PrivateLedger

Privacy-First Personal Expense Tracker

PrivateLedger is a local-only personal finance application that helps you understand your monthly spending across multiple bank accounts and credit cards—without giving any third-party access to your financial data.

Many personal finance apps require direct access to your bank accounts or uploading statements to external servers. For privacy-conscious users, this creates an uncomfortable trade-off between convenience and control. PrivateLedger takes a different approach.

Instead of connecting to your bank, PrivateLedger works entirely with transaction files you download yourself. Most banks in the US, Canada, and the UK allow exporting transaction history in OFX (Microsoft Money) or QFX (Intuit Quicken) formats. PrivateLedger imports these files locally, consolidates transactions across accounts, and generates meaningful spending insights—while keeping all data on your own machine.

No cloud.
No bank credentials.
No data leaving your system.

PrivateLedger is designed for users who want full ownership of their financial data, transparency in how categorization works, and the flexibility to extend or audit the code themselves.

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Screenshots

Onboarding

Import and Transactions Management

Dashboard and Monthly Breakdown

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Features

• Privacy-First by Design
  All data stays local. No cloud storage, no APIs, no telemetry.

• OFX / QFX Import
  Seamlessly import transaction history from multiple banks and credit card providers using standard OFX/QFX files, which are supported by the majority of banks in the US, Canada, and the UK.

• Multi-Account Consolidation
  Combine transactions from multiple chequing accounts, savings accounts, and credit cards.

• Smart Categorization
  Automatically categorizes transactions using pattern-based logic, with the flexibility for manual overrides and custom rules.

• Insights Dashboard
  Monthly spending breakdowns, category trends, and expenditure analysis.

• Local Web Application
  Runs entirely on your machine via a local web UI.

• Simple Distribution Single binary, no external dependencies, no installation hassles.

Smart, Category-Based Financial Model

PrivateLedger is built around a flexible category system that reflects how people actually think about money.

Smart Categorization

• Comes with sensible default categories (e.g., Groceries & Household, Shopping & Retail, Housing)
• You can rename categories or create your own
• Categories support keyword-based patterns (e.g., COSTCO, AMAZON, NETFLIX)
• Transactions are categorized automatically using these patterns
• You can manually reassign any transaction at any time
• New patterns can be applied to past and future matching transactions

As you refine patterns over time, categorization becomes increasingly automatic and accurate.

Category Types

Every category belongs to one of four types, which determines how it affects insights and reports:

• Expense
  Everyday spending that reduces net worth
  Examples: Groceries, Dining, Housing

• Income
  Money coming in
  Examples: Salary, Side Income, Government Benefits

• Investment
  Transfers into investments, not spending
  Examples: RRSP/401(k) contributions, brokerage transfers

• General
  Non-spending transactions used to avoid double-counting
  Examples: Internal transfers, credit card payments

Dashboard insights are calculated based on category type, ensuring expenses, income, and investments are represented correctly.

How it works

1. Download transactions from your bank

   • Export your account or credit card transactions as OFX or QFX.
   • These formats are commonly available in the US, Canada, and the UK.

2. Import into PrivateLedger

   • You import the downloaded file through the local web UI.
   • PrivateLedger parses the file and stores transactions into a local SQLite database.

3. Categorize transactions

   • Transactions are categorized automatically using pattern rules (keywords like COSTCO, AMAZON, NETFLIX).
   • You can override categories manually at any time.
   • When you add a new pattern, it can apply to past and future matching transactions.

4. View insights

   • The dashboard summarizes monthly spending, category breakdowns, and trends.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Go 1.23 or later

If you don't already have Go installed:

• macOS user: install Go with Homebrew brew install go
• Windows user: installo Go from: https://go.dev/dl/
• Ubuntu & Debian user: install with apt package manager sudo apt install golang-go

🚀 Simplest Way to Run the Application

The easiest way to run PrivateLedger without manually cloning or building the source—is to install it directly using the Go toolchain:

# Install using the Go toolchain
go install github.com/oronno/privateledger/cmd/privateledger@latest

# Run the application
privateledger

Open your browser and navigate to:
👉 http://localhost:8844

🛠️ Building from Source

If you prefer to build from source:

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/oronno/privateledger.git
cd privateledger

# 2. Build the binary
# Build directly with Go
go build -o privateledger ./cmd/privateledger
# Or Build using the Makefile
make build

# 3. Run the compiled binary
./privateledger

Then open your browser at:
👉 http://localhost:8844

On first run, PrivateLedger will:

1. Create config.json with default settings
2. Create privateledger.db SQLite database

Configuration

You may edit config.json to customize settings (optional):

{
  "version": 1,
  "server": {
    "port": 8844,
    "auto_open_browser": true
  },
  "start_of_month": 1
}

• port: HTTP server port
• auto_open_browser: Automatically open browser on startup
• start_of_month: Day of month when your "month" starts (1-28, useful for aligning with pay cycles)

Project Architecture & Design Decisions

This project has been developed heavily with Claude Code.
For architectural decisions, trade-offs, and design rationale, see: CLAUDE.md

Tech Stack

• Go - Backend and CLI
• Gin - Web framework
• SQLite (modernc.org/sqlite) - SQLite Database
• ofxgo - OFX/QFX file parser
• Bootstrap 5 + HTMX - Frontend

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for full license text.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome and appreciated 🎉

To keep development focused and aligned with the project goals:

• Please open an issue first to discuss:
  • New features
  • Significant behavior changes
  • Architectural or data model changes
• For small fixes (typos, minor UI tweaks, bug fixes), feel free to open a pull request directly.

When submitting a pull request, please keep changes focused and well-scoped. Include context in the description (what & why).

If you're unsure whether something fits, opening an issue to discuss it first is always the best approach.