Comment by kleebeesh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kleebeesh | Hacker News Reader

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I've been using firefly over two years now. Data entry has not been been a problem:

* Run the data-importer as a separate container. Takes maybe 20 minutes to configure correctly if you already know docker and docker-compose.

* Download the transactions as CSVs from each of my 5 or so credit card and bank accounts that get regular use.

* Upload them through the data-importer. It lets you configure and save settings for each CSV format. I took five minutes to set that up the first time I imported CSVs and just keeping using the same settings.

I upload all of my transactions once a month and it takes about an hour to download them, import them, and categorize all of them (I also have a bunch of rules to auto-categorize, but there are inevitably a dozen or so bespoke transactions).

I've found that any of the solutions built on top of syncing backends like Plaid inevitably have issues: duplicates, missing txs, debit/credit mixed up. I even built my own custom Plaid-to-Firefly syncer at one point and found the data quality was very mixed, even when all my accounts are at major US banks. The data-importer takes some more up-front work, but it's more secure, way more predictable, and generally a solved problem.

I just never could bring myself to enter my bank password into Plaid.

Sure “everyone does it”, but most banks have disclaimers in their terms of service that if you lose money because your password was compromised through password sharing they aren’t liable for that loss.

I instead built a series of playwright scripts to automate signing into my bank accounts and downloading the CV, then importing (to lunch money, but I might take a look at this later as an option).

Chase is the only US bank I know that provides a proper API for plaid to connect to (plaid redirects you to chase.com for login, you acknowledge, and then give plaid an oauth token for read-only access). I don't have an impression that chase is particular tech-savvy comparing to other banks and I wonder why other banks cannot support this.

The EU has an open banking API regulation that requires banks to make such an API available, without having to do password sharing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/europes-new-api-...

There's no reason (beyond the general dysfunction of our legislature) that the US couldn't pass a similar law. Failing to do so is holding back out banking industry and making us all dramatically less secure.

We desperately need to mandate banks provide this kind of access. It's absolutely ludicrous that I don't have a way to give various services READ-ONLY access to my bank account information. It seems intolerable to me that I would have to give WRITE access to Plaid for them to enable someone to categorize my transactions.

What a nuisance

I appreciate the breakdown but I think you’re out of touch with how easy auto-import has become for most PF software users. They just see whatever new transactions have come in, as often as they care to look at their budgets. Like checking email.

Maybe out of touch. I've used them all (Mint, ynab, pocketsmith, buxfer, some google-sheets-based app, probably tried a dozen others). All of the auto-sync features had obvious bugs. It works for a few months and then you end up with junk data. But if it works for you, carry on!

My best guess is you have an unusual data source most don't have. I wasn't describing an anecdotal experience but the reliability in aggregate.

Contra anecdote: been using auto import with YNAB for years with multiple accounts and never had junk data. At least, not of that means the data is wrong/corrupt.

The two issues I have had:

1. Have to reauthorize bank connection, but that's Plaid's issue I guess.

2. Payee names are all over the place because it's often the merchant name. I used to try and fix these and only have a single page payee for each entity, but gave up.

Side question, why are merchant names always so cryptic?

this sounds like such a pain in the ass just to do my finances when other tools do it all for me…

I guess it comes down to the tradeoffs you're willing to accept for privacy. I personally find it quite sketchy that Plaid takes your username and password to your literal money and then does some opaque screen-scraping just to grab your transactions. I also spent a lot of time working with their API and it did not inspire confidence.

Not really their fault. The banks fault.

I have two banks and one CC that use an OAuth type system now.

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