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https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers

Simple ingesting tools for Beancount (plain text, double entry accounting software). More importantly, a framework to allow you to easily write your own importers.
https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers

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Simple ingesting tools for Beancount (plain text, double entry accounting software). More importantly, a framework to allow you to easily write your own importers.

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# Beancount Red's Importers



Simple importers and tools for [Beancount](https://beancount.github.io/), software for

[plain text](https://plaintextaccounting.org/), double entry bookkeeping. _More

importantly, a framework to allow you to easily write your own importers._



### Introduction



This is a reference implementation of the principles expressed in

**[The Five Minute Ledger Update](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/the-five-minute-ledger-update/).**



Importers can be ugly and painful to write, yet are important in automating the grunt

work out of maintaining personal finance software. The philosophy is to make writing

sustainable, dependable importers easy. To achieve this, the design separates importers

in to three parts:



1. file format reader (reusable)

2. transaction builder (reusable)

3. institution-specific declarations and code (minimal, institution specific) <- _The

   only one you have to write_



This design helps move most of the heavy-lifting common code into (1) and (2) above.

Writing new importers is made easier since one only has to write code to address the

institution-specific formatting and quirks for each bank/brokerage. See working examples

of an [ofx based](https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/blob/main/beancount_reds_importers/importers/citi/__init__.py)

and [csv](https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/blob/main/beancount_reds_importers/importers/schwab/schwab_csv_brokerage.py)

based importers.



### Importers



File format readers included are:

- `.ofx`

- `.csv` (single and multitable support)

- `.xlsx` (single and multitable support) (`pip3 install xlrd` if you plan to use this)



Transaction builders included are:

- Banking (for banks and credit cards, which benefit from a postings predictor like

  [smart_importer](https://github.com/beancount/smart_importer)).

- Investments/brokerages (to handle the very many distinct cases of investment related

  transactions).

- Paychecks (to handle paychecks, which typically contain very many mostly

  pre-determined postings in a single entry).



[Input in `.ofx` format (over `.csv`) is preferred](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/a-word-about-input-formats-use-ofx-when-you-can/),

when provided by the institution, as it minimizes data and coding errors, eliminates

format breaking changes in .csv files, and typically includes balances that are used to

generate balance assertions, and commodity prices.



See [here](https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/tree/main/beancount_reds_importers)

for a list of institutions built-in. More investment, credit card, and banking

institutions will be added in the future. Contributions welcome.



### Tools and Utilities

These commands are installed as a part of the pip installation:



- `ofx-summarize`: Quick and dirty way to summarize a .ofx file, and peek inside it

- `bean-download`: [Download account statements automatically](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/direct-downloads/)

  (for supporting institutions), from your configuration of accounts. Multi-threaded.

  - `bean-download needs-update` is a configurable utility that shows you the last time

    each account was updated, based on the latest balance assertion in your journal. See

    [this article](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/how-up-to-date-are-my-accounts/)

    for more.



The commands include shell auto-completion (tab-to-complete) via

[click](https://click.palletsprojects.com/en/8.1.x/shell-completion/). `bean-download`, in

particular, can complete the account or account groups you want to download, which can

be handy. To enable it in zsh, do

([see here for other shells](https://click.palletsprojects.com/en/8.1.x/shell-completion/)):



```

mkdir -p ~/.zcomplete

_OFX_SUMMARIZE_COMPLETE=zsh_source ofx-summarize > ~/.zcomplete/ofx-summarize-complete.zsh

_BEAN_DOWNLOAD_COMPLETE=zsh_source bean-download > ~/.zcomplete/bean-download-complete.zsh



# Place this in your shell's rc file (.zshrc or .bashrc or .fishrc):

for f in ~/.zcomplete/*; do source $f; done

```



## Features

- supports [Beancount](https://github.com/beancount/beancount) output via `bean-extract`

  - should be easy to extend to ledger/hledger, etc. (contributions welcome)

- automatically generates [balance assertions](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/automating-balance-assertions/)

