Actual Budget appreciation post 💙 reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-02 22:23 When I was looking around for a replacement for YNAB about a year ago I tried a few apps like Firefly III and some others but they were either ugly, a huge workflow change, abandoned or some combination. I found Actual Budget and while it was not perfect it was as close to a 1:1 replacement for YNAB as I could find (the original YNAB not the newer direction with changes that did not work for me). In the last year or so Actual Budget has seen a LOT of development and had [added a TON of features and improvements](https://actualbudget.org/docs/releases/). IMO it's significantly better than YNAB now and has all the core features I loved about YNAB plus more. It's truly excellent if you like the YNAB workflow / features. Kudos to the contributors! [https://actualbudget.org](https://actualbudget.org) Hopefully this isn't considered a 'shill' as per the rules. I have no affiliation with the project I just truly love it and am massively impressed with what they've done with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ANDROID_16 · 2023-12-02 22:41 I love it. I even submitted a feature request that got implemented only a release or two later! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Raithmir · 2023-12-02 22:44 First I've heard of it. I've been playing around with Firefly but yeah, the interface isn't great and takes some getting used to. This looks very interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fragileanus · 2023-12-02 23:01 Yep, I'm a huge fan. I'm so glad it got picked up by a strong group of devs! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-02 23:12 I tried firefly briefly and found the way it's designed to work very cumbersome and the workflow is just very different than what I'm used to a prefer from apps like YNAB, which feel very natural and intuitive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-02 23:13 Totally, it seemed to be kind of fizzling out when I started using it which had me worried but there was just nothing else at the time that fit my criteria and preferences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sexyshingle · 2023-12-02 23:47 man, I'd been playing around with Hledger but maybe checking this out might help me finally get a budget going... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-02 23:50 Jesus is Hledger a completely CLI based finance tool? I'm no stranger to the CLI or coding but I don't think I could ever do that. I don't get how that would be a nice experience. lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PunyDev · 2023-12-03 00:10 I saw there are mentions of __mobile__ in the release notes. Is that referring to the mobile view of web app? Or is there mobile app for download? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sexyshingle · 2023-12-03 00:15 well yes, mostly CLI-based, but you can also edit and do stuff directly to the text data, or spin up the web UI for it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icannotfindnow · 2023-12-03 00:23 What are you using to import bank data? I am just getting started and it looks like my only option is csv files from my bank. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ScoobyDoo27 · 2023-12-03 00:28 It’s a web app. Before it went open sourced there were mobile apps but they no longer exist. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- n3w57ake · 2023-12-03 00:32 Just for my clarification (as I couldn't find the term anywhere in the two links provided): as you're comparing your tool with YNAB, does it mean it is a "budget-to-zero" type? That would be great, as I am stuck now with [Everydollar](https://www.ramseysolutions.com/ramseyplus/everydollar), which has a lot to desire ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 00:37 They don't seem to use that term in their doc but I think basically yes. The Budget page basically starts with your total income or available funds for the month and gets whittled away at as you assign money to budget categories. [https://actualbudget.com/#features](https://actualbudget.com/#feature s) AFAIK it works basically identical to YNAB though as mentioned the 'old' YNAB where you could decided to carry over balances to the next month in budget categories but you'd have to see if it fits exactly what you mean. I still don't get why they removed that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 00:39 That's all I use and actually prefer it. YNAB was always broke in some way with my credit union import and I had to do my main account manually anyways. Like YNAB it supports Quicken, MS money and a bunch of other more robust formats which is what I use. Honestly even if it supported some kind of cloud service import smoothly I probably would not use it. I don't want my transactions flowing through a 3rd party anymore and it kinds of defaults part of the point of self hosted TBH. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdvancingAardvark · 2023-12-03 01:24 It depends where your banks are located. There's 3rd party tools for US / Candian banks (Plaid, SimpleFin) as well as the built-in GoCardless for European banks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-03 01:26 cli/tui are epic, honestly. Much less visual crud to wade through. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 01:34 Actual Budget is very light on visual 'crud' IMO. The UI never feels cluttered to me and everything is of value. It's basically just a spreadsheet with a few extra features tailored to finances. Very clean I find. