diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md --- a/CHANGES.md +++ b/CHANGES.md @@ -9,6 +9,52 @@ User-visible changes in the hledger command line tool and library. +# 1.29.2 2023-04-07 + +Breaking changes + +- 1.29's cleanup of the `close` command has been continued. + Here are all the changes to `close` since hledger 1.28: + + - The default behaviour is now to print only one transaction: a closing transaction. + + - To print both closing and opening transactions as before, + use the new `--migrate` flag. + + - The accounts closed by default are now just the ALE accounts + (accounts declared or inferred as type `Asset`, `Liability`, or `Equity`). + If you don't have account types configured, or + to close some other set of accounts, provide query arguments that match them. + To close all accounts as before, use a `.` argument to match them all. + + - To print a retain earnings transaction for RX accounts (accounts + of type `Revenue` or `Expense`), use the new `--retain` flag. + + - The `equity` command alias, removed in 1.29, has been restored. + + - The `--open-acct` option, removed in 1.29, has been restored. + + - The `--closing` and `--opening` flags have been renamed to `--close` and `--open`. + (`--close` had been removed in 1.29 and is now restored.) + + - The docs have been rewritten. Also the 1.29 release notes now mention + the breaking change. + + - The command is marked experimental again. + + (#2020) + +Fixes + +- The 1.29 release notes for periodic reports'/periodic transactions' start dates + have been improved. Also the hledger manual's "Date adjustment" section + has been corrected and clarified. + +- `type:` queries now "see through" account aliases and pivots, + as they did in hledger <1.27, and as `acct:` queries do. + (#2018) + + # 1.29.1 2023-03-16 Improvements @@ -42,35 +88,33 @@ Breaking changes -- Weekly reports are no longer automatically adjusted to start on a - monday; in some cases you might need to adjust their start date to - preserve simple week headings (see below). +- Periodic reports will now start exactly at the start date you have specified, + rather than being adjusted to a natural period boundary; see below. +- The `close` command's CLI and default behaviour was changed; see below + (and fixes in hledger 1.29.2+). + Features -- In journal format there is now a `tag` directive for declaring tag names, - and the check command now has a `tags` check to enforce use of declared tag names. +- Periodic transactions and periodic reports can now start on any date. + Eg, `hledger reg -M -b 1/15` now starts exactly on jan 15th, and a periodic rule + like `~ monthly from 2023-01-15` now works as you'd expect instead of raising an error. + This also improves our ability to read Ledger files. + Inferred start/end dates, eg obtained from the journal instead of the command line, + are still automatically adjusted to period boundaries, as before. -- Periodic transactions and multi-period reports can now start on any date. - To enable this while still maintaining pretty good backward compatibility, - hledger now treats inferred dates, and dates where the day is unspecified, - as "flexible" (which can be automatically adjusted to interval boundaries), - and dates specified to the day as "exact" (which can not). - Eg: + Upgrade notes: in report commands which specify a start date, you might need to + adjust that date to see the same periods as before. Eg: - - A periodic rule like `~ monthly from 2023-01-15` now works as - you'd expect instead of raising an error. This also improves - our ability to read Ledger files. + - `-p 'weekly from 202304'` (equivalent to `-p 'weekly from 20230401'`) + now gives periods like `2023-04-01..2023-04-07`. + Change it to start on a monday (eg `-p 'weekly from 20230403`) to restore + simple week periods like `2023-04-03W14`. - - Period options like `-p 'monthly from 2023/1/15'` or `-M -b 2023/1/15` - now start the report on exactly 1/15 instead of being adjusted to 1/1. - - Note: periods using `in` may look partial but are considered to specify exact dates. - So weekly reports such as `-p 'weekly in 2023-01'`, which previously - were adjusted to start on a monday, will now start exactly on 2023-01-01. - This can also cause more verbose column headings. - To guarantee simple week headings, you must now start such reports - exactly on a monday, eg `-p 'weekly from 2022-12-26 to 2023-02'`. + - `-M -b 2023/1/15` now gives periods like `2023-01-15..2023-02-14 2023-02-15..2023-03-14`. + Change it to start on a first of month (eg `-M -b 2023/1`) to restore + simple month periods like `Jan Feb Mar`. + (#1982) - You can now freely combine @/@@ costs and conversion postings @@ -81,6 +125,9 @@ or name `equity:conversion`/`equity:trade`/`equity:trading`, or subaccounts of these. See also COST.) +- In journal format there is now a `tag` directive for declaring tag names, + and the check command now has a `tags` check to enforce use of declared tag names. + Improvements - hledger's commands list has been reorganised for clarity. @@ -109,8 +156,11 @@ when extra query args (other than date: or depth:) are used, to reduce confusion. -- close now has three modes, `--retain`/`--migrate`/`--open`, - clarifying its uses and providing more useful defaults. +- The `close` command's CLI and default behaviour were changed, + attempting to make it easier to understand and use. Some of its + legacy flags and aliases were also dropped, without sufficient + warning. For the full details, including subsequent cleanups, + see hledger 1.29.2's change notes. - register-match is now the `--match` mode of the register command. (This command was used by ledger-autosync at one point; if you still diff --git a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.hs b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.hs --- a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.hs +++ b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.hs @@ -29,22 +29,28 @@ closemode = hledgerCommandMode $(embedFileRelative "Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.txt") - [flagNone ["retain"] (setboolopt "retain") "show RX retain earnings transaction" - ,flagNone ["migrate"] (setboolopt "migrate") "show ALE closing/opening transactions" - ,flagNone ["open"] (setboolopt "open") "show ALE opening transaction" - ,flagReq ["close-desc"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "close-desc" s opts) "DESC" ("description for closing transaction (default: "++defclosedesc++")") - ,flagReq ["open-desc"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "open-desc" s opts) "DESC" ("description for opening transaction (default: "++defopendesc++")") - ,flagReq ["close-acct"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "close-acct" s opts) "ACCT" ("account to transfer closing balances to (default: "++defcloseacct++")") + [flagNone ["close"] (setboolopt "close") "show a closing transaction (default)" + ,flagNone ["open"] (setboolopt "open") "show an opening transaction" + ,flagNone ["migrate"] (setboolopt "migrate") "show both closing and opening transactions" + ,flagNone ["retain"] (setboolopt "retain") "show a retain earnings transaction (for RX accounts)" ,flagNone ["explicit","x"] (setboolopt "explicit") "show all amounts explicitly" - ,flagNone ["interleaved"] (setboolopt "interleaved") "keep source and destination postings adjacent" - ,flagNone ["show-costs"] (setboolopt "show-costs") "keep balances with different costs separate" + ,flagNone ["show-costs"] (setboolopt "show-costs") "show amounts with different costs separately" + ,flagNone ["interleaved"] (setboolopt "interleaved") "show source and destination postings together" + ,flagReq ["close-desc"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "close-desc" s opts) "DESC" "set closing transaction's description" + ,flagReq ["close-acct"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "close-acct" s opts) "ACCT" "set closing transaction's destination account" + ,flagReq ["open-desc"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "open-desc" s opts) "DESC" "set opening transaction's description" + ,flagReq ["open-acct"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "open-acct" s opts) "ACCT" "set opening transaction's source account" ] [generalflagsgroup1] (hiddenflags - -- any old command flags for compatibility, hidden - -- ++ [] + ++ -- keep supporting old flag names for compatibility + [flagNone ["closing"] (setboolopt "close") "old spelling of --close" + ,flagNone ["opening"] (setboolopt "open") "old spelling of --open" + ,flagReq ["close-to"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "close-acct" s opts) "ACCT" "old spelling of --close-acct" + ,flagReq ["open-from"] (\s opts -> Right $ setopt "open-acct" s opts) "ACCT" "old spelling of --open-acct" + ] ) - ([], Just $ argsFlag "[QUERY]") + ([], Just $ argsFlag "[--close | --open | --migrate | --retain] [ACCTQUERY]") -- Debugger, beware: close is incredibly devious; simple rules combine to make a horrid maze. -- Tests are in hledger/test/close.test. @@ -55,13 +61,15 @@ | boolopt "retain" rawopts -> (True, False, defretaindesc, undefined, defretainacct, Type [Revenue, Expense]) | boolopt "migrate" rawopts -> (True, True, defclosedesc, defopendesc, defcloseacct, Type [Asset, Liability, Equity]) | boolopt "open" rawopts -> (False, True, undefined, defopendesc, defcloseacct, Type [Asset, Liability, Equity]) - | otherwise -> (True, False, defclosedesc, undefined, defcloseacct, Any) + | otherwise -> (True, False, defclosedesc, undefined, defcloseacct, Type [Asset, Liability, Equity]) -- descriptions to use for the closing/opening transactions closedesc = T.pack $ fromMaybe defclosedesc_ $ maybestringopt "close-desc" rawopts opendesc = T.pack $ fromMaybe defopendesc_ $ maybestringopt "open-desc" rawopts + + -- equity/balancing accounts to use closeacct = T.pack $ fromMaybe defcloseacct_ $ maybestringopt "close-acct" rawopts - openacct = closeacct + openacct = maybe closeacct T.pack $ maybestringopt "open-acct" rawopts ropts = (_rsReportOpts rspec0){balanceaccum_=Historical, accountlistmode_=ALFlat} rspec1 = setDefaultConversionOp NoConversionOp rspec0{_rsReportOpts=ropts} diff --git a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.txt b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.txt --- a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.txt +++ b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Close.txt @@ -1,60 +1,75 @@ close -close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY] - -By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all -accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query -arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other -modes are supported: +(equity) ---retain: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense balances. -This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting -period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting, -but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. +Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from +another account (typically equity). This can be useful for migrating +balances to a new journal file, or for merging earnings into equity at +end of accounting period. ---migrate: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most -equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be -useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection). -Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files -to be combined. +By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts (asset, +liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be +configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. ---open: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This can be -useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. Similar -to Ledger's equity command. +(experimental) _FLAGS -You can change the equity account name with --close-acct ACCT. It -defaults to equity:retained earnings with --retain, or -equity:opening/closing balances otherwise. +This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use +cases: -You can change the transaction description(s) with --close-desc 'DESC' -and --open-desc 'DESC'. It defaults to retain earnings with --retain, or -closing balances and opening balances otherwise. +1. With --close (default), it prints a "closing balances" transaction + that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts by default + (this requires account types to be inferred or declared); or, the + accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments. -Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an -implicit amount. +2. With --open, it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction + that restores those balances from zero. This is similar to Ledger's + equity command. -With --x/--explicit the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it -involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for -each commodity. +3. With --migrate, it prints both the closing and opening transactions. + This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run + hledger close --migrate, add the closing transaction at the end of + the old file, and add the opening transaction at the start of the + new file. The matching closing/opening transactions cancel each + other out, preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting. -With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the -corresponding source/destination posting. +4. With --retain, it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that + transfers RX (revenue and expense) balances to + equity:retained earnings. Businesses traditionally do this at the + end of each accounting period; it is less necessary with + computer-based accounting, but it could still be useful if you want + to see the accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied. +In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: + +- the transaction descriptions can be changed with --close-desc=DESC + and --open-desc=DESC +- the account to transfer to/from can be changed with + --close-acct=ACCT and --open-acct=ACCT +- the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with ACCTQUERY + (account query arguments). + +By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its +amount left implicit. With --x/--explicit, the amount will be shown +explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting +will be generated for each of them (similar to print -x). + +With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings +for each cost. This is currently the best way to view investment lots. +If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can +generate very large journal entries. + +With --interleaved, each individual transfer is shown with source and +destination postings next to each other. This could be useful for +troubleshooting. + The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the report period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on 2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing date. -close and costs - -With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings -for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets, -showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or -investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. - close and balance assertions Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have @@ -96,8 +111,9 @@ $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal -Now 2022's income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again, -exclude the retain transaction. Eg: +Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because revenues +and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. To see them again, you +could exclude the retain transaction: $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' @@ -112,19 +128,21 @@ Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that case, -try adding --infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing -transaction. Eg: +try adding --infer-equity.) To see the end-of-year balances again, you +could exclude the closing transaction: $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' Example: excluding closing/opening transactions When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening -transactions cause some noise in reports like print and register. You -can exclude them as shown above, but not:desc:... could be fragile, and -also you will need to avoid excluding the very first opening -transaction, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, using tags: -add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the +transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like print +and register. You can exclude them as shown above, but not:desc:... is +not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; also you will want +to avoid excluding the very first opening transaction, which could be +awkward. Here is one alternative, using tags: + +Add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the first, like this: ; 2021.journal diff --git a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Help.txt b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Help.txt --- a/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Help.txt +++ b/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Help.txt @@ -12,12 +12,20 @@ browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are not installed on your system. -By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info -since the hledger manual is large). You can select a particular viewer -with the -i, -m, or -p flags. +By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this +order): info, man, $PAGER, less, more. You can force the use of info, +man, or a pager with the -i, -m, or -p flags, If no viewer can be found, +or the command is run non-interactively, it just prints the manual to +stdout. +If using info, note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC +lookup. If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should +consider installing a newer version, eg with brew install texinfo +(#1770). + Examples -$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed diff --git a/Hledger/Cli/Main.hs b/Hledger/Cli/Main.hs --- a/Hledger/Cli/Main.hs +++ b/Hledger/Cli/Main.hs @@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ module Hledger.Cli.Main where +import Control.Monad (when) import Data.List import Safe import qualified System.Console.CmdArgs.Explicit as C @@ -97,6 +98,8 @@ main :: IO () main = do starttime <- getPOSIXTime + -- try to encourage user's $PAGER to properly display ANSI + when useColorOnStdout setupPager -- Choose and run the appropriate internal or external command based -- on the raw command-line arguments, cmdarg's interpretation of diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.1 b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.1 --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.1 +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.1 @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ -.TH "HLEDGER-UI" "1" "March 2023" "hledger-ui-1.29.1 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER-UI" "1" "April 2023" "hledger-ui-1.29.2 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ \f[V]hledger ui -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]\f[R] .SH DESCRIPTION .PP -This manual is for hledger\[aq]s terminal interface, version 1.29.1. +This manual is for hledger\[aq]s terminal interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. .PP hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs for diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.info b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.info --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.info +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.info @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -This is hledger-ui.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.1 from stdin. +This is hledger-ui.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.3 from stdin. INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY @@ -13,10 +13,10 @@ hledger-ui - robust, friendly plain text accounting (TUI version) - ‘hledger-ui [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]’ -‘hledger ui -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]’ + 'hledger-ui [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]' +'hledger ui -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]' - This manual is for hledger’s terminal interface, version 1.29.1. See + This manual is for hledger's terminal interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs @@ -25,21 +25,21 @@ and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with beancount(1). - hledger-ui is hledger’s terminal interface, providing an efficient + hledger-ui is hledger's terminal interface, providing an efficient full-window text UI for viewing accounts and transactions, and some -limited data entry capability. It is easier than hledger’s command-line +limited data entry capability. It is easier than hledger's command-line interface, and sometimes quicker and more convenient than the web interface. Like hledger, it reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV format. The default file is -‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory; this can be overridden with -one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment +'.hledger.journal' in your home directory; this can be overridden with +one or more '-f FILE' options, or the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable. For more about this see hledger(1), hledger_journal(5) etc. Unlike hledger, hledger-ui hides all future-dated transactions by default. They can be revealed, along with any rule-generated periodic -transactions, by pressing the F key (or starting with –forecast) to +transactions, by pressing the F key (or starting with -forecast) to enable "forecast mode". * Menu: @@ -59,173 +59,173 @@ 1 OPTIONS ********* -Note: if invoking hledger-ui as a hledger subcommand, write ‘--’ before +Note: if invoking hledger-ui as a hledger subcommand, write '--' before options as shown above. Any QUERYARGS are interpreted as a hledger search query which filters the data. -‘-w --watch’ +'-w --watch' watch for data and date changes and reload automatically -‘--theme=default|terminal|greenterm’ +'--theme=default|terminal|greenterm' use this custom display theme -‘--menu’ +'--menu' start in the menu screen -‘--all’ +'--all' start in the all accounts screen -‘--bs’ +'--bs' start in the balance sheet accounts screen -‘--is’ +'--is' start in the income statement accounts screen -‘--register=ACCTREGEX’ +'--register=ACCTREGEX' - start in the (first) matched account’s register screen -‘--change’ + start in the (first) matched account's register screen +'--change' show period balances (changes) at startup instead of historical balances -‘-l --flat’ +'-l --flat' show accounts as a flat list (default) -‘-t --tree’ +'-t --tree' show accounts as a tree hledger input options: -‘-f FILE --file=FILE’ +'-f FILE --file=FILE' use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ or ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’) -‘--rules-file=RULESFILE’ + '$LEDGER_FILE' or '$HOME/.hledger.journal') +'--rules-file=RULESFILE' Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) -‘--separator=CHAR’ +'--separator=CHAR' - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ’,’) -‘--alias=OLD=NEW’ + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') +'--alias=OLD=NEW' rename accounts named OLD to NEW -‘--anon’ +'--anon' anonymize accounts and payees -‘--pivot FIELDNAME’ +'--pivot FIELDNAME' use some other field or tag for the account name -‘-I --ignore-assertions’ +'-I --ignore-assertions' disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance assignments) -‘-s --strict’ +'-s --strict' do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are declared) hledger reporting options: -‘-b --begin=DATE’ +'-b --begin=DATE' include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) -‘-e --end=DATE’ +'-e --end=DATE' include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to following subperiod end when using a report interval) -‘-D --daily’ +'-D --daily' multiperiod/multicolumn report by day -‘-W --weekly’ +'-W --weekly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by week -‘-M --monthly’ +'-M --monthly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by month -‘-Q --quarterly’ +'-Q --quarterly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter -‘-Y --yearly’ +'-Y --yearly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by year -‘-p --period=PERIODEXP’ +'-p --period=PERIODEXP' set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once using period expressions syntax -‘--date2’ +'--date2' match the secondary date instead (see command help for other effects) -‘--today=DATE’ +'--today=DATE' - override today’s date (affects relative smart dates, for + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for tests/examples) -‘-U --unmarked’ +'-U --unmarked' include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) -‘-P --pending’ +'-P --pending' include only pending postings/txns -‘-C --cleared’ +'-C --cleared' include only cleared postings/txns -‘-R --real’ +'-R --real' include only non-virtual postings -‘-NUM --depth=NUM’ +'-NUM --depth=NUM' hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep -‘-E --empty’ +'-E --empty' show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in hledger-ui/hledger-web) -‘-B --cost’ +'-B --cost' convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time -‘-V --market’ +'-V --market' convert amounts to their market value in default valuation commodities -‘-X --exchange=COMM’ +'-X --exchange=COMM' convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM -‘--value’ +'--value' convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than -B/-V/-X -‘--infer-market-prices’ +'--infer-market-prices' use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market prices, as if they were P directives -‘--auto’ +'--auto' apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. -‘--forecast’ +'--forecast' generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also make ordinary future transactions visible. -‘--commodity-style’ +'--commodity-style' Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example ’EUR1.000,00’. -‘--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)’ + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. +'--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)' Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. ’auto’ (default): whenever stdout seems to be a - color-supporting terminal. ’always’ or ’yes’: always, useful eg - when piping output into ’less -R’. ’never’ or ’no’: never. A + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a + color-supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg + when piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. -‘--pretty[=WHEN]’ +'--pretty[=WHEN]' Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. - Accepts ’yes’ (the default) or ’no’ (’y’, ’n’, ’always’, ’never’ - also work). If you provide an argument you must use ’=’, e.g. - ’–pretty=yes’. + Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', 'never' + also work). If you provide an argument you must use '=', e.g. + '-pretty=yes'. When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the last one takes precedence. @@ -234,25 +234,25 @@ hledger help options: -‘-h --help’ +'-h --help' show general or COMMAND help -‘--man’ +'--man' show general or COMMAND user manual with man -‘--info’ +'--info' show general or COMMAND user manual with info -‘--version’ +'--version' show general or ADDONCMD version -‘--debug[=N]’ +'--debug[=N]' show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) A @FILE argument will be expanded to the contents of FILE, which should contain one command line option/argument per line. (To prevent -this, insert a ‘--’ argument before.) +this, insert a '--' argument before.)  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: MOUSE, Next: KEYS, Prev: OPTIONS, Up: Top @@ -263,9 +263,9 @@ In most modern terminals, you can navigate through the screens with a mouse or touchpad: - • Use mouse wheel or trackpad to scroll up and down - • Click on list items to go deeper - • Click on the left margin (column 0) to go back. + * Use mouse wheel or trackpad to scroll up and down + * Click on list items to go deeper + * Click on the left margin (column 0) to go back.  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: KEYS, Next: SCREENS, Prev: MOUSE, Up: Top @@ -275,96 +275,96 @@ Keyboard gives more control. - ‘?’ shows a help dialog listing all keys. (Some of these also appear -in the quick help at the bottom of each screen.) Press ‘?’ again (or -‘ESCAPE’, or ‘LEFT’, or ‘q’) to close it. The following keys work on + '?' shows a help dialog listing all keys. (Some of these also appear +in the quick help at the bottom of each screen.) Press '?' again (or +'ESCAPE', or 'LEFT', or 'q') to close it. The following keys work on most screens: - The cursor keys navigate: ‘RIGHT’ or ‘ENTER’ goes deeper, ‘LEFT’ -returns to the previous screen, ‘UP’/‘DOWN’/‘PGUP’/‘PGDN’/‘HOME’/‘END’ + The cursor keys navigate: 'RIGHT' or 'ENTER' goes deeper, 'LEFT' +returns to the previous screen, 'UP'/'DOWN'/'PGUP'/'PGDN'/'HOME'/'END' move up and down through lists. Emacs-style -(‘CTRL-p’/‘CTRL-n’/‘CTRL-f’/‘CTRL-b’) and VI-style (‘k’,‘j’,‘l’,‘h’) +('CTRL-p'/'CTRL-n'/'CTRL-f'/'CTRL-b') and VI-style ('k','j','l','h') movement keys are also supported. A tip: movement speed is limited by your keyboard repeat rate, to move faster you may want to adjust it. -(If you’re on a mac, the karabiner app is one way to do that.) +(If you're on a mac, the karabiner app is one way to do that.) With shift pressed, the cursor keys adjust the report period, limiting the transactions to be shown (by default, all are shown). -‘SHIFT-DOWN/UP’ steps downward and upward through these standard report +'SHIFT-DOWN/UP' steps downward and upward through these standard report period durations: year, quarter, month, week, day. Then, -‘SHIFT-LEFT/RIGHT’ moves to the previous/next period. ‘T’ sets the -report period to today. With the ‘-w/--watch’ option, when viewing a +'SHIFT-LEFT/RIGHT' moves to the previous/next period. 'T' sets the +report period to today. With the '-w/--watch' option, when viewing a "current" period (the current day, week, month, quarter, or year), the period will move automatically to track the current date. To set a -non-standard period, you can use ‘/’ and a ‘date:’ query. +non-standard period, you can use '/' and a 'date:' query. (Mac users: SHIFT-DOWN/UP keys do not work by default in Terminal, as of MacOS Monterey. You can configure them as follows: open Terminal, press CMD-comma to open preferences, click Profiles, select your current terminal profile on the left, click Keyboard on the right, click + and -add this for Shift-Down: ‘\033[1;2B’, click + and add this for Shift-Up: -‘\033[1;2A’. Press the Escape key to enter the ‘\033’ part, you can’t +add this for Shift-Down: '\033[1;2B', click + and add this for Shift-Up: +'\033[1;2A'. Press the Escape key to enter the '\033' part, you can't type it directly.) - ‘/’ lets you set a general filter query limiting the data shown, + '/' lets you set a general filter query limiting the data shown, using the same query terms as in hledger and hledger-web. While editing -the query, you can use CTRL-a/e/d/k, BS, cursor keys; press ‘ENTER’ to -set it, or ‘ESCAPE’to cancel. There are also keys for quickly adjusting +the query, you can use CTRL-a/e/d/k, BS, cursor keys; press 'ENTER' to +set it, or 'ESCAPE'to cancel. There are also keys for quickly adjusting some common filters like account depth and transaction status (see -below). ‘BACKSPACE’ or ‘DELETE’ removes all filters, showing all +below). 'BACKSPACE' or 'DELETE' removes all filters, showing all transactions. As mentioned above, by default hledger-ui hides future transactions - both ordinary transactions recorded in the journal, and periodic -transactions generated by rule. ‘F’ toggles forecast mode, in which +transactions generated by rule. 'F' toggles forecast mode, in which future/forecasted transactions are shown. - ‘ESCAPE’ resets the UI state and jumps back to the top screen, -restoring the app’s initial state at startup. Or, it cancels minibuffer + 'ESCAPE' resets the UI state and jumps back to the top screen, +restoring the app's initial state at startup. Or, it cancels minibuffer data entry or the help dialog. - ‘CTRL-l’ redraws the screen and centers the selection if possible -(selections near the top won’t be centered, since we don’t scroll above + 'CTRL-l' redraws the screen and centers the selection if possible +(selections near the top won't be centered, since we don't scroll above the top). - ‘g’ reloads from the data file(s) and updates the current screen and + 'g' reloads from the data file(s) and updates the current screen and any previous screens. (With large files, this could cause a noticeable pause.) - ‘I’ toggles balance assertion checking. Disabling balance assertions + 'I' toggles balance assertion checking. Disabling balance assertions temporarily can be useful for troubleshooting. - ‘a’ runs command-line hledger’s add command, and reloads the updated + 'a' runs command-line hledger's add command, and reloads the updated file. This allows some basic data entry. - ‘A’ is like ‘a’, but runs the hledger-iadd tool, which provides a -terminal interface. This key will be available if ‘hledger-iadd’ is + 'A' is like 'a', but runs the hledger-iadd tool, which provides a +terminal interface. This key will be available if 'hledger-iadd' is installed in $path. - ‘E’ runs $HLEDGER_UI_EDITOR, or $EDITOR, or a default (‘emacsclient --a "" -nw’) on the journal file. With some editors (emacs, vi), the + 'E' runs $HLEDGER_UI_EDITOR, or $EDITOR, or a default ('emacsclient +-a "" -nw') on the journal file. With some editors (emacs, vi), the cursor will be positioned at the current transaction when invoked from the register and transaction screens, and at the error location (if possible) when invoked from the error screen. - ‘B’ toggles cost mode, showing amounts in their cost’s commodity -(like toggling the ‘-B/--cost’ flag). + 'B' toggles cost mode, showing amounts in their cost's commodity +(like toggling the '-B/--cost' flag). - ‘V’ toggles value mode, showing amounts’ current market value in -their default valuation commodity (like toggling the ‘-V/--market’ + 'V' toggles value mode, showing amounts' current market value in +their default valuation commodity (like toggling the '-V/--market' flag). Note, "current market value" means the value on the report end date if specified, otherwise today. To see the value on another date, you can temporarily set that as the report end date. Eg: to see a transaction as it was valued on july 30, go to the accounts or register -screen, press ‘/’, and add ‘date:-7/30’ to the query. +screen, press '/', and add 'date:-7/30' to the query. At most one of cost or value mode can be active at once. - There’s not yet any visual reminder when cost or value mode is -active; for now pressing ‘b’ ‘b’ ‘v’ should reliably reset to normal + There's not yet any visual reminder when cost or value mode is +active; for now pressing 'b' 'b' 'v' should reliably reset to normal mode. - ‘q’ quits the application. + 'q' quits the application. Additional screen-specific keys are described below. @@ -378,14 +378,14 @@ the "Balance sheet accounts" screen to start with, except in the following situations: - • If no asset/liability/equity accounts can be detected, or if an + * If no asset/liability/equity accounts can be detected, or if an account query has been given on the command line, it starts in the "All accounts" screen. - • If a starting screen is specified with –menu/–all/–bs/–is/–register + * If a starting screen is specified with -menu/-all/-bs/-is/-register on the command line, it starts in that screen. - From any screen you can press ‘LEFT’ or ‘ESC’ to navigate back to the + From any screen you can press 'LEFT' or 'ESC' to navigate back to the top level "Menu" screen. * Menu: @@ -415,8 +415,8 @@ This screen shows all accounts (possibly filtered by a query), and their end balances on the date shown in the title bar (or their balance -changes in the period shown in the title bar, toggleable with ‘H’). It -is like the ‘hledger balance’ command. +changes in the period shown in the title bar, toggleable with 'H'). It +is like the 'hledger balance' command.  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Balance sheet accounts, Next: Income statement accounts, Prev: All accounts, Up: SCREENS @@ -426,7 +426,7 @@ This screen shows asset, liability and equity accounts, if these can be detected (see account types). It always shows end balances. It is like -the ‘hledger balancesheetequity’ command. +the 'hledger balancesheetequity' command.  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Income statement accounts, Next: Register, Prev: Balance sheet accounts, Up: SCREENS @@ -435,7 +435,7 @@ ============================= This screen shows revenue and expense accounts. It always shows balance -changes. It is like the ‘hledger incomestatement’ command. +changes. It is like the 'hledger incomestatement' command. All of these accounts screens work in much the same way: @@ -443,26 +443,26 @@ as accounts which have been declared with an account directive (except for empty parent accounts). - If you specify a query on the command line or with ‘/’ in the app, + If you specify a query on the command line or with '/' in the app, they show just the matched accounts, and the balances from matched transactions. hledger-ui shows accounts with zero balances by default (unlike -command-line hledger). To hide these, press ‘z’ to toggle nonzero mode. +command-line hledger). To hide these, press 'z' to toggle nonzero mode. - Account names are shown as a flat list by default; press ‘t’ to + Account names are shown as a flat list by default; press 't' to toggle tree mode. In list mode, account balances are exclusive of subaccounts, except where subaccounts are hidden by a depth limit (see below). In tree mode, all account balances are inclusive of subaccounts. - To see less detail, press a number key, ‘1’ to ‘9’, to set a depth -limit. Or use ‘-’ to decrease and ‘+’/‘=’ to increase the depth limit. -‘0’ shows even less detail, collapsing all accounts to a single total. + To see less detail, press a number key, '1' to '9', to set a depth +limit. Or use '-' to decrease and '+'/'=' to increase the depth limit. +'0' shows even less detail, collapsing all accounts to a single total. To remove the depth limit, set it higher than the maximum account depth, -or press ‘ESCAPE’. +or press 'ESCAPE'. - ‘H’ toggles between showing historical balances or period balances + 'H' toggles between showing historical balances or period balances (on the "All accounts" screen). Historical balances (the default) are ending balances at the end of the report period, taking into account all transactions before that date (filtered by the filter query if any), @@ -473,16 +473,16 @@ change in balance during the report period. They are more useful eg when viewing a time log. - ‘U’ toggles filtering by unmarked status, including or excluding -unmarked postings in the balances. Similarly, ‘P’ toggles pending -postings, and ‘C’ toggles cleared postings. (By default, balances + 'U' toggles filtering by unmarked status, including or excluding +unmarked postings in the balances. Similarly, 'P' toggles pending +postings, and 'C' toggles cleared postings. (By default, balances include all postings; if you activate one or two status filters, only those postings are included; and if you activate all three, the filter is removed.) - ‘R’ toggles real mode, in which virtual postings are ignored. + 'R' toggles real mode, in which virtual postings are ignored. - Press ‘RIGHT’ to view an account’s register screen, Or, ‘LEFT’ to see + Press 'RIGHT' to view an account's register screen, Or, 'LEFT' to see the menu screen.  @@ -494,42 +494,42 @@ This screen shows the transactions affecting a particular account, like a check register. Each line represents one transaction and shows: - • the other account(s) involved, in abbreviated form. (If there are + * the other account(s) involved, in abbreviated form. (If there are both real and virtual postings, it shows only the accounts affected by real postings.) - • the overall change to the current account’s balance; positive for + * the overall change to the current account's balance; positive for an inflow to this account, negative for an outflow. - • the running historical total or period total for the current - account, after the transaction. This can be toggled with ‘H’. + * the running historical total or period total for the current + account, after the transaction. This can be toggled with 'H'. Similar to the accounts screen, the historical total is affected by transactions (filtered by the filter query) before the report start date, while the period total is not. If the historical total is not disturbed by a filter query, it will be the running historical balance you would see on a bank register for the current account. - Transactions affecting this account’s subaccounts will be included in -the register if the accounts screen is in tree mode, or if it’s in list + Transactions affecting this account's subaccounts will be included in +the register if the accounts screen is in tree mode, or if it's in list mode but this account has subaccounts which are not shown due to a depth limit. In other words, the register always shows the transactions contributing to the balance shown on the accounts screen. Tree -mode/list mode can be toggled with ‘t’ here also. +mode/list mode can be toggled with 't' here also. - ‘U’ toggles filtering by unmarked status, showing or hiding unmarked -transactions. Similarly, ‘P’ toggles pending transactions, and ‘C’ + 'U' toggles filtering by unmarked status, showing or hiding unmarked +transactions. Similarly, 'P' toggles pending transactions, and 'C' toggles cleared transactions. (By default, transactions with all statuses are shown; if you activate one or two status filters, only those transactions are shown; and if you activate all three, the filter is removed.) - ‘R’ toggles real mode, in which virtual postings are ignored. + 'R' toggles real mode, in which virtual postings are ignored. - ‘z’ toggles nonzero mode, in which only transactions posting a + 'z' toggles nonzero mode, in which only transactions posting a nonzero change are shown (hledger-ui shows zero items by default, unlike command-line hledger). - Press ‘RIGHT’ to view the selected transaction in detail. + Press 'RIGHT' to view the selected transaction in detail.  