i had been idly looking for a simple personal financial software for a while. i considered quicken, msmoney, moneydance. but, really all i wanted was an online app that could consolidate all my accounts and (this is the key part) automatically update them by polling my credit card, savings account, student loans, etc.

it turns out there are a number of free web 2.0 apps out there (some more beta than others) that are trying to do just this. i first tried wesabe, but for now i am sticking with yodlee. someone wrote a pretty comprehensive review of the latter, so i'll spare you the details. suffice it to say i was very impressed when it automatically pulled all my transactions, and even grouped most them into categories on the first try (recognizing, for example, that shell and arco are both "auto/gas" transactions).

surprisingly, i didn't find a lot of press out there describing such online services (perhaps because many are so recent), so i will list here some of the others i've come across: foonance, mo.neytrack.in and billmonk. if you prefer a spreadsheet that sits on your computer vs. online accounting, then check out pear budget, a simple but attractive and well laid-out excel spreadsheet.
- posted by Eric @ 4:37 PM