ExpenseMagic and OfficeDrop partner, providing a knockout blow to expenses hassles

As early as 2000 BC, currency was originally a form of receipt that traders used to represent stored value – such as grain and other commodities [1].

Currency as we know it today only came to exist in the ninth century BC, and was soon followed by one of the most inconvenient forms of documentation to ever exist…

… the dreaded expense report.

In an effort to drastically alter centuries of inconvenience caused by expense reports, ExpenseMagic created a service where users simply upload their receipt images and at the end of the month are provided with an expense report.

No more toiling with expense reports, the ExpenseMagic bookkeepers do all the work.

Over time, users began looking for a way to take their expense management to the next level. They yearned to share, favorite, comment on, and search for their expenses – a full document management service that easily connected with ExpenseMagic

And so formed the partnership between ExpenseMagic and OfficeDrop.

Users can now easily share ExpenseMagic receipt photos and expense reports with their OfficeDrop cloud storage account. No need to manually export or upload files, expenses and documentation are automatically transferred after ExpenseMagic notes the receipt details in an expense report.

To connect your OfficeDrop account, open the ExpenseMagic iOS app, tap on the reports tab, and proceed through the cloud services link to enable OfficeDrop.

ExpenseMagic + OfficeDrop = Hassel-free expense management.

It’s as simple as that.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency

The Shard

The tallest building in Europe is now situated in London, to the excitement of many Londoners. This mammoth new skyscraper was formally launched with a laser light show last night, that organisers hoped would be visible all over London. However unfortunately it was not as vivid as hoped and was a slight let down especially for those hoping to see it from the outskirts. Although the lights have created some stunning photographs of the building that I’m sure will prove useful when promoting the building.

The big question is, what on earth is it going to filled with? Offices (floors 1-28), restaurants (31-33), a hotel (34-52), a spa (52), apartments (53-65), an observatory (68-72) and a spire (73-87). With the building dominating the area, views will be spectacular from the restaurants up, hence the reportedly £50million price tag for a single apartment!

I guess the restaurants, situated over 30 floors up, will become a hotspot to wine and dine the most important clients. No doubt the majority will put the hefty bill through the company; this usually entails looking after the precious receipt and attaching it to your expense report – ensure you don’t miss out, take a picture of the receipt using your phone on the go and let ExpenseMagic create your expense report.

I’m available for wining and dining…

Why is expense magic better than man landing on the moon?

Every time you text someone, a signal goes from your phone, to a satellite, then back down to the person you’re texting. I doubt there are more than a handful of people who have considered this, we just expect it to happen! As time goes on, we are relying more and more on technology to enrich our lives and make everything easier. Everyone knows the effort of having to keep receipts to claim back money at a later date; this weight has been taken off our shoulders, lifted happily by ExpenseMagic.

Going to the moon didn’t take any weight of our shoulders, it just filled a gap in our interest. For the large majority of the population, it didn’t even make a difference to our lives. Expense magic will make our lives easier and more efficient. NASA is a government run programme, which feeds off our taxes. It is estimated each American paid around $5 for Apollo 11 to reach the moon, where as expensemagic only costs less than 15p per receipt.

Only 3 people landed on the moon in Apollo 11, which is only 0.0001% of the population. This seems ridiculous especially when you consider that the majority of the population can use ExpenseMagic. This raises the issue that landing on the moon was selfish and unfair in comparison. The lives of those 3 men were at risk, and the chances of them dying were quite high. They had to eat packaged food for 8 days and go to the toilet without gravity; neither could have been very pleasurable. While using ExpenseMagic, you can eat normal food, go to the toilet normally and your life isn’t at risk.

It can’t be denied that the space mission of Apollo 11 was a success in learning about the universe and our surrounding bodies, but in short, what was the point? Surely we should put more effort into improving our lives better, rather than learning about things which are none of our business, for the benefit of a few eager scientists. ExpenseMagic is a much greater achievement. It is one more step towards making the world more electronic, which in my opinion is definitely the way forward.

From our guest, Milan, during his few days work experience with us.

JOGLE 2012

JOGLE 2012 is the name of Alex Bucklands’ monumental challenge to cycle from John o’Groats to Lands End, in June this year. In doing so Alex hopes to raise money for Lymphoma Cancer Research. Although this is a solo challenge it is by no means a solo effort. Alex and his team started planning this event months ago knowing the better prepared you are the easier the completion is – the amount of organisation required is huge from the training to the organisation of accommodation along the route.

During the planning process Alex realised that there would be a lot of expenses that had to be managed throughout the build up and the cycle itself. Alex noticed the ExpenseMagic app and asked us to be one of his official sponsors. We gleefully accepted and asked him to keep us updated with his progress – so far I believe all is going well although I hear the snow isn’t great for training!

Alex mentioned our integration with FreshBooks, a piece of online accounting software, was one of the main benefits of ExpenseMagic. The process from paying for something to filing the expense in FreshBooks is simple; snap the receipt using your iPhone, label it and then look at it in your FreshBooks account, filed correctly. No extra steps, no tax entry, no spreadsheets – perfect for busy people that are always on the move, such as Alex. Alex praises the partnership, now capturing all his expenses this way and never losing out due to lost receipts.

All of us at ExpenseMagic wish Alex all the best with the rest of his training and the challenge itself; when I did the marathon I thought that was tough, so I can’t imagine what this will be like!

