Actfi – A Digital Personal Financial Assistant

Who doesn’t like going paperless in this digital age? Gone are those days when people wrote long lists of their income and expenditure on books and sweat over the complicated calculations and besides all these were the recurring or one time payments one had to keep in mind and not to forget due dates, etc., etc. Don’t we all like a nice little reminder, a neat overview of the income and expenses? Yes, we do and this simple app called “Actfi” does all this for you once you complete a very simple set up.  Actfi takes into account your income, your expenses and creates a report of your expected expenses and how much you will be able to save.

For those who like looking at things visually, there is good news. Actfi actually creates your report in the form of a “Pie Chart,” so you get to see the facts in percentages. You get to compare what is stopping you or restricting you from saving, what are those unwanted expenses that are draining your bank account or credit cards, etc.

Pretty simple. Once you open the app, first time users are requested to do a sign up. No complications here whatsoever, but straightforward information like your email address, a password that you would like to use to login, your first name and last name are all that the app requests.

Once you hit sign up, the app sends you a link to your email address that you need to click to activate your account and confirm that it is you! Once this is done, just head over to your app and sign in with your email and password. You are now good to go.

First time users of Actfi will need to do some initial set ups before they can actually start using the app to its full potential. You will need to input your income and expenses. Here is what you need to provide.

On the income page:

• Type of income or payment or name of employer or Job title, anything you think is relevant
• How often do you receive this payment?
• Does this amount fluctuate or not?
• Last time you were paid
• Amount you got paid
• Choose to get notified or not?
• Hit “Go”

This sets up the income part of your Actfi app.

Now on the expenses page:

• Describe the type of expense, for example mobile bill, groceries, credit card bill, rent, etc.
• How often is this expense due? Weekly or fortnightly or monthly or other?
• Amount due
• Last time it was due
• Choose to have notifications for this expense on or off
• Hit “Go”

You can add as many numbers of incomes or expenditures. If anything changes on the run, these can be edited using the “Edit” (a pencil icon) tool next to each income or expense.

Actfi takes into account all the information that you have provided. It creates a report of the due dates depending on the information you have provided; for example, weekly payments or daily payments or monthly and so on.

You now have a report on your device that tells you how much your income will be for each week / month, your expenses and your potential savings. Notifications are sent to your email regarding expected income and expenses.

Most people prefer notifications on their mobile rather than the emails as otherwise if not necessary, most people do not check their emails.

Actfi is a free finance app that keeps track of your income and expenditure. You can even call it your digital personal financial assistant because that is what it exactly does.

Rating: 8.5/ 10

Price: Free