Wesabe, the online personal finance site launched in 2005, will be closing down on July 31, 2010. Over the last few years it grew into a well-liked service helping users track their spending and share valuable financial information with others through the Wesabe online community. The company has stated they were experiencing financial constraints, leaving them unable to provide sufficient customer support and security staff. Unlike other online finance sites, Wesabe did not generate revenue through the use of ads, considering the practice not to be in the best interests of its customers.

Users will have until July 31 to download their data, after which time all data will be securely and permanently deleted. Users will be able to view their downloaded csv-format data in spreadsheet programs such as Excel and Google Spreadsheet. Wesabe are also working on an open source package allowing users to operate a version of the service on their own computers.

The popular Wesabe online forums which host discussions on personal finance topics and where users can exchange tips and advice on finances will remain online indefinitely.

Disappointed Wesabe fans may consider other free online personal finance alternatives such as Mint, Buxfer and Geezeo.

HelloWallet, which had its debut in March 2010, offers independent financial advice online to help users take control of their finances and achieve their financial goals.

One impact of the Great Recession is that consumers are now more aware that they need to closely monitor their personal finances to avoid getting into difficulty. That’s where HelloWallet comes in. It’s aimed at the estimated 80% of low to middle income American consumers who do not currently have access to financial advice resources.

HelloWallet  performs budgeting and money management functions such as offered by free online personal finance sites, but more importantly it provides independent and personalized financial advice.   HelloWallet is independent from financial institutions and does not receive any advertising revenue from them and so is in a better position to recommend savings products which may actually best benefits each individual user.

Key benefits include:

• Keeps track of all your finances in one place
• Monitors rates on credit cards, mortgages, loans and other products, and alerts you if they increase
• Searches over 130,000 different financial products (checking accounts, savings accounts, money market funds) and from a broader range of institutions compared to free sites, such as credit unions, community banks and national banks
• Creates personalized savings plans for important milestones such as tuition fees, buying a home, saving for retirement and reducing debt
• Identifies unproductive savings you may have – according to research, American families lose approximately $100 billion each year in preventable financial mistakes
• Helps estimate how much to save to buy a home using local home prices; forecasts your home’s potential worth in the future
• Gathers tuition information for most colleges and universities and helps estimate how much to save in time for enrollment
• Provides recommendations about financial gaps, such as missing emergency savings plans
• Proactively identifies financial health threats and savings opportunities

HelloWallet works with charitable foundations and was endorsed by the Clinton Global Initiative. It donates one free membership to a family in need for every five paying subscriptions, providing a free service to at least 300,000 low-income families over the next five years.

A HelloWallet subscription costs around $4 per month, with a 60 day free trial offered. We’d love to hear from users as to how helpful they find the service.

The long-awaited new version of Quicken Mac – Quicken Essentials for Mac – was released today. I say ‘long-awaited’ as there was first mention of it being released as far back as 2008 under the name of Quicken Financial Life for Mac. A few proposed release dates later and it is finally here.

Quicken Essentials for Mac (QEM) has been completely redesigned and redeveloped specifically for Macs and now has the familiar Mac look and feel. Its streamlined, attractive interface makes it easy to get set up, easy to use and navigate but it does have less features than the previous Quicken Mac 2007 version, which may not be an issue for most people. In general QEM is best suited to Mac users who are new to personal finance software and those users with more straightforward money management needs.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of the new version:

• Great conversion tool quickly transfers your data from all supported Quicken Windows & Quicken Mac programs as well as Microsoft Money
• Connects with more banks and financial institutions than ever before – over 12,000 at the moment with plans to increase to 16,000 in the next few months
• Overview screen shows money coming in and out in a clean and modern, Mint-like interface
• Improved transaction categorization saves time – the software accepts user recommendations during use thereby continually improving categorization accuracy
• Analyzes spending habits to help users develop budgets as well as tracking progress against goals

Those users needing more in-depth investment management tools, a bill pay feature and direct TurboTax integration would be better using the previous Quicken Mac 2007 version or using virtualization software to run Quicken for Windows on their Mac. There are plans for a further release in 2011 which will incorporate some of the features not included this time round such as investment tracking tools and bill pay.

