====== Kresus ======


===== What is it ? =====

> Kresus is a free & libre personal management software which runs on your server.

In a few words, that's how we can resume the purpose of this application. Fore more details, please visit
https://kresus.org/en/

You can find there all features of the app and a few tutorials.

So you could ask why I am doing this web page then ? Well, because:
  - my use case does not really match the app design. I mean I don't use it for a personal account, I don't get automatic feed from internet but I do use it for a 4-to-8-shared-users account.
  - I share a few tips and give my feedback to thank people who worked on this app and still do.



===== How to test locally first ? =====


To start the app locally (on your Debian 12 laptop like me :-) ), you can reuse this tiny script which contains the strict minimum.

<code>
# Create workspace folder
mkdir -p ~/workspace/sandbox/kresus
# Go into it
cd ~/workspace/sandbox/kresus

# Create compose.yaml file
cat << EOF > compose.yaml
services:
  db:
    image: "postgres:16.11"
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file:
      - path: ./.env
        required: true
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data/
  kresus:
    image: "bnjbvr/kresus:0.23.5"
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 9876:9876
    depends_on:
      - db
    env_file:
      - path: ./.env
        required: true
volumes:
  postgres_data:
EOF
</code>

A few comments about choices I've made (quite different from [[https://framagit.org/kresusapp/kresus/-/blob/main/support/docker-compose/docker-compose.yml?ref_type=heads|official compose file]]):
  - I did not use apprise to notify anything because I don't need it.
  - I removed the traefik proxy section since I already have a proxy in my future production environment.
  - I do have only one persistent docker volume for the database because I don't use woob to retrieve any data from internet.
  - Finally I use to use environment file instead of inline variables. Here is an example below.


<code>
cat << EOF > .env
POSTGRES_USER=kresus
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=OeSoh9Dob6phahWa
POSTGRES_DB=kresus

LOCAL_USER_ID=1000
KRESUS_DB_TYPE=postgres
KRESUS_DB_HOST=db
KRESUS_DB_PORT=5432
KRESUS_DB_USERNAME=kresus
KRESUS_DB_PASSWORD=OeSoh9Dob6phahWa
KRESUS_APPRISE_API_BASE_URL=http://apprise:8000
KRESUS_EMAIL_TRANSPORT=smtp
KRESUS_EMAIL_FROM=kresus@domain.com
KRESUS_EMAIL_HOST=localhost
KRESUS_EMAIL_PORT=25
KRESUS_EMAIL_USER=kresus
KRESUS_EMAIL_PASSWORD=kresus

EOF
</code>

Then you can start the stack and browser the app.

<code>
sudo docker compose up -d
firefox http://localhost:9876
</code>

===== Feedback =====

  - It works and fulfills what I was looking for. Plus it is self-hosted so I love it :-) :-)
  - I did quick test on smartphones and it seems to work well too. Very appreciated even if it was not on my wish list.
  - My main expectations for this app were:
    - Categorize money input/output
    - View account balance in different time windows.
    - Make queries with different criteria (dates, tags, categories...)
    - All those points above are present and working, that's why I put kresus into my production environment. ;-)
  - Some suggestions of improvement:
    - Be able to create accounts as we want. By default, the app creates 3 accounts that we can only delete or rename. Weird 8-o 
    - Manage yearly budget instead or in addition to monthly budget.
    - Make custom views in read only and shareable mode.
    - Last but not least: when we setup a recurrent debit, then be able to create them for the full year in order to see the expected balance for the year,



Thanks to core devs for this great tool!