Personal Finance Software With SQL Database Access

[sleddy]

Does anyone know of personal and/or business software that stores data in an accessible relational database like sql server that could be accessed by the owner to write their own queries?

 

[MRG]

I know of business software that uses SQL server, but it's for large back offices. Probably not what you are looking for.

Given the cost of a SQL Server license, maybe go another way and use whatever software you want as long as it allows export to a comma delimited file to import into your copy of SQL server?

 

[sleddy]

I know of business software that uses SQL server, but Given the cost of a SQL Server license, maybe go another way and use whatever software you want as long as it allows export to a comma delimited file to import into your copy of SQL server?

You hit on the problem, that I am not getting a sql server license but want to expand beyond a flat file and control the queries. Money Manager Ex seems possibly to be a solution. It runs with free Sqllite database. I am going to try that.

 

[sengsational]

The software I run is abandonware, circa Windows 3.1. I reverse engineered the database, but it's so convoluted that I decided to just periodically run a mega report with all data, load that into my application, and then spit-out custom reports that aren't available from the application.

Let us know how Money Manager Ex works out, and if the SQL schema is manageable.

 

[sleddy]

The software I run is abandonware, circa Let us know how Money Manager Ex works out, and if the SQL schema is manageable.

It looks interesting but have not studied the design yet. There is a bit of a community with report templates on github. I have 20 years of data in Microsoft Money so I am really hoping I can move to this or something else that lets me put some knowledge I happen to have for work to good use in my personal life.

 

[sengsational]

... I am really hoping I can move to this or something else that lets me put some knowledge I happen to have for work to good use in my personal life.

I've been doing that too. Maybe we're lucky that the skills for our jobs are/were interesting enough not to want to run away from at 5PM!

 

[sleddy]

I've been doing that too. Maybe we're lucky that the skills for our jobs are/were interesting enough not to want to run away from at 5PM!

Well said. SQL queries are a fun puzzle to me. I feel fortunate to be in no rush to leave the 'rat race'.

 

[target2019]

My guess is that sqlite is a potential answer for you.

https://www.sqlite.org/csv.html

SQLite is the most used database engine in the world. https://www.sqlite.org/index.html

 

[pjigar]

I use account aggregation service from Bank of America which pulls the finance data for me at one place. Many other institutions have similar service. I later download the data every month as a CSV file. I import CSV file in my "excel DB" but you can write a simple script to upload to your own sql or any other server running on your computer. This way you own the system and you can easily replace the account aggregation front end whenever you want. My 2 cents.

 

[tulak]

Not a direct solution, but Moneydance gives you full access to all your data with Python (or Java). You could probably do some shim work to make it work with SQL queries?

Or you could pull out all your data from Moneydance into a SQL DB and then run queries.

And if you're trying to transfer your data from MS Money, you could create a Python script to migrate to Moneydance. That seems like a lot of work to me though.

When I moved to Moneydance, I started cleaned. I still have my old MS Money/Quicken data files, but haven't had a need to look at them in 10+ years.

 

[easysurfer]

Sounds a bit like a full time j*b to me .

 

[sleddy]

Thanks for all the great replies. sqlite was definitely the key word I needed to get into the weeds. I currently have my hands full playing with the Money Manager EX tables. The one weak spot potentially is tagging transactions, a la Money's 'Tag' and 'Classification' fields.

 

[camfused]

^^^ I just looked at the this Money Manager EX. Pretty cool. For the tags, it seams to me you could use the Note field in a transaction and add things like Tag: Barney or Classification: Fred

 

[sleddy]

^^^ I just looked at the this Money Manager EX. Pretty cool. For the tags, it seams to me you could use the Note field in a transaction and add things like Tag: Barney or Classification: Fred

I thought about that though it would require consistency on my part or I guess wildcard searches. I am playing with the custom field and it is pretty neat. There is also a DB Browser for SQLite that makes it more fun. I probably need to get out more.

 

[camfused]

If I had not already spent a month last year writing an equivalent (well, enough for my needs) of Quicken in Excel, then I would be trying this one out myself.