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Self-Hosted Document & Budgeting Automation: Paperless-ngx, Firefly III, and n8n – Good Idea? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 4 days ago by MIXEDUNIVERS@discuss.tchncs.de to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone, I’ve recently taken an interest in self-hosted solutions for document management and budgeting, specifically Paperless-ngx, Firefly III, and n8n. A bit about me: I run a Proxmox server with a freshly set up Docker LXC container. I’m still quite new to all this, but i am infected with the homelab fever.

After spending hours on Google, I’ve come across a few services that caught my eye:

Paperless-ngx: A tool for scanning and organizing all my receipts, invoices, and documents in a searchable database.

Firefly III: A budgeting app with lots of cool features. My goal is to use it to get a better overview of my finances.

n8n: To automate the process, because I know I’m lazy and won’t keep up with manual data entry for long.

My idea: I want to scan receipts and invoices, store them in Paperless-ngx, use OCR to extract the text, total amount, and maybe even individual items, and then pass that data to Firefly III via n8n.

My questions:

Does anyone have experience with these tools? Is this a good approach, or should I consider other software?

I’ve seen that n8n is getting a lot of hype, but also has some critical, glaring issues. Is it still a good choice for this kind of automation?

Are there any tutorials or blog posts out there that cover a similar setup? I haven’t found much online. Are there any additional Docker containers I should consider, like a dedicated AI container or a special database? I have only a weak Intel I5 7th Gen PC.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or any concerns you might have about this project. If you know someone who has done something similar, or if there’s a hidden tutorial I’ve missed, please let me know!

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[–] k4j8@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Paperless-ngx, Firefly III, and n8n are all awesome tools. However, I think connecting Paperless to Firefly via n8n will be very difficult to grab the correct date and amount. What if there is no receipt or the receipt is sent via email? Also, Paperless sometimes gets the wrong date for me, such as when there are multiple dates or the print isn't clear.

If you're using a card to pay, I recommend downloading .qfx files from your bank and uploading those to Firefly instead.

[–] needanke@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

or the receipt is sent via email Paperless can automatically ingest e-Mails. I agree on the rest though.