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Transaction, Next: Error, Prev: Register, Up: SCREENS @@ -538,20 +538,20 @@ =============== This screen shows a single transaction, as a general journal entry, -similar to hledger’s print command and journal format +similar to hledger's print command and journal format (hledger_journal(5)). - The transaction’s date(s) and any cleared flag, transaction code, + The transaction's date(s) and any cleared flag, transaction code, description, comments, along with all of its account postings are shown. Simple transactions have two postings, but there can be more (or in certain cases, fewer). - ‘UP’ and ‘DOWN’ will step through all transactions listed in the + 'UP' and 'DOWN' will step through all transactions listed in the previous account register screen. In the title bar, the numbers in parentheses show your position within that account register. They will vary depending on which account register you came from (remember most transactions appear in multiple account registers). The #N number -preceding them is the transaction’s position within the complete +preceding them is the transaction's position within the complete unfiltered journal, which is a more stable id (at least until the next reload). @@ -583,12 +583,12 @@ 5.1 Watch mode ============== -One of hledger-ui’s best features is the auto-reloading ‘-w/--watch’ +One of hledger-ui's best features is the auto-reloading '-w/--watch' mode. With this flag, it will update the display automatically whenever changes are saved to the data files. This is very useful when reconciling. A good workflow is to have -your bank’s online register open in a browser window, for reference; the +your bank's online register open in a browser window, for reference; the journal file open in an editor window; and hledger-ui in watch mode in a terminal window, eg: @@ -603,16 +603,16 @@ Here are some current limitations to be aware of: Changes might not be detected with certain editors, possibly -including Jetbrains IDEs, ‘gedit’, other Gnome applications; or on +including Jetbrains IDEs, 'gedit', other Gnome applications; or on certain unusual filesystems. (#1617, #911). To work around, reload -manually by pressing ‘g’ in the hledger-ui window. (Or see #1617 for +manually by pressing 'g' in the hledger-ui window. (Or see #1617 for another workaround, and let us know if it works for you.) - CPU and memory usage can sometimes gradually increase, if ‘hledger-ui ---watch’ is left running for days. (Possibly correlated with certain + CPU and memory usage can sometimes gradually increase, if 'hledger-ui +--watch' is left running for days. (Possibly correlated with certain platforms, many transactions, and/or large numbers of other files -present). To work around, ‘q’uit and restart it, or (where supported) -suspend (‘CTRL-z’) and restart it (‘fg’). +present). To work around, 'q'uit and restart it, or (where supported) +suspend ('CTRL-z') and restart it ('fg').  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Debug output, Prev: Watch mode, Up: TIPS @@ -620,8 +620,8 @@ 5.2 Debug output ================ -You can add ‘--debug[=N]’ to the command line to log debug output. This -will be logged to the file ‘hledger-ui.log’ in the current directory. N +You can add '--debug[=N]' to the command line to log debug output. This +will be logged to the file 'hledger-ui.log' in the current directory. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to 9 (maximum output).  @@ -632,33 +632,33 @@ *COLUMNS* The screen width to use. Default: the full terminal width. - *LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with ‘-f’. + *LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with '-f'. - On unix computers, the default value is: ‘~/.hledger.journal’. + On unix computers, the default value is: '~/.hledger.journal'. - A more typical value is something like ‘~/finance/YYYY.journal’, -where ‘~/finance’ is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is -the current year. Or, ‘~/finance/current.journal’, where + A more typical value is something like '~/finance/YYYY.journal', +where '~/finance' is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is +the current year. Or, '~/finance/current.journal', where current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of -your shell’s startup files (eg ‘~/.profile’): +your shell's startup files (eg '~/.profile'): export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In -‘~/.MacOSX/environment.plist’, add an entry like: +'~/.MacOSX/environment.plist', add an entry like: { "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" } - For this to take effect you might need to ‘killall Dock’, or reboot. + For this to take effect you might need to 'killall Dock', or reboot. On Windows computers, the default value is probably -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’. You can change this by running a +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'. You can change this by running a command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): @@ -674,9 +674,9 @@ ******* Reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV -format. The default file is ‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory; -this can be overridden with one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the -‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable. +format. The default file is '.hledger.journal' in your home directory; +this can be overridden with one or more '-f FILE' options, or the +'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable.  File: hledger-ui.info, Node: BUGS, Prev: FILES, Up: Top @@ -684,15 +684,15 @@ 8 BUGS ****** -‘-f-’ doesn’t work (hledger-ui can’t read from stdin). +'-f-' doesn't work (hledger-ui can't read from stdin). - ‘-V’ affects only the accounts screen. + '-V' affects only the accounts screen. - When you press ‘g’, the current and all previous screens are + When you press 'g', the current and all previous screens are regenerated, which may cause a noticeable pause with large files. Also there is no visual indication that this is in progress. - ‘--watch’ is not yet fully robust. It works well for normal usage, + '--watch' is not yet fully robust. It works well for normal usage, but many file changes in a short time (eg saving the file thousands of times with an editor macro) can cause problems at least on OSX. Symptoms include: unresponsive UI, periodic resetting of the cursor position, @@ -701,45 +701,45 @@ program is restarted. Also, if you are viewing files mounted from another machine, -‘-w/--watch’ requires that both machine clocks are roughly in step. +'-w/--watch' requires that both machine clocks are roughly in step.  Tag Table: Node: Top223 -Node: OPTIONS1871 -Ref: #options1969 -Node: MOUSE7336 -Ref: #mouse7431 -Node: KEYS7674 -Ref: #keys7767 -Node: SCREENS12526 -Ref: #screens12624 -Node: Menu13332 -Ref: #menu13424 -Node: All accounts13501 -Ref: #all-accounts13640 -Node: Balance sheet accounts13899 -Ref: #balance-sheet-accounts14079 -Node: Income statement accounts14271 -Ref: #income-statement-accounts14453 -Node: Register16947 -Ref: #register17084 -Node: Transaction19112 -Ref: #transaction19235 -Node: Error20119 -Ref: #error20213 -Node: TIPS20457 -Ref: #tips20556 -Node: Watch mode20598 -Ref: #watch-mode20705 -Node: Debug output22193 -Ref: #debug-output22304 -Node: ENVIRONMENT22524 -Ref: #environment22635 -Node: FILES24058 -Ref: #files24157 -Node: BUGS24417 -Ref: #bugs24494 +Node: OPTIONS1843 +Ref: #options1941 +Node: MOUSE7025 +Ref: #mouse7120 +Node: KEYS7357 +Ref: #keys7450 +Node: SCREENS11963 +Ref: #screens12061 +Node: Menu12747 +Ref: #menu12839 +Node: All accounts12916 +Ref: #all-accounts13055 +Node: Balance sheet accounts13306 +Ref: #balance-sheet-accounts13486 +Node: Income statement accounts13674 +Ref: #income-statement-accounts13856 +Node: Register16276 +Ref: #register16413 +Node: Transaction18397 +Ref: #transaction18520 +Node: Error19390 +Ref: #error19484 +Node: TIPS19728 +Ref: #tips19827 +Node: Watch mode19869 +Ref: #watch-mode19976 +Node: Debug output21432 +Ref: #debug-output21543 +Node: ENVIRONMENT21755 +Ref: #environment21866 +Node: FILES23251 +Ref: #files23350 +Node: BUGS23598 +Ref: #bugs23675  End Tag Table diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.txt b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.txt --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.txt +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.txt @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ hledger ui -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS] DESCRIPTION - This manual is for hledger's terminal interface, version 1.29.1. See + This manual is for hledger's terminal interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs for @@ -598,4 +598,4 @@ -hledger-ui-1.29.1 March 2023 HLEDGER-UI(1) +hledger-ui-1.29.2 April 2023 HLEDGER-UI(1) diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.1 b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.1 --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.1 +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.1 @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ -.TH "HLEDGER-WEB" "1" "March 2023" "hledger-web-1.29.1 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER-WEB" "1" "April 2023" "hledger-web-1.29.2 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ \f[V]hledger web -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]\f[R] # start from hledger .SH DESCRIPTION .PP -This manual is for hledger\[aq]s web interface, version 1.29.1. +This manual is for hledger\[aq]s web interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. .PP hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs for diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.info b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.info --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.info +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.info @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -This is hledger-web.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.1 from stdin. +This is hledger-web.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.3 from stdin. INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY @@ -13,12 +13,12 @@ hledger-web - robust, friendly plain text accounting (Web version) - ‘hledger-web [OPTIONS] # run temporarily & browse’ -‘hledger-web --serve [OPTIONS] # run without stopping’ -‘hledger-web --serve-api [OPTIONS] # run JSON server only’ -‘hledger web -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]’ # start from hledger + 'hledger-web [OPTIONS] # run temporarily & browse' +'hledger-web --serve [OPTIONS] # run without stopping' +'hledger-web --serve-api [OPTIONS] # run JSON server only' +'hledger web -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS]' # start from hledger - This manual is for hledger’s web interface, version 1.29.1. See also + This manual is for hledger's web interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs @@ -41,21 +41,21 @@ Like hledger, it reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV format. The default file is -‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory; this can be overridden with -one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment +'.hledger.journal' in your home directory; this can be overridden with +one or more '-f FILE' options, or the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable. For more about this see hledger(1). hledger-web can be run in three modes: - • Transient mode (the default): your default web browser will be + * Transient mode (the default): your default web browser will be opened to show the app if possible, and the app exits automatically after two minutes of inactivity (no requests received and no open browser windows viewing it). - • With ‘--serve’: the app runs without stopping, and without opening + * With '--serve': the app runs without stopping, and without opening a browser. - • With ‘--serve-api’: only the JSON API is served. + * With '--serve-api': only the JSON API is served. In all cases hledger-web runs as a foreground process, logging requests to stdout. @@ -82,180 +82,180 @@ on the data. These filter options are not shown in the web UI, but it will be applied in addition to any search query entered there. - Note: if invoking hledger-web as a hledger subcommand, write ‘--’ + Note: if invoking hledger-web as a hledger subcommand, write '--' before options, as shown in the synopsis above. -‘--serve’ +'--serve' - serve and log requests, don’t browse or auto-exit after timeout -‘--serve-api’ + serve and log requests, don't browse or auto-exit after timeout +'--serve-api' - like –serve, but serve only the JSON web API, without the + like -serve, but serve only the JSON web API, without the server-side web UI -‘--host=IPADDR’ +'--host=IPADDR' listen on this IP address (default: 127.0.0.1) -‘--port=PORT’ +'--port=PORT' listen on this TCP port (default: 5000) -‘--socket=SOCKETFILE’ +'--socket=SOCKETFILE' use a unix domain socket file to listen for requests instead of a - TCP socket. Implies ‘--serve’. It can only be used if the + TCP socket. Implies '--serve'. It can only be used if the operating system can provide this type of socket. -‘--base-url=URL’ +'--base-url=URL' set the base url (default: http://IPADDR:PORT). Note: affects url generation but not route parsing. Can be useful if running behind a reverse web proxy that does path rewriting. -‘--file-url=URL’ +'--file-url=URL' set the static files url (default: BASEURL/static). hledger-web normally serves static files itself, but if you wanted to serve them from another server for efficiency, you would set the url with this. -‘--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]’ +'--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]' enable the view, add, and/or manage capabilities (default: view,add) -‘--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER’ +'--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER' read capabilities to enable from a HTTP header, like X-Sandstorm-Permissions (default: disabled) -‘--test’ +'--test' - run hledger-web’s tests and exit. hspec test runner args may - follow a –, eg: hledger-web –test – –help + run hledger-web's tests and exit. hspec test runner args may + follow a -, eg: hledger-web -test - -help hledger input options: -‘-f FILE --file=FILE’ +'-f FILE --file=FILE' use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ or ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’) -‘--rules-file=RULESFILE’ + '$LEDGER_FILE' or '$HOME/.hledger.journal') +'--rules-file=RULESFILE' Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) -‘--separator=CHAR’ +'--separator=CHAR' - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ’,’) -‘--alias=OLD=NEW’ + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') +'--alias=OLD=NEW' rename accounts named OLD to NEW -‘--anon’ +'--anon' anonymize accounts and payees -‘--pivot FIELDNAME’ +'--pivot FIELDNAME' use some other field or tag for the account name -‘-I --ignore-assertions’ +'-I --ignore-assertions' disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance assignments) -‘-s --strict’ +'-s --strict' do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are declared) hledger reporting options: -‘-b --begin=DATE’ +'-b --begin=DATE' include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) -‘-e --end=DATE’ +'-e --end=DATE' include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to following subperiod end when using a report interval) -‘-D --daily’ +'-D --daily' multiperiod/multicolumn report by day -‘-W --weekly’ +'-W --weekly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by week -‘-M --monthly’ +'-M --monthly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by month -‘-Q --quarterly’ +'-Q --quarterly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter -‘-Y --yearly’ +'-Y --yearly' multiperiod/multicolumn report by year -‘-p --period=PERIODEXP’ +'-p --period=PERIODEXP' set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once using period expressions syntax -‘--date2’ +'--date2' match the secondary date instead (see command help for other effects) -‘--today=DATE’ +'--today=DATE' - override today’s date (affects relative smart dates, for + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for tests/examples) -‘-U --unmarked’ +'-U --unmarked' include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) -‘-P --pending’ +'-P --pending' include only pending postings/txns -‘-C --cleared’ +'-C --cleared' include only cleared postings/txns -‘-R --real’ +'-R --real' include only non-virtual postings -‘-NUM --depth=NUM’ +'-NUM --depth=NUM' hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep -‘-E --empty’ +'-E --empty' show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in hledger-ui/hledger-web) -‘-B --cost’ +'-B --cost' convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time -‘-V --market’ +'-V --market' convert amounts to their market value in default valuation commodities -‘-X --exchange=COMM’ +'-X --exchange=COMM' convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM -‘--value’ +'--value' convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than -B/-V/-X -‘--infer-market-prices’ +'--infer-market-prices' use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market prices, as if they were P directives -‘--auto’ +'--auto' apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. -‘--forecast’ +'--forecast' generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also make ordinary future transactions visible. -‘--commodity-style’ +'--commodity-style' Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example ’EUR1.000,00’. -‘--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)’ + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. +'--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)' Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. ’auto’ (default): whenever stdout seems to be a - color-supporting terminal. ’always’ or ’yes’: always, useful eg - when piping output into ’less -R’. ’never’ or ’no’: never. A + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a + color-supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg + when piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. -‘--pretty[=WHEN]’ +'--pretty[=WHEN]' Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. - Accepts ’yes’ (the default) or ’no’ (’y’, ’n’, ’always’, ’never’ - also work). If you provide an argument you must use ’=’, e.g. - ’–pretty=yes’. + Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', 'never' + also work). If you provide an argument you must use '=', e.g. + '-pretty=yes'. When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the last one takes precedence. @@ -264,53 +264,53 @@ hledger help options: -‘-h --help’ +'-h --help' show general or COMMAND help -‘--man’ +'--man' show general or COMMAND user manual with man -‘--info’ +'--info' show general or COMMAND user manual with info -‘--version’ +'--version' show general or ADDONCMD version -‘--debug[=N]’ +'--debug[=N]' show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) A @FILE argument will be expanded to the contents of FILE, which should contain one command line option/argument per line. (To prevent -this, insert a ‘--’ argument before.) +this, insert a '--' argument before.) By default the server listens on IP address 127.0.0.1, accessible -only to local requests. You can use ‘--host’ to change this, eg ‘--host -0.0.0.0’ to listen on all configured addresses. +only to local requests. You can use '--host' to change this, eg '--host +0.0.0.0' to listen on all configured addresses. - Similarly, use ‘--port’ to set a TCP port other than 5000, eg if you + Similarly, use '--port' to set a TCP port other than 5000, eg if you are running multiple hledger-web instances. - Both of these options are ignored when ‘--socket’ is used. In this -case, it creates an ‘AF_UNIX’ socket file at the supplied path and uses + Both of these options are ignored when '--socket' is used. In this +case, it creates an 'AF_UNIX' socket file at the supplied path and uses that for communication. This is an alternative way of running multiple hledger-web instances behind a reverse proxy that handles authentication for different users. The path can be derived in a predictable way, eg -by using the username within the path. As an example, ‘nginx’ as -reverse proxy can use the variable ‘$remote_user’ to derive a path from +by using the username within the path. As an example, 'nginx' as +reverse proxy can use the variable '$remote_user' to derive a path from the username used in a HTTP basic authentication. The following -‘proxy_pass’ directive allows access to all ‘hledger-web’ instances that -created a socket in ‘/tmp/hledger/’: +'proxy_pass' directive allows access to all 'hledger-web' instances that +created a socket in '/tmp/hledger/': proxy_pass http://unix:/tmp/hledger/${remote_user}.socket; - You can use ‘--base-url’ to change the protocol, hostname, port and + You can use '--base-url' to change the protocol, hostname, port and path that appear in hyperlinks, useful eg for integrating hledger-web -within a larger website. The default is ‘http://HOST:PORT/’ using the -server’s configured host address and TCP port (or ‘http://HOST’ if PORT +within a larger website. The default is 'http://HOST:PORT/' using the +server's configured host address and TCP port (or 'http://HOST' if PORT is 80). - With ‘--file-url’ you can set a different base url for static files, + With '--file-url' you can set a different base url for static files, eg for better caching or cookie-less serving on high performance websites. @@ -325,28 +325,28 @@ You can restrict who can reach it by - • setting the IP address it listens on (see ‘--host’ above). By + * setting the IP address it listens on (see '--host' above). By default it listens on 127.0.0.1, accessible to all users on the local machine. - • putting it behind an authenticating proxy, using eg apache or nginx - • custom firewall rules + * putting it behind an authenticating proxy, using eg apache or nginx + * custom firewall rules You can restrict what the users who reach it can do, by - • using the ‘--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]’ flag when you start it, + * using the '--capabilities=CAP[,CAP..]' flag when you start it, enabling one or more of the following capabilities. The default - value is ‘view,add’: - • ‘view’ - allows viewing the journal file and all included + value is 'view,add': + * 'view' - allows viewing the journal file and all included files - • ‘add’ - allows adding new transactions to the main journal + * 'add' - allows adding new transactions to the main journal file - • ‘manage’ - allows editing, uploading or downloading the main + * 'manage' - allows editing, uploading or downloading the main or included files - • using the ‘--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER’ flag to specify a HTTP + * using the '--capabilities-header=HTTPHEADER' flag to specify a HTTP header from which it will read capabilities to enable. hledger-web on Sandstorm uses the X-Sandstorm-Permissions header to integrate - with Sandstorm’s permissions. This is disabled by default. + with Sandstorm's permissions. This is disabled by default.  File: hledger-web.info, Node: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING, Next: RELOADING, Prev: PERMISSIONS, Up: Top @@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ 3 EDITING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING ********************************* -If you enable the ‘manage’ capability mentioned above, you’ll see a new +If you enable the 'manage' capability mentioned above, you'll see a new "spanner" button to the right of the search form. Clicking this will let you edit, upload, or download the journal file or any files it includes. @@ -365,7 +365,7 @@ Normally whenever a file is changed in this way, hledger-web saves a numbered backup (assuming file permissions allow it, the disk is not full, etc.) hledger-web is not aware of version control systems, -currently; if you use one, you’ll have to arrange to commit the changes +currently; if you use one, you'll have to arrange to commit the changes yourself (eg with a cron job or a file watcher like entr). Changes which would leave the journal file(s) unparseable or @@ -395,7 +395,7 @@ In addition to the web UI, hledger-web also serves a JSON API that can be used to get data or add new transactions. If you want the JSON API -only, you can use the ‘--serve-api’ flag. Eg: +only, you can use the '--serve-api' flag. Eg: $ hledger-web -f examples/sample.journal --serve-api ... @@ -411,7 +411,7 @@ /accounttransactions/ACCOUNTNAME Eg, all account names in the journal (similar to the accounts -command). (hledger-web’s JSON does not include newlines, here we use +command). (hledger-web's JSON does not include newlines, here we use python to prettify it): $ curl -s http://127.0.0.1:5000/accountnames | python -m json.tool @@ -452,7 +452,7 @@ "aprice": null, ... - Most of the JSON corresponds to hledger’s data types; for details of + Most of the JSON corresponds to hledger's data types; for details of what the fields mean, see the Hledger.Data.Json haddock docs and click on the various data types, eg Transaction. And for a higher level understanding, see the journal docs. @@ -460,25 +460,25 @@ In some cases there is outer JSON corresponding to a "Report" type. To understand that, go to the Hledger.Web.Handler.MiscR haddock and look at the source for the appropriate handler to see what it returns. Eg -for ‘/accounttransactions’ it’s getAccounttransactionsR, returning a -"‘accountTransactionsReport ...’". Looking up the haddock for that we +for '/accounttransactions' it's getAccounttransactionsR, returning a +"'accountTransactionsReport ...'". Looking up the haddock for that we can see that /accounttransactions returns an AccountTransactionsReport, which consists of a report title and a list of AccountTransactionsReportItem (etc). You can add a new transaction to the journal with a PUT request to -‘/add’, if hledger-web was started with the ‘add’ capability (enabled by +'/add', if hledger-web was started with the 'add' capability (enabled by default). The payload must be the full, exact JSON representation of a -hledger transaction (partial data won’t do). You can get sample JSON -from hledger-web’s ‘/transactions’ or ‘/accounttransactions’, or you can +hledger transaction (partial data won't do). You can get sample JSON +from hledger-web's '/transactions' or '/accounttransactions', or you can export it with hledger-lib, eg like so: .../hledger$ stack ghci hledger-lib >>> writeJsonFile "txn.json" (head $ jtxns samplejournal) >>> :q - Here’s how it looks as of hledger-1.17 (remember, this JSON -corresponds to hledger’s Transaction and related data types): + Here's how it looks as of hledger-1.17 (remember, this JSON +corresponds to hledger's Transaction and related data types): { "tcomment": "", @@ -566,7 +566,7 @@ "tstatus": "Unmarked" } - And here’s how to test adding it with curl. This should add a new + And here's how to test adding it with curl. This should add a new entry to your journal: $ curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/add -X PUT -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary @txn.json @@ -587,13 +587,13 @@ 6.1 Debug output ================ -You can add ‘--debug[=N]’ to the command line to log debug output. N +You can add '--debug[=N]' to the command line to log debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, interleaved with the requests logged on stdout. To capture debug output in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: -‘hledger-web --debug=3 2>hledger-web.log’. +'hledger-web --debug=3 2>hledger-web.log'.  File: hledger-web.info, Node: ENVIRONMENT, Next: FILES, Prev: DEBUG OUTPUT, Up: Top @@ -601,33 +601,33 @@ 7 ENVIRONMENT ************* -*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with ‘-f’. +*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with '-f'. - On unix computers, the default value is: ‘~/.hledger.journal’. + On unix computers, the default value is: '~/.hledger.journal'. - A more typical value is something like ‘~/finance/YYYY.journal’, -where ‘~/finance’ is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is -the current year. Or, ‘~/finance/current.journal’, where + A more typical value is something like '~/finance/YYYY.journal', +where '~/finance' is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is +the current year. Or, '~/finance/current.journal', where current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of -your shell’s startup files (eg ‘~/.profile’): +your shell's startup files (eg '~/.profile'): export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In -‘~/.MacOSX/environment.plist’, add an entry like: +'~/.MacOSX/environment.plist', add an entry like: { "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" } - For this to take effect you might need to ‘killall Dock’, or reboot. + For this to take effect you might need to 'killall Dock', or reboot. On Windows computers, the default value is probably -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’. You can change this by running a +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'. You can change this by running a command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): @@ -643,9 +643,9 @@ ******* Reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, timedot, or CSV -format. The default file is ‘.hledger.journal’ in your home directory; -this can be overridden with one or more ‘-f FILE’ options, or the -‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable. +format. The default file is '.hledger.journal' in your home directory; +this can be overridden with one or more '-f FILE' options, or the +'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable.  File: hledger-web.info, Node: BUGS, Prev: FILES, Up: Top @@ -653,7 +653,7 @@ 9 BUGS ****** -‘-f-’ doesn’t work (hledger-web can’t read from stdin). +'-f-' doesn't work (hledger-web can't read from stdin). Query arguments and some hledger options are ignored. @@ -664,26 +664,26 @@  Tag Table: Node: Top225 -Node: OPTIONS2726 -Ref: #options2831 -Node: PERMISSIONS10625 -Ref: #permissions10764 -Node: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING12022 -Ref: #editing-uploading-downloading12203 -Node: RELOADING13045 -Ref: #reloading13179 -Node: JSON API13612 -Ref: #json-api13727 -Node: DEBUG OUTPUT19259 -Ref: #debug-output19384 -Node: Debug output19411 -Ref: #debug-output-119512 -Node: ENVIRONMENT19937 -Ref: #environment20057 -Node: FILES21406 -Ref: #files21506 -Node: BUGS21766 -Ref: #bugs21844 +Node: OPTIONS2682 +Ref: #options2787 +Node: PERMISSIONS10224 +Ref: #permissions10363 +Node: EDITING UPLOADING DOWNLOADING11575 +Ref: #editing-uploading-downloading11756 +Node: RELOADING12590 +Ref: #reloading12724 +Node: JSON API13157 +Ref: #json-api13272 +Node: DEBUG OUTPUT18760 +Ref: #debug-output18885 +Node: Debug output18912 +Ref: #debug-output-119013 +Node: ENVIRONMENT19430 +Ref: #environment19550 +Node: FILES20861 +Ref: #files20961 +Node: BUGS21209 +Ref: #bugs21287  End Tag Table diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.txt b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.txt --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.txt +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger-web.txt @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ hledger web -- [OPTIONS] [QUERYARGS] # start from hledger DESCRIPTION - This manual is for hledger's web interface, version 1.29.1. See also + This manual is for hledger's web interface, version 1.29.2. See also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats. hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs for @@ -608,4 +608,4 @@ -hledger-web-1.29.1 March 2023 HLEDGER-WEB(1) +hledger-web-1.29.2 April 2023 HLEDGER-WEB(1) diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger.1 b/embeddedfiles/hledger.1 --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger.1 +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger.1 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ .\"t -.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "March 2023" "hledger-1.29.1 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "April 2023" "hledger-1.29.2 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ hledger is inspired by and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with beancount(1). .PP -This manual is for hledger\[aq]s command line interface, version 1.29.1. +This manual is for hledger\[aq]s command line interface, version 1.29.2. It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeeping/accounting as well! @@ -1037,8 +1037,20 @@ .IP \[bu] 2 This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. .IP \[bu] 2 -SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL +SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and Postgres. .IP \[bu] 2 +For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated +\f[V]id\f[R] field to be a PRIMARY KEY. +Eg: +.RS 2 +.IP +.nf +\f[C] +$ hledger print -O sql | sed \[aq]s/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g\[aq] | ... +\f[R] +.fi +.RE +.IP \[bu] 2 SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables created via SQL output of hledger, you would @@ -1090,6 +1102,32 @@ characters will (or will not) be used; .IP \[bu] 2 otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. +.SS Paging +.PP +When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the +pager specified by the \f[V]PAGER\f[R] environment variable, or +\f[V]less\f[R], or \f[V]more\f[R]. +(A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time rather than +scrolling everything off screen). +Currently it does this only for help output, not for reports; +specifically, +.IP \[bu] 2 +when listing commands, with \f[V]hledger\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +when showing help with \f[V]hledger [CMD] --help\f[R], +.IP \[bu] 2 +when viewing manuals with \f[V]hledger help\f[R] or +\f[V]hledger --man\f[R]. +.PP +Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses eg +for bold emphasis. +For the common pager \f[V]less\f[R] (and its \f[V]more\f[R] +compatibility mode), we add \f[V]R\f[R] to the \f[V]LESS\f[R] and +\f[V]MORE\f[R] environment variables to make this work. +If you use a different pager, you might need to configure it similarly, +to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us know). +Otherwise, you can set the \f[V]NO_COLOR\f[R] environment variable to 1 +to disable all ANSI output (see Colour). .SS Debug output .PP We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and @@ -6061,41 +6099,25 @@ described below. .SS Date adjustment .PP -With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates -which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not -\f[V]-b 2023-01-01\f[R], but \f[V]-b 2023-01\f[R] or \f[V]-b 2023\f[R] -or unspecified) are considered flexible: +When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end +dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically +adjusted to natural period boundaries. +This is convenient for producing simple periodic reports. +More precisely: .IP \[bu] 2 -A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if needed -to fall on a natural interval boundary. +an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall on a +natural period boundary .IP \[bu] 2 -Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to make -the last period a whole interval (the same length as the others). -.PP -This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is -traditional hledger behaviour). -By contrast, fully-specified exact dates will not be adjusted (this is -new in hledger 1.29). +an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the last +period the same length as the others. .PP -An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last date -is 2023-03-20: -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[V]hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, starting -from 2023-01-15, and the last period\[aq]s last day will be 2023-03-09. -(Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[V]hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04\f[R] or -\f[V]hledger bal -M\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting from -2023-01-01, and the last period\[aq]s last day will be 2023-03-31. -(Flexible start and end dates, both are adjusted.) +By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, with +\f[V]-b\f[R], \f[V]-e\f[R], \f[V]-p\f[R] or \f[V]date:\f[R], will not be +adjusted (since hledger 1.29). +This makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, but it +also means that if you are specifying a start date, you should pick one +that\[aq]s on a period boundary if you want to see simple report period +headings. .SS Period expressions .PP The \f[V]-p/--period\f[R] option specifies a period expression, which is @@ -9924,57 +9946,73 @@ latest assertions against real-world balances. .SS close .PP -\f[V]close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY]\f[R] -.PP -By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out (\[dq]closes\[dq]) all -accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. -Query arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. -Three other modes are supported: -.PP -\f[V]--retain\f[R]: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense -balances. -This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting -period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting, -but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. +(equity) .PP -\f[V]--migrate\f[R]: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and -most equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. -This can be useful when starting a new file (for performance or data -protection). -Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files -to be combined. +Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from +another account (typically equity). +This can be useful for migrating balances to a new journal file, or for +merging earnings into equity at end of accounting period. .PP -\f[V]--open\f[R]: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. -This can be useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file -unchanged. -Similar to Ledger\[aq]s equity command. +By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts (asset, +liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be +configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. .PP -You can change the equity account name with \f[V]--close-acct ACCT\f[R]. -It defaults to \f[V]equity:retained earnings\f[R] with -\f[V]--retain\f[R], or \f[V]equity:opening/closing balances\f[R] -otherwise. +\f[I](experimental)\f[R] .PP -You can change the transaction description(s) with -\f[V]--close-desc \[aq]DESC\[aq]\f[R] and -\f[V]--open-desc \[aq]DESC\[aq]\f[R]. -It defaults to \f[V]retain earnings\f[R] with \f[V]--retain\f[R], or -\f[V]closing balances\f[R] and \f[V]opening balances\f[R] otherwise. +This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use +cases: +.IP "1." 3 +With \f[V]--close\f[R] (default), it prints a \[dq]closing balances\[dq] +transaction that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts by +default (this requires account types to be inferred or declared); or, +the accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments. +.IP "2." 3 +With \f[V]--open\f[R], it prints an opposite \[dq]opening balances\[dq] +transaction that restores those balances from zero. +This is similar to Ledger\[aq]s equity command. +.IP "3." 3 +With \f[V]--migrate\f[R], it prints both the closing and opening +transactions. +This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run +\f[V]hledger close --migrate\f[R], add the closing transaction at the +end of the old file, and add the opening transaction at the start of the +new file. +The matching closing/opening transactions cancel each other out, +preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting. +.IP "4." 3 +With \f[V]--retain\f[R], it prints a \[dq]retain earnings\[dq] +transaction that transfers RX (revenue and expense) balances to +\f[V]equity:retained earnings\f[R]. +Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each accounting period; +it is less necessary with computer-based accounting, but it could still +be useful if you want to see the accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied. .PP -Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an -implicit amount. +In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: +.IP \[bu] 2 +the transaction descriptions can be changed with +\f[V]--close-desc=DESC\f[R] and \f[V]--open-desc=DESC\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +the account to transfer to/from can be changed with +\f[V]--close-acct=ACCT\f[R] and \f[V]--open-acct=ACCT\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with \f[V]ACCTQUERY\f[R] +(account query arguments). .PP -With \f[V]--x/--explicit\f[R] the amount will be shown explicitly, and +By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its +amount left implicit. +With \f[V]--x/--explicit\f[R], the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be -generated for each commodity. +generated for each of them (similar to \f[V]print -x\f[R]). .PP -With \f[V]--interleaved\f[R], each equity posting is shown next to the -corresponding source/destination posting. +With \f[V]--show-costs\f[R], any amount costs are shown, with separate +postings for each cost. +This is currently the best way to view investment lots. +If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can +generate very large journal entries. .PP -The default closing date is yesterday or the journal\[aq]s end date, -whichever is later. -You can change this by specifying a report end date; the last day of the -report period will be the closing date. -Eg \f[V]-e 2022\f[R] means \[dq]close on 2022-12-31\[dq]. +With \f[V]--interleaved\f[R], each individual transfer is shown with +source and destination postings next to each other. +This could be useful for troubleshooting. .PP The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal\[aq]s end date, whichever is later. @@ -9983,14 +10021,6 @@ The last day of the report period will be the closing date; eg \f[V]-e 2022\f[R] means \[dq]close on 2022-12-31\[dq]. The opening date is always the day after the closing date. -.SS close and costs -.PP -With \f[V]--show-costs\f[R], any amount costs are shown, with separate -postings for each cost. -(This currently the best way to view investment assets, showing lots and -cost bases.) -If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can -generate very large journal entries. .SS close and balance assertions .PP Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have @@ -10044,9 +10074,9 @@ \f[R] .fi .PP -Now 2022\[aq]s income statement will show only zeroes. -To see it again, exclude the retain transaction. -Eg: +Note 2022\[aq]s income statement will now show only zeroes, because +revenues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. +To see them again, you could exclude the retain transaction: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10070,8 +10100,8 @@ balanced accounting equation. (Unless you are using \[at]/\[at]\[at] notation - in that case, try adding --infer-equity.) -To see it again, exclude the closing transaction. -Eg: +To see the end-of-year balances again, you could exclude the closing +transaction: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10081,13 +10111,16 @@ .SS Example: excluding closing/opening transactions .PP When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening -transactions cause some noise in reports like \f[V]print\f[R] and -\f[V]register\f[R]. -You can exclude them as shown above, but \f[V]not:desc:...