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by chrislloyd 475 days ago
I have a very similar setup but with HLedger[1]. A "do-nothing"[2] script helps me download statements by opening bank websites, waits for manual import and finally checks balances. That makes it a lot less repetitive and error prone. Or at least, I catch the errors faster.

I've found HLedger and Shake to be fast enough to process almost a decade of finances. Dmitry Astapov has an extremely well produced tutorial workflow[3].

How have you managed the PDF parsing? Mine has become a bit of a mess dealing with slight variations in formatting as they change over time. I've been considering using LLMs but have been nervous about quality.

[1]: https://hledger.org [2]: https://blog.danslimmon.com/2019/07/15/do-nothing-scripting-... [3]: https://github.com/adept/full-fledged-hledger

2 comments

Why not spot check your PDF LLM outputs? I always make sure my accounts balance by hand anyway. Though Occasionally it's really painful especially if it's a missing Venmo transaction. It's rare that I need to really comb through my accounts to account for some money but when I do it's really time-consuming.
Why don’t you import CSV files rather than PDF’s?
I also use ledger/hledger to process a decade of finances. I reconcile once a year when doing taxes. I have multiple python scripts orchestrated with org-mode to generate reports/plots. I run them in separate processes since they are independent, which makes it fast enough (seconds).

What is Shake?