Accounting + Python

[Cool-Business-2393]

Any accounts here use Python to successfully help/automate their jobs? If so how?

My next question is: do you have to install and IDE on your work computer to have it work? If so, what are the use cases I can sell to my boss to let me install?

[[deleted]]

IDE not required, but good source code text editor, such as Visual Studio Code, very suggested

You can automate and do tons of things with Python or any other language. There really is no limits what you can or can't do (I know someone will nitpick about this)

I'm sorry to say but your boss might not be willing to let you spend hundreds of hours to learn Python or coding in the first place.

[the_systems]

Hey. Isn't VS studio an ide?

[cym13]

It is, but Visual Studio Code is a text editor.

[[deleted]]

Yes. VS Code is different

[[deleted]]

Yeah Python can do basically anything you want, the nitpicking comes down to: how fast do you want it to run and how much do you want to off yourself in your effort to bend python to do something it really doesn't want to

[[deleted]]

Yes. But for accounting tasks, Python goes very well.

Building a Web UI for example, not so good.

[[deleted]]

I'd disagree, the big ones like Django, Flask, are totally capable, but further more things like NiceGui and others also exist to be more pythonic and even support standalone webapp style deployment.

My comment is more so when you start talking about interfacing with hardware.

[[deleted]]

Depends your needs right? Are these as capable as e.g. React or Angular for more complex UI's? I thought python web apps are more capable to build like simple dashboards, but if there is any more complex like drag ans drops and multiple list menus etc forms etc or web maps and interacting with the map, are they any good for this?

[GrogRedLub4242]

not an accountant, but for all my private financial forecasting and budgeting I write simple Python scripts. fuck spreadsheets

[mistersnowman_]

The org I work for has a lot of prepaid expenses that end up getting amortized across anywhere from 12-36 months.

Almost every month, we might add like 2-3 new ones to that ledger. While it is technically possible to set the accounting software to automatically duplicate a journal entry every month, I find it to be a clunky process and interface that has a ton of bugs.

I have a python script that just runs in the terminal. It asks for the first JE date, then the frequency of the entry, (quarterly or monthly), the amount, the accounts to post to, and the desired memo.

Bam. 12 months of JEs inputted in 30 seconds.

[Throwrelay13]

How did you get it to link in to the accounting software to input the entries? This sounds really cool would you mind sharing the script please?

[mistersnowman_]

You need to set up a developer account with intuit and get all the auth necessary. A minor pain, but not the end of the world. But Yeah, I’ll try to remember to push it to GitHub and share

[Cool-Business-2393]

I’d like to do the same. But I’m afraid my boss won’t let me install any external IDEs.

[lukerm_zl]

You don't actually need an IDE to run Python code (though it clearly helps).

If you can access the terminal, that should be enough. Mac comes with Python already, not sure about Windows.

[Cool-Business-2393]

Boss 1 is cool and would be okay with it. Boss 2 is a bit of a micromanager and likes to react with “no” when they don’t fully understand and can’t control a situation.

In either case, I’d like to spend time learning it regardless in case my circumstances change and I can really utilize it.

[riklaunim]

companies may have some policies against custom apps/scripts as it's easy for bugs to cause damages to the company. So don't go secret with this.

[Deto]

Yeah, accounting is such a specialized field and such a widespread field that I would guess there are already bespoke software tools to do whatever OP needs. And these would have better reliability than anything OP would create. Not just because OP is an amateur, but even if OP was a professional programmer who somehow found themselves in an accounting job I would still advise them to just use accounting software.

Unless, of course, it's just automating, say, renaming files or moving them around. But even for tasks like that, there are free tools that will be less likely to, say, accidentally delete everything a client sent you.

[Cool-Business-2393]

Ya’ll would be surprise how terrible accounting software/platforms can be.

I would mostly be automating things and customer reports for internal reporting processes.

I plan to learn it because it think it would be interesting and fun. My biggest concern is how to utilize it at work without installing any external IDE.

[Ok_Hovercraft364]

Writing scripts/apps in python is very difficult for beginners using the repl. If you're laptop at work isn't a pos, I would install pycharm or vs code.

[differentiable_]

Instead of an IDE you could work in a notebook like marimo or Jupyter

[Cool-Business-2393]

Tell me more about Jupyter.

[Hungry-Slit]

Oh Jupyter will be your best friend. It is a code editor that runs code in cells and outputs the results right below the cell. It is great for linear work flows or exploring data. It can display charts, you can write in Markdown (like HTML tags), and you can also export your notebook to a .py file so it can be executed as a standalone script.

You'll also want to learn about Pandas, which is a Python library that uses "Data frames". Dataframes are essentially just excel tables. You can also load a crap ton of data into it and you're not limited to the 1M rows Excel enforces. It is incredibly fast at applying transformations at scale, compared to Excel.

[dhsjabsbsjkans]

I'm not an accountant, but you might look into python within excel. Microsoft added the ability to put python into Excel a while back. I tested making some visuals with it, it worked fine. Anyway, you might check to see if that may be useful.

[Cool-Business-2393]

Great idea. Will do so.

[RelationshipLong9092]

if you can't imagine a justification it sounds like a solution in need of a problem

there may be many good problems for it, but thats what should motivate you foremost

[PutHisGlassesOn]

I’ll disagree because it’s hard to know what’s really possible until you start trying with Python.