\f[R] could be -fragile, and also you will need to avoid excluding the very first -opening transaction, which can be awkward. -Here is a way to do it, using tags: add \f[V]clopen:\f[R] tags to all -opening/closing balances transactions except the first, like this: +transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like +\f[V]print\f[R] and \f[V]register\f[R]. +You can exclude them as shown above, but \f[V]not:desc:...\f[R] is not +ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; also you will want to +avoid excluding the very first opening transaction, which could be +awkward. +Here is one alternative, using tags: +.PP +Add \f[V]clopen:\f[R] tags to all opening/closing balances transactions +except the first, like this: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10277,18 +10310,27 @@ browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are not installed on your system. .PP -By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info -since the hledger manual is large). -You can select a particular viewer with the \f[V]-i\f[R], \f[V]-m\f[R], -or \f[V]-p\f[R] flags. +By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this +order): \f[V]info\f[R], \f[V]man\f[R], \f[V]$PAGER\f[R], \f[V]less\f[R], +\f[V]more\f[R]. +You can force the use of info, man, or a pager with the \f[V]-i\f[R], +\f[V]-m\f[R], or \f[V]-p\f[R] flags, If no viewer can be found, or the +command is run non-interactively, it just prints the manual to stdout. .PP +If using \f[V]info\f[R], note that version 6 or greater is needed for +TOPIC lookup. +If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should consider +installing a newer version, eg with \f[V]brew install texinfo\f[R] +(#1770). +.PP Examples .IP .nf \f[C] -$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed \f[R] .fi .SS import diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger.info b/embeddedfiles/hledger.info --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger.info +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger.info @@ -1,10970 +1,11010 @@ -This is hledger.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.1 from stdin. - -INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications -START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY -* hledger: (hledger). Command-line plain text accounting tool. -END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Top, Next: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: (dir) - -hledger(1) -********** - -hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version) - - ‘hledger’ -‘hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTS] [ARGS]’ -‘hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTS] [ARGS]’ - - hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs -for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry -accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by -and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with -beancount(1). - - This manual is for hledger’s command line interface, version 1.29.1. -It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by -all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some -bookkeeping/accounting as well! You don’t need to know everything in -here to use hledger productively, but when you have a question about -functionality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip -ahead or skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an -info manual or man page on your system. You can also get it from -hledger itself with -‘hledger --man’, ‘hledger --info’ or ‘hledger help [TOPIC]’. - - The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files -describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a -useful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). -Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect -other ‘hledger-*’ executables as extra subcommands. - - hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, -timedot, or CSV format. The default file is ‘.hledger.journal’ in your -home directory; this can be overridden with one or more ‘-f FILE’ -options, or the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable. hledger CLI can -also read from stdin with ‘-f-’; more on that below. - - Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one -transaction: - -2015-10-16 bought food - expenses:food $10 - assets:cash - - Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more -_accounts_: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, -people, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using ‘:’ to -indicate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account -name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (_debit_), -negatives are outflow from it (_credit_). (Some reports show revenue, -liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; -this is normal.) - - hledger’s add command can help you add transactions, or you can -install other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more -extensive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM -+ vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see -https://hledger.org/editors.html). - - To get started, run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts, or save -some entries like the above in ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’, then try -commands like: -‘hledger print -x’ -‘hledger aregister assets’ -‘hledger balance’ -‘hledger balancesheet’ -‘hledger incomestatement’. -Run ‘hledger’ to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal -file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. - -* Menu: - -* PART 1 USER INTERFACE:: -* Options:: -* Environment:: -* Input:: -* Commands:: -* Output:: -* Limitations:: -* Troubleshooting:: -* PART 2 DATA FORMATS:: -* Journal:: -* CSV:: -* Timeclock:: -* Timedot:: -* PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS:: -* Time periods:: -* Depth:: -* Queries:: -* Pivoting:: -* Generating data:: -* Forecasting:: -* Budgeting:: -* Cost reporting:: -* Valuation:: -* PART 4 COMMANDS:: -* PART 5 COMMON TASKS:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Next: Options, Prev: Top, Up: Top - -1 PART 1: USER INTERFACE -************************ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Options, Next: Environment, Prev: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: Top - -2 Options -********* - -* Menu: - -* General options:: -* Command options:: -* Command arguments:: -* Special characters:: -* Unicode characters:: -* Regular expressions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: General options, Next: Command options, Up: Options - -2.1 General options -=================== - -To see general usage help, including general options which are supported -by most hledger commands, run ‘hledger -h’. - - General help options: - -‘-h --help’ - - show general or COMMAND help -‘--man’ - - show general or COMMAND user manual with man -‘--info’ - - show general or COMMAND user manual with info -‘--version’ - - show general or ADDONCMD version -‘--debug[=N]’ - - show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) - - General input options: - -‘-f FILE --file=FILE’ - - use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ or ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’) -‘--rules-file=RULESFILE’ - - Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) -‘--separator=CHAR’ - - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ’,’) -‘--alias=OLD=NEW’ - - rename accounts named OLD to NEW -‘--anon’ - - anonymize accounts and payees -‘--pivot FIELDNAME’ - - use some other field or tag for the account name -‘-I --ignore-assertions’ - - disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance - assignments) -‘-s --strict’ - - do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are - declared) - - General reporting options: - -‘-b --begin=DATE’ - - include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to - preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) -‘-e --end=DATE’ - - include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to - following subperiod end when using a report interval) -‘-D --daily’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by day -‘-W --weekly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by week -‘-M --monthly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by month -‘-Q --quarterly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter -‘-Y --yearly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by year -‘-p --period=PERIODEXP’ - - set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once - using period expressions syntax -‘--date2’ - - match the secondary date instead (see command help for other - effects) -‘--today=DATE’ - - override today’s date (affects relative smart dates, for - tests/examples) -‘-U --unmarked’ - - include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) -‘-P --pending’ - - include only pending postings/txns -‘-C --cleared’ - - include only cleared postings/txns -‘-R --real’ - - include only non-virtual postings -‘-NUM --depth=NUM’ - - hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep -‘-E --empty’ - - show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in - hledger-ui/hledger-web) -‘-B --cost’ - - convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time -‘-V --market’ - - convert amounts to their market value in default valuation - commodities -‘-X --exchange=COMM’ - - convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM -‘--value’ - - convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than - -B/-V/-X -‘--infer-market-prices’ - - use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market - prices, as if they were P directives -‘--auto’ - - apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. -‘--forecast’ - - generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for - the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also - make ordinary future transactions visible. -‘--commodity-style’ - - Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example ’EUR1.000,00’. -‘--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)’ - - Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. ’auto’ (default): whenever stdout seems to be a - color-supporting terminal. ’always’ or ’yes’: always, useful eg - when piping output into ’less -R’. ’never’ or ’no’: never. A - NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. -‘--pretty[=WHEN]’ - - Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. - Accepts ’yes’ (the default) or ’no’ (’y’, ’n’, ’always’, ’never’ - also work). If you provide an argument you must use ’=’, e.g. - ’–pretty=yes’. - - When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, -the last one takes precedence. - - Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Command options, Next: Command arguments, Prev: General options, Up: Options - -2.2 Command options -=================== - -To see options for a particular command, including command-specific -options, run: ‘hledger COMMAND -h’. - - Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: -‘hledger print -x’. - - Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its -options after a double-hyphen, eg: ‘hledger ui -- --watch’. Or, you can -run the add-on executable directly: ‘hledger-ui --watch’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Command arguments, Next: Special characters, Prev: Command options, Up: Options - -2.3 Command arguments -===================== - -Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are -often a query, filtering the data in some way. - - You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and -then reuse them by writing ‘@FILENAME’ as a command line argument. Eg: -‘hledger bal @foo.args’. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument -that begins with a literal ‘@’, precede it with ‘--’, eg: ‘hledger bal --- @ARG’). - - Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or -argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you’ll see -a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or -nothing). Bad: - -assets depth:2 --X USD - - Good: - -assets -depth:2 --X=USD - - For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting -than you would at the command prompt. Bad: - --X"$" - - Good: - --X$ - - See also: Save frequently used options. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Special characters, Next: Unicode characters, Prev: Command arguments, Up: Options - -2.4 Special characters -====================== - -* Menu: - -* Single escaping shell metacharacters:: -* Double escaping regular expression metacharacters:: -* Triple escaping for add-on commands:: -* Less escaping:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Next: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.1 Single escaping (shell metacharacters) --------------------------------------------- - -In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as -spaces, ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘|’, ‘$’ and ‘\’ - should be "shell-escaped" -if you want hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in -single or double quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to -match an account name containing a space: - -$ hledger register 'credit card' - - or: - -$ hledger register credit\ card - - Windows users should keep in mind that ‘cmd’ treats single quote as a -regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. -PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Next: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Prev: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.2 Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) ---------------------------------------------------------- - -Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such -as ‘.’, ‘^’, ‘$’, ‘[’, ‘]’, ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘|’, and ‘\’ - may need to be -"regex-escaped" if you don’t want them to be interpreted by hledger’s -regular expression engine. This is done by writing backslashes before -them, but since backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both -shell-escaping and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal -‘$’ sign while using the bash shell: - -$ hledger balance cur:'\$' - - or: - -$ hledger balance cur:\\$ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Next: Less escaping, Prev: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.3 Triple escaping (for add-on commands) -------------------------------------------- - -When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described -below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or -arguments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra -level of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal ‘$’ sign while using the -bash shell and running an add-on command (‘ui’): - -$ hledger ui cur:'\\$' - - or: - -$ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ - - If you wondered why _four_ backslashes, perhaps this helps: - -unescaped: ‘$’ -escaped: ‘\$’ -double-escaped: ‘\\$’ -triple-escaped: ‘\\\\$’ - - Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable -directly: - -$ hledger-ui cur:\\$ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Less escaping, Prev: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Up: Special characters - -2.4.4 Less escaping -------------------- - -Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell -command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should -use one less level of escaping. Those places include: - - • an @argumentfile - • hledger-ui’s filter field - • hledger-web’s search form - • GHCI’s prompt (used by developers). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Unicode characters, Next: Regular expressions, Prev: Special characters, Up: Options - -2.5 Unicode characters -====================== - -hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: - - • they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command - line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web’s - search/add/edit forms, etc.) - - • they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and - on-screen alignment should be preserved. - - This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: - - • A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can - decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale - like this: ‘export LANG=en_US.UTF-8’. There are some more details - in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger - will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all - GHC-compiled programs). - - • your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) - must support unicode - - • the terminal must be using a font which includes the required - unicode glyphs - - • the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as - double width (for report alignment) - - • on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same - kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the - standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download - page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys - terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Regular expressions, Prev: Unicode characters, Up: Options - -2.6 Regular expressions -======================= - -hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: - - • query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search - form: ‘REGEX’, ‘desc:REGEX’, ‘cur:REGEX’, ‘tag:...=REGEX’ - • CSV rules conditional blocks: ‘if REGEX ...’ - • account alias directive and ‘--alias’ option: ‘alias /REGEX/ = - REPLACEMENT’, ‘--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT’ - - hledger’s regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If -they’re not doing what you expect, it’s important to know exactly what -they support: - - 1. they are case insensitive - 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing - being matched) - 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) - 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (‘\b’, ‘\B’, ‘\<’, ‘\>’) - 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write ‘\1’, it will - match the digit ‘1’. Except when doing text replacement, eg in - account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the - replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search - regexp. - 6. they do not support mode modifiers (‘(?s)’), character classes - (‘\w’, ‘\d’), or anything else not mentioned above. - - Some things to note: - - • In the ‘alias’ directive and ‘--alias’ option, regular expressions - must be enclosed in forward slashes (‘/REGEX/’). Elsewhere in - hledger, these are not required. - - • In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like ‘$’ as - a literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts - with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write ‘cur:\$’. - - • On the command line, some metacharacters like ‘$’ have a special - meaning to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. - See Special characters. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Environment, Next: Input, Prev: Options, Up: Top - -3 Environment -************* - -*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with ‘-f’. - - On unix computers, the default value is: ‘~/.hledger.journal’. - - A more typical value is something like ‘~/finance/YYYY.journal’, -where ‘~/finance’ is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is -the current year. Or, ‘~/finance/current.journal’, where -current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. - - The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of -your shell’s startup files (eg ‘~/.profile’): - -export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` - - On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set -environment variables, that will also affect applications started from -the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In -‘~/.MacOSX/environment.plist’, add an entry like: - -{ - "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" -} - - For this to take effect you might need to ‘killall Dock’, or reboot. - - On Windows computers, the default value is probably -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’. You can change this by running a -command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be -an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): - -> setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" - - Or, change it in settings: see -https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html. - - *COLUMNS* The screen width used by the register command. Default: -the full terminal width. - - *NO_COLOR* If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not -use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the -–color/–colour option. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Input, Next: Commands, Prev: Environment, Up: Top - -4 Input -******* - -hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default -data file is ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’ (or on Windows, something like -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’). - - You can override this with the ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable: - -$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal -$ hledger stats - - or with one or more ‘-f/--file’ options: - -$ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats - - The file name ‘-’ means standard input: - -$ cat some.journal | hledger -f- - -* Menu: - -* Data formats:: -* Multiple files:: -* Strict mode:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Data formats, Next: Multiple files, Up: Input - -4.1 Data formats -================ - -Usually the data file is in hledger’s journal format, but it can be in -any of the supported file formats, which currently are: - -Reader: Reads: Used for file - extensions: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -‘journal’hledger journal files and some Ledger ‘.journal’ ‘.j’ - journals, for transactions ‘.hledger’ ‘.ledger’ -‘timeclock’timeclock files, for precise time ‘.timeclock’ - logging -‘timedot’timedot files, for approximate time ‘.timedot’ - logging -‘csv’ comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated ‘.csv’ ‘.ssv’ ‘.tsv’ - values, for data import - - These formats are described in more detail below. - - hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions -shown above. If it can’t recognise the file extension, it assumes -‘journal’ format. So for non-journal files, it’s important to use a -recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show -relevant error messages. - - You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file -path with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv -format: - -$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats - - Or to read stdin (‘-’) as timeclock format: - -$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple files, Next: Strict mode, Prev: Data formats, Up: Input - -4.2 Multiple files -================== - -You can specify multiple ‘-f’ options, to read multiple files as one big -journal. There are some limitations with this: - - • most directives do not affect sibling files - • balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous - files - - If you need either of those things, you can - - • use a single parent file which includes the others - • or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: ‘cat - a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Strict mode, Prev: Multiple files, Up: Input - -4.3 Strict mode -=============== - -hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most -important errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files -without a lot of declarations: - - • Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? - • Are all transactions balanced ? - • Do all balance assertions pass ? - - With the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, additional checks are performed: - - • Are all accounts posted to, declared with an ‘account’ directive ? - (Account error checking) - • Are all commodities declared with a ‘commodity’ directive ? - (Commodity error checking) - • Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - - You can use the check command to run individual checks – the ones -listed above and some more. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commands, Next: Output, Prev: Input, Up: Top - -5 Commands -********** - -hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). -Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. -A few assist with data entry and management. - - Run ‘hledger’ with no arguments to list the commands available, and -‘hledger CMD’ to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or -its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous -prefix of the name. Eg: ‘hledger bal’. - -* Menu: - -* Add-on commands:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Add-on commands, Up: Commands - -5.1 Add-on commands -=================== - -Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts in -your PATH - - • whose name starts with ‘hledger-’ - • whose name ends with a recognised file extension: - ‘.bat’,‘.com’,‘.exe’, ‘.hs’,‘.lhs’,‘.pl’,‘.py’,‘.rb’,‘.rkt’,‘.sh’ - or none - • and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. - - Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or -programs have a big advantage: they can use hledger’s library code, for -command-line options, parsing and reporting. - - Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. -See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. - - Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a -double dash (‘--’) preceding them. Eg you must write: - -$ hledger web -- --serve - - and not: - -$ hledger web --serve - - (because the ‘--serve’ flag belongs to ‘hledger-web’, not ‘hledger’). - - The ‘-h/--help’ and ‘--version’ flags don’t require ‘--’. - - If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the -add-on program directly, eg: - -$ hledger-web --serve - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output, Next: Limitations, Prev: Commands, Up: Top - -6 Output -******** - -* Menu: - -* Output destination:: -* Output format:: -* Commodity styles:: -* Colour:: -* Box-drawing:: -* Debug output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output destination, Next: Output format, Up: Output - -6.1 Output destination -====================== - -hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can -of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: - -$ hledger print > foo.txt - - Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also -provide the ‘-o/--output-file’ option, which does the same thing without -needing the shell. Eg: - -$ hledger print -o foo.txt -$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output format, Next: Commodity styles, Prev: Output destination, Up: Output - -6.2 Output format -================= - -Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the -terminal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: - -- txt csv html json sql ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -aregister Y Y Y Y -balance Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1,2_ Y -balancesheet Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -balancesheetequity Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -cashflow Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -incomestatement Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -print Y Y Y Y -register Y Y Y - - • _1 Also affected by the balance commands’ ‘--layout’ option._ - • _2 ‘balance’ does not support html output without a report interval - or with ‘--budget’._ - - The output format is selected by the ‘-O/--output-format=FMT’ option: - -$ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout - - or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the -‘-o/--output-file=FILE.FMT’ option: - -$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv - - The ‘-O’ option can be combined with ‘-o’ to override the file -extension, if needed: - -$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt - - Some notes about the various output formats: - -* Menu: - -* CSV output:: -* HTML output:: -* JSON output:: -* SQL output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV output, Next: HTML output, Up: Output format - -6.2.1 CSV output ----------------- - - • In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are - disabled automatically. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: HTML output, Next: JSON output, Prev: CSV output, Up: Output format - -6.2.2 HTML output ------------------ - - • HTML output can be styled by an optional ‘hledger.css’ file in the - same directory. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: JSON output, Next: SQL output, Prev: HTML output, Up: Output format - -6.2.3 JSON output ------------------ - - • This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - • Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful - representation of hledger’s internal data types. To understand the - JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. - - • hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 - significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can - arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction - prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show - quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We - don’t limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under - your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in - practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: SQL output, Prev: JSON output, Up: Output format - -6.2.4 SQL output ----------------- - - • This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - • SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL - - • SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will - be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables - created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to - either clear tables of existing data (via ‘delete’ or ‘truncate’ - SQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your - postings will be duped. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity styles, Next: Colour, Prev: Output format, Up: Output - -6.3 Commodity styles -==================== - -When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for -each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. - - If needed, this can be overridden by a ‘-c/--commodity-style’ option -(except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the ‘print’ command, -which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the -following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: - -$ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' - - This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple -commodities/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity -directive. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Colour, Next: Box-drawing, Prev: Commodity styles, Up: Output - -6.4 Colour -========== - -In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal -supports it: - - • if the ‘--color/--colour’ option is given a value of ‘yes’ or - ‘always’ (or ‘no’ or ‘never’), colour will (or will not) be used; - • otherwise, if the ‘NO_COLOR’ environment variable is set, colour - will not be used; - • otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) - supports it. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Box-drawing, Next: Debug output, Prev: Colour, Up: Output - -6.5 Box-drawing -=============== - -In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to -render prettier tables: - - • if the ‘--pretty’ option is given a value of ‘yes’ or ‘always’ (or - ‘no’ or ‘never’), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; - • otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Debug output, Prev: Box-drawing, Up: Output - -6.6 Debug output -================ - -We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and -develop. You can add ‘--debug[=N]’ to any hledger command line to see -additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to -9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase until -you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not affected -by ‘-o/--output-file’ (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: -‘2>&1’). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help -reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output in -a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: - -hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Limitations, Next: Troubleshooting, Prev: Output, Up: Top - -7 Limitations -************* - -The need to precede add-on command options with ‘--’ when invoked from -hledger is awkward. - - When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system -locale must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on -POSIX, set LANG to something other than C. - - In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours -are not supported. - - On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when -running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. - - In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in -hledger add. - - Not all of Ledger’s journal file syntax is supported. See hledger -and Ledger > Differences > journal format. - - On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than -Ledger. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Next: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Prev: Limitations, Up: Top - -8 Troubleshooting -***************** - -Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and -remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug -tracker): - - *Successfully installed, but "No command ’hledger’ found"* -stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should -be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, -that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. - - *I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default -file* -‘LEDGER_FILE’ should be a real environment variable, not just a shell -variable. The command ‘env | grep LEDGER_FILE’ should show it. You may -need to use ‘export’. Here’s an explanation. - - *Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or -incomplete multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: -invalid argument (invalid character)"* -Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to -have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they -will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii -characters. - - To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which -supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. - - Here’s an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: - -$ file my.journal -my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded -$ echo $LANG -C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 -$ locale -a # which locales are installed ? -C -en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use -POSIX -$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command - - If available, ‘C.UTF-8’ will also work. If your preferred locale -isn’t listed by ‘locale -a’, you might need to install it. Eg on -Ubuntu/Debian: - -$ apt-get install language-pack-fr -$ locale -a -C -en_US.utf8 -fr_BE.utf8 -fr_CA.utf8 -fr_CH.utf8 -fr_FR.utf8 -fr_LU.utf8 -POSIX -$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print - - Here’s how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: - -$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile -$ bash --login - - Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the -difference on MacOS (‘UTF-8’, not ‘utf8’). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) -allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: - -$ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf -en_US.UTF-8 -$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Next: Journal, Prev: Troubleshooting, Up: Top - -9 PART 2: DATA FORMATS -********************** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Journal, Next: CSV, Prev: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Up: Top - -10 Journal -********** - -hledger’s default file format, representing a General Journal. Here’s a -cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal format. - -* Menu: - -* Journal cheatsheet:: -* About journal format:: -* Comments:: -* Transactions:: -* Dates:: -* Status:: -* Code:: -* Description:: -* Transaction comments:: -* Postings:: -* Account names:: -* Amounts:: -* Costs:: -* Balance assertions:: -* Posting comments:: -* Tags:: -* Directives:: -* account directive:: -* alias directive:: -* commodity directive:: -* decimal-mark directive:: -* include directive:: -* P directive:: -* payee directive:: -* tag directive:: -* Periodic transactions:: -* Other syntax:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Journal cheatsheet, Next: About journal format, Up: Journal - -10.1 Journal cheatsheet -======================= - -# Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format -# (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). -# hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: - -############################################################################### -# 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. -# They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". - -# hash comment line -; semicolon comment line -comment -These lines -are commented. -end comment - -# Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, -# from ; (semicolon) to end of line. - -############################################################################### -# 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. -# They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). - -account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. -account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) -alias chkg = assets:checking -commodity $0.00 -decimal-mark . -include /dev/null -payee Whole Foods -P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 -~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description - expenses:food $400 - expenses:home $1000 - budgeted - -############################################################################### -# 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, -# usually describing movements of money. -# They begin with a date. - -# DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. -# ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. -# ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. -# ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. -# ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). - -2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way - assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. - assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. - assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. - liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. - equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. - -2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes - ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". - ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. - ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: - assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) - expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) - ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" - -Kv -2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. - ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. - assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 - expenses:clothing GBP 10 - assets:gringotts -10 gold - assets:pouch 10 gold - revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols - assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. - -2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ - assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost - assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost - assets:checking $-7.00 - -2022-01-02 assert balances - ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. - assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA - assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold - assets:savings $0 = $1000 - -1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. - ; Postings are not required. - -2022.01.01 These date -2022/1/1 formats are -12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: About journal format, Next: Comments, Prev: Journal cheatsheet, Up: Journal - -10.2 About journal format -========================= - -hledger’s usual data source is a plain text file containing journal -entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard -accounting general journal. I use file names ending in ‘.journal’, but -that’s not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction -entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between -two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger -and humans. - - hledger’s journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger’s -journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal files -as well. It’s safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and ledger on -the same journal file, eg to validate the results you’re getting. - - You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just -use the add or web or import commands to create and update it. - - Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and -track changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons -such as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and -hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, -formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor -configuration at hledger.org for the full list. - - Here’s a description of each part of the file format (and hledger’s -data model). - - A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file -comments, transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction -rules and auto posting rules as directives). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Comments, Next: Transactions, Prev: About journal format, Up: Journal - -10.3 Comments -============= - -Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (‘#’) or -a semicolon (‘;’). