README

An exchange rates API services integration for Firefly III

Firefly III Xchange is a Laravel package that enhances Firefly III with automated exchange rate support. It connects to external exchange rate providers and makes up-to-date currency data available to a Firefly III installation.

🚀 Features

• 📊 Fetches current exchange rates from configurable API services
• 💸 Seamless integration with Firefly III’s currency system
• 📦 Easy setup in a Firefly III instance
• ⚙️ Simple yet flexible configuration for selecting rate providers

📦 Installation

Installation is easy. Simply navigate to your self-hosted Firefly III installation folder and run the following command

composer require spatian-dev/firefly-iii-xchange

🛠️ For now, only self-hosted instances are supported. We're looking to add support for containerized deployments. Contributions are welcome, please visit the Contributing section below.

⚙️ Configuration

After installation, configuration is easy via the .env file.

🧑🏻‍💻 For Advanced Users And Developers
Although all settings right now are configurable directly in your .env file, you can also publish the package’s settings

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Spatian\FireflyIIIXchange\Providers\FireflyXchangeServiceProvider" --tag=config

Firefly III Personal Access Token

In order to update the exchange rates in your Firefly III administration, a personal access token (PAT) must be configured.

XCHANGE_FIREFLY_TOKEN=<your-token-here>

You can create and manage PATs in your Firefly III administration panel. Consult the Firefly III documentation for more details.

Default Exchange Source Currency

Configure the source currency for which the exchange rates will be fetched here.

XCHANGE_CURRENCY=USD

This is can be overriden when running the xchange:refresh command. See the Usage section below.

External Exchange Rates Service

XCHANGE_SERVICE=<external_api>

If this variable is left empty, Firefly III Xchange will be disabled and will not update exchange rates. Currently supported services are listed below.

⚠️ Disclaimer: Please note that the authors of this package maintain no relationship or affiliation with any of the services listed below.

Exchangerate.host

Exchangerate.host is a paid service with a free tier.

• Use XCHANGE_SERVICE=exchangerate_host to enable this service.
• Configure your API key for this service using XCHANGE_SERVICE=<your-api-key>

Usage

Manually Running The Command

To update exchange rates using your configured service and currency, simply run

php artisan xchange:refresh

You can override the default source currency for which exchange rates are fetched. For example, to use CAD as a source currency, run the following command

php artisan xchange:refresh -C CAD

Automating Updates Using Cron

Cron is a very powerful time-based scheduler that can be used to automate exchange rates updates. To do so, edit your file

crontab -e

Then add as many lines as necessary to schedule updates.
Assuming your PHP binary is located at /usr/bin/php, these lines will look something like this

* * * * * /usr/bin/php <path-to-firefly-iii>/artisan xchange:refresh

Make sure your replace <path-to-firefly-iii> with the actual absolute path to your Firefly III installation. The asterisks at the beginning are where the schedule can be configured, see Cron on Wikipedia and the Cron article on Firefly III's documentation for more details.

For example, the following cron lines will fetch CAD exchange rates every day at 1:00 AM, and USD exchange rates every day at 2:00 AM

0 1 * * * /usr/bin/php <path-to-firefly-iii>/artisan xchange:refresh -C CAD
0 2 * * * /usr/bin/php <path-to-firefly-iii>/artisan xchange:refresh -C USD

📃 License

Firefly III Xchange is free and open-source software released under the Apache 2.0 license. See LICENSE for more information.

🧑🏻‍💻 Contributing

We are currently looking to:

• Expand the available external exchange rate services with more options
• Add support for containerized deployments

If you'd like to contribute, please consult the contribution guide.