6 ms·

I should be able to programmatically check my bank/brokerage balances, check when bills are due, and in general automate my finances. My judgment on when to pay

I should be able to programmatically check my bank/brokerage balances, check when bills are due, and in general automate my finances. My judgment on when to pay what bills is entirely automatable and yet every payday I spend 45 boring minutes doing it myself anyway. Basically, I want to pay all bills that are due before the next payday. If I have money left over, I want to reserve $X in my checking account for spending, put some in my savings account if it is below $Y, and transfer the rest to my brokerage account to invest.

barbazoo 4y ago
Why would you say this? Now I have this idea in my mind of a python script moving my money around for me twice a month and I know damn well that I'll never get to have that.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  Depending on where you live, you might. It's a thing in lots of places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Open Banking generally mean someone can build 3rd party integrations on top of banking APIs. It is generally not for individuals to get HTTP API access to your own "production" bank account so you can write a Python script to move money around. I was very happy when it first appeared and my own bank made a big noise about supporting it, so went around to dig for the documentation. Had to sign up for a developer account first, that's all fine and dandy. Write some words about my use case, that's also fine I guess, not optimal but whatever. Finally arrived at the "Success" screen that said something like "Congratulations, we'll review your case and give you access to the sandbox if accepted" which was... Fiiiine. Some days later, get sandbox + documentation access, write my ~20 line script to move 5 ImagineDollars from account 1 to account 2 within the same holder and want to see it working live but no, here comes a form with ~20 fields describing again the use case, how many users you expect, what you do in case there is errors and so on. I fill it out from the perspective that I'm just writing it for myself. Wait ~2-3 weeks and receive a rejected email, they don't want individuals to write their own scripts, the service is for products to be built on top of their APIs, nothing more and nothing less. Great.
    - boring_twenties 4y ago
      If you do find a bank that lets you at least query balances and transaction history yourself, I would love to hear about it! Forget about actually initiating any transfers, I just don't want to type numbers into a spreadsheet by hand like a god damn troglodyte.
      - capableweb 4y ago
        I have three European banks (all different countries) that all offers CSV export. I didn't even knew there was banks today that didn't have that.
      - ElevenLathe 4y ago
        My small, local credit union lets me download spreadsheet files (not sure if they're CSV or Excel TBH) of all my transactions, I think up to 3 years back. Presumably this is some kind of off-the-shelf software though it's white-label so I don't know how to figure out what it's called, or how to find a credit union that uses it. That said, I find such credit unions are easy to ask questions of and get satisfying answers: the people actually working there will pick up the phone, rather than farming it out to a call center states or oceans away. They will therefore probably be able tell you if they offer this functionality or not before you open an account.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
Fidelity's cash management accounts let you set rules. I have one CMA for general funds where my paycheck is deposited and a second CMA that is configured to keep itself at the value of my next few months of fixed expenses. It will grab money from the general to top itself off after something is paid, and the general in turn automatically sends excess to an investment account if its value gets too high. Basically the only thing I do is check the autobill payees to make sure none of them are doing anything stupid. I have some trouble with executive function but I have not missed a bill in years because of this system. That might not seem impressive but losing money to late fees is a recurring theme in adhd communities.
pronik 4y ago
I'm honestly baffled every time I hear about people in the US spending their time literally paying bills. Direct debiting works and has worked for decades in Germany, and also across Europe since SEPA. Same goes for savings and transfer scheduling, no problem at all. Doing "if below X, do this otherwise don't" is not something easily done with bank's own software, true, but I suppose it could be mostly automated by going FinTS.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  Direct billing works here too, but I steadfastly refuse to sign up for it, because I would rather decide when it is convenient for me to have the money leave my account. I will never forget that one time back in the '90s when all the utilities decided to withdraw a certain month's payments before the relevant paycheck had actually arrived! Not a good experience. Doing it manually makes it much easier to determine how much money I actually have to spend in my debit account at any moment.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    I feel the same way, though some kind of configurable rules to determine when the debit comes out would go a long way to solving this. You can imagine an autopay interface where you say when your paydays are (every other friday, nearest-business-day-to-3-days-after-the-1st-and-the-15th [this is really my spouse's pay schedule], monthly on the 12th, whatever) and then rules like "always take the money the day after the first paycheck in a month, and only if it's less than $500". Bonus points if this gives you extra grace period compared to paying manually.

