucntionality. Barcode scanner.

CW Money Expense Track • Voice command where the app can prompt the user to speak the amount instead 

of typing. Same can be used for selecting the categories and subcategories.

• Camera/ barcode scanner (as mentioned)
53

Droid Wallet Camera functionality to take a photo would be great. 

EasyMoney • Voice recognition – instead of having to type, it would be easy to just say what 

was purchased and for how much. 

• The ability to enter information via the smartphone OR via the web. If I‟m by a 

computer, I‟d want to use the computer. If I‟m out, I want to use a smartphone. 

It would be good to be able to do both and then have them always synced.

• There are some feature in another smart phone apps that I use (a calorie 

counting app) that I find useful and could probably be used for tracking

expenditures too:

o The ability to select recent expenditures (one or many) made and add them 

again, with the ability to edit aspect of them if necessary like total amount paid 

or date of expenditure. This would be useful if making the same type of 

expenditure fairly regularly like lunch in the cafeteria)

Expense Cloud Yes, take a photo of the receipt so I don't hae ot type in. Let me voice record my 

exense.

Expense Manager Expense categorization and details of expense capturing through a good 

mechanism other than through the description field. Perhaps allowing to enter 

more than two layers of subcategories will help in this area.

Taking the photo of the receipt is a good feature if it is designed to be done with 

no burden such as setting the phone on the text mode by the user manually for 

each photo.

It might help with application performance if the data is written directly to the 

SD Card instead of memory but security of the data can be compromised with no 

locking mechanism such as password on the SD Card. Someone can take the 

card out and access the data directly.

Also, having the application free of background running services as much as 

possible will help with application and phone performance as well. For example, 

even if there is a service running to look for the latest version upgrade or 

messages from the vendor, there should be an option within the application 

where the user can choose to disable running such a service if he/she not 

interested in these updates or messages to help boost the phone‟s performance 

and response time.

Allowing features such as data consolidation among CU members and automatic 

checking to avoid data entry duplication by different CU members i.e. husband 

and wife both entering the mortgage payment for the month.

ExpenseRec2 Include a barcode reader, maybe voice recognition, and more canned selections 

rather than many open ended text fields. The ability to automatically set 

reminders to make entries would be a great option as well.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite I did enjoy the photo-of-receipt option, but I would take it further. It would be 

nice to be have the application parse the text on the receipt to automatically pull 

in at least some of the information.

iXpenseit lite I think the basic outline used by this app (list of income/expenses separated by 

category would work very well. Of course, it would need to be tailored a bit to 

fit all CE needs . As well, I am a big proponent of keeping a budgeting feature 

as compensation. people will then have a reason to accurately record expenses.

Money Care Lite Some kind of mechanism to help you remember to use it, I was good at first 

about using it, but towards the end of the week, had trouble remembering to use 

it. 

Money Lover The user should have three options for data entry: voice recognition, receipt 

scanning, and manual entry.
54

MoneyZoom Just one that captures all of the data elements we need – like whether it was for a 

person outside the house, or gender for clothing. That would be enough to make 

me happy.

Monthly Budget Photo of the receipt would be the main thing. Also, being able to speak to the 

app and it should determine the expense (talk to create an expense)

One Expense LT Sure, accessing the camera for taking photos of a receipt would be great. But as a 

respondent, I would consider my work done if I took a photo of a receipt. There 

are image readers out there that can read a receipt, so accessing the camera of a 

smart phone should be thought of in conjunction with that. 

The process for entering any expenses should be relatively straight forward. I 

like that you just entered the expense amount first on this. It seems like that is the 

most pertinent info in people‟s minds, but then there would also have to be error 

messages/prompts to ensure the other applicable data is collected. 

The respondent shouldn‟t have to do any setup (i.e., like adding categories) 

beyond personalizing it to suit their tastes. 

Pico Spend Lite • It should provide both customizable categories/sub-category labels, as well as 

the ability to type descriptions for the individual items. Ideally, the description 

field would have some „smart‟ features to ease respondent burden (e.g., spellcheck/auto-suggest; perhaps speech-to-text). 

• It should provide some added value to users – like the summary reports, charts, 

ability to share/export portable versions of the summaries, etc.

