One of technology’s greatest gifts in this century has been the development of mobile money. It has made life easier since we can now pay our bills, get loans, send and receive money more effectively. MPESA has been a rising star in all mobile money-related issues. With over 730 million transactions recorded in the last financial quarter, it is the biggest mobile money service in the country
However, the greatest challenge is that it makes money transactions so seamless you can forget to actually track your spending. What you thought were simple credit purchases can leave you wondering where all your money went. To make it easier for you, here a couple of ways you can track your MPESA transactions without counting penny by penny.
MPESA statements
This is probably the most common and convenient way to track your transactions is using MPESA statements.
To register for the service, all you need to do is;
- Dial *234#
- Select My M-PESA information
- Select M-PESA Statement
- Choose full Statement
- Enter National ID or document of registration
- Enter your e-mail address and confirm
You will receive your statement through email in about 5 minutes. The service allows you to receive statistics for your activities for either 3, 6 or 12 months. You are able to view the total money; received, sent, paid through Paybill, paid through Buy goods and services for the months you select.
However, it is important to note that the documents sent to you through email cannot be used in a court of law. To get an MPESA statement acceptable by the court, you need to visit a Safaricom Shop, provide personal details such as ID number and request your statements to be processed. You can pick it up after a minimum of 5 days.
Bill Manager
Unlike the previous options, this one comes handles bill payments only. The application allows you to pay your bills and save the transactions just right after. Once you input all your pay bill and account numbers, they are saved in the system. From then on you will not need to input them every time you need to use them. Since life gets ahead of us sometimes, you can set reminders a couple of days before they are due. This way you are not behind on your payments. To register for the service.
- Dial *234#
- Select M-PESA Products
- Select Bill Manager
- Choose Pay My Bills
- Safaricom M-Ledger
M-Ledger
Unfortunately, this only option only applies to those who already have the application. The application was taken down to merge its applications with the MySafaricom Application… For those who do have it, maybe you can learn a few tricks and tips on how best to use it. It allows you to track all your MPESA transactions by scanning them and converting them into a financial journal. It allows you to view up to 6 months of your transactions at a go whether you had deleted them or not. Since tracking money is beyond viewing general transactions, you can break down the results into;
- Total transactions costs
- Amount sent.
- Amount received
- Transactions per person
- Bills Paid
- Top ranking of people or businesses you send or receive money from the most
If you want to want to get even more technical, you can export your transactions to either Excel spreadsheets, Word, PDF or whatever works for you. You can even view your data using charts and graphs. This way you are able to clearly see when your spending habits increased or decreased. It is actually a great way to budget.
If you need to save your transactions, there is the option of saving them on the cloud. In the unfortunate event that you lose your phone, all your transactions will be backed up in the cloud. Alternatively, you can also access it online. The application also allows you to search for Lipa na MPESA, Bank USSD codes, and PayBill numbers.
Have you heard of Safaricom Fuliza, here is how to use it: Finances: How To Use Fuliza, M-PESA’s Overdraft Facility
