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Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

firefly-iii.org

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#21
post #11

Looks good but the real problem, as for 90% of similar programs, is the volume of necessary data-entry. Paid-for options like YNAB, nowadays, can fetch transactions from many mainstream US/EU banks and credit providers. Without that sort of feature, it's a real drudge to keep up entering every single expense.

Most of these work be giving the application your bank credentials, right? This probably violates the terms and conditions of your bank and gives the application unrestricted access to your account.

Depends. There's a bunch of providers (eg Yodlee) that ask for bank credentials (previously on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18655712) Akoya in US and most European providers use real bank APIs.

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these work be giving the application your bank credentials, right? This probably violates the terms and conditions of your bank and gives the application unrestricted access to your account.

Afaik most use something like Plaid which works with the banks to get this data appropriately.

Plaid does the opposite. It scrapes using your banks credentials.

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#23
I currently use Mint by Intuit. I hate the new UI, the constant ads, and the amount of trust I have to give them (with my bank credentials). I would love to self-host something else that can auto-import all of my transactions. I'll have to check out Saltedge and Nordigen. I might also write my own Plaid API integration. Just as much trust though...

Open banking data APIs sounds like an easy win for regulators, but probably the Intuit lobby would oppose that.

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#24
It seems like someone or something has crashed the demo.

It outputs an error log.

Whoops! An error occurred. Unfortunately, this error was not recoverable :(. Firefly III broke. The error is:

Could not save preference: SQLSTATE[22001]: String data, right truncated: 1406 Data too long for column 'data' at row 1 (SQL: update `preferences` set `data` = [{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:06","notified":false},{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:10","notified":false},{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:15","notified":false},{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:16","notified":false}, ...

My IP was in the list.

Let's just say it is hard to trust a piece of software with my financial data after this.

(I changed all the IP addresses for 00.000.00.00 to preserve some anonymity.)

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#25
post #11

Looks good but the real problem, as for 90% of similar programs, is the volume of necessary data-entry. Paid-for options like YNAB, nowadays, can fetch transactions from many mainstream US/EU banks and credit providers. Without that sort of feature, it's a real drudge to keep up entering every single expense.

Not to mention the companion mobile apps that companies like YNAB provide. It’d be nice to have something self-hosted and hackable, but my spouse won’t want to use it unless the mobile app is good

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#26

It seems like someone or something has crashed the demo. It outputs an error log. Whoops! An error occurred. Unfortunately, this error was not recoverable :(. Firefly III broke. The error is: Could not save preference: SQLSTATE[22001]: String data, right truncated: 1406 Data too long for column 'data' at row 1 (SQL: update `preferences` set `data` = [{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:06","notified":false}…

[deleted]

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#28
post #12

how do Firefly or ActualBudget and the like compare to something like hledger?

It really just depends on how comfortable you are in the command line. If you know how to get your transactions downloaded from your bank and don't ever want to leave the command line, hledger is great for you -- I've been using hledger since 2019 and love every minute of it.

If you need something point and click, or, need a high "wife-acceptance factor," firefly-iii is not a bad choice.

After coming from hledger, I did try firefly, but, stuck with hlegder due to how amazingly powerful it is with nothing but a text input.

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#29
post #11

Looks good but the real problem, as for 90% of similar programs, is the volume of necessary data-entry. Paid-for options like YNAB, nowadays, can fetch transactions from many mainstream US/EU banks and credit providers. Without that sort of feature, it's a real drudge to keep up entering every single expense.

Not sure about Firefly, but I use KMyMoney. Is there a bank/CC where you can import via YNAB and not via KMyMoney and similar software?

Re: Firefly III: A free and open-source finance manager

#30

It seems like someone or something has crashed the demo. It outputs an error log. Whoops! An error occurred. Unfortunately, this error was not recoverable :(. Firefly III broke. The error is: Could not save preference: SQLSTATE[22001]: String data, right truncated: 1406 Data too long for column 'data' at row 1 (SQL: update `preferences` set `data` = [{"ip":"00.000.00.00","time":"2022-05-30 20:02:06","notified":false}…

Completely agree...
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