• In principle, I like the idea of incorporating a photo/receipt-capture feature, but 

caution that users may over-rely on it – e.g., take a picture rather than enter 

detailed information. So, the digital capture would need to be sufficiently 

sophisticated – i.e., either automatically extract necessary information OR be 

integrated into the data entry feature in such a way as to ease respondent burden 

(e.g., through OCR; having receipt available on a portion of the data entry screen 

to prompt recall; etc.).

• Maybe it is just me, but at times I wished that the app had a reminder system –

a prompt or series of customizable prompts that asked me if I had any expenses 

to enter, or if I needed to check with my wife, etc.

• There should be an easy way for respondents to enter in the date of purchase –

the default on Pico Spend was to record all expenses as „today‟s expenses.‟

• A user-friendly “help” system. Pico Spend had links to clear step-by-step 

graphics (with screen shot examples), as well as to video (youtube) 

demonstrations. Perhaps even an easy way to email/text questions (and get a 

timely response from FR!) within the system (e.g., “You have one 

response/message in your inbox.”)

ProOnGo Definitely a camera to take pictures of the receipt and fill in a good deal of the 

information. The ability to sync across platforms so I can photograph the receipt 

on the phone but then use my computer to type in supplemental information. It 

should definitely give feedback to the user in the form of graphs, charts, and 

tables this woud be an added incentive for respondents to use it.

Spending Lite Categories to match the paper diary. Options such as age and sex for clothing. 

Definitely a camera for receipt photos. 
55

Xtrack Speech recognition like Siri in the iPhone4s

Name of child xxx

$4.99 socks

$14.99 dress

At Name of store GAPP

Add total 

Total = $19.98

Then you can ask Siri how much did l spend on specified child Name on a 

specific date e.t.c

17. If CE was to use a smartphone app to collect CE Data what procedures would be best suited for 

respondents (e.g. having individual household members use their own smartphones) 

App Name

AndroMoney For all smarphone-carrying household members, it makes sense for them to use 

the apps themselves. In houses with a limited number of smartphones, each 

sans-smartphone carrier should have a designated smarphone carrier accounting 

for their purchases.

Certify • -Yes, having individual members use their own phone would be more 

thorough.

• -Get rid of every unnecessary question on an app.

Coinkeeper All members who can should have access to app.

CW Money Expense Track • Create an account* for the household where each user (household member) is 

registered to enter the expenses/incomes etc.

• Have individual household members use their own smartphones.

• Evert individual entry should be synced with the overall account* and users 

should be able to view individual and/or consolidated household level data

• With many users within a given household, ability to edit/update data entries 

can be given to one individual (admin). 

Droid Wallet Having individual members use their own smartphones would help track 

expenditures better.

Also, possibly have a "notification" pop up each day if the respondent hasn't 

entered any data for that day.

EasyMoney I was in a single household, so I could only speculate on this one (so I‟ll refrain!)

Expense Cloud Individuals using own smartphones.

Expense Manager Individual members entering their data makes it easier on the head of the 

household but checking for the data consistency, eliminating duplication and 

final data merging are function the application should be able to perform 

automatically and reliably without causing frustrations to the user. 

ExpenseRec2 I think a smartphone app should only be used in conjunction with a Web diary or 

a paper diary. The app was really convenient for on the spot single entries but 

very burdensome for entering many expenses at once. I‟d rather have a keyboard 

option for typing in a long list of purchases. In any case I really feel like we 

need to create something on paper that a respondent can have sitting out as a 

reminder of participation even if no data are collected on paper.
56

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite This is difficult to touch on given the limited scope of my usage. At the bare 

minimum, I would suggest having respondents input the data as soon as is 

possible after purchase.

iXpenseit lite Honestly, I think it would work eiter way, having one appointed family member 

to account for all purchases made by the CU or having each family member 

record their own expenses. If I had to choose between the two options, I would 

lean towards the former because I do believe it would be better for one 

responsible adult to record all expenses than to rely on multiple individuals who 

may not be as diligent.

Money Care Lite

Money Lover This would probably only work if everyone has there own phone. So, the only 

way to fund something like this would be to use a “Bring Your Own Device” 

model where you allow people to download the app to their own phones.

MoneyZoom having individual household members use their own smartphones sounds like a 

good idea. 