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SoMuchLasagna · 2023-12-03 01:53 This has always been my question since they went open source space – is there a version or a fork that has some sort of integration with either plaid or another service that will automatically pull new transactions as they clear? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-12-03 02:07 I'll agree that the screenshot you posted is fairly clean, but my comment was more referring to general trends in UI design. I am legally blind. I loathe most webuis. Especially material design. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 02:07 There is some kind of 3rd party cloud integration for importing yeah. I don't want to use those systems so I don't know much about it but there is one. It's not Plaid, I forget the name. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Regis_DeVallis · 2023-12-03 02:27 Does it auto import my accounts or do I need to manually upload CSVs? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 02:39 See see discussion [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/s/eQRakxdeMp) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PiIot · 2023-12-03 02:42 unless you pay cash for everything, I think you'd be quite surprised by the amount of 3rd parties your transactions "flow through" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RamblngParenthetical · 2023-12-03 02:54 I'm not familiar with Actual Budget but the home page you linked says: >Community importers are also available for Plaid and SimpleFIN (US/Canada). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 03:02 Oh neat. That must be a more recent addition since I last looked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kingbird43 · 2023-12-03 03:03 Its really a great project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 03:11 Doesn't mean we should willingly hand over our data to yet another one for some minor convenience, IMO. I'm also not keen on the security side of things which often involves giving them your actual credentials for your banking institution. Sure it's "safe" (so they say) because presumably things are encrypted, etc but banks have very clear language most of the time stating they're not responsible for lost funds if your account is compromised because you gave our your credentials. IMO it's not really any different than any other cloud hosted thing in terms of your data but being it's my financial data it gives an extra level of "ick". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cptthumper · 2023-12-03 03:25 I made the switch a few months ago. I love the mobile page . Carrying my budget with me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Superiorem · 2023-12-03 03:33 I just spun up the Docker container and it looks great! Unfortunately, it doesn't support automatic syncing with United States banks. Does anyone have suggestions for a self-hosted dashboard which automatically displays the balance of savings, checking, and investment accounts? I don't need budgeting features. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pfak · 2023-12-03 03:38 Would love to see something more akin to HomeBank .. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lannistersstark · 2023-12-03 03:57 I'm kinda curious with the active/passive budgeting system this is v firefly. Anyone try both and have a poopinion? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BitterSparklingChees · 2023-12-03 04:00 Automatic syncing with US banks is nigh impossible without something like plaid. You can sign up for a developer plaid account and get syncing that way though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Judman13 · 2023-12-03 04:26 I looked into all the self hosted options for budgeting like actual budget and firefly III. I ended up with a non-selfhosted (sacrilege I know) solution called lunch money. It serves all my needs at a very reasonable price. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icannotfindnow · 2023-12-03 04:34 Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Icannotfindnow · 2023-12-03 04:40 That is a salient point. I didn't think about the 3rd party apps from that perspective. That brings up some privacy/security concerns for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ElitePowerGamer · 2023-12-03 07:14 It definitely seems like a viable alternative! Does it have something like Goals/Targets from YNAB though? That's basically my favourite feature from the web version of YNAB. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stappersg · 2023-12-03 08:11 And I, from Europe, never heard of [YNAB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YNAB) nor about [this firefly](https://www.firefly-iii.org/). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greenglazed · 2023-12-03 08:31 I'm using this to sync my US accounts to Actual: https://github.com/duplaja/actual-simplefin-sync Simplefin is $15 a year. Works well, requires a bit of tinkering to set up but if you're comfortable with docker level complexity and can use google you'll be fine. Check the Actual discord for advice - https://discord.com/invite/2eBDZycZ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- giopas · 2023-12-03 09:26 What about automatic synching with EU banks, instead? Is there any software able to do so (or a way to achieve the same)? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BeneditoDeEspinozist · 2023-12-03 14:07 I must be doing something wrong; I’ve set up the docker container on two different machines to try it out, but in both cases I could not access it via other machines on my network. The first machine was an M1 Mac Mini and the second was the default install on CasaOS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrjfilippo · 2023-12-03 15:18 I'm not in the EU, but yes you can. Just follow the [wiki](https://actualbudget.org/docs/advanced/bank-sync#gocardless- setup). