Cool, happy to hear this! I'll write these articles up soon. Meanwhile, here's a preview of both:
My testing framework is rather rudimentary, but works well: it's just a few shell scripts to run my importers across every ofx I've ever downloaded, and compare the output to reference beancount files. Details, limitations, and such soon, in a post. I use ofxget <https://ofxtools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/client.html#locating-ofxget> (from ofxtools <https://ofxtools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>) to automate the downloads. I'll post soon on some minimal code I use around it to store credentials in `pass`, and such. Perhaps I'll look into to the possibility of doing a screen GIF of my entire workflow so people can compare and see their sticking points in truly getting it down to under 5mins. Privacy is the main issue. On Monday, April 19, 2021 at 3:09:22 PM UTC-7 xen...@gmail.com wrote: > Keeping up with my own finances was lagging behind until I found this set > of posts. They helped me to reduce the overall time it will take to process > everything (though I doubt I'll get it down to 5 minutes like you). > > I'm excited to continue reading about your setup as you publish, but I'm > especially interested in the posts about you testing framework and how > you're automating downloads. > > Thanks for writing this! > > On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 2:27 PM redst...@gmail.com <redst...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Happy it's helpful! Feel free to let me know what else might be helpful >> to discuss here or as comments in the articles. >> >> On Sunday, April 18, 2021 at 10:38:10 AM UTC-7 b...@bben.us wrote: >> >>> Thanks for putting this together! >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 10:22 cha...@gmail.com <cha...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Very well put-together. I will say that for me the thing that made it >>>> easy to stick with Beancount, and plain text accounting in general, is to >>>> simplify my financial life. >>>> >>>> I have one login for my checking/savings/brokerage/retirement/main >>>> credit card acounts, another couple CCs, my mortgage, and just don't track >>>> much other stuff (like airline miles). >>>> >>>> This simplicity also probably stops me from getting into things that >>>> wouldn't be good for my financial life, like day trading :) >>>> >>>> On Friday, April 16, 2021 at 5:23:16 AM UTC-4 redst...@gmail.com wrote: >>>> >>>>> A few years ago, I found Beancount and very quickly understood how >>>>> well it solved many problems in personal finance software that I'd faced >>>>> for years prior. Beancount's extensibility was a core attraction for me, >>>>> and it was clear the software was worth investing in. I started writing >>>>> automation around it for my needs. Today, a bunch of that automation >>>>> works >>>>> surprisingly well, though it's taken effort to get here. >>>>> >>>>> I've started writing up some of my Beancount workflows in the hope >>>>> that it saves others tons of time. The first in this series is ledger >>>>> updates. I'd previously posted this in a thread somewhere, but am >>>>> creating >>>>> a separate thread here, so I can post updates and such. >>>>> >>>>> Link to article series: *The Five-Minute Ledger Update >>>>> <https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/the-five-minute-ledger-update/>* >>>>> >>>>> Extract follow: >>>>> * Problem: Updating Your Ledger is a Pain! * >>>>> >>>>> *That’s right, updating your ledger with data from your financial >>>>> institutions is the most laborious and frustrating part of personal >>>>> finance. It doesn’t need to be so with Beancount, which is the point of >>>>> this series of articles.* >>>>> >>>>> *With a little bit of effort upfront, open source tooling can actually >>>>> be way better than commercial solutions, and far more flexible and >>>>> extensible.* >>>>> >>>>> *Zero Effort Updates* >>>>> >>>>> *The ultimate vision of this set of articles is to have your ledger >>>>> updated automatically with zero effort from you. How close can we get to >>>>> that vision? When I started out, each update would take hours of >>>>> frustrating effort and reconciliation across 60+ accounts at >>>>> institutions. >>>>> So much so, I only did updates once in a few months. After understanding >>>>> why, and developing solutions, I am now at a point where my ledger >>>>> updates >>>>> take well less than five minutes.* >>>>> >>>>> *Bringing it down to under five minutes was critical to making >>>>> personal finance productive and fun, because it lets me get away from >>>>> tinkering, and enables me to focus on the actual finances.* >>>>> >>>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/41514faa-8e6a-4be9-944d-7d8c2f65999an%40googlegroups.com.
