Category: Finance

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

Power Query function to count number of months between two dates

Power Query has a built-in Duration.Days function. But what about Duration.Months?

Why don’t we create a custom function for that?

(Date1 as date , Date2 as date) =>
let
    Source =
        List.Generate(
            () => [x = 1, y = Date.AddMonths(Date1,x)],
            each [y] <= Date2,
            each [x = [x] + 1, y = Date.AddMonths(Date1,x)],
            each [y]
        ),
    Months = List.Count(Source)
in
    Months

Note: Date1 should be earlier than Date2.

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