Linux

I have used GNUCash for maybe a decade (sounds impossible to me) but it's actually difficult to get much out of it for all the data one puts in. I'm in the XML data store I think, so maybe the SQL data implementation is better.

The graphs are ok and correctly setting up sub accounts as virtual envelopes within your normal account for your current account allows you to replicate the buckets/envelopes/spaces in, say, Starling bank (UK bank which sells its software to other banks as hussle).

I'm looking to set up something like Actual Budget (server) going forward.

I use Buckets . It's a small 1 person freeware, dev asks for a 30 dollar one time donation but it isn't mandatory. It's based on the software and idealogy of ynab which enshittified several years ago. The learning resources of ynab should be mostly compatible but I haven't looked at it in a while.

It interopts with simplefin, an open source tool that reads your bank transactions and gives read only access to buckets. It costs 10dollars per year to use their servers. It creates some annoying quirks that is mostly the fault of my bank but its passable. The app can also take csv files if you would prefer (which most banks allow you to export).

I use firefly-iii. You can setup rules and import from csv files. I even have it integrated with enablebanking so it is fully automatic.

There are also mobile apps that will work with your own server.

MoneyManager EX. It is the closest FOSS application I've seen to Quicken. Imports bank statements, catagorize different expenses, monthly budgets . .

https://moneymanagerex.org/

Linux, Windows, Android, iOS versions all available.

I manually add receipts from my partner and myself to a CSV file, too. I have a custom R scripts to calculate the monthly contribution. This way we can see who paid more/less each month and needs to componsate.

In the future I want to plot graphs to see how we are affected by inflation over the past years.

Here are your choices to try out yourself and see if they can do what you need:

• GnuCash (distro support, flatpak)
• HomeBank (distro support)
• KMyMoney (distro support, appimage, flatpak)
• ActualBudget ( https://actualbudget.org/ , appimage, flatpak)
• Denaro (the newest on the block with modern UI, flatpak)

And for Android:

• IvyWallet

Great question I've been wondering the same thing. I've been using a spreadsheet with some fancy lookup sheets for far too long, which results in only one 'category' of expenses ever being tracked.

I've been using Homebank for years now and I'm very happy with it. Download transaction data from your bank in QuickBooks format and import it into homebank. Then, you can create auto-categorizing rules for all those recurring purchases, and manually assign a category to the other transactions. I do this every month and it now takes 10-15min max to go through all my transactions and check/categorize everything, and see some nice customizable charts of where my money's going.

Personally I use ledger for something like this. It's a double-entry accounting system and from what I've heard similar to GnuCash though I haven't used that one.

Parsing and Categorizing of bank statements would probably need to be done manually or with a self-developed script, though maybe there's already something made for that. I haven't looked so far.

GNU Cash may satisfy at least some of your requirements.

If you are not indimidated by selfhosting, then definitely give Firefly III a try.

I heard ActualBudget can do this, but less a software but a server.

Here we run a docker image of Actual Budget. We just need to update it by importing the bank statements and you can create rules that will automatically categorize things, it is great.

You should be able to do all that stuff with spreadsheets. Any program you use will be a spreadsheet under the hood anyhow.

i tried GnuCash, but i didn't find it very useful.

there's also Homebank & KMyMoney; i haven't tried either.

i doubt any will auto import statements, so there's work to be done there.

I don’t know what people call this, but I’m curious if you also need future balance prediction, basically “here’s how much left over you’re going to have this payday, next payday, etc”. I might switch from my homegrown spreadsheet to one of these recommendations if they also support that.

(I’m talking about something where you input your known scheduled debits and credits, especially for people with biweekly paychecks but monthly debits, and then you match recent actual activity with what’s expected. So you get “current balance is $1800 but it’ll get as low as $300 before you get paid next” type info to keep you from over spending.)

neovim