What does HackerNews think of ledger-autosync?
Synchronize your ledger-cli files with your bank.
In fact, someone also wrote a book on this - https://leanpub.com/personal-accounting-in-ledger/
I will defer if you are indeed building your own competing tool in this space which is better, but holding to the original point of my request - maybe it will be incremental to support your format if ledger-cli format is supported today. versus not supporting any disk format (or inventing a new one).
[1] https://groups.google.com/g/ledger-cli/search?q=double%20ent...
There's an Open Financial Exchange (OFX) standard that's supposed to be for this, I think. I came across it when someone mentioned the ledger-autosync [1] tool that tries to use it to get your data from your bank automatically. If I understand correctly (no guarantee on that), this automation would work for institutions listed here [2].
[1] https://github.com/egh/ledger-autosync [2] http://www.ofxhome.com/index.php/home/directory/successfulRe...
[1] https://github.com/egh/ledger-autosync [2] http://www.ofxhome.com/index.php/home/directory/successfulRe...
I'm currently using ledger-autosync (https://github.com/egh/ledger-autosync) to import OFX/QFX files. For some banks it can automatically pull the data using ofxclient (https://github.com/captin411/ofxclient) but for most of my bank accounts this is broken and I need to manually download the OFX file before importing with ledger-autosync. It works OK, I wish I didn't have to do the manual download, but the simplicity of the setup is nice.
I've read of other setups using Plaid or Puppeteer to download their data. Would be interested to hear about what other people are currently using in mid-late 2019 to pull their financial data.
Ledger likes are not for everyone. I'd actually say they not for most people, but I truly love the simplicity and flexibility. But I'd be using a text based email client if it wasn't for everyone sending html emails, so I'm a bit weird. That said having plain text files that you can manipulate is amazing. I don't know why but with Gnu-cash I was always unsure about using import tools and trashing my db. But with hledger I can try something and just roll back in mercurial if I don't like it. I'm sure I could have made copies of my Gnu-Cash files but I just feel more in control of hledger. Also hledger allows for things like automated transaction that simplify envelope budgeting.
With auto sync and hledger, I've gone from my budget taking 1 - 2 hours a week to 10 - 20mins. No more hunting for that one typo that meant my budget didn't balance with my bank balance.
Hledger has also been fantastic as far as help. I've jumped on IRC a few times for help and bug reports. The lead dev has been amazing. Fixing bugs the same day and offering help on using hledger.
There are some great resources here https://plaintextaccounting.org/
Auto sync is here https://github.com/egh/ledger-autosync Hledger is here http://hledger.org/ How to do envelope budgeting with ledger likes https://frdmtoplay.com/envelope-budgeting-with-ledger/
My "entry" work is modifying some categories that it gets wrong.
I don't fully understand your situation, so I'm not expecting it necessarily solve your entry problems. I'm only raising awareness.
> I don't. After a while I found it's not worth the effort. I rarely make financial decisions based on how much I spent on beers and sandwiches, so most of these little things are just subsumed in Expenses:Cash.
Agree completely - when keeping track of expenses, it is only worth tracking the numbers that matter to you. If it won't effect your decisions, don't bother tracking.