Unfortunately Firefly is not really a double-entry bookkeeping system. There is a differentiation between source and destination accounts (called expense and revenue) which makes reverse transactions a pain. I pay 100€ for furniture in May and return it in July. Now I can either create the furniture store as both source and destination account or delete the first entry. Both is equally bad in my opinion.
I think a much better solution would be to differentiate between my accounts and 3rd party accounts.
Also, what I was struggeling with (and not only in Firefly, but all budgeting apps) was the sometimes significant delay between the purchase and the bank transaction. In addition there is the issue with split transactions from imported transactions. Basically manual data entry is too much work and automated data entry is too faulty. I roughly sketched a process in my head which could solve that.
It basically disinguishes between manually added information and bank information. Both is stored and then combined to one transaction. This closes the gap between the bank domain and the "user domain".
1. Let the importer bring in all the bank transactions with the date, the transaction is executed. Display on the right.
2. On the left there are manually entered transactions, possibly with split transactions.
3. Now you make matches.
4. If there is no manual entry, you can add some information like splitting the transaction, add a date you did the purchase, etc. by clicking on the bank transaction.
5. All the above could be automated by rules. Like making matches, giving it a pretty name, assigning a category, etc.
6. Last step: Manually sign off all the matches. If a time period has only signed off transactions it gets a "true" designation otherwise a "preliminary".
Happy to hear about your thoughts on that!
Also, what I was struggeling with (and not only in Firefly, but all budgeting apps) was the sometimes significant delay between the purchase and the bank transaction. In addition there is the issue with split transactions from imported transactions. Basically manual data entry is too much work and automated data entry is too faulty. I roughly sketched a process in my head which could solve that.
It basically disinguishes between manually added information and bank information. Both is stored and then combined to one transaction. This closes the gap between the bank domain and the "user domain".
1. Let the importer bring in all the bank transactions with the date, the transaction is executed. Display on the right.
2. On the left there are manually entered transactions, possibly with split transactions.
3. Now you make matches.
4. If there is no manual entry, you can add some information like splitting the transaction, add a date you did the purchase, etc. by clicking on the bank transaction.
5. All the above could be automated by rules. Like making matches, giving it a pretty name, assigning a category, etc.
6. Last step: Manually sign off all the matches. If a time period has only signed off transactions it gets a "true" designation otherwise a "preliminary".
Happy to hear about your thoughts on that!