This is a kitchen-time conversation between two friends (John and Jean).
John: Hello Jean, how are you?
Jean: Hello, John. I am fine. Thank you for asking. How are you?
John: I am also doing well. Btw, why are you so worried?
Jean: I was browsing through my bank account and couldn’t figure out where or how I spent the majority of my money.
John: Have you not checked the transaction statement?
Jean: Yes, I did it. The difficulty is that I pay for the majority of my costs using digital payments. As a result, the transactions were lengthy and didn’t produce any benefit. So now I’m wondering how I can find out where all the money gone. BTW, have you ever been in a similar situation?
John: I encountered very similar events a few weeks ago. That’s when I went online to see if there was any tool available to make things easier. That’s when I discovered Finanza, an open-source tool hosted on a website. The application uses charts to assist users analyse financial activities.
Jean: Oh, that is interesting. Could you please explain a little more about the tool?
John: Yes, Finanza allows you to arrange transactions based on their descriptions and/or dates. It will first provide you with a satellite view of your debit and credit transaction history. Later, you can drill down to lower-level details as needed. In addition, you will be able to view transactions alongside the charts and filter them as needed.
Jean: That is nice. How does it collect my information? Do I have to log in or something? How does it maintain my data?
John: That’s the best part, you do not have to create a new account or log in anywhere. Simply download the transaction from your account and upload it to the application; that’s it. The good thing of this program is that it performs transactions within the user’s browser, ensuring that data does not leave the user’s system. It uses browser history to share data between pages, so if you’re using a shared machine, simply clear the history to remove all of your personal info.
Jean: You pointed out that I needed to upload the transaction data; do I need to use a specific format or anything?
John: It only requires the transaction details in a basic CSV format. You can find out more about the format on the website.
Jean: I will absolutely look at this tool. Thank you for sharing, John 😃.
I trust that you now grasp the characteristics and advantages offered by Finanza. As a result, I hope that if you find yourself in a position similar to the one described here, or just want to figure out the transaction pattern, Finanza will be an option.
The source code for this application is available on GitHub. If you notice any bugs and wish to report or contribute, please do so 😄.
Originally posted on medium.com.