Last year, after looking at solutions in the space and deciding none jived with me, I built a #PersonalFinance management app in #PHP.
@BeeTurland and I have been using it for nearly a year now. It's been a great help, but could still be a lot better. And, while it works, the source code is also a bit of a mess.
Now that the overall concept has born out as useful, I want to rewrite it, and ideally release it as #OSS. And I think I'd rather not do it alone.
Anyone interested in collaborating?
@chrisarter Not that familiar with Simple, but yeah, it does sound pretty similar. 🙂
Something like recurring transactions and/or templated batches of transactions (e.g. to make paying a bunch of bills at once easier) was a feature addition I had in mind.
Another possibility is integration with something like Plaid for potentially more real-time data and to minimize data entry required by the user.
@chrisarter I drew from past experiences using ledger when building the first iteration of this.
https://matthewturland.com/2014/03/29/ledger-basics-and-habits/
Compared to ledger, my iteration is relatively simplified in a number of ways (e.g. no hierarchical category support, no currency exchange support, transactions only support two postings, etc).
I'm hoping to make it more robust in terms of feature offerings, ideally in an iterative fashion so that a first version can be delivered to prospective users sooner.
@chrisarter With regards to the backend, I was thinking of starting by creating an OpenAPI specification, as that can be then used to generate documentation, to handle validating requests and responses, and to generate structured client libraries in other languages, among other things. 🙂
As you can probably tell, I have no shortage of ideas for this project. I just have limited time and energy that I can devote to it. It would progress further and faster if I had help to design and build it.
@chrisarter @elazar didn't Simple get bought like over a year ago?
I switched to Monarch Money when that happened, and I use it with Wealthfront and One.
@elazar One Finance and Wealthfront are banking institutions, but both offer features I liked from Simple.
After my frustrations with Simple shutting down, I also tried Aspiration Bank, but they had a data breach and didn't disclose it, then I decided to diversify even my checking/savings.
@elazar A self-hosted solution is a great idea, but does that allow you to automatically pull data from all your accounts?
That's one of the things I really like about Monarch, is I linked all my accounts via Plaid.
Wealthfront has one feature I wish Monarch did, which is projecting how big events will affect when I can retire - for example, when we decided to move, I entered the projected home sale / purchase into Wealthfront, and it showed me what would happen to my ability to retire at 65.
Definitely interested in collaborating. I don't know how much time I will have though, but do keep me in mind if you need help.
@nickistre To start with, I'm mainly interested in gaining a broad perspective in how this project could work, how prospective users would actually use it, etc. since my use cases are likely relatively few or different compared to others.
Once goals for the project are better established, work can probably be divided up to whoever wants it to do on a relatively lax async basis. 🙂
@elazar @BeeTurland I'm curious how it gets bank data (if it does)?
That's one big stumbling block here in Canada for software like this. Banks simply don't have APIs, it seems. Screen scraping is usually the only way to get data, and naturally introduces major infosec issues.
@elazar @BeeTurland I'd certainly be interested in lending a hand - as well as being a user!
Not a huge fan of big banking orgs sharing my financial data around... so something self-hosted would be great!
Cool project! You'll see a link in my profile. Originally written in 2003 in #classicASP, T-SQL, I rewrote it in 2017 with a C# .NET API backend and a jQuery front-end. (I'm old 🤣.)
Similarly I've been managing transactions manually for 19 years! But my recurring reminders / placeholders do a lot of heavy lifting to make it less painful.
I'll be watching and happy to help if I can in some way.
@neogodless Wonderful! Added you to my list of interested folks.
Also, my career started pre-jQuery. My first web dev job was with classic ASP as well. So, we're both old. 😉
@hunter My first iteration on the idea allows @BeeTurland and I to quickly enter transactions as they happen, search them by account, reconcile them against CSV exports from financial institutions, and view available funds for credit accounts based on assigned limits.
I'd definitely like to expand the feature set beyond that, though. Take a look at some of my replies in this thread if you're interested. 🙂
@elazar currently, I'm running GNUCash for my family's small business. At some point found Akaunting and interested in hosting one but I don't think it is what I need.
Finished reading what you have in mind. Multi-tenancy and mobile interface would be awesome!
Matthew Turland
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