Consumers wishing to take advantage of Intuit’s Quicken credit card offer can obtain $30 cashback when they purchase Quicken Essentials for Mac at the Intuit website. Alternatively, Amazon are currently offering a $10 discount on Quicken Essentials for Mac.

Makers of Moneydance, The Infinite Kind, have just released Moneydance 2010, an important update from their 2008 version.

New features include:

• Enhanced user interface with improved navigation.
• Sidebar now displays account status.
• Automatic transaction downloading runs in the background. (You can set this to run daily or every few hour).
• Improved categorization of downloaded transactions.
• Improved scheduled reminders & transactions feature.
• New quick search function.
• New reports and graphs available, such as capital gains report.
• Improved graphical view of your budget; flexible graph and report filtering.

This new Moneydance 2010 version remains at the same price as the previous version, $39.99. Consumers who bought Moneydance 2008 are eligible for a free upgrade and those who bought a previous version can get an upgrade for only $19.99. There’s also a free trial available which allows users to manually input up to 100 transactions (but automatic transaction download not provided). There is also an iPhone app on the way shortly. Moneydance runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The new YNAB 3 release includes a great many improvements to this popular budgeting software. The main new feature of this version is that it now runs on Adobe AIR which allows users to run the software on Windows 7, XP, Vista, Mac or Linux. This is sure to please many Mac users who have been waiting for a simple yet effective budgeting software program to use.

Other new features of YNAB 3 include:

• Improved interface and design, new icons, more customization options
• New Search function – search for specific transactions by payee, category, date, etc; search by multiple parameters
• Tracks non-budget accounts as well (e.g. tracks mortgages or loans).
• Account balances can now include amounts that haven’t cleared the bank.
• Enhanced reporting capabilities, including more customization options. Now view your financial data in graph as well as corresponding table format. Drill down in graphs to view associated underlying data.
• More customization for your budget categories e.g. re-order categories, add notes etc.
• More flexibility in dealing with over or under spending in budget categories.
• View more than 2 months of your budget at a time (depending on screen size).

The new version of YNAB retails at $59.95. Users wishing to upgrade from YNAB Pro can expect to pay only $34.95 if they bought before 1 Jan 2009, $29.95 if they bought between 01/01/09 to 4/30/2009 and $24.95 if they bought between 5/1/09 and 7/31/2009. Anyone who bought YNAB Pro after 31 July 2009 can upgrade for free. Users wishing to upgrade from YNAB Basic will pay $34.95.

Anyone wanting to try out the software before they buy can take advantage of YNAB’s free 7 day trial.

Intuit has decided to phase out its web-based personal finance program Quicken Online, after its recent acquisition of competitor Mint.com. Plans are to suspend Quicken Online in the next six to nine months. The decision was made by Mint founder and CEO, Aaron Patzer, who now heads up Intuit’s Personal Finance Group.

This move is not surprising, as there is really not much point in continuing to run two separate online personal finance management sites. It makes more sense for Intuit to concentrate on the more popular Mint.com service, which currently has 1.7 million users, most of which use it every month. Quicken Online has a similar number of users but these are currently much less frequently using the service.

Quicken Online customers will see their data migrated over to Mint.com. A few useful features from Quicken Online will be incorporated into Mint such as the ability to enter cash transactions and record checks that have not yet cleared. Customers will also soon benefit from tax preparation features in Mint.com, such as is provided by Quicken software. For example, business expense transactions can be marked as tax deductible throughout the year, making tax preparation quicker and easier.

Customers can look forward to an improved product incorporating the best features of both Mint and Quicken Online.

