this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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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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[–] LordFireCrotch@lemmy.today 1 points 13 hours ago

yeah if you want that same functionality of months in advance transactions - you'll have to create a similar solution with the cron job i mentioned.

Budgets work well enough. They allow you to create any number of budget "buckets" - and each can be configured in various ways:

  • fixed amount each period
  • add amount to bucket each period
  • add amount to bucket each period and correct for overspending

You can even have different periods - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly - though I've only ever used monthly.

When you create transactions you assign them to a budget and it shows you how much you have left in that budget