Budget Appropriately With Back In Black
Budget with Back in Black ($2.99) by Fission Media Group Inc. makes budgeting less of a pain in a beautifully designed interface.
If there is one thing I don't like doing in life, it's budgeting. It's just a tedious task, and pretty boring as well. However, it's a necessary thing that we need to do in order to successfully manage our money, and make sure that we don't end up broke. There are the needs and then there are the wants, and this app helps you make sure you aren't going to be in the red, but rather, Back in Black.
When you first open Budget With Back In Black, you're greeted with a nice tutorial pop-up that will explain everything about the app to you. There's a lot that is covered in this little tutorial, but it can easily be accessed again with the "i" button in the top right corner of the app.
The first thing you need to set up is your "Income." This is pretty much the amount of money that you will be taking in on a monthly basis. Once this is set up, it's time for the fun stuff: budgeting.
Back in Black is split into three other categories besides your Income: Fixed Expenses, Goals, and Spending.
Fixed Expenses are expenses that you know are coming each month: car payments, rent, utilities, etc., all that fun stuff we need to make a living (or something like that). Within Fixed Expenses are some preset categories, though you can even add your own categories as well if you need to.
Creating a new fixed expense in your categories allows you to enter in the title, amount, repeat interval, reminder, date, category (if you didn't select it already), and any additional notes you may need. If you like to have reminders before a payment, you can set it for the due date or a few days before, and even select the time to be reminded at.
Reminders will be accessible via the main screen of the app. This is where you can view and manage all the reminders you have made so far.
Goals is just what it is -- goals. Planning your next dream vacation, car, or want to pay off your credit card debt? There are several options to choose from, and these are pretty much where you factor in these long-term priorities into your monthly budget. Just name it, set the monthly amount to put towards it, set up reminders, and any other notes you need.
The final category in Back In Black is Spending. This is where the major budgeting is done. Based on your Fixed Expenses and Goals, the rest of the Income amount is used here. Set up your categories and the allotted amount for each category each month. You can track your progress on the budget at the bottom with the color coded progress bar.
When entering a new purchase in, the screen allows you to choose the date, amount, title and any notes. If you choose to not enter a title, only the date will be used. Make sure to select a category that your purchase falls under, which are easily recognizable by the large icons. The "General" category will be used if no other category is selected.
Any time you are over your budget, you'll know with bright red numbers popping up at you. The budgets are also adjustable so you can continue to tweak it until you find something that actually works for you.
Previous months balances are viewable as well, and you can even create backups of your data. These backups can be restored from the app itself or emailed for emergencies.
Whenever you create a new category in Back In Black, the app allows you to customize that category with your choice from a bunch of icons. There are plenty of them, and in my honest opinion, they all look good -- much like the rest of the app itself.
I found Budget With Back In Black to be a very useful and intuitive little budgeting app. If you are in need of an app to help you manage a budget and actually keep on track with it, then look no further.
It's time to Budget With Back In Black.
