Yodlee MoneyCenter Review 2023 – Usable Online Financial Service?
Yodlee isn't a household name, but you might be already using their service and not even know it. The company powers many financial websites. This review tested the beta version Yodlee's MoneyCenter, which targets consumers.Cost - 10
Customer Service - 5
Ease of Use - 7
Tools & Resources - 6
Synchronization - 8.5
Accessibility - 7
6
It's more reliable than Mint, has a customizable summary display, and lets you share your financials with your accountant. However, although Yodlee MoneyCenter was a pioneer in online personal finance, this old-timer is beginning to show its age. Its design is clunky, plus you have to pay to download the mobile app.
Launched in 2006, Yodlee MoneyCenter is the granddaddy of online personal finance software.
It should be mentioned first that quite a few other financial aggregators use Yodlee's backend to import financial data. Many of the services we've already reviewed here including:
Yodlee MoneyCenter Features
| Price | Min: $0.00, Max: $0.00, Term: free |
| Budgeting | |
| Bill Payment | |
| Investment Tracking | |
| Access | Web Based, iOS, Android |
| Credit Score Monitoring | |
| Bill Management | |
| Retirement Planning | |
| Tax Reporting | |
| Reconcile Transactions | |
| Custom Categories | |
| Import QFX, QIF Files | |
| Two-Factor Authentication | |
| Online Synchronization |
- View Transactions — Get a detailed list of all transactions automatically categorized from central one location.
- Expense Analysis — Get an instant snapshot of your spending by category.
- Alerts — Get alerts of transactions like large withdrawals, or overdraft protection.
- Budgeting — Setup budgeting and get alerts if you go over your set limits.
- Goal Setting — Create and track the progress of your goals.
- Real Estate — Track the value of your home overtime via Zillow's Zestimate. Mint.com has this same functionality.
While these services all get the financial data from Yodlee, their frontend websites are unique to their respective service. Each has their own custom features that can analyze and report your financial info. Think of these services as adding a pretty face to Yodlee's powerful backend.
After testing out Yodlee for this review, it's obvious Yodlee focuses on the data services. Their consumer service Yodlee MoneyCenter isn't their core focus.
Like Empower, Mint.com, or LearnVest, Yodlee MoneyCenter is free to use, and you do not need to be a paid customer to use their service.
Just like the other personal finance aggregators, you enter your financial institution's account information, and Yodlee automatically downloads your data into one central location. The sign-up process and account setup is similar to the others, but not as an intuitive process.
Yodlee also has mobile apps for Apple's iPhone/iPad and Google's Android, so you can access your accounts from anywhere. Though unlike the other services mentioned, they oddly charge $3.99 for their app.
While the price isn't outrageous and a one-time fee, it's just odd when comparing to the other services that don't charge anything. Like most of Yodlee's service, the app is just ok and has most features available in the web version. The user interface is bland and somewhat confusing.
| Highlights |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rating | 9.5/10 | 8.5/10 | 6/10 |
| Budgeting | |||
| Investment Monitoring | |||
| Retirement Planning | |||
| Bill Payment | |||
| Manual Entries | |||
| Bill Management | |||
Yodlee vs Mint
When Mint.com was first created, Yodlee was used as the backend. Meaning Mint.com was just a pretty face. Once Intuit purchased the company in 2011, they replaced Yodlee with their in-house synchronization that Quicken also uses. Like Mint.com, Yodlee does have the ability to setup a budget, but the interface isn't as easy to us.
Yodlee MoneyCenter Pros & Cons
[table “proscons” not found /]Summary
While I think their synchronization with financial institutions works very well, their frontend user interface leaves much to be desired. Yodlee's primary business is their backend service and their money-maker. Yodlee's MoneyCenter free service for consumers seems like it's an afterthought.
The unique features available in MoneyCenter, while neat, are not features most individuals care about when using a service like this. In my experience either individuals care about budgeting or monitoring investment performance. With budgeting, Yodlee does an OK job with this, but it's not as intuitive as Mint.com. Yodlee's investing reporting is minimal and would advise against using it for that purpose.
I personally prefer Empower, who uses Yodlee for their financial backend. Unlike Empower, Yodlee is light in the investing section. Though Yodlee is more reliable than Mint.com, and recommend it over Mint.
Yodlee has completely lost the game with new Money. The customer service is the most pathetic i have ever seen. They just respond you with templated messages and no real solution.
Really don’t know who in yodlee decided to release this premature application by killing the really stable Moneycenter. Time to look for Mint.
I have MS linked to my Vanguard account which should be currently updated to combine with both accts. MS update is usually a week or more behind in updating. Yodlee is a really poor excuse in its performance. Isn’t there a competent other choice out there?
Personal Capital which uses Yodlee as the backend.
