For me personally, it was easier to just write a few python scripts to parse the CSV files from my banks.
Comment on Actual Budget is a fantastic FOSS budgeting tool that you can self-host
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 weeks ago
The number one thing that most of these don’t do well for me is the connection with banks. You mentioned that there is bank syncing, how well does that work? Can I say, just click my bank and do an oauth connection, and it will store it? I really loved Mint, and essentially want it to be done the same way
Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
sandwichsaregood@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In the US it has integration with SimpleFIN. SimpleFIN isn’t free but it’s pretty cheap ($1.50/mo) and supports most banks out there, even my obscure local credit union.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 weeks ago
How well do you find it works? I’m not afraid of the fee, but I don’t want to spend time setting it up and paying the fee to only find out that it won’t do most things
jj122@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
Worked really well for me, just put in an API key to actual budget and it pulls all the info from simple fin. Only thing that doesn’t pull for me it categories of the transactions so you have to manually set them up in actual but it does allow for rules.
gdog05@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I started using Actual about a week ago. Setup SimpleFin in a few seconds within a couple of minutes actual was auto populated. I ran into a syncing snag and messaged Simple Fin support. They worked with my credit union and I was all good in a couple of hours. Been running smoothly ever since. I really like it. And I don’t have the guilt of not budgeting anymore. Plus, ynab tutorials and advice are basically Actual tutorials.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 weeks ago
Tried it and it works pretty well! I’ll have to keep playing with it, but so far so good!
sandwichsaregood@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Has worked really well for me. Like I mentioned I’ve had a couple instances where the banks change their login flow and I had to open a support ticket to get it fixed, but they (SimpleFIN) were very responsive in working on it when I opened a support request and had it fixed within a couple days. Two of my accounts also have to be re-authenticated every time I wanna pull data into Actual, but that’s also the banks’ fault and it’s not that big of a deal to do.
As for integration with Actual is basically flawless and just works. Setup is super easy, just paste in a token from SimpleFIN and boom you see all the accounts you have linked and can attach them to accounts in Actual. Sync is rock solid too, I don’t have any issues with it messing up transactions with duplicates etc.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
Does SimpleFIN use OAuth to log into bank accounts, or do you need to enter your bank’s username and password?
Unrelated to this post, but do you know if SimpleFIN supports investment accounts? If it does, it seems like an easy way to let me write a script to help me rebalanced my investment accounts. I might look into it.
sandwichsaregood@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It varies by bank but for all mine you have to use the username and password unfortunately. My understanding is that it’s just how the underlying bank APIs work in general, because that’s what I have to do when I link accounts for my banks elsewhere too, not just in SimpleFIN. I don’t think they actually store your credentials though, I think it proxies it to the bank login and then caches a token. You can probably ask their support about the details if you’re concerned, they have been pretty responsive to me and willing to answer technical questions.
It does support investment accounts, I have my retirement and investment accounts in there. It supports just about every account I have, actually, credit cards included which is super handy. I think it’s all read-only access through, so you can only use it to import data not make new transactions.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
That’s alright. Even read-only access is useful. I could write a script that pulls my current investments, prompts for the amount I’ll be investing in total, and prints out the buys (eg “buy 10 x VOO, 5 x VXF, 20 x VXUS”)