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Tame the Feast or Famine Cycle with The Open Source Automation Stack

Are you a freelancer tired of the financial rollercoaster? The 'feast or famine' cycle of high-earning months followed by dry spells makes stable budgeting and saving for taxes feel impossible. This constant income volatility leads to reactive, stressful money management, leaving you chasing invoices just to cover this month's bills instead of building long-term financial security.

This playbook guides you through building 'The Open Source Automation Stack'—a powerful, low-cost system for ultimate financial control. We'll show you how to connect your invoicing software (Wave) to a self-hosted envelope budgeting app (Actual Budget) using an automation platform. When a client pays, a workflow automatically calculates and allocates your income into digital 'envelopes' for taxes, savings, and expenses. You get a real-time dashboard showing exactly where every dollar should go, empowering you to make a few simple, manual bank transfers to bring your real-world accounts in line with your plan.

Expected Outcomes

  • End the 'feast or famine' stress with a clear, proactive financial plan.
  • Automatically set aside money for taxes, savings, and business expenses with every payment.
  • Gain a real-time dashboard of your business's financial health for confident decision-making.
  • Drastically reduce monthly software costs by using powerful open-source tools.
  • Achieve total control and privacy over your most sensitive financial data.

Core Tools in This Stack

Actual Budget

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Actual Budget is a local-first, open-source personal finance application for managing budgets and tracking expenses with a focus on privacy and data ownership.

Key Features
  • Local-First Data Storage
  • Zero-Based (Envelope) Budgeting
  • Optional Bank Syncing
  • Multi-Device Sync (End-to-End Encrypted)
  • Self-Hosting Option
  • Financial Reporting
  • Transaction Management
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro

Industries: Technology & Software, Creative & Media, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Open Source

Tier: Free

Ease of Use

Intermediate

Wave

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Wave offers a suite of financial management tools, including free accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning, designed for small businesses, freelancers, and sole proprietors. It also provides paid, integrated services like online payment processing and payroll.

Key Features
  • Free Accounting Software
  • Unlimited Customizable Invoicing
  • Online Payment Processing
  • Receipt Scanning
  • Payroll Management
  • Business Banking (Wave Money)
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small

Industries: Business & Professional Services, Creative & Media, Technology & Software, Retail & E-commerce, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Pay-per-use, Subscription

Tier: Free

Ease of Use

Easy

The Workflow

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Integration Logic

  • Make

    This integration uses a Make scenario to monitor your Wave account for new transactions. When a new transaction is detected (e.g., a bill is paid, an invoice is settled), the scenario triggers. It retrieves the transaction details—such as date, amount, and description—from Wave. Then, it uses the Actual Budget API to create a corresponding transaction in your specified budget file and account. The data is transformed within Make to match the format required by Actual Budget, including converting currency values to milliunits.

End the Freelance Income Rollercoaster

Learn how to use open-source automation to create predictable revenue and build lasting financial security.