Integrate with Actual Budget

Support level: Community

What is Actual Budget

Actual Budget is a web-based financial management software. It helps users track and manage their income, expenses, and budgets in real time. The software compares actual spending with planned budgets to improve financial decisions.

-- https://actualbudget.org/

Preparation

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

• actual.company is the FQDN of the Actual Budget installation.
• authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik installation.

note

This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application.

authentik configuration

To support the integration of Actual Budget with authentik, you need to create an application/provider pair in authentik.

Create an application and provider in authentik

1. Log in to authentik as an admin, and open the authentik Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Applications > Applications and click Create with Provider to create an application and provider pair. (Alternatively you can first create a provider separately, then create the application and connect it with the provider.)

• Application: provide a descriptive name, an optional group for the type of application, the policy engine mode, and optional UI settings.
• Choose a Provider type: select OAuth2/OpenID Connect as the provider type.
• Configure the Provider: provide a name (or accept the auto-provided name), the authorization flow to use for this provider, and the following required configurations.
  • Note the Client ID,Client Secret, and slug values because they will be required later.
  • Set a Strict redirect URI to https://actual.company/openid/callback.
  • Select any available signing key. Actual Budget only supports the RS256 algorithm. Be aware of this when choosing a signing key.
• Configure Bindings (optional): you can create a binding (policy, group, or user) to manage the listing and access to applications on a user's My applications page.

3. Click Submit to save the new application and provider.

Actual Budget configuration

With Environment Variables

You can configure OpenID Connect with Actual Budget by adding the following variables to your .env file.

ACTUAL_OPENID_DISCOVERY_URL=https://authentik.company/application/o/<your-application-slug>/
ACTUAL_OPENID_CLIENT_ID=Your Client ID from authentik
ACTUAL_OPENID_CLIENT_SECRET=Your Client Secret from authentik
ACTUAL_OPENID_SERVER_HOSTNAME=https://actual.company

By editing the JSON file

You can configure Actual Budget to authenticate users with OpenID Connect by modifying the /data/config.json file or it's equivalent specified by the ACTUAL_DATA_DIR environment variable.

/data/config.json

  "openId": {
          "issuer": "https://authentik.company/application/o/<your-application-slug>/",
          "client_id": "<Client ID from authentik>",
          "client_secret": "<Client Secret from authentik>",
          "server_hostname": "https://actual.company",
          "authMethod": "openid"
      }

Using the UI

Alternatively, it is possible to configure OpenID Connect via the UI.

1. Sign in to Actual Budget and select your budget by clicing its name.
2. In the top-left corner, click your budget name to open the dropdown and choose Settings.
3. Scroll down and select Show advanced settings, then enable I understand the risks, show experimental features.
4. Enable OpenID authentication method.
5. Scroll up and click Start using OpenID under the Authentication method section.
6. Fill in the following values:
   • OpenID Provider: authentik
   • OpenID provider URL: https://authentik.company/application/o/your-application-slug/
   • Client ID: Enter the Client ID from authentik
   • Client Secret: Enter the Client Secret from authentik

warning

The first user to log into Actual Budget via OpenID will become the owner and administrator with the highest privileges for the budget. You should also note that users are not created automatically in Actual Budget. The owner must manually add users.

To do so, navigate to Server online > User Directory, and create users matching exiting authentik usernames. Then, grant access to the budget via the User Access tab.

Resources

• Official Actual Budget documentation on OpenID Connect integration

Configuration verification

To confirm that authentik is properly configured with Actual Budget, visit your Actual Budget installation, select the OpenID login method from the dropdown menu, and click Sign in with OpenID.