[Feature] Off budget account for institutions that only report current balance and transactions #1955

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opened 2026-02-28 19:59:49 -06:00 by GiteaMirror · 2 comments
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Originally created by @sokosoko333 on GitHub (Mar 10, 2025).

Verified feature request does not already exist?

  • I have searched and found no existing issue

💻

  • Would you like to implement this feature?

Pitch: what problem are you trying to solve?

I have 3 institutions with off budget investment accounts that I connected with SimpleFin.

Connection works well and first sync works. Unfortunately, every sync after that will not update account for 2 out of 3 institutions.
After short debug, I see that these accounts only reports current balance as startingBalance. There is never any transaction (which makes sense, since these are investments that change value day to day without any transactions). Here is an example of the array that SimpleFin reports back:

Image

In this example, old balance was 2100.00$, and new one seems to be 2667.72$. I would expect that acutalbudget app simply updates balance to new balance.

Describe your ideal solution to this problem

Assuming that this is not out of scope for this application, I think having another type of account (off-budget balance only account) would be good solution for this.
This type of account could either:

  1. just update starting balance - the simplest thing to implement and probably the right approach,
  2. update to new balance, and keep other updates in history for reporting reasons. Actual budget would need to ignore old balances somehow.
  3. or maybe create a transaction from difference of today's balance and previously recorded balance. This would allow plotting reports over time to see how investments are performing. It would also fit well into how Actual budget works currently. But it is also prone to bugs (what if someone imports old balance, all created transactions would need to be recalculated).

I would be happy with approach 1, but approach 3. would be great.

Teaching and learning

Currently when account is created, user is offered two types of accounts (on budget, and off budget) from drop down menu. This feature would add another one to this list (maybe called "Off budget - balance only").

Documentation would need to be updated as well to explain what is the purpose of this new account.

Originally created by @sokosoko333 on GitHub (Mar 10, 2025). ### Verified feature request does not already exist? - [x] I have searched and found no existing issue ### 💻 - [x] Would you like to implement this feature? ### Pitch: what problem are you trying to solve? I have 3 institutions with off budget investment accounts that I connected with SimpleFin. Connection works well and first sync works. Unfortunately, every sync after that will not update account for 2 out of 3 institutions. After short debug, I see that these accounts only reports current balance as startingBalance. There is never any transaction (which makes sense, since these are investments that change value day to day without any transactions). Here is an example of the array that SimpleFin reports back: ![Image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/89a26afb-3b93-42bd-a9e2-d76d86d90c3c) In this example, old balance was 2100.00$, and new one seems to be 2667.72$. I would expect that acutalbudget app simply updates balance to new balance. ### Describe your ideal solution to this problem Assuming that this is not out of scope for this application, I think having another type of account (off-budget balance only account) would be good solution for this. This type of account could either: 1. just update starting balance - the simplest thing to implement and probably the right approach, 2. update to new balance, and keep other updates in history for reporting reasons. Actual budget would need to ignore old balances somehow. 3. or maybe create a transaction from difference of today's balance and previously recorded balance. This would allow plotting reports over time to see how investments are performing. It would also fit well into how Actual budget works currently. But it is also prone to bugs (what if someone imports old balance, all created transactions would need to be recalculated). I would be happy with approach 1, but approach 3. would be great. ### Teaching and learning Currently when account is created, user is offered two types of accounts (on budget, and off budget) from drop down menu. This feature would add another one to this list (maybe called "Off budget - balance only"). Documentation would need to be updated as well to explain what is the purpose of this new account.
GiteaMirror added the needs votesfeature labels 2026-02-28 19:59:49 -06:00
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@github-actions[bot] commented on GitHub (Mar 10, 2025):

Thanks for sharing your idea!

This repository uses lodash style issue management for enhancements. That means enhancement issues are automatically closed. This doesn’t mean we don’t accept feature requests, though! We will consider implementing ones that receive many upvotes, and we welcome contributions for any feature requests marked as needing votes (just post a comment first so we can help you make a successful contribution).

The enhancement backlog can be found here: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/issues?q=label%3A%22needs+votes%22+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc+

Don’t forget to upvote the top comment with 👍!

@github-actions[bot] commented on GitHub (Mar 10, 2025): :sparkles: Thanks for sharing your idea! :sparkles: This repository uses lodash style issue management for enhancements. That means enhancement issues are automatically closed. This doesn’t mean we don’t accept feature requests, though! We will consider implementing ones that receive many upvotes, and we welcome contributions for any feature requests marked as needing votes (just post a comment first so we can help you make a successful contribution). The enhancement backlog can be found here: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/issues?q=label%3A%22needs+votes%22+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc+ Don’t forget to upvote the top comment with 👍! <!-- feature-auto-close-comment -->
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@sokosoko333 commented on GitHub (Mar 12, 2025):

Someone is already working on this. See this pull request: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/4601

@sokosoko333 commented on GitHub (Mar 12, 2025): Someone is already working on this. See this pull request: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/pull/4601
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Reference: github-starred/actual#1955