On Sun, Sep 8, 2019 at 4:29 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > *Heads'up: I am not a develloper. I have written my first line of python 3 > weeks ago for my first beancount. Sorry if my question is stupid* >
There are no stupid questions. (I mean that. Your participation is welcome here.) I am trying to import 10 years of history from one of my asset account > (life insurance). > Unfortunately the account holder does not provide any usable digital > statements (neither pdf, csv, ofx...) that i can use. > > I have finally decided to learn to use beautifulsoup, and i have built a > crude script to browse through all the pages of my account and grab the > details of the 500 operations made over the last 10 years. > Luckily for me, the login system of the bank is quite basic, and i have > not met any difficulty to build the script. > All the relevant information are now arranged in a huge dict > > Now, i need to create the corresponding transaction in beancount. > > The typical importer principle is not an ideal fit, as there is no "file" > to import. > > I see now several options: > - Building an importer that will be triggered by a dummy file and then run > my web parser. > - From my dict, saving the data in a file, and then, build a separate > importer. > - Directly create the beancount entries without using the importer process > flow. (Is there some module from beancount that could help ?) > > What would be the canon way to do that ? > Option (1) is overkill IMO. Option (2) is like (3), really it is just a way to avoid scraping every time. That's worthwhile if it's slow or if you encounter detection limits from the server. If I were you I would do (2/3), just create the Beancount entries once and print them and move on. Why? For many reasons: - These insurance transactions are likely to be infrequent - Their amounts are probably a small part of your total assets - This is a very long-term concern For those reasons, I don't think it's a great use of your time to spend it to fully automate a regular import process for this. This is kind-of like my PayPal account, I personally don't use it much. I'll import it once/year. Contrast that to your main credit card and checking account. Or perhaps your main active trading account. So I would just build and print out the entries now and once, cut-and-paste to your file, and then run the script once or twice per year. You've already done the hard part of the work; get your current snapshot of the data in and be content. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhOGznZNdbDikuELJYCe%2B7gEHnMLx_OVjEg0U80L7EyxJw%40mail.gmail.com.
