Firefly-III

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:

Features

Missing Features

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:

Initial Configuration

Initial Configuration

Getting Started

Welcome Screen

Firefly III has  very simple welcome screen to get you started with the most basic of setups:

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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.

Application Interface

Dashboard

Header

Firefly-III has a ever-present header that displays a couple of things:

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  1. Open an close the side menu with the hamburger button
  2. Access help for current page
  3. User details
  4. "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.

Application Interface

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/ 

Application Interface

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.

Application Interface

Others

 

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Accounts

Asset Accounts

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Expense Account

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Revenue Account

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Classification

Categories

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Tags

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Reports

Report Type:

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Included Accounts:

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Options

Profile:

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Delete Data:

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Currencies:

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Everyday Usage

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.

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Everyday Usage

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.

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User Management

Advanced Customization

Troubleshooting

Upstream Project

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/

Upstream Project

Alternatives

OurCompose

Akaunting: https://compositionalenterprises.ourcompose.com/bookstack/books/akaunting

Hosted SaaS

YNAB: https://www.youneedabudget.com 

Client-Side Apps

GnuCash: https://gnucash.org