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Related to this, I wrote a CLI tool called Ledger Reconciler[0] to automate the process of logging into all my financial accounts and inputting those transactio

Related to this, I wrote a CLI tool called Ledger Reconciler[0] to automate the process of logging into all my financial accounts and inputting those transactions into Ledger. It uses headless Chrome underneath (via the puppeteer API[1]) so it could theoretically work with any system without needing to rely on public/private banking APIs. I also tried to make the plugin system as friendly as I could so people for people to add their own financial instutions. I'm optimistic someone will contribute a plugin one day :) [0]: https://disjoint.ca/projects/ledger-reconciler https://disjoint.ca/projects/ledger-reconciler [1]: https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer

jimbokun 9y ago
How do you handle authenticating to the financial institutions?
- sly010 9y ago
  I think we all know the answer to that question :) I would note that professional bank feed apis (e.g. yoodle) also use username password pairs and not only break when you change password but can result in a locked bank account due to too many retries. That said, there is no universal solution in the US.
  - kreetx 9y ago
    > I think we all know the answer to that question :) May I ask-- for those not in the know --that what is it? :) From your comment I'd infer that username/password, but that hasn't been the case for many years, at least at the banks I use (in Europe).
    - stedaniels 9y ago
      If he's using headless Chrome then it's likely form filling. I.e. just automatically typing in the answers to the authentication prompts on the pages as you'd normally do when you log in. Most banks, even those with TOTP or alternate MFA methods, allow you to login with standard authentication details to get access to statements and not make any changes.
- marvinpinto 9y ago
  It would theoretically use whatever meachnism you would use to interactively log into your bank. For Canadian banks this is user, password, and security question/answers. The "plugin" system was designed to account for each banking system being unique so how it logs in really depends on the bank. This runs locally and it has the ability to read gpg-encrypted credentials (using gpg-agent). This of course gets complicated with TOTP tokens but I'll cross that bridge when needed :)
walterbell 9y ago
What do you think of Weboob, http://weboob.org http://weboob.org for French and other banks? "Weboob is a collection of applications able to interact with websites, without requiring the user to open them in a browser. It also provides well-defined APIs to talk to websites lacking one."

jimbokun 9y ago

How do you handle authenticating to the financial institutions?

sly010 9y ago
I think we all know the answer to that question :) I would note that professional bank feed apis (e.g. yoodle) also use username password pairs and not only break when you change password but can result in a locked bank account due to too many retries. That said, there is no universal solution in the US.
- kreetx 9y ago
  > I think we all know the answer to that question :) May I ask-- for those not in the know --that what is it? :) From your comment I'd infer that username/password, but that hasn't been the case for many years, at least at the banks I use (in Europe).
  - stedaniels 9y ago
    If he's using headless Chrome then it's likely form filling. I.e. just automatically typing in the answers to the authentication prompts on the pages as you'd normally do when you log in. Most banks, even those with TOTP or alternate MFA methods, allow you to login with standard authentication details to get access to statements and not make any changes.
marvinpinto 9y ago
It would theoretically use whatever meachnism you would use to interactively log into your bank. For Canadian banks this is user, password, and security question/answers. The "plugin" system was designed to account for each banking system being unique so how it logs in really depends on the bank. This runs locally and it has the ability to read gpg-encrypted credentials (using gpg-agent). This of course gets complicated with TOTP tokens but I'll cross that bridge when needed :)

walterbell 9y ago

What do you think of Weboob, http://weboob.org http://weboob.org for French and other banks? "Weboob is a collection of applications able to interact with websites, without requiring the user to open them in a browser. It also provides well-defined APIs to talk to websites lacking one."