Monthly Budget I think the app on their own smartphones or the option to log onto a computer 

and enter their expenses would help as well. I think both option should be 

availble to use in conjunction with each other.

One Expense LT Well, duh – no one would want to use someone else‟s phone. That‟s the whole 

point of using your own phone. But that begs the question, do you have the app 

data from the two (or more) phones sync over the internet? That would allow 

them to see what each other has entered. I suppose you could leave it up to the 

household in the settings – if everyone enables data sharing, then they could see 

each other‟s purchases. 

At a minimum there should be a daily reminder set for entering expenses. Allow 

them to set the reminder for a certain time of day or perhaps multiple times per 

day, but with this type of device part of the idea of using it is to take the thinking 

out of the question.

In this day and age, we should be able to set up as much of it to prompt them 

based on what was entered. I would almost set it up as amount, description, and 

then category. For a lot of items, the app should be able to just ask them the 

proper category (Food Away, Clothing, etc.) and just have them confirm it rather 

than expecting them to enter it. For instance, if you enter an amount, and then 

enter a description of “necklace,” you should be done because we can identify 

that as jewelry, and we don‟t need to know any more information. But if you 

enter “shirt,” we could prompt them for Women‟s Shirt, Men‟s shirt, Boys‟ shirt, 

etc. 

OR, a lot of the categories chould be at a detailed enough level that they don‟t 

need to enter a description. For instance, if you have a category for Cell phone 

bill, they could just pick that category, enter the amount, and be done. 
57

Pico Spend Lite • As I mentioned above, it would have been nice if my wife and I could share the 

burden – by having us both have access to an integrated account on our separate 

phones. She has a Blackberry, so the app would need to work seamlessly across 

platforms. Neither of us would have minded being asked to use our own phones 

– in fact, I don‟t think either of us would readily agree to carry around a second 

phone just for CE.

• I believe that the emerging literature on respondent engagement (as it pertains 

to their continuing/active participation in smartphone surveys/data collections) 

suggests that there might not be much gain in the short term (i.e., if the survey 

lasts only a week or so). But, if we do go the route of letting respondents use 

their own phones, we might consider some sort of incentive system – e.g., timely 

entries for CE app get the respondent chits that they can „cash in‟ at the end of 

the survey for select items, like popular apps, coupons, etc.. Not sure about this 

– OMB probably would not like it, and we‟d need to look at the 

incentives/engagement literature more closely – but I felt like I spent 

considerable energy gathering and entering expenses for the week, and it would 

have been nice to get some sort of nominal but tangible „thank you‟ at the end, or 

even perhaps half-way through if I was doing a „good job‟ (however defined). 

The „CE app‟ certainly would be one thing respondents could keep (some people 

might like to have the equivalent of the full version of Pico Spend; I wouldn‟t, 

but some would).

ProOnGo I would envision a system where each household member ente4rs info on their 

phones and its aggregrated into an online instrument. Permission levels could be 

set for who is allowed to access the online instrument. As I said in #7 on the 

previous page, I couldn't help but feel like someone was monitoring my data 

This would be espceially problematic for gaining participation from people who 

are worried the government is monitoring them. I think there should be an 

explicit method for "transmitting" the data to BLS rather than having it upload 

automatically. There should be a submit button on a separate page. 

Spending Lite I think having one smartphone for a household would work. However, having 

multiple smartphones would definitely be beneficial though. 

Xtrack From my own perspective l would suggest a single user on behalf of the 

household to input accurate data.

18. General comments about your app experience 

App Name

AndroMoney

Certify I enjoyed participating. The hardest part was entering data on the phone. For the 

first few days I tried entering my answers using the pop-up touch keyboard on 

the screen. This caused a lot of typing mistakes. 

This phone had a slide-out keyboard, but the on-screen orientation of the app did 

not change from vertical to horizontal to match the way I was holding the phone. 

This was a problem, either with the app or the phone. After two or three days of 

struggling with the on-screen tiny touch keyboard, I decided to only use the slide 

out keyboard and twist my head around to view the screen sideways. Even 

though awkward, it was much easier to enter prices and descriptions for me to 

use a real keyboard.
58

Coinkeeper I found the app difficult to figure out. There are no built in categories. The CU 

would have to basically build the survey form in order to enter information. This 

app apears to be more of a budget tracker as oppose to an expense tracker. There 

is not an easy way to enter int he description.

