Money & Investing and the mobile web Most banks and brokerage firms offer a special version of their websites designed specifically for mobile devices. In addition, brokerages such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity have developed a dedicated application where clients and investors can do everything from checking their account to placing a trade. Innovations in mobile technology extend to many aspect of business, corporate finance, and personal money management. We will analyze how smartphones are changing how people and businesses manage debt, employees, and taxes.

Money & Investing Directory

Smartphone apps that help manage debt

New mobile technology can help costumers with debt management by tracking and analyzing debt and by finding the best solution for debt consolidation and debt relief.

• The Credit Card Debt application is a simple but useful tool that visualizes, by displaying a graph bar, the money owned vs credit limit for each credit card owned.
• The Personal Debt Clock app helps instead with tracking the time left until all debt is paid off, changing the calculation if a user makes any principal or balance payments at any time.
• Debt Tracker Pro not only displays the debt situation in detail, but also suggest a payoff plan for debt by recommending a payment amount each month for each line of credit.

Finally, a number of other applications have been developed that remind consumers of their commitment to pay off debt. One of the biggest problems when enrolling in a debt settlement program is making payments consistently over time without loosing track of the ultimate goal of becoming debt free, and all of these technologies for smartphones ultimately help customers tackle this challenge.

Tax & Accounting and the mobile web

The IRS has released IRS2Go, a smartphone application that lets users interact with the IRS: videos from the IRS YouTube channel, latest info and tax updates, request a tax return or account transcript to be mailed to your address, check the status of a federal income tax refund.

Intuit, H&R Block, and 2nd Story Software offer free smartphone apps for tax preparation and accounting, with Intuit even launching SnapTax, with which one can prepare and file a Form 1040EZ federal and state return. The app uses optical character recognition technology that allows users to take a picture of their W-2 with the smartphone and automatically transfer the information to the relevant lines on Form 1040EZ.