Intuit released new versions of popular Quicken personal finance software last week. There are several new features and improvements in their 2010 release.

• New faster,  easier guided setup – get started in just a few steps
• Improved design for a simpler interface
• New home page offers a snapshot of all your most important financial information
• Improved menu and toolbar make it easier to navigate and find the tools you need
• Improved automatic categorization of your transactions
• It’s now easier to see how much is left in your accounts until your next paycheck, helping avoid over-spending and overdraft fees or penalties
• New Net Worth tab

There is also a new import function for previous Microsoft Money users. MS Money data can be directly imported into Quicken so users can keep their past transaction history.

Customers who wish to purchase Quicken Deluxe 2010, Quicken Premier 2010, Quicken Home & Business 2010 or Quicken Rental Property Manager 2010 can check our site for a special Quicken offer where they’ll receive a free Quicken WillMaker (worth $69.99), for a limited time only.

It was announced this week that Intuit, who produce popular finance applications Quicken, QuickBooks & TurboTax,  will buy their online money management competitor Mint.com for $170 million, a deal which will be completed by the end of the year. Mint.com had been growing steadily since it first launched in 2007, with now approximately 1.5 million users.

It has been confirmed that both Mint.com and Quicken Online will continue to be operated separately and both will remain free to users. New Intuit customers looking for web-based personal finance management will be referred to Mint.com, while those customers who already use Quicken desktop software will be directed to Quicken Online for easy online financial management.

Look for some of Mint’s popular features to be integrated into Quicken, providing customers with even better money saving tools.

Along with more and more companies entering the already highly competitive market of online personal finance programs, Green Sherpa launched their web-based money management solution at the end of August 2009.

The service provides the usual features you’d expect to see such as account monitoring, automatic transaction categorizing, expense tracking, reconciliation, alerts, budgeting and goal setting.  You can also use the program with your iPhone.

The main benefit of Green Sherpa is that it’s simple to use compared to other programs, yet offers a powerful 12-month cash flow projection feature that takes into account not only past spending but also future projected expenses and potential income. This can give you a much clearer picture of where you’re heading financially, with enough advance warning time to do something about it, if you need to.

Another nice feature is that you can safely provide access to your account to your partner & financial advisor/accountant. It’s possible to flag any items that you’d like to discuss and comment on them through the site.

We signed up for the free 14-day trial (no credit card details necessary) and so far we like the simple, uncluttered dashboard & interface. There’s a help feature which takes you through step-by step demos showing you how to use the main features.

A Green Sherpa monthly subscription currently costs $7.95  (or $5.95 per month with the annual plan.) If that seems a bit high compared to the other free online services such as Mint.com or Quicken, we’d recommend users try their free trial.  If you think the program may help you make better financial decisions then it should be worth the price.

MoneyDesktop.com is a new online financial planning program just released this month. It proposes to get Americans out of debt with the help of advanced financial management tools. MoneyDesktop offers traditional personal finance software features such as monitoring accounts, expense tracking & budgeting and real time financial reporting, as well as some great long term financial planning & debt reduction tools.

The makers of MoneyDesktop consider they can help users save thousands in mortgage interest payments and pay off their debts more quickly. The program also provides the following features:

• Runs scenarios to show effects of potential new purchases on your savings plans
• Finds discounts and cashback offers at over 300 online retailers
• Finds interest saving loans and credit cards
• Helps manage credit score
• Tracks retirement savings

It also offers two debt reduction strategies:

• Debt roll-down strategy – analyzes all your various debts, interest rates & terms to advise you on which debts to pay first
• Mortgage Checking Account (mortgage acceleration) strategy – gets your income to work towards reducing your loan’s principal more quickly, and so decreasing total interest owed

MoneyDesktop costs $19.95/month or $199.95 for a yearly plan. There’s currently a discount offer of 6 months free (use code 6MONTHS1 or 6MONTHS12). A 30-day free trial is also available.