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 16:26 They have a very robust (IMO) goal system https://actualbudget.org/docs/experimental/goal-templates Considered experimental still but I’ve had zero issues with it so far. I’ve been able to use CTRL+ to undo the templates easily too. Needs some polish but it’s there and has a lot of flexibility. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cS47f496tmQHavSR · 2023-12-03 17:30 I've been using Actual for just tracking my expenses, but I don't think it's ready for actual budgeting yet. Coming from YNAB, it's still missing a fair number of QoL features, such as being able to select a row by clicking on it (rather than having to click the checkbox on the far left), and in the budget view being able to see info about a specific category (like current month spent vs previous month) and copying per-category from last month or zeroing the balance easily. Aside from that, it's also missing some actual big features like budget goals, and the reports it has are mediocre and not super informative. It also doesn't really do loan payments very well, as in it works but it doesn't even show how many payments are left or what the end date will be like. Don't get me wrong, I love Actual and I've moved away from YNAB antirely, but I am very much lacking some features. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cS47f496tmQHavSR · 2023-12-03 17:31 Which is ironic, given that Firefly is being made by a Dutch developer, so it's literally a European product ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cS47f496tmQHavSR · 2023-12-03 17:33 Firefly is great in that it's a fully from-scratch open source take on expense tracking, but it really isn't meant to be a replacement for YNAB or similar. The fact that it relies on a separate CSV importer or a third party to pull in info rather than having it configurable from within the app itself is already a massive hurdle, and it doesn't help that it can't even do very basic things like bulk fixing transactions that weren't set up with rules yet. It just doesn't have good UX, and that's hard to overcome for something you actually want to use ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 18:11 >and copying per-category from last month or zeroing the balance easily. > >Aside from that, it's also missing some actual big features like budget goals, and the reports it has are mediocre and not super informative. It also doesn't really do loan payments very well, as in it works but it doesn't even show how many payments are left or what the end date will be like. The feature won't solve all your issues but have you checked out their 'experimental' budget templating feature? It covers some of that and I've used it quiet successfully so far. [https://actualbudget.org/docs/experimental/goal- templates](https://actualbudget.org/docs/experimental/goal-templates) There's also this... https://actualbudget.org/docs/experimental/monthly-cleanup I agree it's pretty lacking on the report side but IMO that's less important than the work they have done up until this point. They've made huge progress in stabilizing and improving the core functionality and getting a lot of important things up to snuff. I think there will be more focus on reports as things move forward. To me the reports are less important to the core functionality, for now, because they can be relatively easily supplemented via Google Sheets or Excel whereas the core functions can't or not as easily / reliably. Looking forward to see what they add in the future! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 18:13 Way more context needed. Is this the first time you've tried this kind of setup? i.e. do you already have other docker containers running on that machine that are accessible from other devices on your network? Are you using the correct port at the end of the url? etc... Actual Budget works the same as all other services I've spun up via Docker. Nothing special about it vs other Docker services. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PiIot · 2023-12-03 18:46 Adopting a more binary perspective on privacy and security has made life much simpler for me. The realization that we lack control over any upstream decisions pertaining to our financial data's distribution implies that there's always a risk of it being traded off to the highest bidder without our consent. With this fact in mind, you can then consider all of that same financial data compromised from a privacy perspective - it will never be private. True financial privacy is hard, and generally involves some sort of crime. Why nitpick/worry about financial data privacy when in reality you have 0 say in who gets to view it. Following best security practices to make sure you are not the lowest hanging fruit to a malicious actor is another thing though. I'd be worried about choosing a bank who doesn't use modern practices, i.e. oidc, and requires you to simply have a username/password for making adjustments to your finances. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BeneditoDeEspinozist · 2023-12-03 19:13 I’m running Plex, most of the *arr suite, qbittorrent, DizqueTV, PodGrab, Tailscale, et al on those servers, so certainly not an expert, but not exactly a beginner. All of those services are accessible both on my network and via Tailscale. Accessing it via localhost:5006 works, but accessing from another machine via 192.168.1.72:5006 or via Tailscale loads the background and spinner but nothing else ever loads. