Firefly-III
- Overview
- Initial Configuration
- Deployment Configuration
- Application Interface
- Everyday Usage
- User Management
- Advanced Customization
- Troubleshooting
- Upstream Project
Overview
Firefly III is a way to track and manage personal finances. It can help you keep track of your expenses and income, so you can spend less and save more.
High-Level Overview
Firefly III can do the following:
- You can create and edit transactions, accounts, and give them budgets, categories and tags
- You can automate part of this with recurring transactions and auto-budgets
- You can keep track of liabilities
Features
- Double Entry Accounting
- Ability to manage different types of accounts
- Budgets
- Piggy Banks
- Predict and Anticipate Bills
Missing Features
- No Stock/Portfolio Management, See Portfolio Performance
- No Business Finances, small business accounting, or payroll management
- No automated imports from [your bank here]
- No advanced accounting and asset management
- No predicting, forecasting or future planning
Firefly III's Method of Personal Finance
Firefly III has been built around how I manage my finances. Please read this carefully so we match on how to do things.
Links:
- Docs Home
- Intro and Why?
- What Firefly-iii doesn't offer
- Firefly-iii's Method of Personal Finance
- Zero-Based Budgeting
Initial Configuration
Getting Started
Welcome Screen
Firefly III has very simple welcome screen to get you started with the most basic of setups:
Introduction Guidance
The first time you visit ANY page, the introduction guidance will pop up and walk you through the details on that page.
You can always re-enable it by hitting the "Question Mark" button in the header, and selecting "re-enable introduction guidance".
Deployment Configuration
Application Interface
How I access this tool, and how it is displayed to me.
Dashboard
Header
Firefly-III has a ever-present header that displays a couple of things:
- Open an close the side menu with the hamburger button
- Access help for current page
- User details
- "Create New Stuff" button (withdraw, deposit, transfer, etc.)
Dashboard Display
The dashboard is a pleasant mix of appropriate graphs, charts, and lists, with buttons to go to the detail page view, or to create entries where appropriate.
Across the top is a banner of several key statistics, such as your Balance, Bills to Pay, what you have Left to Spend, and your Net Worth. This provides a good at-a-glance overview of your financial health.
Financial Control
Budgets
This page shows you an overview of your budgets. The top bar shows the amount that is available to be budgeted. This can be customized for any period by clicking the amount on the right. The amount you've actually spent is shown in the bar below. Below that are the expenses per budget and what you've budgeted for them.
https://docs.firefly-iii.org/firefly-iii/concepts/budgets/
Bills
This page contains a listing of the bills that you have created, along with all of the details, including links to the relevant rules, and the recurrence period, among other things.
Clicking on individual bills will show a table with some general information about the bill. It also shows a chart of the transactions linked to the bill. There is also a button to re-scan old transactions so they will be matched to the bill.
https://docs.firefly-iii.org/firefly-iii/advanced-concepts/bills/
Piggy Banks
The Piggy Banks on this page are shown in list form, and are shown as they are grouped (if enabled) into their relevant groups. Note that the total of all the groups is not displayed if there are multiple groups. The ungrouped piggy banks are showed in their own separate "ungrouped" group.
The bottom of this page also displays the status of your Accounts which any of the Piggy Banks are saving on. This is a field that's set when creating a new Piggy Bank.
Clicking on the name of the Piggy Bank will give you a graph of the events, and a summary of the history and current status of the Piggy Bank.
https://docs.firefly-iii.org/firefly-iii/advanced-concepts/piggies/
Accounting
Transactions
The transaction pages have a listing of the transactions for that particular type of transaction. As well, there are charts on the top for the Categories, Budgets (or Source Accounts), and Destination Accounts.
Automation
The automation pages are a listing of all of the automations available on the account. Rules are grouped according to the existing rule groups. It also displays most of the details about the individual rules/recurring transactions in the table.
Selecting the Edit button will show all of the available fields, as well as the list of triggers for the rules. There are many details in the individual Rules and Recurring Transaction entries that are worth explaining in depth in the relevant "concept" section.
Others
Accounts
Asset Accounts
Expense Account
Revenue Account
Classification
Categories
Reports
Report Type:
Included Accounts:
Options
Profile:
Delete Data:
Currencies:
Everyday Usage
Accounts
Firefly III has several types of accounts. This goes beyond your own bank accounts and credit cards. See Firefly-III's Documentation here for more.
There are four main types of accounts, but within these accounts, there are "sub" accounts that can be created. This makes it easy to track different sources and makes transactions easier to navigate.
Transactions
A transaction is a very simple thing. Money moves from A to B. It doesn't matter if this is an expense, your salary or you moving money around: money moves from A to B:
Without going into more detail the transaction documentation already provides, below is an overview of creating a new transaction.
The important things to note are the Source, Destination, Budget, and Amount.
Withdrawals
To create a withdrawal select a source account first. This should be an asset account or a liability. Then select a destination account (an expense account) or free-type a new one. Withdrawals can also be assigned a budget.
Although the form allows you to free-type a destination account as well, this may fail and the transaction can't be saved.
Deposits
When you wish to create a deposit, select a revenue account first, as the source account. When it doesn't exist yet, free-type your own input and it will be created for you. Then, select an asset account or liability as the destination account. If the source account already exists the form will recognize that you're creating a deposit, and the "budget"-selector will disappear.
Although the form allows you to free-type a destination account as well, this may fail and the transaction can't be saved.
User Management
Advanced Customization
Troubleshooting
Upstream Project
Links
Official Site: https://www.firefly-iii.org
Code: https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii
Documentation: https://docs.firefly-iii.org/
Updates: https://twitter.com/firefly_iii
Community: https://www.reddit.com/r/FireflyIII/
Container Image: https://hub.docker.com/r/jc5x/firefly-iii/
Alternatives
OurCompose
Akaunting: https://compositionalenterprises.ourcompose.com/bookstack/books/akaunting
Hosted SaaS
YNAB: https://www.youneedabudget.com
Client-Side Apps
GnuCash: https://gnucash.org