Category: Finance

Finance is not just about the management of money. It covers broader subjects that include, accounting, taxation , investments, analysis, etc.

BDO PERA Annual Contribution Limit Increase

Following the directive of the BSP, I received an email today from BDO stating that the limit for my annual contribution to my PERA account with them has increased from P100,000 to P200,000.

This is timely — with the elevated inflation rates in the past year or so, we’d better have enough come retirement age. Plus, this is an opportunity to average down faster with our PERA account subscriptions being down in the past 3 years.

Rich Dad Poor Dad – from overrated to trash

After reading the book (or rather, listening to the audiobook) of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, I thought it was overrated. After listening to the If Books Could Kill podcast episode about it, I realized it was a total piece of trash.

From promoting illegal investment and business activities, to selling MLM or Ponzi scheme products, people should already stop quoting passages from this book. Forget about assets and liabilities, or shaping people’s mindset about it, other than those taught in accounting classes.

Listen to Michael Hobbes & Peter Shamshiri as they break down the faults in this book:

Airtable Script to Convert Numbers into Words (Automation)

When you’re filling out bank forms, the bank documents usually require their customers spell out the amount they put in into words. This is one way for banks to make sure customers really meant the number they put in their forms, and not made a typo. This poses a problem when you’re using Airtable’s Page Designer to auto-populate the bank forms from your Airtable records. Yes, you can type it out in a separate text field, but there must be a way to automate this, right?

Let’s say, you have a field called “Amount Sold” in your base. Go to Automations, and in one of your actions, select Run Script. Add an Input Variable and name it amount_sold , then for the Value select the “Amount Sold” field from your base.

Input Variable in Airtable

Input Variable in Airtable

Now paste the following in the Code area: Continue reading

Docker app for generating PDF from Airtable Records

There are several ways to generate a PDF from Airtable records using Docker. One approach is to use a library or framework that can generate PDFs, such as wkhtmltopdf or PrinceXML, and run it within a Docker container.

Here is an example of how you might use wkhtmltopdf to generate a PDF from Airtable records:

  1. Create a new Docker image based on the official wkhtmltopdf image.
  2. In your Dockerfile, install any additional dependencies you need to access the Airtable API and retrieve records.
  3. Write a script that retrieves the records you want to include in the PDF from Airtable, and converts them to an HTML template.
  4. Use wkhtmltopdf to convert the HTML template to a PDF.
  5. Start the Docker container and run the script to generate the PDF.

You can store the pdf in the container and store it or a way to extract it outside of it, with the help of some specific command.

Another approach is to use a pre-built service such as Airtable2pdf that can be integrated with your Airtable bases and generate pdf’s of it.

Note that the above is a basic example and the actual implementation would depend on your specific requirements and use-case.

The above quote was taken directly from the answer of ChatGPT about my query which is the title of this article. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to build a docker image from source, so I didn’t really get the help I needed. Good luck to me and you who are looking for solutions like this.

Cryptocurrencies are not investment products

Bitcoin isn’t really used much as a currency at all.

When people buy bitcoin, they rarely use it to buy goods and services. They’re really buying access to a Ponzi scheme.

Even before the fall of FTX, I share the same sentiment. Bitcoin could probably actually work as a form of currency. Problem is, people don’t use it as such. They don’t exchange their dollars for these coins to buy goods and services. Instead, they buy them in the hopes that some other people will hop on the bandwagon, and they cash-in on its price appreciation.

And scammers flock to this opportunity to take advantage of people who don’t really know how things like these work but gullible enough to fall for their traps.

How Citibank let down clients with Entrego

A few months ago, my Citibank credit card was up for renewal. Citibank sent off my replacement card without delay via Entrego.

First Replacement Card

On the morning of the supposed delivery day, I got a text message from Entrego that my parcel was on its way. The day came and went, I got another text in the evening saying the messenger failed to deliver and they’ll attempt re-delivery the next day or so. The next day, same thing happened. After three failed delivery attempts, the parcel went back to sender.

I had to contact Citibank, and they blocked that card and dispatched a replacement to my replacement card. Continue reading

How to do Lookup in Excel and Power Query

Lookup in regular Excel function

The XLOOKUP function has been available to Office 365 and Excel 2021. For compatibility purposes with my workbook’s potential users, I shy away from using this function. Instead, I use the combination of INDEX and MATCH.

Why not VLOOKUP?

I’m not sure if there are any hardware efficiency benefit from using INDEX and MATCH over VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP. But I use INDEX and MATCH primarily for two reasons:

  1. Ability to return the value of the column to the left of your lookup array (left-most column of the table array)
  2. Never worry about adding a column between the returned column and the lookup array. Remember, you indicate the column index number being the returned column from your table array? What if you’ve not touched your file for a long time, return to it and inserting a column in a table, forgetting that you’ve used that table as a table array as a lookup somewhere in your worksheet? You’ll certainly break your VLOOKUP formula.

How to use these formulas

Sorry, but you have to look somewhere else for the usage of these formulas.

Lookup in Power Query

Power Query Lookup Sample File

To better demonstrate the functions, it’s better if we refer to a sample file:
Continue reading

BDO Online Mobile ‘ADD DEVICE’ Message Sending Failed

Did I already tell you how awful and trash-worthy BDO Online Banking is? Yet, no matter how bad it is, it has been your bank of choice, because you thought they find ways.

Installing the Mobile App

You installed the mobile app, and done with your mobile app only password. When you login, it asks for your OTP. But instead of receiving the OTP directly, you received a message from (02) 25678 that you need to reply with ‘ADD DEVICE’ instead. Only then will they text you your OTP.

But replying with ‘ADD DEVICE’ the message failed sending no matter how many times you tried.

The Solution

Instead of solving the problem directly, BDO Unibank offered a solution in a Facebook comment, which involves:
Continue reading