More so than ever, you see a proliferating trend of expense tracking mobile apps these days that cater to the need of managing your finances. All of them wish to become your personal “financial consultant” and hope for you to stick with them for long.
Qingguo Jizhang is one of those expense tracking apps that hopes to make your life easier through their outstanding value proposition – using audio recording function to track your expenses.
By tapping on the WeChat platform and its audio message capability, Qingguo Jizhang wants to make expense tracking easily accessible, hassle-free and most importantly, cultivate a habit of managing your finances on a daily basis.
Developed by Beijing Qingguo Keji Limited, this app introduces three innovative methods to offer you a richer experience of tracking expenses.
1. WeChat as a platform – Rather than developing a stand-alone app, Qingguo Jizhang makes use of an existing platform that people know and use every day. It uses your WeChat ID to register and automatically installs the app into your WeChat. This clever use of WeChat enables users to see the app and get reminded to track your expenses every day hence, cultivating a habit.
2. Audio recording function – Do you find inputting the expense figures a chore? This app helps you get rid of that pain by allowing verbal reporting of the expenses instead. Using the audio message capability of WeChat, it recognizes what and how much you spent for each transaction. In addition, by typing “M” or saying “Menu” would automatically bring you to the account overview, where you can see your progress.
3. Gamify the experience – Tracking expenses can be a huge resistance especially when people dislike to face the fact that money is getting out of their pocket. Qingguo JiZhang makes the experience much more fun and enjoyable by introducing game-like missions and goals for users to achieve.
Future plans for the app includes photo-taking capability or linking up to your bank account in hopes to become your personal “financial consultant” and eventually, creating a marketplace for financial products and services.
Unfortunately, like most expense tracking apps, Qingguo Jizhang faces intense competition from the big brothers like Alipay. Nonetheless, it is indeed commendable to leverage on WeChat as an existing platform as a start.