A New Online Tool Offers Small-Business Owners Low-Cost Personal Banker Services Balance Financial acts like a pricey personal banker -- but at a fraction of the cost.

Balance Financial is bringing high-end private banking to the entry-level business--for around $40 a month.

The 15-person, Bellevue, Wash.-based firm with roughly $1.5 million in financing, has created a web-based accounting and personal finance tool that is supported by a living, breathing person. The so-called personal bookkeeper enters data, tracks expenses, updates forms and pays bills--and then marries that information with Balance's own financial management software.

"This business came out of the financial advisory world," says Devon Miller, the company's CEO. "There, we found most people had sophisticated financial software at their disposal, but did not use it properly."