So, I wrote a script to scrape the "Transactions" view of the website's E-Cockpit and dump a CSV file which can be imported to GnuCash (or Excel, or probably Quicken etc.).
The scraping is obviously fragile and relies on hardcoded HTML elements, but it works well enough for now. I used it to parse ~1900 transactions with transaction ID, full payment details, categories, and debit/credit amount with no problems whatsoever.
I'm providing a link here, with full instructions (warning: not for the technically-challenged), in case anyone else may find this useful: https://gitlab.com/lyhezrai/scrape-p...ce/tree/master
I am on vacation this month, but I'm looking forward to try your script.
that's clever!
My wife does not log her transactions in the mobile app. So I was looking for a solution to automatically download as I cannot train my wife
- it allows csv imports and tries to memorize the categories so one does not have to do it for every transaction every time (bigger plus).
- allows csv export of your transactions with categories. One is not locked forever in this software.
I am surprised how few applications there are that actually support this (it is tricky, especially when multiple currencies are involved). Most "budgeting" apps simply discard the leftover money when the budget period ends. A lot of other folks here have said good things about YNAB, and I'm willing to bet most if not all of them are just plain customers. It's what budgeting should be like. I have 5 years' worth in there and know people who imported 20+ years of budget data from whatever they were using before, and things work just fine with that amount of data.
Of course it has its issues -- for what concerns the OP's actual question -- it hates the idea of automatic sync, forcing you to enter transactions yourself because that way you know what is happening; I cheat, thanks to CSV import. It does treat you like a baby and it is just a huge amount of work. But real budgeting is a lot of work -- YNAB team is the nicest, but don't believe their blog posts telling you how it takes no more than an hour per month . It takes effort and above all, mindset. You only notice it paying off when you are hit by a sudden need for cash and you actually find money sitting in the bank because you had planned ahead. Saved my ass every time.
I'm talking about YNAB desktop (well, officially discontinued around 2016). The new YNAB web -- I'm out of date so please correct me -- is kind of in Moneywell's league since it keeps the budgeting features but lacks the superb reporting and visualization of the desktop version. Plus I like how YNAB desktop can be stretched out over a triple-head display showing 18 months' budgets at a time . The mobile version (classic) that syncs with the desktop is a bit annoying because it takes 4-5 taps to enter a transaction (disclosure: millennial here). But it works fine and I simply don't see any competition. Data is on your PC/Mac but if you want sync you need Dropbox.
All said, if you just want to log your expenses, sure, Quicken/MS money/Jumsoft Money/iBank/Excel is good. I liked the mobile-only CoinKeeper quite a lot. I realize that OP's question was not about what apps are around but rather what apps are around for CH. Over time you will get annoyed enough to write a shell script to convert PostFinance or UBS's CSV files into QIF for importing into YNAB or Quicken or whatever, and run that once a month. Many credit card companies already let you export into QIF (eg Swisscard).
Note that these are budgeting apps and not necessarily accounting apps. It's definitely possible and powerful, with some tweaking, to use a double-entry accounting app to achieve personal or business finance and budgeting. GnuCash is a good option (beaten to it by lyhezrai ) or for the web, I can recommend SAGE (auto import from Swiss banks).
I was looking for a Swiss equivalent to my trusty YNAB for when we move in December, and was very happy to see I get to keep it! It is truly head and shoulders above anything else. I've had all our accounts set up for years on it and its been very useful to be able to go back for 6 years' worth of expenditures categorised in a consistent format. Cannot recommend enough!
A few questions for users with accounts in different countries, though:
- How have you found the multi-currency handling, can it manage?
- Any kinks to look out for as I set up our new Swiss accounts?
- Worth investing in a new one to set up from scratch and keep things separate?
Happy to repost by March when I have figured it out in case anyone needs it, but any tips to make life easier as I do will be most welcome!
anyone?