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I wonder if someone uses any personal finance manager on Ubuntu. I track my income and expenses in LibreOffice Calc and it works fine because I have set up everything I need the way I like. The issue now is that after a few years the file has become a bit slow to manage, so I am thinking that I probably need some specialised software to do it. Basically I need to add my expenses by category, track a few bank accounts and be able to pull stat on my expenses plus have a budget to make sure that I do not overspend.

I remember that I had tried GnuCash before and found it too complex. I'm not sure if I tried anything else. I also tried to do things on my phone. There are a few finance managers available, but I never liked them. I need something simple enough to be easy to set up, but also flexible to set it up the way I like.

foxy123
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  • I use Money Manager Ex which is downloadable from Ubuntu Software https://moneymanagerex.org/ Its available as a snap or Flatpak. – graham Jan 06 '24 at 16:01
  • You mentioned that the file has become slow...by any chance are you using the LibreOffice snap version? I found the LibreOffice snap very laggy and slow in its operation, while the deb and Flatpak versions worked just fine. – johnandmegh Jan 06 '24 at 16:27
  • I used Quicken from DOS days until I stopped using XP. I also tried GnuCash. But found Kmymoney worked for me. Its not Quicken but good enough. But I run report at year end & copy some data into spreadsheet for transactions I do not post in Kmymoney. Mostly my credit card info, as detail would be too much, so just post payments in spreadsheet. I download QFX files from bank to import to Kmymoney. But have to run dos2unix to convert from Windows format. – oldfred Jan 06 '24 at 18:40
  • I use MoneyDance. It is not open source nor free, but it works for me – user68186 Jan 07 '24 at 04:28
  • I use a DEB version of LibreOffice. Currently, the file has 14,500 entries in transactions and another 3,000 in money transfers. They all are used in 2 or 3 summary files. I think it is what makes it slow. – foxy123 Jan 08 '24 at 12:02
  • If I had it to do over again, I'd probably choose a plain text accounting program. https://plaintextaccounting.org/ – MDeBusk Jan 08 '24 at 21:15
  • new alternative https://flathub.org/apps/com.francescogaglione.cosmicmoney – Invictus Nov 20 '24 at 08:45

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GnuCash isn't complex. It's just different. Double-entry accounting is not at all hard to learn, but you have to think about your money in a more realistic way. It comes from somewhere, you store it somewhere, you send it somewhere.

I used Quicken when I was on DOS and OS/2, and switched to GnuCash when I switched to Linux. So I've used both methods. The only difficult part of the transition was importing my accounts. (This was maybe fifteen years ago, and lots of development has taken place since then.) What I did was start over; I kept my QIF exports in case I needed them for something, but I opened a new set of books for GnuCash.

It's January. Start anew with your record-keeping. There are YouTube tutorials on double-entry accounting and the GnuCash wiki and the mailing list are very helpful.

MDeBusk
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    Double accounting is not an issue for me, I know how it works very well. It's more user-friendliness I referred to in the case of GnuCash. I always considered it a professional accounting software rather than a personal finance manager. – foxy123 Jan 08 '24 at 11:58
  • @foxy123 I've no idea how long ago you tried it, but it seems very user-friendly to me now. I did have a fit with it when I first tried it long ago.

    The only thing I wish were different about it is the reporting. It's done in Scheme. But I don't have a better alternative, so I stay out of it.

    I guess I wish it were prettier, too.

     – MDeBusk Jan 08 '24 at 21:04
  • https://flathub.org/apps/com.francescogaglione.cosmicmoney is strongly inspired by the best mobile apps in orderr to offer a minimalist yet comprehensive experience. There are still many features in the roadmap. But already it is more than usable (considering the unnecessary complexity of competitors I would say even more usable) – Invictus Dec 10 '24 at 08:26