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.