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-03 20:52 Ah, I thought you weren't able to reach it at all, that's different. It could be this. They introduced a requirement for https at one point so it will work from localhost but not remotely, which does seem to match your symptoms. Though you should be getting a warning about https, maybe that's just not loading for some reason. [https://actualbudget.org/docs/config/https/](https://actualbudget.org /docs/config/https/) If that's not it then make sure you're using the correct project / image. The old version was split into two containers (back end and front end, I think?) but the new one is just a single container. There still a mixture of setup examples floating around online. This is the one you want. Probably the on you're using but just in case... https://github.com/actualbudget/actual-server/blob/master/docker- compose.yml ---------------------------------------------------------------------- audero · 2023-12-04 00:33 I’m working on a bit of python to interact with the Actual Node API (I don’t know JS lol). My bank has its own REST API so hoping to get my transactions into Actual in real time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guesswhochickenpoo · 2023-12-04 00:43 That’s pretty sweet. It’s nice some banks are starting to provide that but many are not. The banking industry in general is traditionally pretty old school. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-04 05:01 I have been experimenting it for a week. Having hard time setting up initial configuration. Finally I’m almost done except auto sync with simplefin. I wish they add to their official support ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-04 05:04 Are you in the discord? I run into some errors while trying to do setup node is. Could you reply in the discord server. I have support thread in there ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greenglazed · 2023-12-04 14:19 I am, but I don't see it. Hopefully someone will help out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-04 14:20 Does it sync accounts individually or all in once? What about the balance? I have 7+ banks with 20 accounts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- greenglazed · 2023-12-04 14:23 If I recall correctly it doesn't grab balances, you need to set a starting balance in actual. Simplefin updates with my accounts about once a day - I then have the script set to run on a cron job every six hours, so if there's an update from simplefin, it then updates Actual. So basically once a day, all at once for any new transactions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alekslyse · 2023-12-04 23:49 I am still on the fence. I have actual installed next to firefly iii and ynab running. All of them is giving something the others don’t. Ynab is probably the most complete and user friendly option, especially for Americans. Actual has come a long way, but the mobile ui is very limited and tbh I am not a fan of the layout. I would like to see a bit more design and ease of life design, not flat form based. Firefly is flexible, but it’s very set in its way. Its hard to get started and its a big infrastructure to load. The design is not very good, though the abracus app makes it look much better, but is lacking on functionality. I want to love firefly, but probably won’t be my daily driver. I really want to love actual, but its still in development and have so much missing. Since its an open API it’s possible to make it a bit more clever at l and I hope some will do an alternative UI Ynab is currently the best, but for eu banks require some extra work. Visually its superb, but they are not listening to their followers. So to sum up I think Actual is the best compromise when things like rules etc come to the mobile client/webui and have integrated some more design elements. I will look into of I can contribute something ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Educational-Hold-321 · 2023-12-05 08:02 Second this. I’ve setup docker successfully and can access Actual but can’t for the life of me figure out how to setup SimpleFin sync bridge in Synology. The documents are all over the place and need updating for sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-05 11:59 Auto sync works for me now. I had SSL enabled as that’s the only way mobile web was working. After disabling ssl via command prompt temp, it worked ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Educational-Hold-321 · 2023-12-05 12:24 Mind sending link to disable that? Really trying to get sync to work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-05 13:29 Are you in the discord server? Please have a look. DM me there. IamTimon is my user name there. There are many people there who helps you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1amTimon · 2023-12-05 13:30 “Set NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0” Run this in command prompt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ScootMulner · 2023-12-05 15:53 Thanks for posting this. I had tried Actual Budget shortly after the free self-hosted option became available and didn’t like it… I remember the import process from YNAB wasn’t great and I just didn’t enjoy it much. I grabbed the latest docker version to test it out again and wow has it got a lot better! Import from YNAB was super smooth and grabbed EVERYTHING! I had all my stuff, accounts, transactions, budget, etc. going back to when I started using YNAB. I was up and running on Actual Budget in a few min. I think the only thing that I’ll miss with YNAB was the iOS app since it allowed me to quickly add transactions on the go. The app would use the GPS to guess which store was I was standing in which was nice. Anyway, nice work Actually Budget development crew!