this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
331 points (99.4% liked)

Selfhosted

39866 readers
456 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Not affiliated in any way with Actual Budget, but I can't recommend it enough. It's the FOSS version of YNAB pretty much so if you're a fan of envelope budgeting it's a great tool. I'd even say it has quite a few other strengths compared to YNAB (free bank syncing in the EU with more banks supported for example), and you can always be sure that your financial data stays within your reach.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

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. It works pretty well, though sometimes the banks fuck with stuff and seem hell bent on breaking any kind of API access, but SimpleFIN support was really responsive for me to get it fixed when it happened. I do also have to reauthenticate my bank every day when I want to sync, but that's also just the banks being assholes and isn't too bad to do.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Tried it and it works pretty well! I'll have to keep playing with it, but so far so good!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

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 rebalance my investment accounts. I might look into it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I think it's all read-only access through, so you can only use it to import data not make new transactions.

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") that'll keep the account balanced based on some percentages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Not sure if it tracks like your actual portfolio breakdown, it might have access to that info but for Actual Budget it just shows the balance on the account.