It’s the last week of 2007, and I know many of you are looking forward to getting your finances under control next year. To jump start things, I will be reviewing four money management applications this week. I’ll start things off with Wesabe.
What Does Wesabe Do?
Wesabe is an online application for tracking your spending and using the information you gather to meet your financial goals. Their slogan is “Get to know your money.”
The Process
Begin by uploading an account. There are three different ways to accomplish this. You can use the Firefox uploader from your Firefox browser, the desktop uploader to upload files from your desktop, or the manual uploader to upload files from your bank one at a time.
Once you’ve uploaded your accounts, you can assign tags to each transaction. There are no preset tags, so you are unlimited in the labels you choose for your transactions. When tagging, you can assign a single tag for every time a transaction from a particular store comes up.
When all of your transactions are tagged, you can click on a tag to see how much you’ve spent in that category for the month. You can also see the data for the year, quarter, week, and day. And if you’re interested in comparing budgets, you can see what other Wesabe users spend in the same categories (in general…you can’t see specific data for each user).
Other features of Wesabe are a tool for tracking your financial goals, tips for saving money, and very active user groups. You can find a user group in many different categories, from users with similar goals to users with similar religious beliefs.
The Pros
- A place to record your goals, so you can see them every time you deal with your money.
- Very active user groups for support in achieving your goals.
- Convenient access from your Firefox toolbar.
- It seems that Wesabe has gone great lengths to make sure your bank information is secure in the upload process.
- Tips for how you can save money.
- It’s free.
The Cons
- I had a really hard time setting up my account. I had to try three times before I got it right.
- Uploading transactions is cumbersome.
- Most transactions come up as addresses, rather than store names, making categorizing difficult.
- The interface is not very intuitive.
- Categorizing your transactions is retroactive. There’s no support for creating a budget before you spend the money.
Who should use Wesabe?
Since Wesabe’s user community is where Wesabe shines, Wesabe is best used by someone who needs community support in achieving their financial goals. Wesabe is also good for someone who needs to access their financial information from more than one computer.
Stay tuned on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for reviews of Mint, Mvelopes, and Y-NAB!
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I guess the question with all of these sites is if privacy will be an issue. That right now keeps me from using them.
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Ryan
http://uncommon-cents.net/
I am surprised you are not reviewing Geezeo as well. I have read a lot about Mint, Wesabe, and Geezeo in the news – and have been planning to try each of them. Figured they are the big three. How did you decide on Mvelopes and Y-Nab? never heard of them. What about buxfer or yodlee as well – any insights?
I’ll have to check on Geezeo. I hadn’t heard of it before this week. I’m reviewing Mint, Mvelopes, and Y-NAB on Wed, Thurs, & Fri, and I’ll let you know then what I think. :)
I’ll have to check into buxfer & yodlee, too. I haven’t heard much about them either.
You may also check manageMe. This web application helps to keep a track of your hard earned money.I can manage my finances anywhere while traveling.Moreover it is coming with fully loaded version manageME7. You can check it the updates on http://www.manageme7.com
You know wesabe is getting better by the minute…it is the only one that worked with all of my accounts in Canada (president’s choice, capital one, ing). It was a little difficult to set up my accounts but I guess it was the only online one that worked. And they don’t store your info, quicken online does. As far as creating a budget beforehand…Once you put in your data you can set your spending targets which is a little less…ummm stuctured (for me that is good)