barbazoo 4y ago

Why would you say this? Now I have this idea in my mind of a python script moving my money around for me twice a month and I know damn well that I'll never get to have that.

wizzwizz4 4y ago
Depending on where you live, you might. It's a thing in lots of places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_banking
- capableweb 4y ago
  Open Banking generally mean someone can build 3rd party integrations on top of banking APIs. It is generally not for individuals to get HTTP API access to your own "production" bank account so you can write a Python script to move money around. I was very happy when it first appeared and my own bank made a big noise about supporting it, so went around to dig for the documentation. Had to sign up for a developer account first, that's all fine and dandy. Write some words about my use case, that's also fine I guess, not optimal but whatever. Finally arrived at the "Success" screen that said something like "Congratulations, we'll review your case and give you access to the sandbox if accepted" which was... Fiiiine. Some days later, get sandbox + documentation access, write my ~20 line script to move 5 ImagineDollars from account 1 to account 2 within the same holder and want to see it working live but no, here comes a form with ~20 fields describing again the use case, how many users you expect, what you do in case there is errors and so on. I fill it out from the perspective that I'm just writing it for myself. Wait ~2-3 weeks and receive a rejected email, they don't want individuals to write their own scripts, the service is for products to be built on top of their APIs, nothing more and nothing less. Great.
  - boring_twenties 4y ago
    If you do find a bank that lets you at least query balances and transaction history yourself, I would love to hear about it! Forget about actually initiating any transfers, I just don't want to type numbers into a spreadsheet by hand like a god damn troglodyte.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      I have three European banks (all different countries) that all offers CSV export. I didn't even knew there was banks today that didn't have that.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      My small, local credit union lets me download spreadsheet files (not sure if they're CSV or Excel TBH) of all my transactions, I think up to 3 years back. Presumably this is some kind of off-the-shelf software though it's white-label so I don't know how to figure out what it's called, or how to find a credit union that uses it. That said, I find such credit unions are easy to ask questions of and get satisfying answers: the people actually working there will pick up the phone, rather than farming it out to a call center states or oceans away. They will therefore probably be able tell you if they offer this functionality or not before you open an account.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

Fidelity's cash management accounts let you set rules. I have one CMA for general funds where my paycheck is deposited and a second CMA that is configured to keep itself at the value of my next few months of fixed expenses. It will grab money from the general to top itself off after something is paid, and the general in turn automatically sends excess to an investment account if its value gets too high. Basically the only thing I do is check the autobill payees to make sure none of them are doing anything stupid. I have some trouble with executive function but I have not missed a bill in years because of this system. That might not seem impressive but losing money to late fees is a recurring theme in adhd communities.

pronik 4y ago

I'm honestly baffled every time I hear about people in the US spending their time literally paying bills. Direct debiting works and has worked for decades in Germany, and also across Europe since SEPA. Same goes for savings and transfer scheduling, no problem at all. Doing "if below X, do this otherwise don't" is not something easily done with bank's own software, true, but I suppose it could be mostly automated by going FinTS.

marssaxman 4y ago
Direct billing works here too, but I steadfastly refuse to sign up for it, because I would rather decide when it is convenient for me to have the money leave my account. I will never forget that one time back in the '90s when all the utilities decided to withdraw a certain month's payments before the relevant paycheck had actually arrived! Not a good experience. Doing it manually makes it much easier to determine how much money I actually have to spend in my debit account at any moment.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  I feel the same way, though some kind of configurable rules to determine when the debit comes out would go a long way to solving this. You can imagine an autopay interface where you say when your paydays are (every other friday, nearest-business-day-to-3-days-after-the-1st-and-the-15th [this is really my spouse's pay schedule], monthly on the 12th, whatever) and then rules like "always take the money the day after the first paycheck in a month, and only if it's less than $500". Bonus points if this gives you extra grace period compared to paying manually.