What are /r/actualbudget's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I'm more than happy to continue paying the $4 every month to have it “as is”.

The sweet spot would be for the app to be supported by the open source community, while having the possibility to pay for the sync (as it is now). This is the model that Joplin [1] uses, and it works really well. Actual could be the “Joplin” [2] of budgeting apps.

This way the different apps would be supported and there would be syncing options for everyone.

• You just want to pay for an easy sync solution, while supporting the creator? You can do it.
• You don't want to pay or just want to set up your own server? You can do it.

[1] https://joplinapp.org
[2] https://github.com/laurent22/joplin

Currently, the short answer is "hard", but feel free to take the code and try.

On the Using the API page, it says "Currently, the API requires Actual to be running locally because of this. In the future, the client will contain all the code necessary to query your data and will work by itself. Right now the primary use case is custom importers and exporters, so running Actual first is natural."

Hi, have you by chance read the how to yet?

https://actualbudget.com/docs/budgeting/how-it-works/

James gives a pretty good overview on how envelope budgeting in actual works, also how money „rolls over“.

In case it helps - Further notes regarding back ups (for the desktop app) can be found here):
https://actualbudget.com/docs/overview/loading-a-backup/

It's only available on the desktop app right now, which you can download here: actualbudget.com/download

This isn't super clear, sorry. The web version is relatively new and the whole signup/download flow needs to be changed to make it clear which options are available.

Automatic backups probably won't ever be available on the web because browsers don't like it when apps take up too much space. However, the app should still allow you to manually download the db and manually re-import a backup, but that's not implemented yet.

Hey! Thanks for the kind words!

There is currently an API: https://actualbudget.com/docs/developers/using-the-API/. So yes, you could definitely export it into whatever format you like.

I want to add the ability to export from the transactions screen to a CSV file. On top of that, there could be a bulk export which exports everything. What are you most interested in? Would all the transactions plus budget data be enough?

I saw that, didn't realize it was based on an API. I don't like compiled binaries though, I prefer scripts and http

I admit I was being lazy posting this

You're absolutely right. Sorry about your problems. The syncing problem is solved in the beta, if you are willing to run it. You can find links to download at the bottom of this post: https://actualbudget.com/blog/cloud-files

That is a very big change, and a big part of it is explaining it to users and updating all of the documentation. I wanted to get it out earlier but then the holidays hit so things slowed down. I will work on releasing it by next week.

I am actively searching for other people to be involved in Actual so things aren't totally blocked on me. Stay tuned.

About scheduled transactions, you are right. Part of my recent focus has been launching automatic transaction downloading, which I think is a bigger blocker for most people. I realize that it's common for people who use something like Actual to be more detailed in managing their transactions though, and scheduled transactions would be a big help.

I understand it doesn't work for you right now - please do keep an eye on it though!

Yes yes! This is coming, been juggling a couple big features recently. (This took up a bunch of time: https://actualbudget.com/blog/cloud-files)

I am also actively spending time trying to recruit others to be involved in Actual. I don't want my schedule to block progress and it will be more sustainable if I can get others involved.

This and other improvements to the transaction page will definitely happen though, a bunch of stuff should land by the end of the year.

It will create the "sync group" when the other device successfully downloads and sets up the file. Sorry about your problems! (and the delay, been traveling)

The recent version has some problems setting up syncing, and I've since completely refactored how syncing is setup. This new version does it entirely differently and you can read more about it here: https://actualbudget.com/blog/cloud-files

I'm going to release it this week!

You're still treating that payoff as an expense. Are both of your credit card and checking account "on budget"? They should be - and then you can convert the payoff transactions as a transfer. In that case the transfer won't be categorized and is simply a transfer between accounts. (See creating a transfer: https://actualbudget.com/docs/accounts/transfers/)

With the new API, everything already exists for this to happen! I just added a task to track this though, because it would be nice if there was a single button or menu item somewhere to export everything into one blog. All it would do is call all the "getX" function for accounts, payees, transactions, budgets, and everything and stick it into a single JSON file.

Thanks for recommending Actual!