I agree the new Yodlee is not as good as yodlee lab, recently I got locked out of the account and tried to reset my password but the link they sent me is not visible in explorer, chrome or safari, very disappointed, I still have not been able to view my account
The new Yodlee website is a complete disaster. I’ve used Yodlee at least the last ten years with success, but the new interface is awful. They’ve removed some of the best features (Bill reminders, etc.)
Looks like I’ll be re-visiting my Mint account, ignored so many years. If I can get it to work, I’ll remove all my info from Yodlee.
I have been using Yodlee for well over a decade and their new Yodlee “Money” is literally the worst website I have used in years. Congratulations Yodlee on destroying a once great user experience.
I was one of Yodlee’s alpha / beta testers, going back at least ten years. Today I tried to log in and the service is continuously timing out – another new “feature” :-(. Have faced all the issues others mentioned in this forum- guess time to move on!! What a bummer though.
Haven’t tried other services yet.. will start exploring. Anyone knows if there is a “import” function from other services? I am assuming that they can’t import my UID/ password for individual accounts (duh!), but if another app can at least import the bank and other service’s names and identify them appropriately within the new app, it saves me from tons of typing.
Thanks in advance
It appears to be impossible to sign up for this service now. The site just leads you round and round with nothing to select to actually sign up.
I have been a regular Yodlee user since 2008. In that time I’ve seen it go from a promising service to one that feels like it’s on the verge of collapse.
The biggest issues seem to be around data integrity (is the database held together by bandages?), support (or lack thereof) and strategy.
As an example, here are some issues that I’ve had to deal with in the past year:
1) Transactions duplicated in a single account
2) Transactions from one account duplicated in a second account
3) Pending transactions that remain even when there is a separate cleared transaction
4) Category rules not working at all
5) Auto categorization going from being somewhat intelligent to downright stupid
6) Manually categorized transactions being automatically recategorized to somethinge else
7) Auto bill payment to credit card where the statement showed a credit balance
8) Auto bill payment for one credit card sent to that card AND also send to a different card
9) When going over auto bill pay monthly limit, there is no notice. It just fails to send a payment silently!
There are even more complicated issues that would take far too long to explain here. Dealing with support for any one of these issues will take months, with replies often taking weeks at a time. And in the end, I often seem to go in circles with support with no real resolution.
I’m now evaluating Mint, Quicken, PowerWallet and possibly others so that I can finally leave Yodlee for something that works.
Not Personal Capital? They use Yodlee’s backend.
Hi Larry,
Categorization of expenses is important for me. Quicken allows you to fully customize your categories. Mint and PowerWallet allow you some customization (you can’t edit/delete the main categories and some subcategories, but you can at least add some custom subcategories). Personal Capital seems to have only main categories, no subcategories, and zero customization. I am not considering them for that reason, though I may use them as a secondary account focused only on investments.
Thanks,
Tom
Yodlee has completely lost touch with consumers and essentially butchered a once reliable service. Constantly have data errors,
Yodlee stop alerting me bills over time. And one day I logon take a look and all of sudden, I got a bunch of bills. How useful!
Agree with Jeff, I have used Yodlee for many many years, but over the past 1-2 years, their support service became extremely poor, I placed one time a service request for recurring problem with the service, more than six months elapsed and yet no fix, I emailed them, they sent me a reply that they are looking into the problem.
Highly unrecommended due to poor customer service/maintenance and poor updates. If this works, then it is very good, particularly the investor section
For now, I recommend Mint over Yodlee
I disagree with the the ‘Pro’ that Yodlee’s “Synchronization is much more reliable than Mint’s service.” My family has multiple accounts with an institution that requires an OTP (One Time Password) during on-line sign-on. If you indicate that you are on a private computer, a cookie is stored and you are never asked for an OTP again. Last year, I created memberships with both Yodlee and Mint to track my accounts. The only time I have had to update my credentials at Mint is when I actually changed them at the institution. All Mint transactions are up to date and I receive regular alerts. Alerts from Yodlee, however are few and far between. Once a week, at least, I have to refresh my credentials at Yodlee because the connection is in 518 status. In the process, I have to go through the extra work of submitting an OTP. Yodlee’s cookie logic is clearly not working as well as that used by Mint.
Yodlee Personal Finance is a complete disaster. The interface is extremely slow and difficult to navigate. Accounts constantly fail to update. The forum is mostly dead. There are very few posts dated after 2012. That says a lot. More importantly there are data errors. If a personal finance website can’t handle basic accounting it is time to move on to something else. I entered service requests for my concerns over a year ago. All I ever received from Yodlee were occassional ‘we are looking into this issue’ replies that were clearly auto-generated. The service requests were closed recently because there was nothing to update.
I do not recommend managing your money with Yodlee Personal Finance.