Skrooge: Personal finance management +1
I ran out of money last month quite early (in NL you usually get paid once a month) and I did not understand why. Since Skrooge got imported last month in KDE SVN, I wondered if that could help me determine why. As usual with financial applications I did not get my hopes up very high. Normally they just don’t do what I want, that’s why I wrote my own application for my Office 9 years ago in php/mysql. But to use that for my personal finances was not a very tempting outlook.
So I installed Skrooge from SVN and hoped for some cool import function to get my bank data imported somehow. There was a csv import. Knowing my bank also provided that as export format, I wanted to use that. But it failed. The format of the csv seems to be a big secret, as I could not find it anywhere. Except in the C++ code of course, but by then I gave up on that. Wondering what else I could do to get the data in, I spotted OFX import. Opened my online banking again, and Yes my bank exports to that format too. Importing into Skrooge went flawless. The only thing I don’t understand is how to set a starting balance for that bank account. Just made a fake negative money withdrawel to solve that.
After that I started assigning categories to each and every transaction. Due to sorting and the possibility to mass update a set of transactions, I managed – after a couple hours -, to complete that task. It is flexible enough to make new categories within the same interface as the tagging, so the application is really trying to get you to get things done it seems.
After categorizing, I anxiously accessed the reports section, still trying to find out what happened last month. After fiddling with all the settings to get the overview I wanted, it became clear: going to the vet for the cats regular injections, buying shoes, paid the bill for the repair of my door, buying a new vacuum cleaner and some other expenses in the same month did not go to well together with the normal bills versus the normal money entering the bank account. Good to know it is incidental. From playing with the reports I managed to get a good overview about the last months, what goes in and what goes out.
This morning I added all the data of last year too, just to get an even better understanding. Which mostly confirms that Skrooge is a winner. Nice application. Some not conventional user interfaces, but gets the job done quickly. Screenies here.
I linked to both kde svn repository where I got it from and to the sourceforge site they used….
Hi Toma !
I’m really glad you like skrooge ! Regarding your comments :
* I must confess that CSV import lacks documentation, I will write something about it.
* Starting balance : you’re right, there is no way to set the starting balance at the moment… we must add this attribute, we talked about it with Stephane some time ago, I need to open a bug on this.
* Assigning categories : As mentionned by Stephane, you can use the “Search and Treat” plugin (we should rename it “Search and Process”, I think) to assign categories faster. Basically, define a “search condition” like ‘operations with payee = Shell company’, and set up a processing instruction like ‘set category to transport > automotive > fuel’. Quite powerful, but not yet documented… ;-)
If you need more explanations and wishes, just mail us, or ping us on IRC !
Thanks for the nice review,
Guillaume
Hey thanks, glad you like it ! As stated by Stephane, use bugs.kde.org to report any bug or wish.
Cheers !
Guillaume
Unfortunately, my bank will only let me download in Quicken, Quickbooks, MS Money or Delimited Text. Sadly, none of those will import into Skrooge.
;/
Isn’t Quicken the same as that OFX?
You know what? As a long time Linux user, I have to admit I did not actually try to download an MS Money formatted statement. I sheepishly admit that I decided to do that this morning and well, it is an OFX type. I really did not believe that would actually be the format and you know, I am red-faced on that one.
Anyway, I did manage to get it to import but I do not understand these kind of programs so I hae a long way to go on this kind of thing.
Thanks for the article.
Quicken file format is QIF, that skrooge is also able to import. But QIF format is not really standardized (wheras OFX is), so there is a small risk that skrooge can not process it correctly… just try it !
Hi James,
Quicken format is imported by Skrooge, the extension file must be QIF.
If it doesn’t work, please open a bug.
Hi Stephane.
I end up with a qfx extension when dowloading a quicken statement. Unfortunately that is the only extension available from by bank for that particular type of statement.
I can live with the MS Money ofx though.
–james
Hi James,
As you can see here , QFX format is in fact OFX.
So, could you rename your file in .ofx and import it with skrooge as an OFX file.
Thank you to take me informed if it works or not.
Hi Tom,
I am the main developer of Skrooge and I am very happy to read your post.
Just to inform you, you can use “Search & Treat” to set automatically categories after an import.
Don’t hesitate to open bugs or wishes on https://bugs.kde.org/.
Thank you.
did you tried mint.com (http://www.mint.com/)? I am not sure whether it works outside US, but it does a great job for me. If a desktop software can match this, I am in for it.
Also I hate the ledger model for personal finance. Personal finance has to be simple.
I did not look at it. Skrooge was on my mind, i looked at the screenies and wanted to try it. And now stick to it. Sort of a ‘I feel lucky’ situation…
Just tried Skrooge after this article. I imported all my bank’s data from 2005-Now (thanks to te QIF export of my web-bank). I just want to say: THANKS
Skrooge really rocks, and I’ve already figured out some really interesting indicators like the total cost per year of the account, the best/worst investments (looking at the classified plots), and how my cell phone bill evolved over time ;-)
Thanks!
In no way would I sign up for mint.com, giving them all of my bank account infos, my passwords, etc. This is the problem with the internet: people don’t think before they give these details away. Even if mint.com is legit (they seem to be), how strong is their security? How safe is your information? What happens to your data when mint.com is bought by ClearChannel or some other unscrupulous company?
I’ll stick with desktop apps like Skrooge, thank you. Which, by the way, I’ve not yet tried but perhaps I should!
A big lack of 99% of the reviews like this, is that the authors forget to add a link where to download the program … :(