wxBanker

What should I expect from the Mint.com integration?

Asked by Lucas Roesler

I have just installed wxBanker and see that there is an option called integrate with Mint.com. I have entered my credentials and can select the different accounts I have registered at Mint.com but it does not seem to pull any of the transaction information into wxBanker. To what extent does wxBanker integrate with Mint.com?

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Michael Rooney
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Best Michael Rooney (mrooney) said : 		#1

Yes good question, it should be probably documented better! 0.8 is the first version with Mint.com integration so I wanted to get something basic working, ship it, and get feedback. As such, it should show icons next to synced accounts and let you see whether it is in sync or not, and if not, hovering over the icon should show what Mint thinks is correct.

In 0.9 I'd like to add an option to do an initial import of all Mint accounts (this actually already exists, just not exposed via the UI), and then an option to see and pull in differing transactions. But also as the idea is to keep your own separate balances, I'm a little wary of making it too easy to use it as just an offline Mint.com backup providing minimal value, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong.

Do you have any thoughts on such things?

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Lucas Roesler (theaxer) said : 		#2

I see your point, though your plan for 0.9 is more or less what I was expecting when I saw `integrate with Mint.com'.

One thing that I think would be cool is if we could create ` sub-accounts' that would allow us to keep track of goals without having to open a new bank account. The sub account could be displayed indented below the actual account it is part of and the total allocated to that sub-account could be shown in parenthesis below the account total. Mint has something similar but requires a separate account to do this.

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Lucas Roesler (theaxer) said : 		#3

Thanks Michael Rooney, that solved my question.

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Michael Rooney (mrooney) said : 		#4

FYI, I just created a blueprint which should at least make getting started easy for an existing Mint user: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/wxbanker/+spec/mint-account-import , which I can hopefully implement shortly for the 0.8.1 release. This won't keep you up to date after the initial import but it should make it easy to get started keeping track of your finances I think. Does that sound like a good middle step until 0.9?

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Lucas Roesler (theaxer) said : 		#5

I read the blueprint. I would leave my comment there but I was not certain what the appropriate place for comments was. Anyway.

The only thing that is not clear in the blueprint is what will actually be imported. Just the account name? The current balance? Current transaction history that is available?

(By the way, I love that I can change the degree of the trend line. As a math nerd this makes me very happy.)

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Michael Rooney (mrooney) said : 		#6

The option "Import from Mint.com" would import the account and all the transactions Mint.com knows about, so that the current balance equals the Mint balance and is in sync. So the only trick is that at this point you have to enter further transactions yourself.

Glad you like the trend degree :) It was so easy to add and I often like to flip between 1-3 depending on the account, so I figured why not have an option.

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Lucas Roesler (theaxer) said : 		#7

One thing to note is that the transaction history from mint may not add up to the current total. At least I had this issue when I imported all the transactions I could get as csv from mint. I needed to add some initial balance to make up the difference.

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Michael Rooney (mrooney) said : 		#8

Indeed, it already handles that! It adds up all the transactions and then creates an "Initial balance" transaction as the first transaction for the difference.