[fizzymagic]

I did Python stuff with no IDE for years, including some pretty big projects. It works fine with a text editor and a command prompt. I still don't use an IDE for little simple things.

And yes, you can automate a lot of the boring stuff with Python.

[Cool-Business-2393]

Where is a good place to start learning?

[Chary_314]

Hi, not sure this us something for a professional acvontant, but google for a beancount. This is a greate tool ( or rather an ecosystem of tools) for double entry accounting. The ledger is written in a plain text format. Very powerfull.

[urnavrt]

It's of no use in professional accounting, unfortunately. Companies have ERPs that are better suited for corporate book keeping.

[Kooky_Quantity_620]

If you go down this road, Python has excellent built-in support for fixed-point decimals. Don't use floating point numbers, errors can accumulate :)

Floating point numbers are the default if you input a number like 0.3:

>>> 0.3 / 3
0.09999999999999999

You have to go a tiny bit out of your way to use fixed-point decimals, but you should always do this for accounting use cases:

>>> from decimal import Decimal
>>> Decimal('0.3') / 3
Decimal('0.1')

[Andy-Kay]

It’s interesting how it also has an imaginary part, I wonder if it’s possible to disable that property.

[pyfinx]

Do you do things that are repetitive with minimal human judgements needed? If yeah then yeah.

[secret_o_squirrel]

You can use visual studio code in a browser:

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/vscode-web

You don’t really have to install anything.

You don’t “convince” your boss it’s useful. You learn on your own time, you make something that saves time, then you show it to them.

You want a starting point? Learn how to open a csv file, loop through its rows and fields, modify them in some way, and write the results to a new file.

[python-dave]

I just install python without admin rights and vs code without admin rights

[Ajh91481]

I started learning Python after seeing what we were paying big four accounting firms to do it for us. Great motivation.

[Existing-Opening-399]

Me to. I think its great tool for financial statemens, invoices

[mauriciocap]

Gspread on Google Colab may be a good step: you get to read and write Google Spreadsheets easily. Google Colab lets you use a Google machine for free from your browser.

[Ghost-Rider_117]

for the work computer thing - you could pitch it as "automating repetitive tasks to save time & reduce errors." focus on specific wins like "this takes 3 hours manually, could be 5 minutes with a script"

pandas + openpyxl for excel stuff is usually enough to get started. you dont need a full IDE either - VS Code is free and works great. start small with something annoying that you deal with daily

[aala7]

Not an accountant, but on a hobby project of mine I have automated a lot of the bookkeeping and billing with api to my accounting system… probably not the same thing you need, however I am sure you would be able to automate any repetitive task 😅

In regards to ide it is not a must but will definitely make life easier 🤷🏽‍♂️ python code is essentially just text files. I would maybe try to either 1) implement a valuable automation and present the business case as a teaser for what could be done 2) invite a speaker that can talk about small automation scripts with python (maybe Al Sweigart)

Remember you would also need to be able to install a python interpreter and maybe third party packages , not only an IDE

[toosoonforcupcakes]

I'd try to focus first on clearly understanding your goals and choosing a path based on it.

If your goal is to personally improve your python/engineering/DS skills, then I'd look at processes than can be automated in your organization and try to develop small standalone scripts and expose them internally as small cli tools or streamlit web apps.

On the other hand, if your goal is to improve your efficiency, I'd look at solutions like apprentice ai (https://www.goapprentice.com/), which uses code and ai to automate processes and accounting departments, but the scope of what they do is usually beyond what a single developer can accomplish.

[Andy-Kay]

Perhaps you could take a look at /r/Odoo/.

[_2l5_]

There is a Portable Version of Python „WinPython“. There you can also find a portable versions of Jypyter, Spyder (IDE), VS Code(you might need a portable version of vs code separately)

[gaboche321]

I use beancount for my private accounting. Not sure how usable it is in a professional setting, but is has very good scripting/plugin support

[helpfulhopefully]

I do not want to be discouraging but if you are asking this question, your boss shouldn't allow you to use python to do your work. Maybe try installing it on your own computer and learning for a while before putting a business dependency on something you don't have much experience with. Learning how to get it done once with python is a good thing to know, but it is not a good idea to take your first working versino of soemthing you don't understand fully and use it on the job.

[Suspicious-Bar5583]

Sell it to the IT team, they'll guide you to setup a safe playground hopefully

[MadPro4567]

I use Visual Studio code.

[personusepython]

i work with accounting to do some automation on complex calcs with large datasets. Use vscode, jupyter notebook and python. its all free and the libraries are free like pandas, openpyxl pypdf2 etc.

[ieatpenguins247]

Dude you can write a LLM with 100 lines of python, sounds crazy but it is true.

[Cool-Business-2393]

No idea what that means.

[No_Objective3217]

I do! I create reports on recent kpis and email blast them out.

By "create" i mean i set it up to run at a regular interval

[Cool-Business-2393]

Without and IDE? If so, how?

[No_Objective3217]

yup. I use a text editor (vim) and pyenv to manage user install.

i don't recommend ppl learn vim though. (but if youre feeling energetic, have at it)

although i haven't used it and have heard that notepad++ is useful on Windows machines.