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore -regions beginning with a ‘comment’ line and ending with an ‘end comment’ -line (or file end). Here’s a suggestion for choosing between them: - - • ‘#’ for top-level notes - • ‘;’ for commenting out things temporarily - • ‘comment’ for quickly commenting large regions (remember it’s - there, or you might get confused) - - Eg: - -# a comment line -; another commentline -comment -A multi-line comment block, -continuing until "end comment" directive -or the end of the current file. -end comment - - Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, -from ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting -comments, and Account comments below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Transactions, Next: Dates, Prev: Comments, Up: Journal - -10.4 Transactions -================= - -Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They -represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities -between two or more named accounts. - - Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a -simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following -optional fields, separated by spaces: - - • a status character (empty, ‘!’, or ‘*’) - • a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) - • a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) - • a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of - line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) - • 0 or more indented _posting_ lines, describing what was transferred - and the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, - but not blank lines or non-indented lines). - - Here’s a simple journal file containing one transaction: - -2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Dates, Next: Status, Prev: Transactions, Up: Journal - -10.5 Dates -========== - -* Menu: - -* Simple dates:: -* Posting dates:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple dates, Next: Posting dates, Up: Dates - -10.5.1 Simple dates -------------------- - -Dates in the journal file use _simple dates_ format: ‘YYYY-MM-DD’ or -‘YYYY/MM/DD’ or ‘YYYY.MM.DD’, with leading zeros optional. The year may -be omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the -current transaction, the default year set with a ‘Y’ directive, or the -current date when the command is run. Some examples: ‘2010-01-31’, -‘2010/01/31’, ‘2010.1.31’, ‘1/31’. - - (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart -dates documented in the hledger manual.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Posting dates, Prev: Simple dates, Up: Dates - -10.5.2 Posting dates --------------------- - -You can give individual postings a different date from their parent -transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) -like ‘date:DATE’. This is probably the best way to control posting -dates precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May -reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for -easy bank reconciliation: - -2015/5/30 - expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 - assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 - -$ hledger -f t.j register food -2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 - -$ hledger -f t.j register checking -2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 - - DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will -use the year of the transaction’s date. -The ‘date:’ tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg -a ‘date:’ tag with no value is not allowed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Status, Next: Code, Prev: Dates, Up: Journal - -10.6 Status -=========== - -Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a -status mark, which is a single character before the transaction -description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, -indicating one of three statuses: - -mark status - ------------------ - unmarked -‘!’ pending -‘*’ cleared - - When reporting, you can filter by status with the ‘-U/--unmarked’, -‘-P/--pending’, and ‘-C/--cleared’ flags; or the ‘status:’, ‘status:!’, -and ‘status:*’ queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. - - Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" -state is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to -unmarked for clarity. - - To replicate Ledger and old hledger’s behaviour of also matching -pending, combine -U and -P. - - Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with -real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and -shortcuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can -toggle transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. - - What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to -you. Here’s one suggestion: - -status meaning --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review -pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big - reconciliation) -cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered - correct - - With this scheme, you would use ‘-PC’ to see the current balance at -your bank, ‘-U’ to see things which will probably hit your bank soon -(like uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of -your finances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Code, Next: Description, Prev: Status, Up: Journal - -10.7 Code -========= - -After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally -write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good -place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id -or reference number. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Description, Next: Transaction comments, Prev: Code, Up: Journal - -10.8 Description -================ - -A transaction’s description is the rest of the line following the date -and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the -"narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you -wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike -comments. - -* Menu: - -* Payee and note:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Payee and note, Up: Description - -10.8.1 Payee and note ---------------------- - -You can optionally include a ‘|’ (pipe) character in descriptions to -subdivide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on -the left (up to the first ‘|’) and an additional note field on the right -(after the first ‘|’). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more -precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Transaction comments, Next: Postings, Prev: Description, Up: Journal - -10.9 Transaction comments -========================= - -Text following ‘;’, after a transaction description, and/or on indented -lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They -are reproduced by ‘print’ but otherwise ignored, except they may contain -tags, which are not ignored. - -2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment - ; a second line of transaction comment - expenses 1 - assets - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Postings, Next: Account names, Prev: Transaction comments, Up: Journal - -10.10 Postings -============== - -A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount -from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or -tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: - - • (optional) a status character (empty, ‘!’, or ‘*’), followed by a - space - • (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing *single - spaces*, until end of line or a double space) - • (optional) *two or more spaces* or tabs followed by an amount. - - Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are -being removed. - - The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a -convenience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to -balance the transaction. - - Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name -and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing -spaces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before -the amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account names, Next: Amounts, Prev: Postings, Up: Journal - -10.11 Account names -=================== - -Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in -Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such -as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed -from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". - - You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the -traditional accounting categories, which in english are ‘assets’, -‘liabilities’, ‘equity’, ‘revenues’, ‘expenses’. (You might see these -referred to as A, L, E, R, X for short.) - - For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts -into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account -name parts. For example, from the account names ‘assets:bank:checking’ -and ‘expenses:food’, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: - -assets -assets:bank -assets:bank:checking -expenses -expenses:food - - Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: - -assets - bank - checking -expenses - food - - hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you -can go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account -names relatively simple may be best when starting out. - - Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, -numbers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an -amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by *two or -more spaces* (or tabs). - - Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate -virtual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to -the account name have no special meaning. - - Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account -aliases. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amounts, Next: Costs, Prev: Account names, Up: Journal - -10.12 Amounts -============= - -After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: between -account name and amount, there must be *two or more spaces*.) - - hledger’s amount format is flexible, supporting several international -formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the -"quantity"): - -1 - - ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this -below), to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a -separating space: - -$1 -4000 AAPL -3 "green apples" - - Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus -is the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side -commodity symbol: - --$1 -$-1 - - One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable -when parsing (but they won’t be displayed in output): - -+ $1 -$- 1 - - Scientific E notation is allowed: - -1E-6 -EUR 1E3 - -* Menu: - -* Decimal marks digit group marks:: -* Commodity:: -* Directives influencing number parsing and display:: -* Commodity display style:: -* Rounding:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Decimal marks digit group marks, Next: Commodity, Up: Amounts - -10.12.1 Decimal marks, digit group marks ----------------------------------------- - -A _decimal mark_ can be written as a period or a comma: - -1.23 -1,23456780000009 - - In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), -groups of digits can optionally be separated by a _digit group mark_ - a -space, comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): - - $1,000,000.00 - EUR 2.000.000,00 -INR 9,99,99,999.00 - 1 000 000.9455 - - Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal -mark is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? - -1,000 -1.000 - - If you don’t tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above -are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. - - To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, -especially if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands -separators), we recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark -character in each journal file, using a directive at the top of the -file. The ‘decimal-mark’ directive is best, otherwise ‘commodity’ -directives will also work. These are described below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity, Next: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Prev: Decimal marks digit group marks, Up: Amounts - -10.12.2 Commodity ------------------ - -Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal -number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or -any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. - - If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or -punctuation), you must always write it inside double quotes (‘"green -apples"’, ‘"ABC123"’). - - If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with -name ‘""’; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". - - Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more -powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of -the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: ‘1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 -TSLA’. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in -hledger’s output; you can’t write them directly in the journal file. - - (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger’s internals, -these are the ‘Amount’ and ‘MixedAmount’ types.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Next: Commodity display style, Prev: Commodity, Up: Amounts - -10.12.3 Directives influencing number parsing and display ---------------------------------------------------------- - -You can add ‘decimal-mark’ and ‘commodity’ directives to the journal, to -declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These -are described below, but here’s a quick example: - -# the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) -decimal-mark . - -# display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: -commodity $1,000.00 -commodity EUR 1.000,00 -commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 -commodity 1 000 000.9455 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display style, Next: Rounding, Prev: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Up: Amounts - -10.12.4 Commodity display style -------------------------------- - -For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display -style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all -amounts displayed by the ‘print’ command, are displayed with all of -their decimal digits visible.) - - A commodity’s display style is inferred as follows. - - First, if a default commodity is declared with ‘D’, this commodity -and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. - - Then each commodity’s style is inferred from one of the following, in -order of preference: - - • The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol - commodity), if any. - • The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal’s transactions. - (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are - ignored, currently.) - • The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: ‘$1000.00’. - (Symbol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) - - A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: - - • Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first - amount - • Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group - sizes), if any - • Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. - - Cost amounts don’t affect the commodity display style directly, but -occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting’s amount is -inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a -commodity directive to fix the display style. - - To summarise: each commodity’s amounts will be normalised to (a) the -style declared by a ‘commodity’ directive, or (b) the style of the first -posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style and -the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are -showing amounts in a way you don’t like, eg with too many decimal -places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: - -# declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their -# input number formats and output display styles: -commodity EUR 1.000, -commodity $1000.00 -commodity 1000.00000000 BTC -commodity 1 000. - - The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command -line option. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Rounding, Prev: Commodity display style, Up: Amounts - -10.12.5 Rounding ----------------- - -Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal -places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by the -commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker’s rounding: it -rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal -places is "0"). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Costs, Next: Balance assertions, Prev: Amounts, Up: Journal - -10.13 Costs -=========== - -After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling -price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either ‘@ -UNITPRICE’ or ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’ after it. This indicates a conversion -transaction, where one commodity is exchanged for another. - - (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, -discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded -that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it -"cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase -or a sale.) - - Costs are usually written explicitly with ‘@’ or ‘@@’, but can also -be inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. -Note, if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the -first posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. - - As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign -currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or -implicitly: - - 1. Write the price per unit, as ‘@ UNITPRICE’ after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 - - 2. Write the total price, as ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’ after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot - assets:dollars - - 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, - and let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. - Note the effect of posting order: the price is added to first - posting, making it ‘€100 @@ $135’, as in example 2: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 ; one hundred euros purchased - assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 - - Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the ‘-B/--cost’ -flag; this is discussed more in the ˜COST REPORTING section. - -* Menu: - -* Other cost/lot notations:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other cost/lot notations, Up: Costs - -10.13.1 Other cost/lot notations --------------------------------- - -A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a number -of cost/lot-related notations: - - • ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’ - • expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger - • when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at - selling time - - • ‘(@) UNITCOST’ and ‘(@@) TOTALCOST’ (virtual cost) - • like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, - don’t use it when inferring market prices". - - Currently, hledger treats the above like ‘@’ and ‘@@’; the -parentheses are ignored. - - • ‘{=FIXEDUNITCOST}’ and ‘{{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}}’ (fixed price) - • when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don’t - let it fluctuate in value reports" - - • ‘{UNITCOST}’ and ‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ (lot price) - • can be used identically to ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’, - also creates a lot - • when selling, combined with ‘@ ...’, specifies an investment - lot by its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present - - • and related: ‘[YYYY/MM/DD]’ (lot date) - • when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot - • when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date - - • ‘(SOME TEXT)’ (lot note) - • when buying, attaches this note to the lot - • when selling, selects a lot by its note - - Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after -the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction -balancing.) - - For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: - - • ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’ - • expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger - • when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined - with ‘{...}’: documents the cost/selling price (not used for - transaction balancing) - - • ‘{UNITCOST}’ and ‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ - • when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction - balancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis - attached - • when selling (reducing), - • selects a lot by its cost basis - • raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be - selected unambiguously (depending on booking method - configured) - • expresses the selling price for transaction balancing - - Currently, hledger accepts the ‘{UNITCOST}’/‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ notation -but ignores it. - - • variations: ‘{}’, ‘{YYYY-MM-DD}’, ‘{"LABEL"}’, ‘{UNITCOST, - "LABEL"}’, ‘{UNITCOST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"}’ etc. - - Currently, hledger rejects these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assertions, Next: Posting comments, Prev: Costs, Up: Journal - -10.14 Balance assertions -======================== - -hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. -These look like, for example, ‘= EXPECTEDBALANCE’ following a posting’s -amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and -b after each posting: - -2013/1/1 - a $1 =$1 - b =$-1 - -2013/1/2 - a $1 =$2 - b $-1 =$-2 - - After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance -assertions and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions -can protect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances -while cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with -the ‘-I/--ignore-assertions’ flag, which can be useful for -troubleshooting or for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently -does not disable balance assignments, described below). - -* Menu: - -* Assertions and ordering:: -* Assertions and multiple included files:: -* Assertions and multiple -f files:: -* Assertions and commodities:: -* Assertions and prices:: -* Assertions and subaccounts:: -* Assertions and virtual postings:: -* Assertions and auto postings:: -* Assertions and precision:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and ordering, Next: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.1 Assertions and ordering -------------------------------- - -hledger sorts an account’s postings and assertions first by date and -then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is -different from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. -(Also, Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated -postings to the same account within a transaction.) - - So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder -differently-dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder -same-dated transactions or postings, assertions might break and require -updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise -control over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you -can assert intra-day balances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple included files, Next: Assertions and multiple -f files, Prev: Assertions and ordering, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.2 Assertions and multiple included files ----------------------------------------------- - -Multiple files included with the ‘include’ directive are processed as if -concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting order -within each file. It means that balance assertions in later files will -see balance from earlier files. - - And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, -split across multiple files, and you want to assert the account’s -balance on that day, you’ll need to put the assertion in the right file -- the last one in the sequence, probably. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple -f files, Next: Assertions and commodities, Prev: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.3 Assertions and multiple -f files ----------------------------------------- - -Unlike ‘include’, when multiple files are specified on the command line -with multiple ‘-f/--file’ options, balance assertions will not see -balance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want -problems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. - - If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use -‘include’, or concatenate the files temporarily. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and commodities, Next: Assertions and prices, Prev: Assertions and multiple -f files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.4 Assertions and commodities ----------------------------------- - -The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in -fact the assertion checks only this commodity’s balance within the -(possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions work -in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. - - To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you -can write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity’s balance. - - You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double -equals sign (‘== EXPECTEDBALANCE’). This asserts that there are no -other commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, -that their balance is 0). - -2013/1/1 - a $1 - a 1€ - b $-1 - c -1€ - -2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed - a 0 = $1 - a 0 = 1€ - b 0 == $-1 - c 0 == -1€ - -2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1€ - a 0 == $1 - - It’s not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance -that has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each -commodity into its own subaccount: - -2013/1/1 - a:usd $1 - a:euro 1€ - b - -2013/1/2 - a 0 == 0 - a:usd 0 == $1 - a:euro 0 == 1€ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and prices, Next: Assertions and subaccounts, Prev: Assertions and commodities, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.5 Assertions and prices ------------------------------ - -Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without -one: - -2019/1/1 - (a) $1 @ €1 = $1 - - We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows -them, even though they don’t affect whether the assertion passes or -fails. This is for backward compatibility (hledger’s close command used -to generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance -_assignments_ do use them (see below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and subaccounts, Next: Assertions and virtual postings, Prev: Assertions and prices, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.6 Assertions and subaccounts ----------------------------------- - -The balance assertions above (‘=’ and ‘==’) do not count the balance -from subaccounts; they check the account’s exclusive balance only. You -can assert the balance including subaccounts by writing ‘=*’ or ‘==*’, -eg: - -2019/1/1 - equity:opening balances - checking:a 5 - checking:b 5 - checking 1 ==* 11 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and virtual postings, Next: Assertions and auto postings, Prev: Assertions and subaccounts, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.7 Assertions and virtual postings ---------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they -are not affected by the ‘--real/-R’ flag or ‘real:’ query. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and auto postings, Next: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and virtual postings, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.8 Assertions and auto postings ------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions _are_ affected by the ‘--auto’ flag, which generates -auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings -are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two -balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of -these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: - - • assert the balance calculated with ‘--auto’, and always use - ‘--auto’ with that file - • or assert the balance calculated without ‘--auto’, and never use - ‘--auto’ with that file - • or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings - (or avoid auto postings entirely). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and auto postings, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.9 Assertions and precision --------------------------------- - -Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are not -always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may limit the -display precision, but this will not affect balance assertions. Balance -assertion failure messages show exact amounts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Posting comments, Next: Tags, Prev: Balance assertions, Up: Journal - -10.15 Posting comments -====================== - -Text following ‘;’, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented -lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are -reproduced by ‘print’ but otherwise ignored, except they may contain -tags, which are not ignored. - -2012-01-01 - expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 - assets - ; a comment for posting 2 - ; a second comment line for posting 2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Tags, Next: Directives, Prev: Posting comments, Up: Journal - -10.16 Tags -========== - -Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, -postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. - - They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately -followed by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account -directive’s comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that -things in comments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are -recorded: one on the checking account, two on the transaction, and one -on the expenses posting: - -account assets:checking ; accounttag: - -2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: - ; transactiontag-2: - assets:checking $-1 - expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: - - Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. -And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings’ -accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively -has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the -transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses -posting). - - You can list tag names with ‘hledger tags [NAMEREGEX]’, or match by -tag name with a ‘tag:NAMEREGEX’ query. - -* Menu: - -* Tag values:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Tag values, Up: Tags - -10.16.1 Tag values ------------------- - -Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a -comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this -means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the -following posting, the three tags’ values are "value 1", "value 2", and -"" (empty) respectively: - - expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz - - Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than -overriding: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the -new name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to -override a tag’s value or remove a tag.) - - You can list a tag’s values with ‘hledger tags TAGNAME --values’, or -match by tag value with a ‘tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX’ query. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives, Next: account directive, Prev: Tags, Up: Journal - -10.17 Directives -================ - -A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, -that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, -and so on. hledger’s directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger’s, -but there are many differences, and also some differences between -hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: - - • _subdirective_ - Some directives support subdirectives, written - indented below the parent directive. - - • _decimal mark_ - The character to interpret as a decimal mark - (period or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. - - • _display style_ - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: - symbol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of - decimal places. - - Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you -will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key -directives for particular needs: - -purpose directives --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*READING DATA:* -Declare file’s decimal mark to help parse ‘decimal-mark’ -amounts accurately -Rewrite account names ‘alias’ -Comment out sections of the data ‘comment’ -Include extra data files ‘include’ -*GENERATING DATA:* -Generate recurring transactions or budget ‘~’ -goals -Generate extra postings on transactions ‘=’ -*CHECKING FOR ERRORS:* -Define valid entities to provide more ‘account’, ‘commodity’, -error checking ‘payee’ -*REPORTING:* -Declare accounts’ type and display order ‘account’ -Declare commodity display styles ‘commodity’ -Declare market prices ‘P’ - -* Menu: - -* Directive effects:: -* Directives and multiple files:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directive effects, Next: Directives and multiple files, Up: Directives - -10.17.1 Directive effects -------------------------- - -And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal -entries (transactions) it affects: - -directivewhat it does ends - at - file - end? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*‘account’*Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; andN - its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. -*‘alias’*Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of Y - current file or ‘end aliases’. Command line equivalent: - ‘--alias’ -*‘comment’*Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file orY - ‘end comment’. -*‘commodity’*Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checkingN,Y,N,N - all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing - amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of - current file (if there is no ‘decimal-mark’ directive) 3. and - the display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is - also the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in - this commodity. Takes precedence over ‘D’. Subdirectives: - ‘format’ (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: - ‘-c/--commodity-style’ -*‘decimal-mark’*Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all Y - commodities in following entries until next ‘decimal-mark’ or - end of current file. Included files can override. Takes - precedence over ‘commodity’ and ‘D’. -*‘include’*Includes entries and directives from another file, as if theyN - were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple - ‘-f/--file’ -*‘payee’*Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N -*‘P’*Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N - reports. -*‘~’*Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N -(tilde)transactions with ‘--forecast’ and budget goals with ‘balance - --budget’. -Other -syntax: -*‘applyPrepends a common parent account to all account names, in Y -account’*following entries until end of current file or ‘end apply - account’. -*‘D’*Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N - there is no ‘commodity’ directive for this commodity: its - decimal mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. -*‘Y’*Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y - entries until end of current file. -*‘=’*Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly -(equals)matched transactions with ‘--auto’, in current, parent, and - child files (but not sibling files, see #1212). -*OtherOther directives from Ledger’s file format are accepted but -Ledgerignored. -directives* - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives and multiple files, Prev: Directive effects, Up: Directives - -10.17.2 Directives and multiple files -------------------------------------- - -If you use multiple ‘-f’/‘--file’ options, or the ‘include’ directive, -hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect -input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which they -occur (and on any included files in that region). - - This may seem inconvenient, but it’s intentional; it makes reports -stable and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise -you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in a -different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up your -files. - - It can be surprising though; for example, it means that ‘alias’ -directives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: account directive, Next: alias directive, Prev: Directives, Up: Journal - -10.18 ‘account’ directive -========================= - -‘account’ directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places -that amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these -declarations can provide several benefits: - - • They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a - reference. - • In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by - transactions, which helps detect typos. - • They control account display order in reports, allowing - non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - • They help with account name completion (in hledger add, - hledger-web, hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) - • They can store additional account information as comments, or as - tags which can be used to filter or pivot reports. - • They can help hledger know your accounts’ types (asset, liability, - equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement. - - They are written as the word ‘account’ followed by a hledger-style -account name, eg: - -account assets:bank:checking - - Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not -allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts -used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: - -account (assets:bank:checking) - -* Menu: - -* Account comments:: -* Account subdirectives:: -* Account error checking:: -* Account display order:: -* Account types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account comments, Next: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive - -10.18.1 Account comments ------------------------- - -Text following *two or more spaces* and ‘;’ at the end of an account -directive line, and/or following ‘;’ on indented lines immediately below -it, form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may -contain tags, which are not ignored. - - The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because -‘;’ is allowed in account names. - -account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon - ; next-line comment - ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account subdirectives, Next: Account error checking, Prev: Account comments, Up: account directive - -10.18.2 Account subdirectives ------------------------------ - -Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently -ignored: - -account assets:bank:checking - format subdirective is ignored - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account error checking, Next: Account display order, Prev: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive - -10.18.3 Account error checking ------------------------------- - -By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence when -a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means hledger -can’t warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the journal. -Usually you’ll find that error later, as an extra account in balance -reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. - - In strict mode, enabled with the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, hledger will -report an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not -been declared by an account directive. Some notes: - - • The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the - correct account name capitalisation. - • The account directive’s scope is "whole file and below" (see - directives). This means it affects all of the current file, and - any files it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The - position of account directives within the file does not matter, - though it’s usual to put them at the top. - • Accounts can only be declared in ‘journal’ files, but will affect - included files of all types. - • It’s currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" - with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account display order, Next: Account types, Prev: Account error checking, Up: account directive - -10.18.4 Account display order ------------------------------ - -The order in which account directives are written influences the order -in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By -default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these -account directives to the journal file: - -account assets -account liabilities -account equity -account revenues -account expenses - - those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: - -$ hledger accounts -1 -assets -liabilities -equity -revenues -expenses - - Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. - - Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group -of sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this -directive: - -account other:zoo - - would influence the position of ‘zoo’ among ‘other’’s subaccounts, -but not the position of ‘other’ among the top-level accounts. This -means: - - • you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg ‘account other’ - above) that you don’t intend to post to, just to customize their - display order - • sibling accounts stay together (you couldn’t display ‘x:y’ in - between ‘a:b’ and ‘a:c’). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account types, Prev: Account display order, Up: account directive - -10.18.5 Account types ---------------------- - -hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, -expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and -incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the ‘type:’ query. - - As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types -automatically if you are using common english-language top-level account -names (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types -explicitly, by adding a ‘type:’ tag to your top-level account -directives. Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The -tag’s value should be one of the five main account types: - - • ‘A’ or ‘Asset’ (things you own) - • ‘L’ or ‘Liability’ (things you owe) - • ‘E’ or ‘Equity’ (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of - assets & liabilities) - • ‘R’ or ‘Revenue’ (what you received money from, AKA income; - technically part of Equity) - • ‘X’ or ‘Expense’ (what you spend money on; technically part of - Equity) - - or, it can be (these are used less often): - - • ‘C’ or ‘Cash’ (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the - cashflow report) - • ‘V’ or ‘Conversion’ (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST - REPORTING).) - - Here is a typical set of account type declarations: - -account assets ; type: A -account liabilities ; type: L -account equity ; type: E -account revenues ; type: R -account expenses ; type: X - -account assets:bank ; type: C -account assets:cash ; type: C - -account equity:conversion ; type: V - - Here are some tips for working with account types. - - • The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. - These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get - going; if they don’t work for you, just ignore them and declare - your account types. See also Regular expressions. - - If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: - --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash - ^assets?