"Firefly III" is a manager for your personal finances. It can help you keep track of your expenses and income, so you can spend less and save more. Firefly III supports the use of budgets, categories and tags. It can import data from external sources and it has many neat financial reports available. Here are some screenshots:
[](https://firefly-iii.org/static/screenshots/4.6.12/index.png) [](https://firefly-iii.org/static/screenshots/4.6.12/account.png)
[](https://firefly-iii.org/static/screenshots/4.6.12/budget.png) [](https://firefly-iii.org/static/screenshots/4.6.12/category.png)
Personal financial management is pretty difficult, and everybody has their own approach to it. Some people make budgets, other people limit their cashflow by throwing away their credit cards,
others try to increase their current cashflow. There are tons of ways to save and earn money. Firefly III works on the principle that if you know where you're money is going, you can stop it from going there.
By keeping track of your expenses and your income you can budget accordingly and save money. Stop living from paycheck to paycheck but give yourself the financial wiggle room you need.
### Features
Most importantly...
* Firefly can import any CSV file, so migrating from other systems is easy.
* Firefly runs on your own server, so you are fully in control of your data. It will not contact other sites or servers.
* If you feel you’re missing something you can just ask me and I’ll add it!
But actually, it features:
* A double-entry bookkeeping system;
* You can store, edit and remove withdrawals, deposits and transfers. This allows you full financial management;
* You can manage different types of accounts;
* Asset accounts
* Shared asset accounts (household accounts)
* Saving accounts
* Credit cards
* It’s possible to create, change and manage money using budgets;
* Organize transactions using categories;
* Save towards a goal using piggy banks;
* Predict and anticipate bills;
* View income / expense reports;
* Rule based transaction handling with the ability to create your own rules.
* The ability to export data so you can move to another system.
* The ability to import data so you can move from another system.
* Organize expenses using tags;
* 2 factor authentication for extra security 🔒;
* Supports any currency you want, including crypto currencies such as Bitcoin ₿.
* Lots of help text in case you don’t get it.
### Who is it for?
This application is for people who want to track their finances, keep an eye on their money **without having to upload their financial records to the cloud**.
## Get started
There are many ways to run Firefly III
1. There is a [demo site](https://demo.firefly-iii.org) with an example financial administration already present.
2. You can [install it on your server](https://firefly-iii.org/using-installing.html).
3. You can [run it using Docker](https://firefly-iii.org/using-docker.html).
4. You can [deploy to Heroku](https://heroku.com/deploy?template=https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii/tree/master)
5. You can [deploy to Sandstorm.io](https://apps.sandstorm.io/app/uws252ya9mep4t77tevn85333xzsgrpgth8q4y1rhknn1hammw70)
6. You can [install it using [Softaculous](https://softaculous.com/). These guys even have made [another demo site](http://www.softaculous.com/softaculous/apps/others/Firefly_III)!
7. You can [install it using AMPPS](https://www.ampps.com/)
5.*Even more options are on the way!*
### Update your instance
Make sure you check for updates regularly. Your Firefly III instance will ask you to do this. Upgrade instructions can be found with the installation instructions.
## Contribute
Your help is always welcome! Feel free to open issues, ask questions, talk about it and discuss this tool. I've create several social media accounts and I invite you to follow them, tweet at them and post to them. There's [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireflyIII/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Firefly_III) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/FireflyIII/) just to start. It's not very active but it's a start!
Of course there are some [contributing guidelines](https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii/blob/master/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md) and a [code of conduct](https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii/blob/master/code_of_conduct.md), which I invite you to check out.
## The end game
Firefly III should give you **insight** into and **control** over your finances. Money should be useful, not scary. You should be able to *see* where it is going, to *feel* your expenses and to... wow, I'm going overboard with this aren't I?
But you get the idea: this is your money. These are your expenses. Stop them from controlling you. I built this tool because I started to dislike it. Having it, not having, paying bills, etc. But no more. I want to feel "safe", whatever my balance is. And I hoop this tool can help. I know it helps me.
## Contact
You can contact me at [thegrumpydictator@gmail.com](mailto:thegrumpydictator@gmail.com), you may open an issue or contact me through the various social media pages there are: [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/FireflyIII/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Firefly_III) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/FireflyIII/).
Over time, [many people have contributed to Firefly III](https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii/graphs/contributors).
We use [SemVer](http://semver.org/) for versioning. For the versions available, see [the tags](https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii/tags) on this repository.
If you like Firefly III and if it helps you save lots of money, why not send me [a dime for every dollar saved](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=44UKUT455HUFA) (this is a joke, although the Paypal form works just fine, try it!)
If you are looking for alternatives, check out [Kickball's Awesome-Selfhosted list](https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted) which features not only Firefly III but also noteworthy alternatives such as [Silverstrike](https://github.com/agstrike/silverstrike).
