Banktivity alternatives?

Banktivity since it went subscription with 3 price tiers. It looks like continuing to use it without the subscription is quite possible. However, it would be interesting to know what alternatives other MPU members are using.

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I’ve recently started using hledger, It’s this wild command line program part of plaintext accounting. I’ve found, so far that being forced to capture every transaction manually is actually valuable compared to having a software do it for me.

If you’re interested, this video is super helpful at explaining how it works and why it’s valuable.

That being said, I love the UI of Wallet by Budget Bakers

I made my own crib sheet for hledger too

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I use moneyspire (20)

That’s fair. For about 6 months I’d created rules for importing csv statements from various accounts. But I never really got the point.

Wasn’t until this video where they explain how to query for cash flow and net worth that I got it. Also sticking to manually inputting each transaction this time has made it much easier to understand the ins and outs.

What I like about hledger over GNU Cash is that it’s “Just Text” (GNU cash stores it as SQLite database)

Hope I’m not hijacking the thread but, what do people usually look to get out of personal finance apps?

“where’s my stuff … and why?”

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“Not in my bank account because my impulse control on buying software is not great :joy:”

Curious how you resolve the why.

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Interesting. I wonder if something like Airtable would work for you then? In a lot of ways it’s closer to Access than Excel

Not sure what the question means, sorry.

I track sources and uses – i.e., “why” do I have funds; why don’t I have funds. Standard financial management.

Ah! You’re original response

“where’s my stuff … and why?”

I was curious if the “why” had anything I hadn’t seen before.

I use GNUCash and YNAB.

YNAB to budget and share with the wife. This tracks current accounts and some investments. This is our main monetary information. It’s a subscription, but every year I try and find an alternative and don’t manage to find one that’s robust enough to share between me and my wife, can be used on iOS (as that’s all my wife uses) or that follows the envelope budgeting system.

GNUCash tracks everything - pensions, house etc. This is updated maybe only once a week, or when an investment transaction takes place, as I’m not trying to replicate YNAB.

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Give the new Quicken mac a try. You don’t say whether you’re against subscriptions or not, but Quicken Mac has seen steady development over the years and continues to improve. You can usually find the subscription cheaper on NewEgg, office depot, staples, or amazon than you can get it buying from Quicken directly.

I stopped using Banktivity and went back to Excel. My bank has a “Mint” type feature that allows me to automatically import and categorize transactions from all my credit card, etc accounts. So all I have to do is export a csv file every month.

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Why not just use Mint? It’s pretty good, plus they have already launched a new UI (in beta) with a ton of features.

TBH, I like all budgeting to be on autopilot and not micromanage it, else it defeats the purpose and you can’t be consistent.

MoneyWiz, great app, I’ve used it for years.

After reading articles via links in this post, I came across a nice comparison of accounting software on Wikipedia:

Comparison of Accounting Software

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