Stack Template: Low‑Cost CRM + Budgeting Bundle for Freelancers and Small Teams

Get a full CRM + Budgeting + LibreOffice fallback running in a day — without the vendor lock‑in or surprise bills

Hook: If you’re a freelancer or a small team tired of fragmented tools, rising SaaS bills, and slow onboarding, this opinionated stack template is built for you. It combines a lightweight CRM, a low‑cost budgeting option (self‑hosted or an affordable paid app), and simple LibreOffice fallbacks — with setup scripts and integration notes so you can be productive in a single workday.

Why this bundle matters in 2026

By 2026, teams are balancing two forces: advanced SaaS capabilities (AI assistants, analytics) and the need to control costs and data exposure. Many CRM vendors have layered expensive AI add‑ons or lock data into ecosystems. The trend is toward pragmatic, opinionated stacks that trade some bells and whistles for predictability, lower total cost of ownership, and faster setup.

Core principles:

• Keep infrastructure small and predictable — a single 1–2 vCPU VPS can host this bundle for a 2–5 person team.
• Prefer open formats and fallbacks (CSV, ODS, LibreOffice) so you can export and own your data.
• Automate integration with a tiny workflow engine (n8n) or simple scripts instead of paid middleware.
• Ship in a day: opinionated defaults, one docker‑compose, and a short post‑install checklist.

What you get in this bundle

The stack is intentionally minimal and battle‑tested for small teams:

• Lightweight CRM: EspoCRM (Docker image) — simple contact, opportunity, activity tracking, REST API.
• Budgeting / finance manager: Firefly III (self‑hosted) for teams who want full control, or Monarch Money (2026 sale example: ~$50/yr new users during promotions) as a low‑cost hosted alternative.
• LibreOffice fallback: Templates and ODS/CSV exports for offline editing and invoicing — avoids vendor lock‑in.
• Integration layer: n8n or small sync scripts (bash + Python) to keep contacts, invoices, and payees in sync.
• One‑day quickstart: docker‑compose, a setup.sh script, and sample API glue code to sync contacts and create payees.

Why these choices?

EspoCRM is light, well‑documented, has a REST API, and is easy to run on modest hardware. Firefly III is mature for budgeting and expense tracking and fits freelancers who want to retain data ownership. Monarch Money is mentioned as a practical, cheap hosted option for people who prefer not to self‑host (2026 promotions have made it a cost‑effective choice for some users).

2026 trends that justify this approach

• Many enterprise CRMs are bundling paid AI features; for small teams that adds cost and complexity. Minimal CRMs + local automation are more predictable.
• Self‑hosting pivots from a niche trend to a mainstream cost management strategy — lower cloud spend, simpler pricing.
• Regulatory pressure (data residency and privacy checks through 2024–2025) has pushed some small teams to prefer local control of PII and financial records.

Quick architecture overview

Run everything on a single small VPS or a pair of cheap instances for redundancy:

1. VPS (1–2 vCPU, 2–4 GB RAM) — host docker and containers.
2. Reverse proxy (Traefik) — TLS via Let's Encrypt.
3. MariaDB — single instance shared by EspoCRM and Firefly III.
4. EspoCRM container.
5. Firefly III container.
6. n8n container — automation and webhooks.

One‑day quickstart — files and commands

Clone a repo, edit a couple of environment variables, and run the setup script. Below are the core files you’ll need. This is a compact, production‑minded quickstart for small teams. The example assumes a Debian/Ubuntu VPS with Docker and docker‑compose installed.

docker‑compose.yml (essential services)

version: '3.7'
services:
  mariadb:
    image: mariadb:10.6
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${DB_ROOT_PASSWORD}
      MYSQL_DATABASE: ${DB_NAME}
      MYSQL_USER: ${DB_USER}
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASS}
    volumes:
      - mariadb-data:/var/lib/mysql

  espocrm:
    image: espocrm/espocrm:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      DBHOST: mariadb
      DBUSER: ${DB_USER}
      DBPASS: ${DB_PASS}
      DBNAME: ${DB_NAME}
    ports:
      - '8080:80'
    depends_on:
      - mariadb

  firefly:
    image: jc5x/firefly-iii:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - DB_HOST=mariadb
      - DB_DATABASE=${DB_NAME}
      - DB_USERNAME=${DB_USER}
      - DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASS}
      - APP_KEY=${FIREFLY_KEY}
    ports:
      - '8081:80'
    depends_on:
      - mariadb

  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_ACTIVE=true
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_USER=${N8N_USER}
      - N8N_BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=${N8N_PASS}
    ports:
      - '5678:5678'

volumes:
  mariadb-data:

setup.sh (simplified installer)

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
# Minimal quickstart. Edit .env before running.
source .env
if [ -z "$DB_ROOT_PASSWORD" ]; then
  echo '.env not configured. Copy .env.sample to .env and edit values.'
  exit 1
fi

docker-compose pull

docker-compose up -d

# Wait for mariadb then run any migrations (EspoCRM web UI can finish install)
echo 'Containers started. Visit http://your-vps:8080 to finish EspoCRM web installer.'

Save a .env with variables for DB and n8n credentials. After docker‑compose starts, finish the EspoCRM web installer at /setup and create the Firefly III admin via its web UI.

Integration notes — sync contacts and payees in 30 minutes

Small teams don’t need full ETL. Keep integrations simple and auditable:

• Use EspoCRM REST API to export contacts as CSV or JSON.
• Create payees / tags in Firefly III via its API so expense records attach to clients.
• Automate the sync with n8n (drag‑drop) or run a scheduled script on the server.

