mxbudget

An open-source, personal-use-first, principled financial analysis software.

Principled?

Principled means the following:

1. Doesn't sell your data or move it anywhere else (obviously)
2. Doesn't ask for your internet banking credentials.
   1. Competing budget/net worth tracking software in the Australia/New Zealand markets - like WeMoney - ask for your log on credentials to your internet banking (Westpac, NAB, Commonwealth Bank, etc), and then log in as you to pull your account information to show in the app.
   2. Not only is this dangerous - but it violates your bank's terms & conditions, leaving you open to possible consequences.
   3. Additionally, these services aren't upfront about this behaviour. Some of them impersonate your bank's login page, and don't say anywhere that they're recording your banking credentials.

Architecture

This project has a couple of accounting principles:

• Change in net worth over time is measured by the real change in currency value with respect to a "base currency" (the user's home currency)
  • This means that any user holding resources in a foreign currency will see their net worth change daily (even if their nominal resources do not change), as most currencies are floated
• Net worth = Assets + (Liabilities * -1)
• Depreciation is not currently considered.
  • A user can record depreciation by recording a new resource value (Entry) with the depreciated value.
• For the purposes of streamlining systems, resources (Object) are held by the user for life. The system will "hide" objects where the most recent entry records the unit count as being zero.

Design goals

• Automation - use open banking APIs, if possible
  • These are often hard to access. New Zealand's banking industry has made small steps towards a Europe-style model, but it's still limited, often broken, and expensive to access.
  • The tedious alternative - manual entry - must be a pleasant user interface and easy to do
• Asset tracking:
  • Live/regular automated update of stocks, shares, equities
    • NYSE, ARCA, NASDAQ
    • ASX, NZX
    • Future: European/Asian markets
  • Cash accounts, with solid, automated tracking of fluctuations in currency exchange rates
    • Daily ledger entry of the FX rate for the day
    • Multi-currency view, with a default 'home currency' (in the screenshot below, this is NZD New Zealand Dollar)
• Liability tracking:
  • Mortgage/property assets
    • While most likely manual entry (house price modelling is complicated), the interface should be pleasant and with helpful mortgage features
  • Student loans
    • New Zealand (StudyLink/IRD)
      • Show whether person will begin interest-bearing period
    • Australia (HECS/HELP)
      • Indexation calculator/projections

Screenshots

Still heavily in-development, but asset object tracking, as well as ledger entries (how assets change in valuation over time) is implemented.

Copyright

© 2025 Jackson Rakena, MIT License