How you can track your personal finances using Python
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Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#2I'm not really sure about the python aspect in this article however I've been using beancount and Fava for nearly 3 years now and it's one of my favourite pieces of software. Outside of installing it I've never had to really think about python.
All of my financial history is contained in a text file processed by beancount and long may it continue!
One thing I do wonder though is how well it scales, I'm a single man so tracking everything isn't too much effort but if I had a partner it suddenly becomes at least 50% more things to track
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#3I'm not really sure about the python aspect in this article however I've been using beancount and Fava for nearly 3 years now and it's one of my favourite pieces of software. Outside of installing it I've never had to really think about python. All of my financial history is contained in a text file processed by beancount and long may it continue! One thing I do wonder though is how well it scales, I'm a single man s…
You didn't have to write any Python to import transactions from your bank?
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#4hledger is another open-source CLI tool for accounting that works amazingly well for me. You can add transactions editing in plain text too and there is a basic web UI on top of it.
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#5Regarding "1. Download transactions from your bank" - to avoid having to deal with PDFs, it's possible to use account aggregators to fetch your own bank data in Python-friendly formats like JSON.
We have this feature at Nordigen (I'm the cofounder), where we allow developers to download their bank statements in JSON format from 1,000+ European banks (free): https://nordigen.com/en/blog/download-your-bank-statement-js...
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#6I'm not really sure about the python aspect in this article however I've been using beancount and Fava for nearly 3 years now and it's one of my favourite pieces of software. Outside of installing it I've never had to really think about python. All of my financial history is contained in a text file processed by beancount and long may it continue! One thing I do wonder though is how well it scales, I'm a single man s…
You didn't have to write any Python to import transactions from your bank?
I have some custom code to convert CSV files downloaded from my bank to beancounts text format, but it is all dotNet code since that is what I know the text format is easy to work with
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#7a REST API such as: https://plaid.com/
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#8a REST API such as: https://plaid.com/
Plaid has serious privacy and security concerns, so I would be careful:
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#9I'm thinking about a PF app concept where you enter your own transactions manually, but you don't have to keep track of everything down to the cent.
At the end of every month, banks send out statements so importing all transactions aren't necessary to keep track of one's overall financial standing.
Banks do make mistakes but extremely rarely that it's not worth wanting to import all transactions in the off chance that you'll catch a mistake. Retailers can make mistakes like double charge you but again those are rare and you can take a quick look at your statements to find them usually.
Keeping track of individual transactions are important to be able to figure out where the money is going in general but this doesn't require keeping track of 'every' transaction. Just the ones that make up the biggest percentage of the total money spent. They are usually easy to spot on the bank/creditcard statements.
One doesn't even have to be perfectly accurate to gain from inspecting statements either. You spent $834.56 for new tires? You can enter that as $850 and it's fine.
Sure, there might be cases where the total is split more or less evenly across several small transactions and that can be handled similarly to the above.
Knowing where the money is going isn't terribly useful actually unless there are a lot of frivolous spendings. It usually comes down to "you are not making enough money" or "the lifestyle you desire is too expensive for your current income". No app can fix either of these, other than point out the obvious problem. Most personal finance blogs end up leaning towards "how to earn more" because that's more important than keeping track of your transactions or budgeting.
Re: How you can track your personal finances using Python
#10hledger is another open-source CLI tool for accounting that works amazingly well for me. You can add transactions editing in plain text too and there is a basic web UI on top of it.
And hledger is based on the original https://www.ledger-cli.org/ which is also a great option for CLI accounting.