Example: export EspoCRM contacts and create Firefly payees (curl + jq)

# 1) Export contacts from EspoCRM
curl -s 'http://localhost:8080/api/v1/Contacts' \
  -u 'admin:yourpassword' | jq '.list[] | {name: .name, email: .email}' > contacts.json

# 2) Create payees in Firefly III (requires Firefly token)
FIREFLY_TOKEN='your_firefly_token'
for name in $(jq -r '.name' contacts.json); do
  curl -s -X POST 'http://localhost:8081/api/v1/payees' \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIREFLY_TOKEN" \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d "{\"name\": \"$name\"}"
  sleep 0.2
done

This is intentionally simple — it's easier to reason about and debug. For production, move these scripts into n8n workflows or a small Python app that handles duplicates and rate limits.

LibreOffice fallback: why it matters and how to use it

Why: Proprietary cloud editors can make exports messy or paywalled. LibreOffice gives you a fully‑featured offline editor and native support for ODF/ODS formats that preserve formulas and templates.

How to include LibreOffice in your workflow:

• Export CRM reports and budgeting CSVs as CSV/ODS. Always keep an ODS copy for accounting continuity.
• Create a small repository of LibreOffice templates: invoices.ods, expense_report.ods, client_summary.ods.
• Use LibreOffice desktop for offline work and to print invoices. If you want online editing, run Nextcloud + Collabora on a separate instance (optional but higher resource needs).

Example: export invoices from Firefly III as CSV and open with LibreOffice:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIREFLY_TOKEN" \
  'http://localhost:8081/api/v1/statements/transactions.csv' -o invoices.csv
libreoffice invoices.csv

Cost estimate and options

Below are rough 2026 cost numbers for comparison. Your geography and hosting provider will change actuals.

• VPS (single node): $5–10/month (Hetzner, Vultr, or similar) — runs EspoCRM, Firefly III, n8n.
• Managed DB / higher availability: +$10–$30/month if you need HA.
• Monarch Money (hosted budgeting, promotional pricing early 2026): ≈ $50/year in some promotions — good choice if you don’t want to self‑host Firefly III.
• Optional Nextcloud + Collabora (if you need online LibreOffice): +$10–$20/month or larger VPS size.

Example: small agency saving: A 3‑person agency replaced a CRM + budgeting SaaS bundle at $80/month with this stack on a $10 VPS + $50/yr Monarch promo and cut costs to ≈ $20/month recurring (plus one‑time migration effort). That’s ~75% savings while preserving core workflows.

Security, backups, and operational best practices

• Enable TLS with Traefik/Let's Encrypt. Never expose admin ports to the internet.
• Back up MariaDB daily — keep incremental backups off‑site (S3 or another VPS).
• Use strong admin passwords, rotate API keys (n8n & Firefly tokens), and use basic auth for n8n or IP‑restrict it.
• Audit exports monthly and keep ODS snapshots of critical reports for accounting.

Advanced strategies and future‑proofing (2026+)

As vendors in 2025–2026 leaned into paid AI features, small teams should prepare to selectively add intelligence without inflating cost:

• Use local LLM proxies for simple text classification (tagging leads) instead of vendor‑hosted AI; this reduces data egress and cost.
• Keep data export pipelines simple and well‑documented — a single CSV export per month is a trust anchor that lets you switch vendors later.
• Build tiny ML triggers in n8n or Python for lead scoring, not full‑blown predictive analytics.

Sample: simple lead scoring idea (pseudo)

# Score rules (example)
# +10 if email verified
# +5 if tagged 'enterprise'
# -5 if last_activity > 90 days

# Implement as n8n workflow or lightweight Python lambda that writes score to EspoCRM custom field.

Troubleshooting quick reference

• EspoCRM won’t start: check DB credentials and migrations in logs (docker-compose logs espocrm).
• Firefly admin not created: open /install or check APP_KEY in .env.
• n8n workflows failing: verify basic auth and webhook URLs; prefer internal network calls for reliability.

Case study — real‑world example

One freelance developer (solo) in late 2025 moved from a mix of Google Sheets + a paid CRM at $20/month + an expense app at $8/month to this stack. With self‑hosting and periodic exports to LibreOffice templates, they reduced recurring spend from $28/month to a VPS at $6/month and occasional paid budgeting app promos (≈ $50/yr when needed). Setup took four hours on a Sunday; monthly maintenance is under one hour.

Result: Faster client onboarding (EspoCRM templates), predictable business expenses (Firefly III), and reliable offline invoice templates (LibreOffice) — all with auditable exports.

Actionable takeaways — do this in a day

1. Provision a cheap VPS (1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM) and install Docker + docker‑compose.
2. Clone the stack repo (docker‑compose + setup.sh), create a .env, and run setup.sh.
3. Finish EspoCRM and Firefly III web installs, create admin users, and lock down n8n with basic auth.
4. Create LibreOffice invoice and expense templates (ODS) and store them with versioned backups.
5. Write a short n8n workflow or script to sync contacts → payees; run once and verify data integrity.
6. Enable TLS and daily DB backups. Test a restore once in a staging environment.

Final recommendations

Keep it opinionated. Choose the minimal tools that solve your problems, automate the handoffs that annoy you most, and keep exports clean. In 2026 the smart choice for many small teams is not maximal feature parity — it’s predictable cost, minimal maintenance, and complete control of your data.

Call to action

Ready to try the stack? Clone the quickstart repo, edit the .env, and run the setup script. If you want, start with Monarch Money as the budgeting app to validate workflows, then migrate to Firefly III when you’re ready to self‑host. If you’d like a packaged version of this repo (docker‑compose, setup script, n8n templates, LibreOffice templates), reply with your team size and I’ll provide the opinionated starter bundle and a 30‑minute onboarding checklist.

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