CW Money Expense Track

Droid Wallet I was satisfied with my experience. Having more spending categories, and 

fillable buttons (eg. for frozen food, canned food, etc.) would be useful. 

EasyMoney

Expense Cloud

Expense Manager Both free and professional version of the software is claimed to have the same 

features except the professional version allows adding business expenses data in 

addition to personal expenses. 

Commas are not accepted in the expense category name, replacing commas with 

spaces will work.

Entering every single item and its detailed information on the grocery list was a 

pain. 

ExpenseRec2 As stated above, using the app to enter single expenses on the spot was 

convenient when I remembered I was a participant. The app was very 

inconvenient for making many entries at once. I think an app is best suited as 

supplement to a Web or paper Diary.

Home Budget w/ Sync Lite Generally speaking, inputting large amounts of data on a smartphone does not 

appeal to me. It is one thing to make a quick record of a receipt, but quite 

another to properly document the full details of a larger purchase.

I found myself, throughout much of the experience, wishing that the entry could 

be done though some kind of PC or Web Interface – mainly to save my eyesight 

and general aggravation from the interface.

iXpenseit lite

Money Care Lite

Money Lover This app was pretty good. I would recommend that we have a broader list of 

item categories. Also, once a category is selected, this should determine what 

later questions are asked (skip pattern). So, if you select Food at Home you then 

are prompted for the questions about package type. These also questions and the 

expense amount should also allow voice recognition. Or it may be easier to 

allow someone to enter the item and the amount in one voice commend so we get 

something like “Coffee $4.25 and Bagel $1.99” then parse out the expenses and 

items later.

MoneyZoom I hate to cheat on this one, but I‟d rather use the computer website rather than a 

smartphone app. I like to use a mouse rather than getting finger cramping from 

the apps. My last preference is a paper diary, though. 

Monthly Budget

One Expense LT

Pico Spend Lite

ProOnGo

Spending Lite I think the smartphone app would be a great tool for entering in Diary 

information since the phone is with you and you can enter expenses on the spot. 

I think having the app would lower recall issues. My main concern is to have the 

spending categories of the application match the paper diary. 
59

Xtrack It‟s portable and available to make me stay in control and connected to my data 

and keeps me in touch with my finances, the ability to balance work and my 

family life style at the same time.
60

APPENDIX D. Focus Group Script and Notes 

Thank you for volunteering - for evaluating the app as well as participating in the focus group! 

Please talk openly and freely about your experience and opinions with the study. It’s especially useful 

for you to tell me when your opinion differs from someone else’s. Give as many details and examples as 

possible. 

Introductions 

Name 

Experience with technology/smartphone usage 

Name of your app and in a few sentences give us a summary of your app. What are the key 

things you think are share worthy about it? 

The goal of this study is to learn about the experience of recording expenses using a smartphone app 

and to compile a list of recommendations that will be used to inform an upcoming contract with a 

vendor to custom design a prototype app for CE. 

Since you have experience with CE and are knowledgeable about CE’s data needs, and have now had a 

taste of what it might be like to record a household’s expenses using an app on a smartphone, I’d like

to obtain your feedback to help guide the development of the prototype. 

1. What do you generally think about using a smartphone app to collect CE data in place of a diary? 

Good idea? Bad idea? 

Good. You have it with you all the time, can enter stuff in immediately 

But hate typing in phone 

Best thing since slice bread 

While waiting for wife shopping, can enter in purchases she’s already made. Very, very good.

Good. It should have a reminder to enter (daily) 

Frequency of reminders – Once a day or 3 times a day. Make it customizable and can hit snooze 

as an option 

Budget info is helpful. Make it useful to the respondent. Graphs, total numbers, make it 

something positive for them. 

2. What are some of the key features the app should have? 

Summary features. Visually appealing. Graphs, pie charts, break down (allow them to see all 

the vendors in each pie) 

Would like to keep the data for self – export to excel 

Allowing the respondent to keep the app to use for themselves 

Camera – pic of receipt and put in a note 

Anything that reduces typing 

Synching with a computer interface 

Synching with family members 
61

Make it easy to enter recurring items 

Use Siri interface – voice activation/recognition 

3. Just as important as it is to identify features that the app should have, it is also useful to note any 

features included in your app or that you can generally think of that stands out as something that 

should definitely be avoided? 