- support for:

  - investment accounts (brokerages including retirement accounts)

    - handles sweep funds, money market funds, and all standard brokerage transactions

  - banking and credit card

  - paychecks

- file format independent (ofx, csv, xlsx supported out of the box; single and

  multitable for csv and xlsx; write your own reusable handler if needed)

- supports commodity-leaf accounts

- see [The Five Minute Ledger Update](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/the-five-minute-ledger-update/)

  for automating downloads via `ofxclient`, connecting to `smart_importer` to

  auto-classify transactions, and more



## Installation

```

pip3 install beancount-reds-importers

```



Or to install the bleeding edge version from git:

```

pip3 install git+https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers

```



## Running



### Running the included examples:

1. `cd /example #eg: cd ~/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/beancount_reds_importers/example`

2. `./import.sh OfxDownload.qfx` # Imports investments

3. `./import.sh transactions.qfx` # Import bank transactions; uses smart_importer to classify transactions



### Creating and running your own config:

1. Create your own my.import. An example my.import is provided. At the least, include your account numbers

2. Include fund information. Copy the included `fund_info.py` to start with.

3. You can now run `bean-identify`, `bean-extract`, etc. See the included script: Run `./import.sh `

4. If identifier/cusip/isin info is missing, the importer will let you know. Add it to your

   `fund_info.py` See

   [this article](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/tickers-and-identifiers/)

   for automating and managing identifier info



### Configuring balance assertion dates

Choices for the date of the generated balance assertion can be specified as a key in

the importer config, `balance_assertion_date_type`, which can be set to:

- `smart`:            smart date (default; see below)

- `ofx_date`:         date specified in ofx file

- `last_transaction`: max transaction date

- `today`:            today's date



If you want something else, simply override this method in individual importer



`smart` dates: Banks and credit cards typically have pending transactions that are not

included in downloads. When we download the next statement, new transactions may appear

prior to the balance assertion date that we generate for this statement, which renders

this balance assertion invalid. This problem manifests occasionally as an existing

balance statement breaking  when a new statement is downloaded and is an annoyance as it

needs manual fixing.



To minimize this, we set the balance assertion date to either two days (fudge factor to

account for pending transactions) before the statement's end date or the last

transaction's date, whichever is later. To choose a different fudge factor, simply set

`balance_assertion_date_fudge` in your config.



### Note



Depending on the institution, the `payee` and `narration` fields in generated

transactions may appear to be switched. This is described by

[libtransactionbuilder/banking.py](https://github.com/redstreet/beancount_reds_importers/blob/main/beancount_reds_importers/libtransactionbuilder/banking.py),

and the fields can be swapped in a `custom_init`.



## Testing

First:

```

pip3 install xlrd

```



Some importers are tested with

[regression_pytest.py](https://github.com/beancount/beancount/blob/v2/beancount/ingest/regression_pytest.py).

Run `pytest --generate` then `pytest`.



Anonymized data to increase regression test coverage is most welcome. Please submit a

PR if you can. See [here](beancount_reds_importers/importers/schwab/tests/schwab_csv_checking)

for an example to follow.



More broadly I run tests across hundreds of actual ofx and csv files, against reference

outputs that I know to be correct from my personal file. However, I'm unable to share

them since these are personal. Testing against real world files is best, so I recommend

you do this with your own input files.



## Contact

Feel free to post questions/concerns in the [Beancount groups](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/beancount)

or on [The Five Minute Ledger Update](https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/the-five-minute-ledger-update/)

site. For bugs, open an issue here on Github.



## Contributions



Features, fixes, and improvements welcome. New importers for institutions with test

input files appreciated. Sharing importers helps the community! Remember:

- Feel free to send send pull requests. Please include unit tests

- For larger changes or changes that might need discussion, please reach out and discuss

  first to save time (open an issue) 

- Please squash your commits (reasonably)

- Use [conventional commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/) for commit messages



Thank you for contributing!