Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
1–10 of 141 posts
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#2+1 for YAML. Thanks for not using JSON.
Now I want to see someone take, say, Tiffany & Co's latest 10-Q⁽¹⁾ and run it through this.
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Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#3No judgement, but can someone explain to me the use case for this sort of thing? I'd imagine for anything other than the simplest stuff, you're going to start using something a bit more powerful, and for the simple stuff - who with the skills and knowledge of this type of tool really needs to do small time pocketbook budgeting?
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#4Pivot and build an accounting API!
If you are interested, drop me an email, I would love to discuss more about fintech (I run a fintech startup)
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#5"Simple - No more confusing debit / credit / asset / liability mumbo jumbo"
It is just "mumbo jumbo" to you because accounting/finance is not your area of expertise.
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#6I think throwing out the terms credit/debit is a mistake. Everyone operates on GAAP and we shouldn't deviate.
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#7No judgement, but can someone explain to me the use case for this sort of thing? I'd imagine for anything other than the simplest stuff, you're going to start using something a bit more powerful, and for the simple stuff - who with the skills and knowledge of this type of tool really needs to do small time pocketbook budgeting?
I'm not sure what your point of reference is for the question, but at least for personal finance tracking I think such tools work well. I have a long history with apps such as Quicken and Mint, and some years ago I migrated to plain text (https://www.ledger-cli.org/) and have not felt any lack of functionality. I think the type of person who would even consider these types of tool also tends to value the flexibility of being able to get data in and out of the system however they want.
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#8I think throwing out the terms credit/debit is a mistake. Everyone operates on GAAP and we shouldn't deviate.
Definitely agree and I think it would have usable if it kept debits/credits.
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#9"Simple - No more confusing debit / credit / asset / liability mumbo jumbo" It is just "mumbo jumbo" to you because accounting/finance is not your area of expertise.
Sure, but that just means they're creating a product for a specific market -- one whose area of expertise isn't accounting or finance. This is something we should encourage, rather than nitpicking the wording.
Re: Show HN: Transity – Plain Text Accounting
#10No judgement, but can someone explain to me the use case for this sort of thing? I'd imagine for anything other than the simplest stuff, you're going to start using something a bit more powerful, and for the simple stuff - who with the skills and knowledge of this type of tool really needs to do small time pocketbook budgeting?
I can't speak to Transity, but I use HLedger for my entity (nothing fancy, just a single member LLC.)
I can keep my ledger in git, I don't need to pay for or even learn to use QuickBooks, I can quickly write a script to import data from basically anywhere, and I can use all the standard tools in my toolbox (grep, diff, python) to visualize and work with the data.
I'm sure mainstream accounting programs add value as the organization grows, but I spent a few minutes playing with Quickbooks and I was ready to just use Excel when I discovered the whole plain text accounting thing. And it's been working well for me.