Usability don’t’s – be very clear, good labeling 

4. How did you feel about using your own smartphone? Would you have preferred to be given one to 

use (would mean potentially having to carry multiple handheld devices)? 

Use your own is better. Wouldn’t want to have to put in a password for the app. 

Would want data synched to be protected 

Make it linkable to a bank account or credit card? Would be less typing but there might be 

privacy concerns

5. What was your method for entering expenses? Did you always enter your expense right after it was 

incurred? At the end of the day from receipts/notes? At the end of the week using receipts/notes? 

At the end of the week from memory? 

Based on bank account at the end of the week. Especially useful for catching automatic 

payments. 

Only when it was convenient did I do it right away, I usually did it daily at the end of the day 

Mixed, based on records and some without receipts from memory 

Felt like his app did everything besides linking to accounts. He liked it a lot and spent a lot of 

time playing with it so entered expenses as soon as he had one or knew of one. 

6. How accurate/complete? 

100% since he used his bank account statement 

Majority. Services are harder to remember. Not tangible. 

70% - He specified all the details need for each. 

75% - level of details could be put in the notes but he was unwilling to enter the details in the 

notes. Thinks it would be easier if there were user-friendly icons and drop down selections. 

Automatic payments/ bills are hard to remember – there should be a prompt for that 

7. What were the easiest types of expenses to enter? 

Food away 

Single items at a vendor – especially with the use of a receipt extractor 

8. What were most difficult? 

Groceries – very tedious. People wouldn’t do it. 

Spent 30 minutes entering the items on a Costco receipt 

Services are harder to remember. Not tangible. 
62

9. Did you experience any technical difficulties? If not, hypothetically, what would you do if you 

encountered technical difficulties? Would you be willing to call tech support or the Interviewer for 

help? Or would you just not complete the task? 

If encountered, would just give up after awhile. Don’t like to talk to tech support.

Would figure it out – he liked his app a lot. User interface should be intuitive and not need to 

read a manual. 

He would call someone. 

Would try to figure it out and may give up after awhile, but would not call. 

10. If given the choice would you prefer app or paper? Why? 

App

App

App only if it has a Web component 

App

11. Are there any general problems/difficulties that you can foresee that may need to be considered in 

using a smartphone app to collect CE data? 

Multi-member household might be messy. Should have one dedicated instead of individual 

apps. 

There are some features that seem obviously favorable for a CE app, like having multiple options for 

how to enter an expense (e.g. voice conversion to text, ability to photograph a receipt), providing a 

calculator, 

12. Now, I’d like to ask your opinion about some features that don’t seem as clearly favorable.

a. Data entry – manually fill or autofill (like google search to guess what you will enter based on a 

database of popular items or based on what you’ve entered before) 

Pre-fill (e.g. vendor – it’s repetitive to have to re-enter same Grocery store multiple 

times for a grocery trip) 

b. Date – manually fill, pre-fill with today’s date, or select from a monthly calendar? 

Auto-fill with today’s date

Auto-fill as much as possible 

c. To select from multiple options (like package type or vendor type) – drop down or multiple 

buttons to click? 

Click on a category and it takes you to a new page and takes you back to that page 

Displayed clearly 

13. What can we do to keep respondents engaged? 

The typing wore him down. 

Make it clear, don’t leave any guesswork for respondent, can be frustrating 
63

Have summary statistics at end of week 1. May help incentivize for week 2. The more you 

enter, the better the graphs. 

Sell the fact that this might be interesting for them. 

There are different incentives for different people. How about gamification? 

14. Lastly, give me one main recommendation for developing a custom app for CE 

Have a category interface  subcategory  expense  autofill for all details 

Make it easy to enter 

Walks you through multiple options: Does item have barcode? Enter manually? Voice? Pic 

of receipt? 

Sync with web instrument 

Show summary at end 

Budget option gives them a benefit 

Make it intuitive without having to read any instructions 

His app was awesome (iExpnseit). Just needed to add photo aspect. Likes showing 

categories but doesn’t want too small or too cluttered. 

Have it remember vendors/ data entered.