Please show Alex your support by visiting http://jogle2012.org/ and sponsoring him.

iPhone + ExpenseMagic + FreeAgent = kind of a menage a trois

It’s been a busy week at ExpenseMagic HQ. We’ve just announced our integration with
FreeAgent accounting software which is designed to help you take back and keep control of your Money honey . We’re big fans of FreeAgent, who share our philosophy of making things simple. By linking our service to  FreeAgent we’re giving users a seamless expense and accounting process that makes life a lot simpler!

ExpenseMagic is a natural fit for FreeAgent customers who tend to be freelancers, contractors and small businesses that want to spend more time getting Beautiful Dirty Rich and less time worrying about their accounts. Linking these two cloud services enables users to get their expense data into their accounts quickly and easily.

Listen up those of you who want everything as long as it’s free – to celebrate the launch of their FreeAgent integration, and to help you get your expenses up to date, ExpenseMagic are offering all FreeAgent users access to the data capture service entirely free of charge up until the end of this tax year, 5th April 2012.

Simply log into your FreeAgent account via the expense ExpenseMagic app. Doing this will automatically credit your ExpenseMagic account to provide your access for free during this period. If you want to take advantage of this promotion just put your paws up and head over to the App Store to download ExpenseMagic to your mobile telephone.  It’s true folks, I’m not bluffin (with my muffin).

Between You and I, despite all the excitement happening in the office, we’ve been feeling a bit down this week. We were left speechless at the death of Whitney Houston at the weekend. Perhaps the fame finally got to her in the end, but we’re not ashamed to admit we loved her beautiful big brown eyes and hair, she truly was the queen of ballads. Don’t be sad when the sun goes down.  There’s nothing else I can say.

The man of the moment, dear ol’Arry Redknapp

What a week it has been for arguably one of the best managers in the world at the moment. Last week there were big question marks over the future of the great man with a number thinking is the cheese finally sliding off of it’s cracker. Harry left court at the start of the week with no hint of a smile or the usual quirky anecdote. From now I’ll curb the cynical speaking; Harry has been found not guilty, Capello has resigned and Harry is now favourite to become the next England manager. How fortunes can change!

I am a Tottenham Hotspur fan and I think I’ll just be honest; I don’t want Harry to leave even if it is for the England job. Unfortunately he looks to be the best englishman for the job and in my eyes to appoint another foreign manager would be a mistake, just like the last time. It has been rumoured that the FA might allow Harry to do both the Spurs and the England job until the end of the Premier League season. It’s therapeutic somehow, the sound of – Harry Redknapp, Tottenham and England manager. However due to the heart surgery Harry had only a few months ago, I would be concerned that he might be liable to derail and crash with the added pressure of being England manager.

Was Capello resigning as England manager within hours of Harry being found innocent a coincidence? Capello’s reasoning is fair, not being involved in the meeting to decide the future of your captain is enough to make any manager leave. The only seed of doubt in my mind is why Capello didn’t resign sooner, before Harry was acquitted.

Regarding both the Harry Redknapp court case and the Fabio Capello resignation I feel we as the general public are in the dark about what actually is happening; maybe carrots are the answer for carrots help us see much better in the dark. Let’s not feel disheartened, Harry is still Tottenham manager and finally Capello has stepped down.

ExpenseMagic goes Stateside

The team at ExpenseMagic are getting excited. We’ve managed to secure an exhibitors stand at the SXSW festival months after it sold out. We were very lucky that there was a last minute drop out and we were offered a place.

If you don’t know, SXSW is March’s annual trade show, hosted in Austin Texas, and it’s where the future of media is defined. The event connects leaders in the Music, Film and Interactive industries with the companies and agencies needed to succeed. And there are parties. Lots of parties. Take me southwards on a plane!

After a few days of stressful emails back and forth with the sales team, numerous web searches for suitable flights, hotel availability etc we have finally confirmed that we are 100% there. Although we are still unsure as to where we’re going to sleep. Apparently this time hotels in Austin were already sold out before the end of December, as there are tens of thousands of visitors descending on the city for those 10 days. We’ll certainly never be lonely.

We’ve been introduced to Airbnb whilst searching for accommodation. It’s fantastic community marketplace for unique spaces in cities around the world, and is so much easier than the usual hotel booking sites. It’s clearly very busy though, we’ve searched every corner and I’ve been pipped to the post on a couple of properties and the search is still. I thought it was over but it’s not.

There’s literally nothing available in downtown Austin during the dates of the festival so it looks as though we might be staying a fair way out of the city and having to hire a car.

I’m slightly concerned that our latest member of the ExpenseMagic team James might be getting a little carried away as he’s RSVPed to approximately 300 parties heppening during the 6 days that he’ll be in Texas. These youngsters can certainly hack it a lot better than me these days. But getting old, it takes its toll. I expect I’ll be shattered and shacked up by 9pm back in the hotel (or tent if we don’t find a place to stay!) I hope I can keep up with the drinking. The last time I had a heavy night on the booze, it stopped the blood and made my head soft. I’ll just say no.

I can see why he’s excited though, it’s time we left this city for a day (or 10). It looks like such an awesome line up of music, film screenings and interactive events that I’m spinning in circles, I can’t stop. Roll on March 9th – America, we’re on our way. And I want a helicopter ride while I’m there.