If you’re looking for Docker containers that can save you money, look no further than Firefly III. Not only is the finance management app free and open-source, but you can also self-host it in Docker to protect your personal information.
I tried out Firefly III to see how it could visualize my data and help me get a better idea of my financial situation. After experimenting with the different features and automations, I think that Firefly III may just be the best Docker container for managing your finances.
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4
You can choose how to import your data
You don’t need to link to your bank account
Firefly III supports a variety of import methods, as long as you set up the data importer with your container. Once you have the importer up and running, you can upload files or link to a service such as GoCardless and Spectre.
I chose to upload my bank statement as a CSV file, as this doesn’t require any authentication, and I don’t use GoCardless or Spectre. I also tried to import an XLXS file. However, this resulted in a number of errors.
If you’re importing a bank statement, I recommend using the CSV file format and deleting any rows or columns that aren’t directly related to transactions, dates, and amounts. For example, my CSV file had my bank account number and some additional details in the first few rows that would confuse the importer. Once I removed these, I was able to import the columns correctly.
If importing a CSV file, make sure to configure your date column. The way my bank exported my data included no spaces for the date item, so I had to include the date configuration as dMY instead of d-M-Y to get the dates to reflect properly.
The ability to import data makes it much easier to use than having to record every transaction individually. At the same time, it doesn’t require direct access to your bank account if security is a concern for you.
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You can assign categories to expenses and income
This provides useful visualizations
Once you have imported your data, you can assign categories or a subscription type to transactions to help you visualize the data. Firefly III will automatically generate pie charts and line charts based on your income and expenses, as well as your categories.
When you hover over your pie charts, you will also be able to see the values of the different sections. For example, hovering over my Expenses by category pie chart, I could see that medical expenses were my biggest type of expense in April.
My Income by category pie chart only includes one category, which is why the visualization includes an all-blue chart. But I can make it a bit more useful by categorizing my income (which is currently all under “Freelancing”) by company.
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Bulk editing makes categorizing easier
Initial setup becomes quicker
While you can import data with a Categories column, my CSV only had data for the date, transaction description, and transaction amount. So, in order to visualize my data, I needed to assign categories to each transaction.
Fortunately, Firefly III features a bulk editor that enables you to edit multiple items simultaneously. As a result, I could select all the transactions relating to a certain vendor and assign the category accordingly.
Firefly III takes some time to set up, but the bulk editor for transactions significantly speeds things up, especially when you’re dealing with a lot of data.
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You can set rules for automation
Apply rules to your imported data
While bulk editing can speed up your categorization of items, you don’t necessarily want to do this for all future data you import onto the platform. Luckily, you can set up a variety of rules that can be applied to your data.
This is used to categorize subscriptions, which are primarily used to track recurring payments, such as rent, bills, and actual subscriptions. While Wallos is a great self-hosted tool for keeping track of subscriptions, if you want to centralize your subscription and financial transactions, Firefly III allows you to do just that.
I used rules and automation to identify my recurring payments, like rent, internet, and medical aid. This took a bit of tweaking of the pre-filled settings when creating a subscription, but I was eventually able to group these recurring transactions.
I also set up a few custom rules to auto-assign categories to my data, now that I had categories set up and a dataset of transactions that could be used to test the rules. For example, I set a rule that any transaction with “pet” or “vet” in the description would be assigned the “Pet supplies” category. The automations in Firefly work with the basic trigger and action rules, making them easy to set up if you have some experience with automation.
To verify that your automation is working correctly, select ‘See matching transactions’ to confirm that the rule is capturing the qualifying items in your dataset. My rule was not working at first, but then I realized I still had Strict mode enabled on the rule. Once I unchecked the box, Firefly was able to detect the transactions that included the relevant terms.
Once you have set up and saved a rule, you can apply it to your existing data. You can also apply rules when you perform a new import.
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Firefly III is a powerful finance management tool you can self-host
While it takes some time to set up Firefly III and configure all your rules and categorizations, once you have it up and running, you have a powerful overview of your income and expenses. If you’re privacy-minded like me, then Firefly III gives you the functionality of many other financial management tools without the security drawbacks. This is just one of the reasons that self-hosted apps are gaining popularity. And of course, it’s completely free.
