I want to get back to logging expenses with software. I am intrigued by the online one provided by Yodlee.com and mint.com, but for some reason it scares me to have to provide bank account login info. But I guess you have to do that to connect with any software, so maybe it comes down to company trust? For better or worse you sort of have to trust Microsoft and Intuit, but Yodlee is pretty unknown, to me anyway. Any experience out there?
If I don't go the web based route, I like Moneydance since I have both a Windows and Linux PC, plus I can download the trial version first to give it a try before buying.
Oops, I see I should have searched the forums first, Yodlee turns up quite a few hits. So you can assume I will read them all in any answer. But at first blush it looks ok since many major banks use their service.
OK, my initial experience with Moneydance is not too good. I have multiple accounts with the Credit Union and it is only seeing the one account, even when I never typed its number in, only the number of the other account.
And the Yodlee/Mint preview demos look very good, but I'm still nervous about putting all my info on one web site. Maybe I will just look for a good sale on Quicken after all.
Moneydance or Yodlee? (financial software revisited)
January 14th, 2008 at 11:06 am
January 15th, 2008 at 06:09 am 1200377362
I work at Yodlee, so take this with the appropriate grain of salt. Trusting your online credentials to a third party does take faith, but with companies like Yodlee have a solid track record and I think it's a smart move.
I have a dozen online financial institutions. Without Mint/Yodlee/etc. I would review the financial information in these accounts once a month when the statement arrives. With a service that is able to show me all of my accounts at once, I can easily review ALL of my transactions EVERY day. That greatly increases the chance I will catch something bad happening.
If there is a fraudulent transaction, I'm going to receive and e-mail telling me that a charge of more than $XX has occurred to my credit card or bank account or investment account and I will be able to quickly notify my bank of a potential problem. Being able to respond quickly to this type of problem limits your liability.
I feel far safer knowing that I (and Yodlee) are an active watchdog on my financial accounts.
..Jordan, Yodlee, Inc.
January 20th, 2009 at 06:56 am 1232434612