Labs

A website where you can share details of your personal bank accounts - OK, it doesn't immediately sound like a great idea. You've probably installed security software on your PC to help make sure you don't do exactly that. But Wesabe isn't as daft as it seems, and it's surprisingly interesting for an accounting program.

To get going, you start by downloading transaction data from whichever online banking services you use. This function isn't built into Wesabe, but when you import data it remembers which transactions you've already uploaded, so it's not hard to keep it up to date. Your current balances appear in the main window, and you can drill down into individual statements.

Obviously all this is for your eyes only, but where the user community thing gets going is when you start cleaning up your statements to make more sense of them. Names of transactions can be lengthy and meaningless, but you can change them here, and the new names

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are automatically applied to future statements carrying similar transactions, you can label things like direct debits and your mortgage payment for quick reference.

That's the way the money goes

Now, if other members have already edited the same transaction names in their statements, Wesabe will suggest this edited name to you.Not only can this save time, it can even help identify regular payments that might otherwise have you scratching your head to decipher the banking codes used by your electricity company or whatever. You can also apply ratings to merchants, which are aggregated with the opinions of other users.

To organise your finances, you can also tag transactions with labels such as 'groceries' or 'going out'. You can add multiple tags to a transaction and split a transaction between them by specifying the amount to apply to each. For example, if you withdrew £100 from a cashpoint and spent £80 on groceries and £20 on wine, you could tag it as 'groceries:80 wine:20' (or, if you're a journalist, vice versa). Then, when you search for your spending on groceries, the £80 will show up, and when you view wine you'll see the £20. You can also use the spending summary to illustrate graphically where your money is going. Wesabe even matches money-saving tips, supplied by other members, to your tags.

Despite being rather obviously American, Wesabe does support UK banks and sterling, and if you're looking for ways to take control of your cash, it's worth a try.