(:|$) | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense - - • If you declare any account types, it’s a good idea to declare an - account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared - and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. - - • Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See - Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. - - • As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their - parent account. More precisely, an account’s type is decided by - the first of these that exists: - - 1. A ‘type:’ declaration for this account. - 2. A ‘type:’ declaration in the parent accounts above it, - preferring the nearest. - 3. An account type inferred from this account’s name. - 4. An account type inferred from a parent account’s name, - preferring the nearest parent. - 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. - - • For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: - - $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: alias directive, Next: commodity directive, Prev: account directive, Up: Journal - -10.19 ‘alias’ directive -======================= - -You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or -parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: - - • expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing - easier data entry and a less verbose journal - • adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts - • experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy - • combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference - on one line - • customising reports - - Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. -They do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or -hledger-web. - - Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use -correctly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; -more on this below. - - See also Rewrite account names. - -* Menu: - -* Basic aliases:: -* Regex aliases:: -* Combining aliases:: -* Aliases and multiple files:: -* end aliases directive:: -* Aliases can generate bad account names:: -* Aliases and account types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Basic aliases, Next: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.1 Basic aliases ---------------------- - -To set an account alias, use the ‘alias’ directive in your journal file. -This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its -included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces -around the = are optional: - -alias OLD = NEW - - Or, you can use the ‘--alias 'OLD=NEW'’ option on the command line. -This affects all entries. It’s useful for trying out aliases -interactively. - - OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will -replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. -Subaccounts are also affected. Eg: - -alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking -; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Regex aliases, Next: Combining aliases, Prev: Basic aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.2 Regex aliases ---------------------- - -There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, -indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the only -place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular -expression.) - - Eg: - -alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT - - or: - -$ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... - - Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by -REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. - - If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg -‘/\/=:’. - - If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced -by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: - -alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 -; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" - - REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end -of option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining aliases, Next: Aliases and multiple files, Prev: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.3 Combining aliases -------------------------- - -You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives -and/or command line options. - - Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, -then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the -effect of previously applied aliases. - - In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be -applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal -entry, we apply: - - 1. ‘alias’ directives preceding the journal entry, most recently - parsed first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to - top) - 2. ‘--alias’ options, in the order they appeared on the command line - (left to right). - - In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: - - • the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied - first - • the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on - • aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. - - This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps -provide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way -independent of which files are being read and in which order. - - In case of trouble, adding ‘--debug=6’ to the command line will show -which aliases are being applied when. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and multiple files, Next: end aliases directive, Prev: Combining aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.4 Aliases and multiple files ----------------------------------- - -As explained at Directives and multiple files, ‘alias’ directives do not -affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, - -hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal - - account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. -Including the aliases doesn’t work either: - -include a.aliases - -2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases - foo 1 - bar - - This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the -start of your top-most file, like this: - -alias foo=Foo -alias bar=Bar - -2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above - foo 1 - bar - -include c.journal ; also affected - - -File: hledger.info, Node: end aliases directive, Next: Aliases can generate bad account names, Prev: Aliases and multiple files, Up: alias directive - -10.19.5 ‘end aliases’ directive -------------------------------- - -You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the -journal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: - -end aliases - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Next: Aliases and account types, Prev: end aliases directive, Up: alias directive - -10.19.6 Aliases can generate bad account names ----------------------------------------------- - -Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, which -could cause confusing reports or invalid ‘print’ output. For example, -you could erase all account names: - -2021-01-01 - a:aa 1 - b - -$ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' -2021-01-01 - 1 - - The above ‘print’ output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert -an illegal double space, causing ‘print’ output that would give a -different journal when reparsed: - -2021-01-01 - old 1 - other - -$ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print -2021-01-01 - new USD 1 - other - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and account types, Prev: Aliases can generate bad account names, Up: alias directive - -10.19.7 Aliases and account types ---------------------------------- - -If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account -types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in -effect. - - However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg -renaming parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could -prevent child accounts from inheriting the account type of their -parents. - - Secondly, if an account’s type is being inferred from its name, -renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. - - If you are using account aliases and the ‘type:’ query is not -matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts -command, eg something like: - -$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a - - -File: hledger.info, Node: commodity directive, Next: decimal-mark directive, Prev: alias directive, Up: Journal - -10.20 ‘commodity’ directive -=========================== - -You can use ‘commodity’ directives to declare your commodities. In fact -the ‘commodity’ directive performs several functions at once: - - 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can - optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf - Commodity error checking) - - 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to - expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international - number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both - ‘1,000’ and ‘1.000’ as 1. (Cf Amounts) - - 3. It declares how to render the commodity’s amounts when displaying - output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of - decimal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display - style) - - You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives -sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable -parsing and display. - - Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since -for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). - - A commodity directive is just the word ‘commodity’ followed by a -sample amount, like this: - -;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT - -commodity $1000.00 -commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment - - It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the ‘format’ -subdirective, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol -appears twice; it must be the same in both places: - -;commodity SYMBOL -; format SAMPLEAMOUNT - -; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, -; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, -; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. -commodity INR - format INR 1,00,00,000.00 - - Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or -punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). - - The amount’s quantity does not matter; only the format is -significant. It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a -comma - followed by 0 or more decimal digits. - - A few more examples: - -# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: -commodity $1,000.00 -commodity EUR 1.000,00 -commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 -commodity 1 000 000. - - Note hledger normally uses banker’s rounding, so 0.5 displayed with -zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) - - Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display -style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. - -* Menu: - -* Commodity error checking:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity error checking, Up: commodity directive - -10.20.1 Commodity error checking --------------------------------- - -In strict mode, enabled with the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, hledger will -report an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared -by a ‘commodity’ directive. This works similarly to account error -checking, see the notes there for more details. - - Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because -currently it’s not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity -with a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts -are always allowed to have no commodity symbol. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark directive, Next: include directive, Prev: commodity directive, Up: Journal - -10.21 ‘decimal-mark’ directive -============================== - -You can use a ‘decimal-mark’ directive - usually one per file, at the -top of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark -when parsing amounts in this file. It can look like - -decimal-mark . - - or - -decimal-mark , - - This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we -recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg -thousands separators). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: include directive, Next: P directive, Prev: decimal-mark directive, Up: Journal - -10.22 ‘include’ directive -========================= - -You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include -directive, like this: - -include FILEPATH - - Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or -timedot files can be included (not CSV files, currently). - - If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the -current file’s folder. - - A tilde means home directory, eg: ‘include ~/main.journal’. - - The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: -‘include *.journal’. - - There is limited support for recursive wildcards: ‘**/’ (the slash is -required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It’s not super convenient -since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but -this can be done, eg: ‘include */**/*.journal’. - - The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, -overriding the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input -files): ‘include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: P directive, Next: payee directive, Prev: include directive, Up: Journal - -10.23 ‘P’ directive -=================== - -The ‘P’ directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate -between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports to -convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or after -that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock exchange, -cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. - - The format is: - -P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT - - DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the -commodity being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and -quantity) of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this -date. Examples: - -# one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: -P 2009-01-01 € $1.35 - -# and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: -P 2010-01-01 € $1.40 - - The ‘-V’, ‘-X’ and ‘--value’ flags use these market prices to show -amount values in another commodity. See Valuation. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: payee directive, Next: tag directive, Prev: P directive, Up: Journal - -10.24 ‘payee’ directive -======================= - -‘payee PAYEE NAME’ - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which -may appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report -an error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been -declared. Eg: - -payee Whole Foods - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: tag directive, Next: Periodic transactions, Prev: payee directive, Up: Journal - -10.25 ‘tag’ directive -===================== - -‘tag TAGNAME’ - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names -allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: - -tag item-id - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is -used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use -of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can -declare and check your tags . - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic transactions, Next: Other syntax, Prev: tag directive, Up: Journal - -10.26 Periodic transactions -=========================== - -The ‘~’ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives -allow hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in -reports, not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. - - Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, -read this whole section, or at least these tips: - - 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - - read about this below. - 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with ‘hledger - print --forecast tag:generated’ or ‘hledger register --forecast - tag:generated’. - 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last - non-forecasted transaction’s date. - 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. - See below for the exact start/end rules. - 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs - improvement, but is worth studying. - 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a - natural boundary of that interval. Eg in ‘weekly from DATE’, DATE - must be a monday. ‘~ weekly from 2019/10/1’ (a tuesday) will give - an error. - 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically - expanded to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done - to improve reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. - Yes, it’s a bit inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ‘~ every 10th - day of month from 2020/01’, which is equivalent to ‘~ every 10th - day of month from 2020/01/01’, will be adjusted to start on - 2019/12/10. - -* Menu: - -* Periodic rule syntax:: -* Periodic rules and relative dates:: -* Two spaces between period expression and description!:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rule syntax, Next: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.1 Periodic rule syntax ----------------------------- - -A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the -date replaced by a tilde (‘~’) followed by a period expression -(mnemonic: ‘~’ looks like a recurring sine wave.): - -# every first of month -~ monthly - expenses:rent $2000 - assets:bank:checking - -# every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: -~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 - expenses:utilities $400 - assets:bank:checking - - The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying -multi-period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies -report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods’ start -dates). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rules and relative dates, Next: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rule syntax, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.2 Periodic rules and relative dates ------------------------------------------ - -Partial or relative dates (like ‘12/31’, ‘25’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘last week’, -‘next quarter’) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the -results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted -relative to, in order of preference: - - 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent ‘Y’ - directive - 2. or the date specified with ‘--today’ - 3. or the date on which you are running the report. - - They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period -dates. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.3 Two spaces between period expression and description! -------------------------------------------------------------- - -If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, these -must be separated by *two or more spaces*. This helps hledger know -where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not -accidentally alter their meaning, as in this example: - -; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" -; || -; vv -~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review - assets:bank:checking $1500 - income:acme inc - - So, - - • Do write two spaces between your period expression and your - transaction description, if any. - • Don’t accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period - expression. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other syntax, Prev: Periodic transactions, Up: Journal - -10.27 Other syntax -================== - -hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to -make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some of -the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, but -in general, features in this section are considered less important or -even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to help -you decide if you want to use them. - -* Menu: - -* Auto postings:: -* Balance assignments:: -* Bracketed posting dates:: -* D directive:: -* apply account directive:: -* Y directive:: -* Secondary dates:: -* Star comments:: -* Valuation expressions:: -* Virtual postings:: -* Other Ledger directives:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings, Next: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.1 Auto postings ---------------------- - -The ‘=’ directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary -extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all -transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the ‘--auto’ flag. - - Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your -financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy in -an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features like -balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. - - An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: - -= QUERY - ACCOUNT AMOUNT - ... - ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] - - except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: ‘=’ suggests -matching), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and -each "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting -amounts can be: - - • a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg ‘$2’. This will be - used as-is. - • a number, eg ‘2’. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched - posting will be added to this. - • a numeric multiplier, eg ‘*2’ (a star followed by a number N). The - matched posting’s amount (and total price, if any) will be - multiplied by N. - • a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg ‘*$2’ (a star, number N, - and symbol S). The matched posting’s amount will be multiplied by - N, and its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. - - Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double -quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second -query term below: - -= expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' - (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 - - Some examples: - -; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation -= expenses:food - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - -; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount -= expenses:gifts - assets:checking:gifts *-1 - assets:checking *1 - -2017/12/1 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - -2017/12/14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - -$ hledger print --auto -2017-12-01 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - -2017-12-14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - assets:checking:gifts -$20 - assets:checking $20 - -* Menu: - -* Auto postings and multiple files:: -* Auto postings and dates:: -* Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions:: -* Auto posting tags:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and multiple files, Next: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.1 Auto postings and multiple files -.......................................... - -An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or -in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect -sibling files (when multiple ‘-f’/‘--file’ are used - see #1212). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and dates, Next: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Prev: Auto postings and multiple files, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.2 Auto postings and dates -................................. - -A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking -precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also be -used in the generated posting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Next: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.3 Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred -............................................................ - -amounts / balance assertions Currently, auto postings are added: - - • after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked - for balancedness, - • but before balance assertions are checked. - - Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and -after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 -for background. - - This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with -a missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to -infer amounts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.4 Auto posting tags -........................... - -Automated postings will have some extra tags: - - • ‘generated-posting:= QUERY’ - shows this was generated by an auto - posting rule, and the query - • ‘_generated-posting:= QUERY’ - a hidden tag, which does not appear - in hledger’s output. This can be used to match postings generated - "just now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the - journal. - - Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules -will have these tags added: - - • ‘modified:’ - this transaction was modified - • ‘_modified:’ - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this - transaction was modified "just now". - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments, Next: Bracketed posting dates, Prev: Auto postings, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.2 Balance assignments ---------------------------- - -Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like -balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the -equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy the -assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when setting -opening balances: - -; starting a new journal, set asset account balances -2016/1/1 opening balances - assets:checking = $409.32 - assets:savings = $735.24 - assets:cash = $42 - equity:opening balances - - or when adjusting a balance to reality: - -; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense -2016/1/15 - assets:cash = $0 - expenses:misc - - The calculated amount depends on the account’s balance in the -commodity at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings -of the commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or -assignment). - - Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less -explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do -the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance -assignments’ forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make -your financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less -trustworthy in an audit. - -* Menu: - -* Balance assignments and prices:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments and prices, Up: Balance assignments - -10.27.2.1 Balance assignments and prices -........................................ - -A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have -that price attached: - -2019/1/1 - (a) = $1 @ €2 - -$ hledger print --explicit -2019-01-01 - (a) $1 @ €2 = $1 @ €2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Bracketed posting dates, Next: D directive, Prev: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.3 Bracketed posting dates -------------------------------- - -For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger’s -bracketed date syntax is also supported: ‘[DATE]’, ‘[DATE=DATE2]’ or -‘[=DATE2]’ in posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any -square-bracketed sequence of the ‘0123456789/-.=’ characters in this -way. With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and -DATE2 infers its year from DATE. - - Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger’s -‘date:’/‘date2:’ tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger’s lot date -syntax. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: D directive, Next: apply account directive, Prev: Bracketed posting dates, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.4 ‘D’ directive ---------------------- - -‘D AMOUNT’ - - This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any -subsequent commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing -the journal. This effect lasts until the next ‘D’ directive, or the end -of the journal. - - For compatibility/historical reasons, ‘D’ also acts like a -‘commodity’ directive (setting the commodity’s decimal mark for parsing -and display style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity -symbol, but a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must -include a decimal mark (either period or comma). Eg: - -; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars -; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) -D $1,000.00 - -1/1 - a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 - b - - Interactions with other directives: - - For setting a commodity’s display style, a ‘commodity’ directive has -highest priority, then a ‘D’ directive. - - For detecting a commodity’s decimal mark during parsing, -‘decimal-mark’ has highest priority, then ‘commodity’, then ‘D’. - - For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a ‘commodity’ -directive is required (‘hledger check commodities’ ignores ‘D’ -directives). - - Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less -explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is -usually an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to -track multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant -with ‘commodity’ and ‘decimal-mark’. And it works differently from -Ledger’s ‘D’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: apply account directive, Next: Y directive, Prev: D directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.5 ‘apply account’ directive ---------------------------------- - -This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended to -all accounts in following entries, until an ‘end apply account’ -directive or end of current file. Eg: - -apply account home - -2010/1/1 - food $10 - cash - -end apply account - - is equivalent to: - -2010/01/01 - home:food $10 - home:cash $-10 - - ‘account’ directives are also affected, and so is any ‘include’d -content. - - Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not -affected. - - Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is -prepended. - - Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less -portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Y directive, Next: Secondary dates, Prev: apply account directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.6 ‘Y’ directive ---------------------- - -‘Y YEAR’ - - or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): - - ‘year YEAR’ ‘apply year YEAR’ - - The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for -subsequent dates which don’t specify a year. Eg: - -Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 - -12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 - expenses 1 - assets - -year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 - -2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected - expenses 1 - assets - -1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 - expenses 1 - assets - - Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at -least) makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less -trustworthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their -corresponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in -your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today’s -date. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Secondary dates, Next: Star comments, Prev: Y directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.7 Secondary dates ------------------------ - -A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals -sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date’s year is assumed. When -running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but with -the ‘--date2’ flag (or ‘--aux-date’ or ‘--effective’), the secondary -(right) date will be used instead. - - The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it’s best to follow -a consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank’s clearing date, secondary = -date the transaction was initiated, if different". - - Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, -and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates -consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which reporting -mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler and -better. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Star comments, Next: Valuation expressions, Prev: Secondary dates, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.8 Star comments ---------------------- - -Lines beginning with ‘*’ (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This -feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, -allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed -with org mode. - - Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. -Decreases your journal’s portability. And switching to Emacs org mode -just for folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; -nowadays you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without -losing ledger mode’s features. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation expressions, Next: Virtual postings, Prev: Star comments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.9 Valuation expressions ------------------------------ - -Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double -parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Virtual postings, Next: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Valuation expressions, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.10 Virtual postings -------------------------- - -A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a _virtual -posting_ or _unbalanced posting_, which means it is exempt from the -usual rule that a transaction’s postings must balance add up to zero. - - This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to -avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special -cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances -without using a balancing equity account: - -2022-01-01 opening balances - (assets:checking) $1000 - (assets:savings) $2000 - - A posting with brackets around the account name is called a _balanced -virtual posting_. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must -add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: - -2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else - assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other - expenses:food $7 ; <- - expenses:food $3 ; <- - [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other - [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- - (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance - - Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed -are called _real postings_. You can exclude virtual postings from -reports with the ‘-R/--real’ flag or a ‘real:1’ query. - - Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid -figuring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable -and less trustworthy in an audit. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Virtual postings, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.11 Other Ledger directives --------------------------------- - -These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This -allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger’s -reports may differ from Ledger’s if you use these. - -apply fixed COMM AMT -apply tag TAG -assert EXPR -bucket / A ACCT -capture ACCT REGEX -check EXPR -define VAR=EXPR -end apply fixed -end apply tag -end apply year -end tag -eval / expr EXPR -python - PYTHONCODE -tag NAME -value EXPR ---command-line-flags - - See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed -hledger/Ledger syntax comparison. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV, Next: Timeclock, Prev: Journal, Up: Top - -11 CSV -****** - -hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, -semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting -each record into a transaction. - - (To learn about _writing_ CSV, see CSV output.) - - For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure -they have a corresponding ‘.csv’, ‘.tsv’ or ‘.ssv’ file extension or use -a hledger file prefix (see File Extension below). - - Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding _rules file_. -This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields layout, -date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, and -how to categorise transactions based on description or other attributes. - - By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file -with an extra ‘.rules’ extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked -to read ‘foo/FILE.csv’, hledger looks for ‘foo/FILE.csv.rules’. You can -specify a different rules file with the ‘--rules-file’ option. If no -rules file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which -you’ll need to adjust. - - At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, -and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines -there are. Here’s a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: - -Date, Description, Id, Amount -12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 - -# basic.csv.rules -skip 1 -fields date, description, , amount -date-format %d/%m/%Y - -$ hledger print -f basic.csv -2019-11-12 Foo - expenses:unknown 10.23 - income:unknown -10.23 - - There’s an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, -and more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at -https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. - -* Menu: - -* CSV rules cheatsheet:: -* separator:: -* skip:: -* date-format:: -* timezone:: -* newest-first:: -* intra-day-reversed:: -* decimal-mark:: -* fields list:: -* Field assignment:: -* Field names:: -* if block:: -* Matchers:: -* if table:: -* balance-type:: -* include:: -* Working with CSV:: -* CSV rules examples:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules cheatsheet, Next: separator, Up: CSV - -11.1 CSV rules cheatsheet -========================= - -The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. -(Blank lines and lines beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ or ‘*’ are ignored.) - -*‘separator’* declare the field separator, instead of - relying on file extension -*‘skip’* skip one or more header lines at start of file -*‘date-format’* declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times -*‘timezone’* declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV - date-times -*‘newest-first’* improve txn order when: there are multiple - records, newest first, all with the same date -*‘intra-day-reversed’* improve txn order when: same-day txns are in - opposite order to the overall file -*‘decimal-mark’* declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, - when ambiguous -*‘fields’ list* name CSV fields for easy reference, and - optionally assign their values to hledger - fields -*Field assignment* assign a CSV value or interpolated text value - to a hledger field -*‘if’ block* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - or ‘skip’ a record or ‘end’ (skip rest of - file) -*‘if’ table* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - using compact syntax -*‘balance-type’* select which type of balance - assertions/assignments to generate -*‘include’* inline another CSV rules file - - Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are -evaluated. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: separator, Next: skip, Prev: CSV rules cheatsheet, Up: CSV - -11.2 ‘separator’ -================ - -You can use the ‘separator’ rule to read other kinds of -character-separated data. The argument is any single separator -character, or the words ‘tab’ or ‘space’ (case insensitive). Eg, for -comma-separated values (CSV): - -separator , - - or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): - -separator ; - - or for tab-separated values (TSV): - -separator TAB - - If the input file has a ‘.csv’, ‘.ssv’ or ‘.tsv’ file extension (or a -‘csv:’, ‘ssv:’, ‘tsv:’ prefix), the appropriate separator will be -inferred automatically, and you won’t need this rule. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: skip, Next: date-format, Prev: separator, Up: CSV - -11.3 ‘skip’ -=========== - -skip N - - The word ‘skip’ followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells -hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input -data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don’t need -to count those.) You’ll need this whenever your CSV data contains -header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not -parsed as CSV. - - ‘skip’ can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip -individual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still -required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date-format, Next: timezone, Prev: skip, Up: CSV - -11.4 ‘date-format’ -================== - -date-format DATEFMT - - This is a helper for the ‘date’ (and ‘date2’) fields. If your CSV -dates are not formatted like ‘YYYY-MM-DD’, ‘YYYY/MM/DD’ or ‘YYYY.MM.DD’, -you’ll need to add a date-format rule describing them with a -strptime-style date parsing pattern - see -https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. -The pattern must parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: - -# MM/DD/YY -date-format %m/%d/%y - -# D/M/YYYY -# The - makes leading zeros optional. -date-format %-d/%-m/%Y - -# YYYY-Mmm-DD -date-format %Y-%h-%d - -# M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk -# Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. -date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk - - -File: hledger.info, Node: timezone, Next: newest-first, Prev: date-format, Up: CSV - -11.5 ‘timezone’ -=============== - -timezone TIMEZONE - - When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone -other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you -can use this rule to declare the CSV’s native time zone, which helps -prevent off-by-one dates. - - When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don’t -need this rule; instead, use ‘%Z’ in ‘date-format’ (or ‘%z’, ‘%EZ’, -‘%Ez’; see the formatTime link above). - - In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware -conversion, localising the CSV date-times to your current system time -zone. If you prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for -reproducibility, you can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with -the TZ environment variable, eg: - -$ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv - - ‘timezone’ currently does not understand timezone names, except -"UTC", "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". -For others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: newest-first, Next: intra-day-reversed, Prev: timezone, Up: CSV - -11.6 ‘newest-first’ -=================== - -hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered -chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can -auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV -where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are -oldest first. If in fact the CSV’s records are normally newest first, -like: - -2022-10-01, txn 3... -2022-10-01, txn 2... -2022-10-01, txn 1... - - you can add the ‘newest-first’ rule to help hledger generate the -transactions in correct order. - -# same-day CSV records are newest first -newest-first - - -File: hledger.info, Node: intra-day-reversed, Next: decimal-mark, Prev: newest-first, Up: CSV - -11.7 ‘intra-day-reversed’ -========================= - -CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to -the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the -transactions on each date are oldest first: - -2022-10-02, txn 3... -2022-10-02, txn 4... -2022-10-01, txn 1... -2022-10-01, txn 2... - - In this situation, add the ‘intra-day-reversed’ rule, and hledger -will compensate, improving the order of transactions. - -# transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order -intra-day-reversed - - -File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark, Next: fields list, Prev: intra-day-reversed, Up: CSV - -11.8 ‘decimal-mark’ -=================== - -decimal-mark . - - or: - -decimal-mark , - - hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal -mark when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the -CSV contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you -should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid -misparsed numbers. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: fields list, Next: Field assignment, Prev: decimal-mark, Up: CSV - -11.9 ‘fields’ list -================== - -fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... - - A fields list (the word ‘fields’ followed by comma-separated field -names) is optional, but convenient. It does two things: - - 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if - you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say - ‘%SomeField’ instead of remembering ‘%13’. - - 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described - below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger - field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger’s fields and - build a transaction. - - Here’s an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the -transaction’s date, description and amount; name the last two fields for -later reference; and ignore the others": - -fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield - - In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to -the CSV file’s separator. Also: - - • There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). - • Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field - names are optional. - • Field names may contain ‘_’ (underscore) or ‘-’ (hyphen). - • Fields you don’t care about can be given a dummy name or an empty - name. - - If the CSV contains column headings, it’s convenient to use these for -your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces replaced -by underscores). - - Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning -to a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV’s -"balance" field ‘balance_’ to avoid directly setting hledger’s ‘balance’ -field (and generating a balance assertion). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Field assignment, Next: Field names, Prev: fields list, Up: CSV - -11.10 Field assignment -====================== - -HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE - - Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to -hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields -list (see above). - - To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of -the standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, -followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may -interpolate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV -record (‘%N’), or by the name they were given in the fields list -(‘%CSVFIELD’). - - Some examples: - -# set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended -amount %4 USD - -# combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags -comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 - - Tips: - - • Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like ‘" 1 "’ - becomes ‘1’ when interpolated) (#1051). - • Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can’t interpolate - a hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Field names, Next: if block, Prev: Field assignment, Up: CSV - -11.11 Field names -================= - -Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in -hledger CSV rules files: - - 1. *CSV field names* (‘CSVFIELD’ in these docs): you can optionally - name the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn’t yet - automatically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing - arbitrary names in a ‘fields’ list, eg: - - fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar - - 2. Special *hledger field names* (‘HLEDGERFIELD’ in these docs): you - must set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction - from a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field - assignment, eg: - - date %When - code %Some_Id - description %What - comment %Foo %Bar - amount1 $ %Total - - or directly in a ‘fields’ list: - - fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar - currency $ - comment %Foo %Bar - - Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what -happens when you assign values to them: - -* Menu: - -* date field:: -* date2 field:: -* status field:: -* code field:: -* description field:: -* comment field:: -* account field:: -* amount field:: -* currency field:: -* balance field:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date field, Next: date2 field, Up: Field names - -11.11.1 date field ------------------- - -Assigning to ‘date’ sets the transaction date. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date2 field, Next: status field, Prev: date field, Up: Field names - -11.11.2 date2 field -------------------- - -‘date2’ sets the transaction’s secondary date, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: status field, Next: code field, Prev: date2 field, Up: Field names - -11.11.3 status field --------------------- - -‘status’ sets the transaction’s status, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: code field, Next: description field, Prev: status field, Up: Field names - -11.11.4 code field ------------------- - -‘code’ sets the transaction’s code, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: description field, Next: comment field, Prev: code field, Up: Field names - -11.11.5 description field -------------------------- - -‘description’ sets the transaction’s description, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: comment field, Next: account field, Prev: description field, Up: Field names - -11.11.6 comment field ---------------------- - -‘comment’ sets the transaction’s comment, if any. - - ‘commentN’, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting’s comment. - - You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal ‘\n’ in the -code. A comment starting with ‘\n’ will begin on a new line. - - Comments can contain tags, as usual. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: account field, Next: amount field, Prev: comment field, Up: Field names - -11.11.7 account field ---------------------- - -Assigning to ‘accountN’, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of -the Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. - - Most often there are two postings, so you’ll want to set ‘account1’ -and ‘account2’. Typically ‘account1’ is associated with the CSV file, -and is set once with a top-level assignment, while ‘account2’ is set -based on each transaction’s description, in conditional rules. - - If a posting’s account name is left unset but its amount is set (see -below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" -or "income:unknown"). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: amount field, Next: currency field, Prev: account field, Up: Field names - -11.11.8 amount field --------------------- - -There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different -situations: - - • ‘amountN’ sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that - posting to be generated. By assigning to ‘amount1’, ‘amount2’, ... - etc. you can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don’t - have to be consecutive; in certain situations using a high number - might be helpful to influence the layout of postings. - - • ‘amountN-in’ and ‘amountN-out’ should be used instead, as a pair, - when and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. - Eg when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a - single Amount field. Note: - - • Don’t think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the - second posting" - that’s not correct. Think: "‘amountN-in’ - and ‘amountN-out’ together detect the amount for posting N, by - inspecting two CSV fields at once." - • hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will - automatically negate the -out value. - • It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or - zero, so it knows which one to ignore. If that’s not the case - you’ll need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). - - • ‘amount’, with no posting number (and similarly, ‘amount-in’ and - ‘amount-out’ with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for - backwards compatibility, and because they have special behaviour - that is sometimes convenient: - - • They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of - posting 2. - • Posting 2’s amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost - price. - • Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like ‘amount1’, or - ‘amount2-in’ and ‘amount2-out’) will take precedence. This - allows incrementally migrating old rules files to the new - syntax. - - There’s more to say about amount-setting that doesn’t fit here; -please see also "Setting amounts" below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: currency field, Next: balance field, Prev: amount field, Up: Field names - -11.11.9 currency field ----------------------- - -‘currency’ sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings’ -amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency -symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. - - ‘currencyN’ prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting’s -amount. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance field, Prev: currency field, Up: Field names - -11.11.10 balance field ----------------------- - -‘balanceN’ sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is -left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. - - ‘balance’ is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is -equivalent to ‘balance1’. - - You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the -‘balance-type’ rule (see below). - - See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: if block, Next: Matchers, Prev: Field names, Up: CSV - -11.12 ‘if’ block -================ - -Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV -data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can -categorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on -their description (for example). There are two ways to write -conditional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", -described below. - - An if block is the word ‘if’ and one or more "matcher" expressions -(can be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or -next line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, - -if MATCHER - RULE - - or - -if -MATCHER -MATCHER -MATCHER - RULE - RULE - - If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be -applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special -rules may also be used within an if block: - - • ‘skip’ - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction - from it) - • ‘end’ - skips the rest of the current CSV file. - - Some examples: - -# if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" -if groceries - account2 expenses:groceries - -# if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown -if -monthly service fee -atm transaction fee -banking thru software - account2 expenses:business:banking - comment XXX deductible ? check it - -# if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file -if ,,,, - end - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Matchers, Next: if table, Prev: if block, Up: CSV - -11.13 Matchers -============== - -There are two kinds: - - 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular - expression (‘REGEX’), which hledger will try to match - case-insensitively anywhere within the CSV record. - Eg: ‘whole foods’ - - 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name - (‘%CSVFIELD REGEX’). hledger will try to match these just within - the named CSV field. - Eg: ‘%date 2023’ - - The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended -regular expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (‘\b’, ‘\B’, -‘\<’, ‘\>’), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular -expressions" in the hledger manual -(https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions). - - With record matchers, it’s important to know that the record matched -is not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be -converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing -whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if -the original record was: - -2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 - - the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: - -2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 - - When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: - - • By default they are OR’d (any one of them can match) - • When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (‘&’) it will be AND’ed - with the previous matcher (both of them must match). - - There’s not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: if table, Next: balance-type, Prev: Matchers, Up: CSV - -11.14 ‘if’ table -================ - -"if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many -matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like -this: - -if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... -MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... -MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... -MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - - - The first character after ‘if’ is taken to be the separator for the -rest of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like ‘,’ -or ‘|’ that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is -unrelated to the CSV file’s separator.) Whitespace can be used in the -matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The -table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line -must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. - - The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher -succeeds, assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding -hledger fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is -equivalent to this sequence of if blocks: - -if MATCHERA - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - -if MATCHERB - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - -if MATCHERC - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - Example: - -if,account2,comment -atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it -%description groceries,expenses:groceries, -2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance-type, Next: include, Prev: if table, Up: CSV - -11.15 ‘balance-type’ -==================== - -Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple -‘=’ type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding -assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, -eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help with -budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the -‘balance-type’ rule: - -# balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts -balance-type ==* - - Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: - -= single commodity, exclude subaccounts -=* single commodity, include subaccounts -== multi commodity, exclude subaccounts -==* multi commodity, include subaccounts - - -File: hledger.info, Node: include, Next: Working with CSV, Prev: balance-type, Up: CSV - -11.16 ‘include’ -=============== - -include RULESFILE - - This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. -‘RULESFILE’ is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current -file’s directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between -several rules files, eg: - -# someaccount.csv.rules - -## someaccount-specific rules -fields date,description,amount -account1 assets:someaccount -account2 expenses:misc - -## common rules -include categorisation.rules - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Working with CSV, Next: CSV rules examples, Prev: include, Up: CSV - -11.17 Working with CSV -====================== - -Some tips: - -* Menu: - -* Rapid feedback:: -* Valid CSV:: -* File Extension:: -* Reading CSV from standard input:: -* Reading multiple CSV files:: -* Valid transactions:: -* Deduplicating importing:: -* Setting amounts:: -* Amount signs:: -* Setting currency/commodity:: -* Amount decimal places:: -* Referencing other fields:: -* How CSV rules are evaluated:: -* Well factored rules:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Rapid feedback, Next: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.1 Rapid feedback ----------------------- - -It’s a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting -CSV rules. Here’s a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: - -$ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' - - A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions -of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can echo -a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to read the -output. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valid CSV, Next: File Extension, Prev: Rapid feedback, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.2 Valid CSV ------------------ - -Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, and -equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or tab -as separators). This means, eg: - - • Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in - single quotes is not allowed. (Eg ‘'A','B'’ is rejected.) - • When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the - quotes are not allowed. (Eg ‘"A", "B"’ is rejected.) - • When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double - quotes. (Eg ‘A"A, B’ is rejected.) - - If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you’ll need to -transform it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more -permissive CSV parser like python’s csv lib. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: File Extension, Next: Reading CSV from standard input, Prev: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.3 File Extension ----------------------- - -To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error -messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), -it’s best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a ‘.csv’, ‘.ssv’ or ‘.tsv’ -filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) - - When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV -reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path with -‘csv:’, ‘ssv:’ or ‘tsv:’: Eg: - -$ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print - - You can also override the default field separator with a separator -rule if needed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reading CSV from standard input, Next: Reading multiple CSV files, Prev: File Extension, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.4 Reading CSV from standard input ---------------------------------------- - -You’ll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, -since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: - -$ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reading multiple CSV files, Next: Valid transactions, Prev: Reading CSV from standard input, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.5 Reading multiple CSV files ----------------------------------- - -If you use multiple ‘-f’ options to read multiple CSV files at once, -hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV -file. But if you use the ‘--rules-file’ option, that rules file will be -used for all the CSV files. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valid transactions, Next: Deduplicating importing, Prev: Reading multiple CSV files, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.6 Valid transactions --------------------------- - -After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the -generated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing -them, applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. -Any errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying -the problem entry. - - There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated -them, will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the -CSV data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance -assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: - -$ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplicating importing, Next: Setting amounts, Prev: Valid transactions, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.7 Deduplicating, importing --------------------------------- - -When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank -transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing some -of the same records. - - The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) -append just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, -so you don’t have to remember how many times you ran it or with which -version of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden ‘.latest.FILE.csv’ -file.) This is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: - -# download the latest CSV files, then run this command. -# Note, no -f flags needed here. -$ hledger import *.csv [--dry] - - This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable -chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) - - A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and -otherwise, exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing -CSV data. See: - - • https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows - • https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting amounts, Next: Amount signs, Prev: Deduplicating importing, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.8 Setting amounts ------------------------ - -Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling -various amount-setting situations: - - 1. *If the amount is in a single CSV field:* - - a. *If its sign indicates direction of flow:* - Assign it to ‘amountN’, to set the Nth posting’s amount. N is - usually 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. - - b. *If another field indicates direction of flow:* - Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate - amount sign. Eg: - - # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": - amount1 -%Amount - if %Type deposit - amount1 %Amount - - 2. *If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit):* - - a. *If both fields are unsigned:* - Assign the fields to ‘amountN-in’ and ‘amountN-out’. This - sets posting N’s amount to whichever of these has a non-zero - value. If it’s the -out value, the amount will be negated. - - b. *If either field is signed:* - Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg - below, the -out value already has a minus sign so we undo - hledger’s automatic negating by negating once more (but only - if the field is non-empty, so that we don’t leave a minus sign - by itself): - - fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out - if %amount1-out [1-9] - amount1-out -%amount1-out - - c. *If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be - empty):* - The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is - non-zero/non-empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such - as ‘1’ and ‘none’. For such cases, use conditional rules to - help select the amount. Eg, to handle the above you could - select the value containing non-zero digits: - - fields date, description, in, out - if %in [1-9] - amount1 %in - if %out [1-9] - amount1 %out - - 3. *If you want posting 2’s amount converted to cost:* - Use the unnumbered ‘amount’ (or ‘amount-in’ and ‘amount-out’) - syntax. - - 4. *If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts:* - Assign to ‘balanceN’, to set a balance assignment on the Nth - posting, causing the posting’s amount to be calculated - automatically. ‘balance’ with no number is equivalent to - ‘balance1’. In this situation hledger is more likely to guess the - wrong default account name, so you may need to set that explicitly. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amount signs, Next: Setting currency/commodity, Prev: Setting amounts, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.9 Amount signs --------------------- - -There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing and -sign-flipping: - - • *If an amount value begins with a plus sign:* - that will be removed: ‘+AMT’ becomes ‘AMT’ - - • *If an amount value is parenthesised:* - it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: ‘(AMT)’ becomes - ‘-AMT’ - - • *If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of - parentheses, or a minus sign and parentheses):* - they cancel out and will be removed: ‘--AMT’ or ‘-(AMT)’ becomes - ‘AMT’ - - • *If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of - parentheses):* - that is removed, making it an empty value. ‘"+"’ or ‘"-"’ or - ‘"()"’ becomes ‘""’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting currency/commodity, Next: Amount decimal places, Prev: Amount signs, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.10 Setting currency/commodity ------------------------------------ - -If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV’s amount -field(s): - -2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 - - you don’t have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it -will be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: - -fields date,description,amount - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown $123.00 - income:unknown $-123.00 - - If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: - -2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 - - You can assign that to the ‘currency’ pseudo-field, which has the -special effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction -(on the left, with no separating space): - -fields date,description,currency,amount - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown USD123.00 - income:unknown USD-123.00 - - Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, -with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by -a space: - -fields date,description,cur,amt -amount %amt %cur - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown 123.00 USD - income:unknown -123.00 USD - - Note we used a temporary field name (‘cur’) that is not ‘currency’ - -that would trigger the prepending effect, which we don’t want here. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amount decimal places, Next: Referencing other fields, Prev: Setting currency/commodity, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.11 Amount decimal places ------------------------------- - -Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like -‘amount1’ influence commodity display styles, such as the number of -decimal places displayed in reports. - - The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display -style (because we don’t yet reliably know their commodity). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Referencing other fields, Next: How CSV rules are evaluated, Prev: Amount decimal places, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.12 Referencing other fields ---------------------------------- - -In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger -fields. In the example below, there’s both a CSV field and a hledger -field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the -hledger field: - -# Name the third CSV field "amount1" -fields date,description,amount1 - -# Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD -amount1 %amount1 USD - -# Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) -comment %amount1 - - Here, since there’s no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a -literal "amount1": - -fields date,description,csvamount -amount1 %csvamount USD -# Can't interpolate amount1 here -comment %amount1 - - When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, -only the last one takes effect. Here, comment’s value will be be B, or -C if "something" is matched, but never A: - -comment A -comment B -if something - comment C - - -File: hledger.info, Node: How CSV rules are evaluated, Next: Well factored rules, Prev: Referencing other fields, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.13 How CSV rules are evaluated ------------------------------------- - -Here’s how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need -to). First, - - • ‘include’ - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth - first. (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for - further includes, recursively, before proceeding.) - - Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is -repeated, the last one wins: - - • ‘skip’ (at top level) - • ‘date-format’ - • ‘newest-first’ - • ‘fields’ - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial - assignments to hledger fields - - Then for each CSV record in turn: - - • test all ‘if’ blocks. If any of them contain a ‘end’ rule, skip - all remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a - ‘skip’ rule, skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple - matched ‘skip’ rules, the first one wins. - • collect all field assignments at top level and in matched ‘if’ - blocks. When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only - the last one. - • compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was - assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a - default - • generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. - - This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger -can use to parse input files. When all files have been read -successfully, the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger -command the user specified. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Well factored rules, Prev: How CSV rules are evaluated, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.14 Well factored rules ----------------------------- - -Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules -files: - - • Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a - ‘common.rules’, and adding ‘include common.rules’ to each CSV’s - rules file. - - • Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the - frequently used parts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules examples, Prev: Working with CSV, Up: CSV - -11.18 CSV rules examples -======================== - -* Menu: - -* Bank of Ireland:: -* Coinbase:: -* Amazon:: -* Paypal:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Bank of Ireland, Next: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.1 Bank of Ireland ------------------------ - -Here’s a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance -field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not -necessary but provides extra error checking: - -Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance -07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 -07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 - -# bankofireland-checking.csv.rules - -# skip the header line -skip - -# name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields -fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance - -# We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" -# above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: -# -# - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, -# by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience -# -# - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, -# eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day - -# date is in UK/Ireland format -date-format %d/%m/%Y - -# set the currency -currency EUR - -# set the base account for all txns -account1 assets:bank:boi:checking - -$ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print -2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 - income:unknown EUR-10.0 - -2012-12-07 PAYMENT - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 - expenses:unknown EUR5.0 - - The balance assertions don’t raise an error above, because we’re -reading directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are -imported into a journal file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Coinbase, Next: Amazon, Prev: Bank of Ireland, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.2 Coinbase ----------------- - -A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is -recorded using cost notation. The legacy ‘amount’ field name -conveniently sets amount 2 (posting 2’s amount) to the total cost. - -# Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes -# 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" - -# coinbase.csv.rules -skip 1 -fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes -date %Timestamp -date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z -description %Notes -account1 assets:coinbase:cc -amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency - -$ hledger print -f coinbase.csv -2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account - assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP - income:unknown -74.000000 GBP - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amazon, Next: Paypal, Prev: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.3 Amazon --------------- - -Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to -generate a third posting if there’s a fee. (In practice you’d probably -get this data from your bank instead, but it’s an example.) - -"Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" -"Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" -"Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - -# amazon-orders.csv.rules - -# skip one header line -skip 1 - -# name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. -# Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. -fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code - -# how to parse the date -date-format %b %-d, %Y - -# combine two fields to make the description -description %toorfrom %name - -# save the status as a tag -comment status:%amzstatus - -# set the base account for all transactions -account1 assets:amazon -# leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). -# I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember - -# set a generic account2 -account2 expenses:misc -amount2 %amzamount -# and maybe refine it further: -#include categorisation.rules - -# add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. -if %fees [1-9] - account3 expenses:fees - amount3 %fees - -$ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print -2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $20.00 - -2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $25.00 - expenses:fees $1.00 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Paypal, Prev: Amazon, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.4 Paypal --------------- - -Here’s a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some -Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: - -"Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" -"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" -"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" -"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" -"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" -"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" -"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" -"10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" - -# paypal-custom.csv.rules - -# Tips: -# Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download -# Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" -# Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: -# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" -# This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": -# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - -fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note - -skip 1 - -date-format %-m/%-d/%Y - -# ignore some paypal events -if -In Progress -Temporary Hold -Update to - skip - -# add more fields to the description -description %description_ %itemtitle - -# save some other fields as tags -comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ - -# convert to short currency symbols -if %currency USD - currency $ -if %currency EUR - currency E -if %currency GBP - currency P - -# generate postings - -# the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account -# (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) -account1 assets:online:paypal -amount1 %netamount - -# the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party -# (account2 is set below) -amount2 -%grossamount - -# if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. -if %feeamount [1-9] - account3 expenses:banking:paypal - amount3 -%feeamount - comment3 business: - -# choose an account for the second posting - -# override the default account names: -# if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) -if %grossamount ^[^-] - account2 income:unknown -# if negative, it's an expense (a credit) -if %grossamount ^- - account2 expenses:unknown - -# apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks -include common.rules - -# apply some overrides specific to this csv - -# Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, -# which can be disregarded in this case. -if -Bank Account -Bank Deposit to PP Account - description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle - account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking - account1 assets:online:paypal - -# Currency conversions -if Currency Conversion - account2 equity:currency conversion - -# common.rules - -if -darcs -noble benefactor - account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub - comment2 business: - -if -Calm Radio - account2 expenses:online:apps - -if -electronic frontier foundation -Patreon -wikimedia -Advent of Code - account2 expenses:dues - -if Google - account2 expenses:online:apps - description google | music - -$ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print -2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 - expenses:online:apps $6.99 - -2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 - -2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 - expenses:dues $7.00 - -2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 - -2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 - expenses:dues $2.00 - expenses:banking:paypal ; business: - -2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 - -2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 - revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: - expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Timeclock, Next: Timedot, Prev: CSV, Up: Top - -12 Timeclock -************ - -The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. - - hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, -these are (a subset of) timeclock.el’s format, containing clock-in and -clock-out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. -The time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are -optional. The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored -(currently the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines -beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ or ‘*’, and blank lines, are ignored. - -i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces -o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 -i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account -o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 - - hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting -some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than -one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For -the above time log, ‘hledger print’ generates these journal entries: - -$ hledger -f t.timeclock print -2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces - (some:account name) 0.33h - -2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 - (another account) 1.64h - -2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 - (another account) 2.01h - - Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: - -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week - - To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: - - • use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended - timeclock-x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el - - • at the command line, use these bash aliases: ‘shell alias ti="echo - i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o - `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"’ - - • or use the old ‘ti’ and ‘to’ scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. - These rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the - ledger 2 executable renamed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Timedot, Next: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Prev: Timeclock, Up: Top - -13 Timedot -********** - -‘timedot’ format is hledger’s human-friendly time logging format. -Compared to ‘timeclock’ format, it is - - • convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging - • readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. - - A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look -like this: - -2021-08-04 -hom:errands .... .... -fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs -per:admin:finance - - hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each -dot representing a quarter-hour spent: - -$ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader -2021-08-04 * - (hom:errands) 2.00 - -2021-08-04 * - (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 - -2021-08-04 * - (per:admin:finance) 0 - - A day entry begins with a date line: - - • a non-indented *simple date* (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). - - Optionally this can be followed on the same line by - - • a common *transaction description* for this day - • a common *transaction comment* for this day, after a semicolon - (‘;’). - - After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time -transaction lines, consisting of: - - • an *account name* - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style - account name. - • *two or more spaces* - a field separator, required if there is an - amount (as in journal format). - • a *timedot amount* - dots representing quarter hours, or a number - representing hours. - • an optional *comment* beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. - - In more detail, timedot amounts can be: - - • *dots*: zero or more period characters, each representing one - quarter-hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. - Eg: ‘.... ..’ - - • a *number*, representing hours. Eg: ‘1.5’ - - • a *number immediately followed by a unit symbol* ‘s’, ‘m’, ‘h’, - ‘d’, ‘w’, ‘mo’, or ‘y’, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days - weeks, months or years. Eg ‘1.5h’ or ‘90m’. The following - equivalencies are assumed: - ‘60s’ = ‘1m’, ‘60m’ = ‘1h’, ‘24h’ = ‘1d’, ‘7d’ = ‘1w’, ‘30d’ = - ‘1mo’, ‘365d’ = ‘1y’. (This unit will not be visible in the - generated transaction amount, which is always in hours.) - - There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in -the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: - - • Blank lines and lines beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ are ignored. - - • Before the first date line, lines beginning with ‘*’ are ignored. - From the first date line onward, a sequence of ‘*’’s followed by a - space at beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs - Org mode) is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an - Org headline, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org - headlines. - - • Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as - transactions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by - default; add -E to see them.) - - More examples: - -# on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. -2016/2/1 -inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... -fos:haskell .... .. -biz:research . - -2016/2/2 -inc:client1 .... .... -biz:research . - -2016/2/3 -inc:client1 4 -fos:hledger 3 -biz:research 1 - -* Time log -** 2020-01-01 -*** adm:time . -*** adm:finance . - -* 2020 Work Diary -** Q1 -*** 2020-02-29 -**** DONE -0700 yoga -**** UNPLANNED -**** BEGUN -hom:chores - cleaning ... - water plants - outdoor - one full watering can - indoor - light watering -**** TODO -adm:planning: trip -*** LATER - - Reporting: - -$ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 -2016-02-02 * - (inc:client1) 2.00 - -2016-02-02 * - (biz:research) 0.25 - -$ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree -Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: - - || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d -============++======================================== - biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - fos || 1.50 0 3.00 - haskell || 1.50 0 0 - hledger || 0 0 3.00 - inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 -------------++---------------------------------------- - || 7.75 2.25 8.00 - - Using period instead of colon as account name separator: - -2016/2/4 -fos.hledger.timedot 4 -fos.ledger .. - -$ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree - 4.50 fos - 4.00 hledger:timedot - 0.50 ledger --------------------- - 4.50 - - A sample.timedot file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Next: Time periods, Prev: Timedot, Up: Top - -14 PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS -***************************** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Time periods, Next: Depth, Prev: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Up: Top - -15 Time periods -*************** - -* Menu: - -* Report start & end date:: -* Smart dates:: -* Report intervals:: -* Date adjustment:: -* Period expressions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Report start & end date, Next: Smart dates, Up: Time periods - -15.1 Report start & end date -============================ - -By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time -represented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest -transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest -transaction, posting, or market price date. - - Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current -month. You can specify a start and/or end date using ‘-b/--begin’, -‘-e/--end’, ‘-p/--period’ or a ‘date:’ query (described below). All of -these accept the smart date syntax (below). - - Some notes: - - • End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date - _after_ the last day you want to see in the report. - • As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with - _options_, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. - • The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of - the start/end dates from options and that from ‘date:’ queries. - That is, ‘date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030'’ yields January - 2019, the smallest common time span. - • In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall - on interval boundaries (see below). - - Examples: - -‘-b begin on St. Patrick’s day 2016 -2016/3/17’ -‘-e 12/1’ end at the start of december 1st of the current year - (11/30 will be the last date included) -‘-b all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month -thismonth’ -‘-p all transactions in the current month -thismonth’ -‘date:2016/3/17..’the above written as queries instead (‘..’ can also be - replaced with ‘-’) -‘date:..12/1’ -‘date:thismonth..’ -‘date:thismonth’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Smart dates, Next: Report intervals, Prev: Report start & end date, Up: Time periods - -15.2 Smart dates -================ - -hledger’s user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added -convenience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today’s date, be -written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted -(missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: - -‘2004/10/1’, exact date, several separators allowed. Year -‘2004-01-01’, is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 -‘2004.9.1’ -‘2004’ start of year -‘2004/10’ start of month -‘10/1’ month and day in current year -‘21’ day in current month -‘october, oct’ start of month in current year -‘yesterday, today, -1, 0, 1 days from today -tomorrow’ -‘last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period -day/week/month/quarter/year’ -‘in n n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years’ -‘n n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years -ahead’ -‘n -n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years -ago’ -‘20181201’ 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and - day -‘201812’ 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month - - Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give -surprising results: - -‘201813’ 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 6-digit year -‘20181301’ 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 8-digit year -‘20181232’ 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error -‘201801012’ 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error - - "Today’s date" can be overridden with the ‘--today’ option, in case -it’s needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for -periodic transaction rules, which are not affected by ‘--today’.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Report intervals, Next: Date adjustment, Prev: Smart dates, Up: Time periods - -15.3 Report intervals -===================== - -A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, -balance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a -separate row or column. - - The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line -flags: - - • ‘-D/--daily’ - • ‘-W/--weekly’ - • ‘-M/--monthly’ - • ‘-Q/--quarterly’ - • ‘-Y/--yearly’ - - More complex intervals can be specified using ‘-p/--period’, -described below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Date adjustment, Next: Period expressions, Prev: Report intervals, Up: Time periods - -15.4 Date adjustment -==================== - -With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates -which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not ‘-b -2023-01-01’, but ‘-b 2023-01’ or ‘-b 2023’ or unspecified) are -considered flexible: - - • A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if - needed to fall on a natural interval boundary. - • Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to - make the last period a whole interval (the same length as the - others). - - This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is -traditional hledger behaviour). By contrast, fully-specified exact -dates will not be adjusted (this is new in hledger 1.29). - - An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last -date is 2023-03-20: - - • ‘hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10’ - The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, - starting from 2023-01-15, and the last period’s last day will be - 2023-03-09. (Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) - - • ‘hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04’ or ‘hledger bal -M’ - The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting - from 2023-01-01, and the last period’s last day will be 2023-03-31. - (Flexible start and end dates, both are adjusted.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions, Prev: Date adjustment, Up: Time periods - -15.5 Period expressions -======================= - -The ‘-p/--period’ option specifies a period expression, which is a -compact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report -interval. - - Here’s a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the -first quarter of 2009): - -‘-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"’ - - Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; -these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The -spaces are also optional, as long as you don’t run two dates together. -So the following are equivalent to the above: - -‘-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"’ -‘-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1’ -‘-p2009/1/1..2009/4/1’ - - Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also -equivalent to the above: - -‘-p "1/1 4/1"’ -‘-p "jan-apr"’ -‘-p "this year to 4/1"’ - - If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be -the earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: - -‘-p "from 2009/1/1"’ everything after january 1, 2009 -‘-p "since 2009/1"’ the same, since is a synonym -‘-p "from 2009"’ the same -‘-p "to 2009"’ everything before january 1, 2009 - - You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full -date: - -‘-p "2009"’ the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1” -‘-p "2009/1"’ the month of january 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to - 2009/2/1” -‘-p the first day of 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to -"2009/1/1"’ 2009/1/2” - - or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): - -‘-p "2009Q1"’ first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to - 2009/4/1” -‘-p "q4"’ fourth quarter of the current year - -* Menu: - -* Period expressions with a report interval:: -* More complex report intervals:: -* Multiple weekday intervals:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions with a report interval, Next: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.1 Period expressions with a report interval ------------------------------------------------- - -A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated -from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word ‘in’: - -‘-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"’ -‘-p "monthly in 2008"’ -‘-p "quarterly"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More complex report intervals, Next: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: Period expressions with a report interval, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.2 More complex report intervals ------------------------------------- - -Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, -such as: - - • ‘biweekly’ (every two weeks) - • ‘fortnightly’ - • ‘bimonthly’ (every two months) - • ‘every day|week|month|quarter|year’ - • ‘every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years’ - - Weekly on a custom day: - - • ‘every Nth day of week’ (‘th’, ‘nd’, ‘rd’, or ‘st’ are all accepted - after the number) - • ‘every WEEKDAYNAME’ (full or three-letter english weekday name, - case insensitive) - - Monthly on a custom day: - - • ‘every Nth day [of month]’ - • ‘every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]’ - - Yearly on a custom day: - - • ‘every MM/DD [of year]’ (month number and day of month number) - • ‘every MONTHNAME DDth [of year]’ (full or three-letter english - month name, case insensitive, and day of month number) - • ‘every DDth MONTHNAME [of year]’ (equivalent to the above) - - Examples: - -‘-p "bimonthly from -2008"’ -‘-p "every 2 weeks"’ -‘-p "every 5 months from -2009/03"’ -‘-p "every 2nd day of periods will go from Tue to Tue -week"’ -‘-p "every Tue"’ same -‘-p "every 15th day"’ period boundaries will be on 15th of each - month -‘-p "every 2nd Monday"’ period boundaries will be on second Monday - of each month -‘-p "every 11/05"’ yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of - November -‘-p "every 5th November"’ same -‘-p "every Nov 5th"’ same - - Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is -an end date, exclusive as always): - -$ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" - - Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following -tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): - -$ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.3 Multiple weekday intervals ---------------------------------- - -This special form is also supported: - - • ‘every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,...’ (full or three-letter english - weekday names, case insensitive) - - Also, ‘weekday’ and ‘weekendday’ are shorthand for -‘mon,tue,wed,thu,fri’ and ‘sat,sun’. - - This is mainly intended for use with ‘--forecast’, to generate -periodic transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less -useful with ‘-p’, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal -length, which is unusual. (Related: #1632) - - Examples: - -‘-p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be -mon,wed,fri"’ Mon-Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun -‘-p "every dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will -weekday"’ be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun -‘-p "every dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri -weekendday"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Depth, Next: Queries, Prev: Time periods, Up: Top - -16 Depth -******** - -With the ‘--depth NUM’ option (short form: ‘-NUM’), reports will show -accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use -this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same -effect as a ‘depth:’ query argument: ‘depth:2’, ‘--depth=2’ or ‘-2’ are -equivalent. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries, Next: Pivoting, Prev: Depth, Up: Top - -17 Queries -********** - -One of hledger’s strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise -subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query -arguments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: - - • Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often - account name substrings: - - ‘utilities food:groceries’ - - • Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in - quotes: - - ‘"personal care"’ - - • Regular expressions are also supported: - - ‘"^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"’ - - • Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: - - ‘date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:’ - - • Add a ‘not:’ prefix to negate a term: - - ‘not:cur:USD’ - -* Menu: - -* Query types:: -* Combining query terms:: -* Queries and command options:: -* Queries and valuation:: -* Querying with account aliases:: -* Querying with cost or value:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Query types, Next: Combining query terms, Up: Queries - -17.1 Query types -================ - -Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be -prefixed with *‘not:’* to convert them into a negative match. - - *‘acct:REGEX’, ‘REGEX’* -Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular -expression. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and -regular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just -write an account name substring, like ‘expenses’ or ‘food’. - - *‘amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N’* -Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or -greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested -and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded -by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. -Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. - - *‘code:REGEX’* -Match by transaction code (eg check number). - - *‘cur:REGEX’* -Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose -currency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial -match, use ‘.*REGEX.*’). Note, to match special characters which are -regex-significant, you need to escape them with ‘\’. And for characters -which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of -escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: -‘hledger print cur:\\$’. - - *‘desc:REGEX’* -Match transaction descriptions. - - *‘date:PERIODEXPR’* -Match dates (or with the ‘--date2’ flag, secondary dates) within the -specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report -interval. Examples: -‘date:2016’, ‘date:thismonth’, ‘date:2/1-2/15’, -‘date:2021-07-27..nextquarter’. - - *‘date2:PERIODEXPR’* -Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the -‘--date2’ flag). - - *‘depth:N’* -Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this -depth. - - *‘note:REGEX’* -Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of ‘|’, or -the whole description if there’s no ‘|’). - - *‘payee:REGEX’* -Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left of -‘|’, or the whole description if there’s no ‘|’). - - *‘real:, real:0’* -Match real or virtual postings respectively. - - *‘status:, status:!, status:*’* -Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. - - *‘type:TYPECODES’* -Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). -‘TYPECODES’ is one or more of the single-letter account type codes -‘ALERXCV’, case insensitive. Note ‘type:A’ and ‘type:E’ will also match -their respective subtypes ‘C’ (Cash) and ‘V’ (Conversion). Certain -kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts -> Aliases and account types. - - *‘tag:REGEX[=REGEX]’* -Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by -value, use ‘tag:.=REGEX’.) - - When querying by tag, note that: - - • Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts - • Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their - transaction - • Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. - - (*‘inacct:ACCTNAME’* -A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells -hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining query terms, Next: Queries and command options, Prev: Query types, Up: Queries - -17.2 Combining query terms -========================== - -When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which -match: - - • any of the description terms AND - • any of the account terms AND - • any of the status terms AND - • all the other terms. - - The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: - - • match any of the description terms AND - • have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND - • have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND - • match all the other terms. - - Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not -support full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND -or OR in your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but -here are some tricks that can help: - - 1. Use a doubled ‘not:’ prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses - paid with cash: - - $ hledger print food not:not:cash - - 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with ‘print’, piping the result into - a second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): - - $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and command options, Next: Queries and valuation, Prev: Combining query terms, Up: Queries - -17.3 Queries and command options -================================ - -Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: ‘depth:2’ is -equivalent to ‘--depth 2’, ‘date:2020’ is equivalent to ‘-p 2020’, etc. -When you mix command options and query arguments, generally the -resulting query is their intersection. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and valuation, Next: Querying with account aliases, Prev: Queries and command options, Up: Queries - -17.4 Queries and valuation -========================== - -When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value -reports, ‘cur:’ and ‘amt:’ match the old commodity symbol and the old -amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it’s -reversed, see #1625). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with account aliases, Next: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Queries and valuation, Up: Queries - -17.5 Querying with account aliases -================================== - -When account names are rewritten with ‘--alias’ or ‘alias’, note that -‘acct:’ will match either the old or the new account name. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Querying with account aliases, Up: Queries - -17.6 Querying with cost or value -================================ - -When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value -reports, note that ‘cur:’ matches the new commodity symbol, and not the -old one, and ‘amt:’ matches the new quantity, and not the old one. -Note: this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see -the discussion at #1625. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Pivoting, Next: Generating data, Prev: Queries, Up: Top - -18 Pivoting -*********** - -Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The -‘--pivot FIELD’ option substitutes some other transaction field for -account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field’s -value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields ‘status’, -‘code’, ‘description’, ‘payee’, ‘note’, or a tag name. When pivoting on -a tag and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first -value is displayed. Values containing ‘colon:separated:parts’ will be -displayed hierarchically, like account names. - - Some examples: - -2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment - assets:bank account 2 EUR - income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe - - Normal balance report showing account names: - -$ hledger balance - 2 EUR assets:bank account - -2 EUR income:dues --------------------- - 0 - - Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: - -$ hledger balance --pivot member - 2 EUR - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - 0 - - One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): - -$ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - -2 EUR - - Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account -name"): - -$ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - -2 EUR - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Generating data, Next: Forecasting, Prev: Pivoting, Up: Top - -19 Generating data -****************** - -Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report time) -are built in to hledger’s journal format: - - • Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain - transactions. They are activated by the ‘--auto’ flag. - - • Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, - usually dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. - They are activated by the ‘--forecast’ or ‘balance --budget’ - options, described next. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Forecasting, Next: Budgeting, Prev: Generating data, Up: Top - -20 Forecasting -************** - -The ‘--forecast’ flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the -journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usually -recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. ‘hledger -print --forecast’ is a good way to see them. - - This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps -experimenting with different scenarios. - - It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe -recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of ‘print ---forecast’ into the journal. - - The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like -‘generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR’, indicating which periodic rule -generated them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named -‘_generated-transaction:’, which you can use to reliably match -transactions generated "just now" (rather than ‘print’ed in the past). - - The forecast transactions are generated within a _forecast period_, -which is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the -bounds for generated transactions, report period controls which -transactions are reported.) The forecast period begins on: - - • the start date provided within ‘--forecast’’s argument, if any - • otherwise, the later of - • the report start date, if specified (with ‘-b’/‘-p’/‘date:’) - • the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, - if any - - • otherwise today. - - It ends on: - - • the end date provided within ‘--forecast’’s argument, if any - • otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with - ‘-e’/‘-p’/‘date:’) - • otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. - - Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic -transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start until -after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, but -you can get around it in two ways: - - • If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them - periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ‘~ - YYYY-MM-DD’) rather than ordinary transactions. That way they - won’t suppress other periodic transactions. - - • Or give ‘--forecast’ a period expression argument. A forecast - period specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and - need not be in the future. Some things to note: - - • You must use ‘=’ between flag and argument; a space won’t - work. - • The period expression can specify the forecast period’s start - date, end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. - • The period expression should not specify a report interval. - (Each periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) - - Some examples: ‘--forecast=202001-202004’, ‘--forecast=jan-’, -‘--forecast=2021’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budgeting, Next: Cost reporting, Prev: Forecasting, Up: Top - -21 Budgeting -************ - -With the balance command’s ‘--budget’ report, each periodic transaction -rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals -and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command’s doc -below. - - See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Cost reporting, Next: Valuation, Prev: Budgeting, Up: Top - -22 Cost reporting -***************** - -This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions -where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of -currency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: - - • Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. - Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or - cryptocurrency. - - • Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more - conversions. - - • Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, - ie the exchange rate. - - • Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. - And more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the - "secondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a - purchase or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. - Also, the "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. - -* Menu: - -* -B Convert to cost:: -* Equity conversion postings:: -* Inferring equity postings from cost:: -* Inferring cost from equity postings:: -* When to infer cost/equity:: -* How to record conversions:: -* Cost tips:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -B Convert to cost, Next: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.1 -B: Convert to cost -======================== - -As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can -also record the amount’s cost in another commodity, by adding ‘@ -UNITPRICE’ or ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’. - - Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding -the ‘-B/--cost’ flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). -Eg: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - -$ hledger bal -N - $-135 assets:dollars - €100 assets:euros -$ hledger bal -N -B - $-135 assets:dollars - $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost - - Notes: - - -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the -inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if -example 3’s postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, --B shows something different: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold - assets:euros €100 ; for 100 euros - -$ hledger bal -N -B - €-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price - €100 assets:euros - - The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does -not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting -equation and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Equity conversion postings, Next: Inferring equity postings from cost, Prev: -B Convert to cost, Up: Cost reporting - -22.2 Equity conversion postings -=============================== - -By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a -different notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance -conversion transactions. In this style, the above entry might be -written: - -2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - This style is more correct, but it’s also more verbose and makes cost -reporting more difficult for PTA tools. - - Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to -the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. - - You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at -the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But be -sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you’ll see a -not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring equity postings from cost, Next: Inferring cost from equity postings, Prev: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.3 Inferring equity postings from cost -======================================== - -With ‘--infer-equity’, hledger detects transactions written with PTA -cost notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars -$135 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 - -$ hledger print --infer-equity -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 - equity:conversion:$-€:€ €-100 ; generated-posting: - equity:conversion:$-€:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: - - The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion -account type declaration. - - –infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded -using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and -balance reports’ zero total, or to produce more conventional journal -entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring cost from equity postings, Next: When to infer cost/equity, Prev: Inferring equity postings from cost, Up: Cost reporting - -22.4 Inferring cost from equity postings -======================================== - -The reverse operation is possible using ‘--infer-costs’, which detects -transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost -notation to them: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - -$ hledger print --infer-costs -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 @@ €100 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - –infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/–cost, allowing cost -reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity -postings: - -$ hledger print --infer-costs -B -2009-01-01 - assets:dollars €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - Notes: - - For ‘--infer-costs’ to work, an exchange must consist of four -postings: - - 1. two non-equity postings - 2. two equity postings, next to one another - 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type - ‘V’/‘Conversion’ (or if they are not declared, they must be named - ‘equity:conversion’, ‘equity:trade’, ‘equity:trading’ or - subaccounts of these) - 4. the equity postings’ amounts must exactly match the non-equity - postings’ amounts. - - Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. - - When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added -to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in the -commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. If -you don’t want to write your postings in the required order, you can use -explicit cost notation instead. - - –infer-equity and –infer-costs can be used together, if you have a -mixture of both notations in your journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: When to infer cost/equity, Next: How to record conversions, Prev: Inferring cost from equity postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.5 When to infer cost/equity -============================== - -Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled -by default. We’re not sure yet if that should change. Here are two -suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: - - 1. When you use -B, always use –infer-costs as well. Eg: ‘hledger bal - -B --infer-costs’ - - 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: ‘alias hl="hledger - --infer-equity --infer-costs"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: How to record conversions, Next: Cost tips, Prev: When to infer cost/equity, Up: Cost reporting - -22.6 How to record conversions -============================== - -Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in -hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. - -* Menu: - -* Conversion with implicit cost:: -* Conversion with explicit cost:: -* Conversion with equity postings:: -* Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with implicit cost, Next: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.1 Conversion with implicit cost ------------------------------------- - -Let’s assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the -outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset account: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - assets:cash 120 USD - - hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the -conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred rate -by using ‘hledger print -x’. - - Pro: - - • Concise, easy - - Con: - - • Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not - be detected - • Conversion rate is not clear - • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the –infer-equity - flag - - You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped -commodity symbol, by using ‘hledger check commodities’. - - You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using ‘hledger -check balancednoautoconversion’, or ‘-s/--strict’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with explicit cost, Next: Conversion with equity postings, Prev: Conversion with implicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.2 Conversion with explicit cost ------------------------------------- - -You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an -error otherwise. - - Pro: - - • Still concise - • Makes the conversion rate clear - • Provides more error checking - - Con: - - • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the –infer-equity - flag - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings, Next: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.3 Conversion with equity postings --------------------------------------- - -In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not -balanced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD -appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents -reports like ‘balancesheetequity’ from showing a zero total. - - The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for -each commodity, using an equity account: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - • Preserves the accounting equation - • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - • Standard, works in any double entry accounting system - - Con: - - • More verbose - • Conversion rate is not obvious - • Cost reporting requires adding the –infer-costs flag - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with equity postings, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.4 Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost --------------------------------------------------------- - -Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - • Preserves the accounting equation - • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - • Makes the conversion rate clear - • Provides more error checking - - Con: - - • Most verbose - • Not compatible with ledger - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Cost tips, Prev: How to record conversions, Up: Cost reporting - -22.7 Cost tips -============== - - • Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it - makes that clear and helps detect errors. - • Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping - and preserves the accounting equation. - • Combining these is possible. - • When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use - ‘-B’ (short form of ‘--cost’). - • If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add - ‘--infer-costs’ also. - • If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want - to see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, - use ‘--infer-equity’. - • Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation, Next: PART 4 COMMANDS, Prev: Cost reporting, Up: Top - -23 Valuation -************ - -Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can -convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in -the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a -certain date). This is controlled by the ‘--value=TYPE[,COMMODITY]’ -option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler ‘-V’ -and ‘-X COMMODITY’ options, and often one of these is all you need: - -* Menu: - -* -V Value:: -* -X Value in specified commodity:: -* Valuation date:: -* Finding market price:: -* --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions:: -* Valuation commodity:: -* Simple valuation examples:: -* --value Flexible valuation:: -* More valuation examples:: -* Interaction of valuation and queries:: -* Effect of valuation on reports:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -V Value, Next: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.1 -V: Value -============== - -The ‘-V/--market’ flag converts amounts to market value in their default -_valuation commodity_, using the market prices in effect on the -_valuation date(s)_, if any. More on these in a minute. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -X Value in specified commodity, Next: Valuation date, Prev: -V Value, Up: Valuation - -23.2 -X: Value in specified commodity -===================================== - -The ‘-X/--exchange=COMM’ option is like ‘-V’, except you tell it which -currency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to -that. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation date, Next: Finding market price, Prev: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.3 Valuation date -=================== - -Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports -have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market -prices will be used. - - For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is -specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the -valuation date is the journal’s end date. - - For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day -of the period, by default. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Finding market price, Next: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Prev: Valuation date, Up: Valuation - -23.4 Finding market price -========================= - -To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, -hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in -this order of preference : - - 1. A _declared market price_ or _inferred market price_: A’s latest - market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a - P directive, or (with the ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag) inferred - from costs. - - 2. A _reverse market price_: the inverse of a declared or inferred - market price from B to A. - - 3. A _forward chain of market prices_: a synthetic price formed by - combining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market - prices, leading from A to B. - - 4. _Any chain of market prices_: a chain of any market prices, - including both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading - from A to B. - - There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger -reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all -possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in -‘--debug=2’ output). That limit is currently 1000. - - Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not -converted. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Next: Valuation commodity, Prev: Finding market price, Up: Valuation - -23.5 –infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions -========================================================== - -Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, -P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a -chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market -value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as -Ledger does) ? Adding the ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag to ‘-V’, ‘-X’ or -‘--value’ enables this. - - So for example, ‘hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices’ will get market -prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on -the same day, the P directive takes precedence. - - There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in -confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to -you, read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding -‘--debug’ or ‘--debug=2’ to troubleshoot. - - ‘--infer-market-prices’ can infer market prices from: - - • multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (‘@’/‘@@’) - - • multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no ‘@’, two - commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings - matters. ‘hledger print -x’ can be useful for troubleshooting.) - - • multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is - inferred with ‘--infer-costs’. - - There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is -not specified, prices inferred with ‘--infer-market-prices’ do not help -select a default valuation commodity, as ‘P’ prices would. So -conversion might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected -(‘--debug=2’ will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation -commmodity, eg: - - • ‘-X EUR --infer-market-prices’, not ‘-V --infer-market-prices’ - • ‘--value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices’, not ‘--value=then - --infer-market-prices’ - - Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here -is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should -work differently, see #1870.) - -2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @ A 1 - -2022-01-01 Positive Total prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @@ A 1 - - -2022-01-02 Negative unit prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @ A -1 - -2022-01-02 Negative total prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @@ A -1 - - -2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @ A -1 - -2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @@ A -1 - - All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each -day, the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the -market prices inferred for B: - -$ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices -P 2022-01-01 B A 1 -P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 -P 2022-01-02 B A -1 -P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 -P 2022-01-03 B A -1 -P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation commodity, Next: Simple valuation examples, Prev: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Up: Valuation - -23.6 Valuation commodity -======================== - -*When you specify a valuation commodity (‘-X COMM’ or ‘--value -TYPE,COMM’):* -hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a -suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). - - *When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (‘-V’ or ‘--value -TYPE’):* -For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as -follows, in this order of preference: - - 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A - on or before valuation date. - - 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A - on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred - prices before the valuation date.) - - 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the - ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag is used: the price commodity from the - latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation - date. - - This means: - - • If you have P directives, they determine which commodities ‘-V’ - will convert, and to what. - - • If you have no P directives, and use the ‘--infer-market-prices’ - flag, costs determine it. - - Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not -converted. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple valuation examples, Next: --value Flexible valuation, Prev: Valuation commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.7 Simple valuation examples -============================== - -Here are some quick examples of ‘-V’: - -; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 -P 2016/11/01 € $1.10 - -; purchase some euros on nov 3 -2016/11/3 - assets:euros €100 - assets:checking - -; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 -P 2016/12/21 € $1.03 - - How many euros do I have ? - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros - €100 assets:euros - - What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 - $110.00 assets:euros - - What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date -specified, defaults to today) - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V - $103.00 assets:euros - - -File: hledger.info, Node: --value Flexible valuation, Next: More valuation examples, Prev: Simple valuation examples, Up: Valuation - -23.8 –value: Flexible valuation -=============================== - -‘-V’ and ‘-X’ are special cases of the more general ‘--value’ option: - - --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. - COMM is an optional commodity symbol. - Shows amounts converted to: - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date - - The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: - -‘--value=then’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, - using market prices on each posting’s date. -‘--value=end’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, - using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if - unspecified, the journal’s end date); or in multiperiod reports, - market prices on the last day of each subperiod. -‘--value=now’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity - using current market prices (as of when report is generated). -‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity - using market prices on this date. - - To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ‘,COMM’ -part: a comma, then the target commodity’s symbol. Eg: -*‘--value=now,EUR’*. hledger will do its best to convert amounts to -this commodity, deducing market prices as described above. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More valuation examples, Next: Interaction of valuation and queries, Prev: --value Flexible valuation, Up: Valuation - -23.9 More valuation examples -============================ - -Here are some examples showing the effect of ‘--value’, as seen with -‘print’: - -P 2000-01-01 A 1 B -P 2000-02-01 A 2 B -P 2000-03-01 A 3 B -P 2000-04-01 A 4 B - -2000-01-01 - (a) 1 A @ 5 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 1 A @ 6 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 1 A @ 7 B - - Show the cost of each posting: - -$ hledger -f- print --cost -2000-01-01 - (a) 5 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 6 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 7 B - - Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 -2000-01-01 - (a) 2 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 2 B - - With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last -day of the journal (2000-03-01): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=end -2000-01-01 - (a) 3 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 3 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 3 B - - Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect -today): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=now -2000-01-01 - (a) 4 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 4 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 4 B - - Show the value on 2000/01/15: - -$ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 -2000-01-01 - (a) 1 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 1 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 1 B - - You may need to explicitly set a commodity’s display style, when -reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: - -P 2000-01-01 A 2B - -2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - -$ hledger print -x -X A -2000-01-01 - a 0 - b 0 - - Explanation: because there’s no amount or commodity directive -specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which -shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, -the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a -commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A: - -P 2000-01-01 A 2B -commodity 0.00A - -2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - -$ hledger print -X A -2000-01-01 - a 0.50A - b -0.50A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Interaction of valuation and queries, Next: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: More valuation examples, Up: Valuation - -23.10 Interaction of valuation and queries -========================================== - -When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, -the following happens. - - 1. The query is separated into two parts: - 1. the currency (‘cur:’) or amount (‘amt:’). - 2. all other parts. - - 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based - on pre-valued amounts. - 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. - 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on - post-valued amounts. - - See: 1625 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: Interaction of valuation and queries, Up: Valuation - -23.11 Effect of valuation on reports -==================================== - -Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of -hledger’s reports (and a glossary). (It’s wide, you’ll have to scroll -sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find -problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. -Related: #329, #1083. - -Report ‘-B’, ‘-V’, ‘-X’ ‘--value=then’ ‘--value=end’‘--value=DATE’, -type ‘--cost’ ‘--value=now’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*print* -posting cost value at value at posting value at value -amounts report end date report or at - or today journal DATE/today - end -balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged -assertions/assignments -*register* -starting cost value at valued at day value at value -balance report or each historical report or at -(-H) journal posting was made journal DATE/today - end end -starting cost value at valued at day value at value -balance day before each historical day before at -(-H) report or posting was made report or DATE/today -with journal journal -report start start -interval -posting cost value at value at posting value at value -amounts report or date report or at - journal journal DATE/today - end end -summary summarised value at sum of postings value at value -posting cost period in interval, period at -amounts ends valued at ends DATE/today -with interval start -report -interval -running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average -total/averageof of displayed values of of - displayed displayed displayed displayed - values values values values -*balance -(bs, -bse, cf, -is)* -balance sums of value at value at posting value at value -changes costs report end date report or at - or today journal DATE/today - of sums of end of of - postings sums of sums - postings of - postings -budget like like like balance like like -amounts balance balance changes balances balance -(–budget) changes changes changes -grand sum of sum of sum of displayed sum of sum of -total displayed displayed valued displayed displayed - values values values values -*balance -(bs, -bse, cf, -is) with -report -interval* -starting sums of value at sums of values value at sums -balances costs of report of postings report of -(-H) postings start of before report start of postings - before sums of start at sums of before - report all respective all report - start postings posting dates postings start - before before - report report - start start -balance sums of same as sums of values balance value -changes costs of –value=end of postings in change in at -(bal, postings period at each DATE/today -is, bs in period respective period, of -–change, posting dates valued at sums -cf period of -–change) ends postings -end sums of same as sums of values period end value -balances costs of –value=end of postings from balances, at -(bal -H, postings before period valued at DATE/today -is –H, from start to period period of -bs, cf) before end at ends sums - report respective of - start to posting dates postings - period end -budget like like like balance like like -amounts balance balance changes/end balances balance -(–budget) changes/end changes/end balances changes/end - balances balances balances -row sums, sums, sums, averages sums, sums, -totals, averages averages of displayed averages averages -row of of values of of -averages displayed displayed displayed displayed -(-T, -A) values values values values -column sums of sums of sums of sums of sums -totals displayed displayed displayed values displayed of - values values values displayed - values -grand sum, sum, sum, average of sum, sum, -total, average of average of column totals average of average -grand column column column of -average totals totals totals column - totals - - ‘--cumulative’ is omitted to save space, it works like ‘-H’ but with -a zero starting balance. - - *Glossary:* - -_cost_ - - calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). -_value_ - - market value using available market price declarations, or the - unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. -_report start_ - - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise today. -_report or journal start_ - - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. -_report end_ - - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, - otherwise today. -_report or journal end_ - - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, - otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise - today. -_report interval_ - - a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the - report’s multi-period mode (whether showing one or many - subperiods). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 4 COMMANDS, Next: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: Valuation, Up: Top - -24 PART 4: COMMANDS -******************* - -* Menu: - -* Commands overview:: -* accounts:: -* activity:: -* add:: -* aregister:: -* balance:: -* balancesheet:: -* balancesheetequity:: -* cashflow:: -* check:: -* close:: -* codes:: -* commodities:: -* descriptions:: -* diff:: -* files:: -* help:: -* import:: -* incomestatement:: -* notes:: -* payees:: -* prices:: -* print:: -* register:: -* rewrite:: -* roi:: -* stats:: -* tags:: -* test:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commands overview, Next: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.1 Commands overview -====================== - -Here are the built-in commands: - -* Menu: - -* DATA ENTRY:: -* DATA CREATION:: -* DATA MANAGEMENT:: -* REPORTS FINANCIAL:: -* REPORTS VERSATILE:: -* REPORTS BASIC:: -* HELP:: -* ADD-ONS:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA ENTRY, Next: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.1 DATA ENTRY ------------------ - -These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your -journal file. - - • add - add transactions using terminal prompts - • import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA CREATION, Next: DATA MANAGEMENT, Prev: DATA ENTRY, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.2 DATA CREATION --------------------- - - • close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions - • rewrite - generate auto postings, like print –auto - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA MANAGEMENT, Next: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Prev: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.3 DATA MANAGEMENT ----------------------- - - • check - check for various kinds of error in the data - • diff - compare account transactions in two journal files - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Next: REPORTS VERSATILE, Prev: DATA MANAGEMENT, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.4 REPORTS, FINANCIAL -------------------------- - - • aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account - • balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth - • balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity - • cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets - • incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS VERSATILE, Next: REPORTS BASIC, Prev: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.5 REPORTS, VERSATILE -------------------------- - - • balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, - gains.. - • print - show transactions or export journal data - • register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running - total - • roi - show return on investments - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS BASIC, Next: HELP, Prev: REPORTS VERSATILE, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.6 REPORTS, BASIC ---------------------- - - • accounts - show account names - • activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period - • codes - show transaction codes - • commodities - show commodity/currency symbols - • descriptions - show transaction descriptions - • files - show input file paths - • notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions - • payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions - • prices - show market prices - • stats - show journal statistics - • tags - show tag names - • test - run self tests - - -File: hledger.info, Node: HELP, Next: ADD-ONS, Prev: REPORTS BASIC, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.7 HELP ------------ - - • help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager - - -File: hledger.info, Node: ADD-ONS, Prev: HELP, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.8 ADD-ONS --------------- - -And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed -by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in -hledger’s commands list: - - • ui - run hledger’s terminal UI - • web - run hledger’s web UI - • iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) - • interest - generate interest transactions - • stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage - • Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, - pijul, plot, and more.. - - Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: accounts, Next: activity, Prev: Commands overview, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.2 accounts -============= - -Show account names. - - This command lists account names. By default it shows all known -accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account -directives. - - With query arguments, only matched account names and account names -referenced by matched postings are shown. - - Or it can show just the used accounts (‘--used’/‘-u’), the declared -accounts (‘--declared’/‘-d’), the accounts declared but not used -(‘--unused’), the accounts used but not declared (‘--undeclared’), or -the first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (‘--find’). - - It shows a flat list by default. With ‘--tree’, it uses indentation -to show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add ‘--drop N’ to -omit the first few account name components. Account names can be -depth-clipped with ‘depth:N’ or ‘--depth N’ or ‘-N’. - - With ‘--types’, it also shows each account’s type, if it’s known. -(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) - - With ‘--positions’, it also shows the file and line number of each -account’s declaration, if any, and the account’s overall declaration -order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. - - With ‘--directives’, it adds the ‘account’ keyword, showing valid -account directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is -useful together with ‘--undeclared’ when updating your account -declarations to satisfy ‘hledger check accounts’. - - The ‘--find’ flag can be used to look up a single account name, in -the same way that the ‘aregister’ command does. It returns the -alphanumerically-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it -fails with a non-zero exit code. - - Examples: - -$ hledger accounts -assets:bank:checking -assets:bank:saving -assets:cash -expenses:food -expenses:supplies -income:gifts -income:salary -liabilities:debts - -$ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE -$ hledger check accounts - - -File: hledger.info, Node: activity, Next: add, Prev: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.3 activity -============= - -Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. - - The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction -counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the -default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. - - Examples: - -$ hledger activity --quarterly -2008-01-01 ** -2008-04-01 ******* -2008-07-01 -2008-10-01 ** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: add, Next: aregister, Prev: activity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.4 add -======== - -Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments will -be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. - - Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, -or generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the -‘add’ command, which prompts interactively on the console for new -transactions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be -in journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one -of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also -‘import’). - - To use it, just run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts. You can -add as many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter ‘.’ -or press control-d or control-c to exit. - - Features: - - • add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by - description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as - a template. - • You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. - • Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. - • The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, - payees/descriptions, dates (‘yesterday’, ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’). If - the input area is empty, it will insert the default value. - • If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any - bare numbers entered. - • A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. - • Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. - • If you make a mistake, enter ‘<’ at any prompt to go one step - backward. - • Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal - supports it. - - Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): - -$ hledger add -Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal -Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. -Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. -An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. -An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. -If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. -To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. -To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. -Date [2015/05/22]: -Description: supermarket -Account 1: expenses:food -Amount 1: $10 -Account 2: assets:checking -Amount 2 [$-10.0]: -Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . -2015/05/22 supermarket - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking $-10.0 - -Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: -Saved. -Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) -Date [2015/05/22]: $ - - On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the -file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: aregister, Next: balance, Prev: add, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.5 aregister -============== - -(areg) - - Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single -account, with each transaction displayed as one line. - - ‘aregister’ shows the overall transactions affecting a particular -account (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one -transaction in this account. Transactions before the report start date -are always included in the running balance (‘--historical’ mode is -always on). - - This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the ‘register’ -command (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple -accounts, not necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of -thumb: - use ‘aregister’ for reviewing and reconciling real-world -asset/liability accounts - use ‘register’ for reviewing detailed -revenues/expenses. - - ‘aregister’ requires one argument: the account to report on. You can -write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular -expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. - - When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can -be surprising; eg if you have ‘assets:per:checking 1’ and -‘assets:biz:checking 2’ accounts, ‘hledger areg checking’ would select -‘assets:biz:checking 2’. It’s just a convenience to save typing, so if -in doubt, write the full account name, or a distinctive substring that -matches uniquely. - - Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be -shown. ‘aregister’ ignores depth limits, so its final total will always -match a balance report with similar arguments. - - Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the -transactions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, -causing it to be different from the account’s real-world running -balance. - - An example: this shows the transactions and historical running -balance during july, in the first account whose name contains -"checking": - -$ hledger areg checking date:jul - - Each ‘aregister’ line item shows: - - • the transaction’s date (or the relevant posting’s date if - different, see below) - • the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction - (probably abbreviated) - • the total change to this account’s balance from this transaction - • the account’s historical running balance after this transaction. - - Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; -add the ‘-E/--empty’ flag to show them. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first -1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause -visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to -ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the -‘--align-all’ flag. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options. The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and ‘json’. - -* Menu: - -* aregister and custom posting dates:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: aregister and custom posting dates, Up: aregister - -24.5.1 aregister and custom posting dates ------------------------------------------ - -Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, -if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report period. -(And in this case it’s the posting date that is shown.) This ensures -that ‘aregister’ can show an accurate historical running balance, -matching the one shown by ‘register -H’ with the same arguments. - - To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the ‘--txn-dates’ -flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom dates, -it’s probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance, Next: balancesheet, Prev: aregister, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.6 balance -============ - -(bal) - - Show accounts and their balances. - - ‘balance’ is one of hledger’s oldest and most versatile commands, for -listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and -more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with -rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. - - Note there are some higher-level variants of the ‘balance’ command -with convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: ‘balancesheet’, -‘balancesheetequity’, ‘cashflow’ and ‘incomestatement’. When you need -more control, then use ‘balance’. - -* Menu: - -* balance features:: -* Simple balance report:: -* Balance report line format:: -* Filtered balance report:: -* List or tree mode:: -* Depth limiting:: -* Dropping top-level accounts:: -* Showing declared accounts:: -* Sorting by amount:: -* Percentages:: -* Multi-period balance report:: -* Balance change end balance:: -* Balance report types:: -* Budget report:: -* Data layout:: -* Useful balance reports:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance features, Next: Simple balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.1 balance features ------------------------ - -Here’s a quick overview of the ‘balance’ command’s features, followed by -more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the -higher-level commands as well. - - ‘balance’ can show.. - - • accounts as a list (‘-l’) or a tree (‘-t’) - • optionally depth-limited (‘-[1-9]’) - • sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount - - ..and their.. - - • balance changes (the default) - • or actual and planned balance changes (‘--budget’) - • or value of balance changes (‘-V’) - • or change of balance values (‘--valuechange’) - • or unrealised capital gain/loss (‘--gain’) - - ..in.. - - • one time period (the whole journal period by default) - • or multiple periods (‘-D’, ‘-W’, ‘-M’, ‘-Q’, ‘-Y’, ‘-p INTERVAL’) - - ..either.. - - • per period (the default) - • or accumulated since report start date (‘--cumulative’) - • or accumulated since account creation (‘--historical/-H’) - - ..possibly converted to.. - - • cost (‘--value=cost[,COMM]’/‘--cost’/‘-B’) - • or market value, as of transaction dates (‘--value=then[,COMM]’) - • or at period ends (‘--value=end[,COMM]’) - • or now (‘--value=now’) - • or at some other date (‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD’) - - ..with.. - - • totals (‘-T’), averages (‘-A’), percentages (‘-%’), inverted sign - (‘--invert’) - • rows and columns swapped (‘--transpose’) - • another field used as account name (‘--pivot’) - • custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) - (‘--format’) - • commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines - (‘--layout’) - - This command supports the output destination and output format -options, with output formats ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘json’, and (multi-period -reports only:) ‘html’. In ‘txt’ output in a colour-supporting terminal, -negative amounts are shown in red. - - The ‘--related’/‘-r’ flag shows the balance of the _other_ postings -in the transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple balance report, Next: Balance report line format, Prev: balance features, Up: balance - -24.6.2 Simple balance report ----------------------------- - -With no arguments, ‘balance’ shows a list of all accounts and their -change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and -outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here -means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can -also have multi-period reports, described later.) - - For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end -balance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. - - Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then -alphabetically by account name. For instance (using -examples/sample.journal): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree -mode - see below) are hidden by default. Use ‘-E/--empty’ to show them -(revealing ‘assets:bank:checking’ here): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E - 0 assets:bank:checking - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless -‘-N’/‘--no-total’ is used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report line format, Next: Filtered balance report, Prev: Simple balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.3 Balance report line format ---------------------------------- - -For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you -can use ‘--format FMT’ to customise the format and content of each line. -Eg: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" - assets $-1 - bank:saving $1 - cash $-2 - expenses $2 - food $1 - supplies $1 - income $-2 - gifts $-1 - salary $-1 - liabilities:debts $1 ---------------------------------- - 0 - - The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each -account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data -fields interpolated like so: - - ‘%[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)’ - - • MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) - - • MAX truncates at this width (optional) - - • FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: - - • ‘depth_spacer’ - a number of spaces equal to the account’s - depth, or if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. - • ‘account’ - the account’s name - • ‘total’ - the account’s balance/posted total, right justified - - Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how -multi-commodity amounts are rendered: - - • ‘%_’ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) - • ‘%^’ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned - • ‘%,’ - render on one line, comma-separated - - There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, ‘%(depth_spacer)’ has no -effect, instead ‘%(account)’ has indentation built in. Experimentation -may be needed to get pleasing results. - - Some example formats: - - • ‘%(total)’ - the account’s total - • ‘%-20.20(account)’ - the account’s name, left justified, padded to - 20 characters and clipped at 20 characters - • ‘%,%-50(account) %25(total)’ - account name padded to 50 - characters, total padded to 20 characters, with multiple - commodities rendered on one line - • ‘%20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)’ - the default format for - the single-column balance report - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Filtered balance report, Next: List or tree mode, Prev: Balance report line format, Up: balance - -24.6.4 Filtered balance report ------------------------------- - -You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from -cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to -limit the postings being matched. Eg: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 - $-2 assets:cash --------------------- - $-2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: List or tree mode, Next: Depth limiting, Prev: Filtered balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.5 List or tree mode ------------------------- - -By default, or with ‘-l/--flat’, accounts are shown as a flat list with -their full names visible, as in the examples above. - - With ‘-t/--tree’, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts’ -"leaf" names indented below their parent: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - Notes: - - • "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more - compact output, unless ‘--no-elide’ is used. Boring accounts have - no balance of their own and just one subaccount (eg ‘assets:bank’ - and ‘liabilities’ above). - - • All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from - all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, - which requires explanation when sharing reports with - non-plaintextaccounting-users. A tree mode report’s final total is - the sum of the top-level balances shown, not of all the balances - shown. - - • Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is - sorted separately. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Depth limiting, Next: Dropping top-level accounts, Prev: List or tree mode, Up: balance - -24.6.6 Depth limiting ---------------------- - -With a ‘depth:NUM’ query, or ‘--depth NUM’ option, or just ‘-NUM’ (eg: -‘-3’) balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, -hiding the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an -overview without too much detail. - - Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from -any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 - $-1 assets - $2 expenses - $-2 income - $1 liabilities --------------------- - 0 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Dropping top-level accounts, Next: Showing declared accounts, Prev: Depth limiting, Up: balance - -24.6.7 Dropping top-level accounts ----------------------------------- - -You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using -‘--drop NUM’. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level -account names: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 - $1 food - $1 supplies --------------------- - $2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Showing declared accounts, Next: Sorting by amount, Prev: Dropping top-level accounts, Up: balance - -24.6.8 Showing declared accounts --------------------------------- - -With ‘--declared’, accounts which have been declared with an account -directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no -transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need -‘-E/--empty’ to see them.) - - More precisely, _leaf_ declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will -be included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. - - The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance -report, even when you don’t have transactions in all of your declared -accounts yet. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Sorting by amount, Next: Percentages, Prev: Showing declared accounts, Up: balance - -24.6.9 Sorting by amount ------------------------- - -With ‘-S/--sort-amount’, accounts with the largest (most positive) -balances are shown first. Eg: ‘hledger bal expenses -MAS’ shows your -biggest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity -is present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity -first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a -commodity, it is treated as 0). - - Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -‘-S’ shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add -‘--invert’ to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, -which flip the sign automatically. Eg: ‘hledger incomestatement -MAS’). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Percentages, Next: Multi-period balance report, Prev: Sorting by amount, Up: balance - -24.6.10 Percentages -------------------- - -With ‘-%/--percent’, balance reports show each account’s value expressed -as a percentage of the (column) total. - - Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a -column have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each -sign, eg: - -$ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` -$ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` - - Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert -them to one commodity with ‘-B’, ‘-V’, ‘-X’ or ‘--value’, or make a -separate report for each commodity: - -$ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ -$ hledger bal -% cur:€ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multi-period balance report, Next: Balance change end balance, Prev: Percentages, Up: balance - -24.6.11 Multi-period balance report ------------------------------------ - -With a report interval (set by the ‘-D/--daily’, ‘-W/--weekly’, -‘-M/--monthly’, ‘-Q/--quarterly’, ‘-Y/--yearly’, or ‘-p/--period’ flag), -‘balance’ shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive -time periods (and a title): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E -Balance changes in 2008: - - || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 -===================++================================= - expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 - expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 - income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 - income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 --------------------++--------------------------------- - || $-1 $1 0 0 - - Notes: - - • The report’s start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to - fully encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and - last subperiods have the same duration as the others). - • Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are - not shown, unless ‘-E/--empty’ is used. - • Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless - ‘-E/--empty’ is used. - • Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless - ‘--no-elide’ is used. _(experimental)_ - • Average and/or total columns can be added with the ‘-A/--average’ - and ‘-T/--row-total’ flags. - • The ‘--transpose’ flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. - • The ‘--pivot FIELD’ option causes a different transaction field to - be used as "account name". See PIVOTING. - - Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy -viewing in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: - - • Hide the totals row with ‘-N/--no-total’ - • Convert to a single currency with ‘-V’ - • Maximize the terminal window - • Reduce the terminal’s font size - • View with a pager like less, eg: ‘hledger bal -D --color=yes | less - -RS’ - • Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (‘hledger bal -D - -O csv | vd -f csv’), Emacs’ csv-mode (‘M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a’), or - a spreadsheet (‘hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv’) - • Output as HTML and view with a browser: ‘hledger bal -D -o a.html - && open a.html’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance change end balance, Next: Balance report types, Prev: Multi-period balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.12 Balance change, end balance ------------------------------------ - -It’s important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in -balance reports. Here is some terminology we use: - - A *_balance change_* is the net amount added to, or removed from, an -account during some period. - - An *_end balance_* is the amount accumulated in an account as of some -date (and some time, but hledger doesn’t store that; assume end of day -in your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. - - We call it a *_historical end balance_* if it includes all balance -changes since the account was created. For a real world account, this -means it will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in -your bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) - - In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing -revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to -see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. - - ‘balance’ shows balance changes by default. To see accurate -historical end balances: - - 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" - transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the - journal covers the account’s full lifetime. - - 2. Include all of of the account’s prior postings in the report, by - not specifying a report start date, or by using the - ‘-H/--historical’ flag. (‘-H’ causes report start date to be - ignored when summing postings.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report types, Next: Budget report, Prev: Balance change end balance, Up: balance - -24.6.13 Balance report types ----------------------------- - -The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how to -control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don’t -worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some -time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. - - There are three important option groups: - - ‘hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] -...’ - -* Menu: - -* Calculation type:: -* Accumulation type:: -* Valuation type:: -* Combining balance report types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Calculation type, Next: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.1 Calculation type -.......................... - -The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: - - • ‘--sum’ : sum the posting amounts (*default*) - • ‘--budget’ : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount - (for each account/period) - • ‘--valuechange’ : show the change in period-end historical balance - values (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price - fluctuations) - • ‘--gain’ : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current - valued balance minus each amount’s original cost) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Accumulation type, Next: Valuation type, Prev: Calculation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.2 Accumulation type -........................... - -How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to say -it: which time period’s postings should contribute to each cell’s -calculation. It is one of: - - • ‘--change’ : calculate with postings from column start to column - end, ie "just this column". Typically used to see - revenues/expenses. (*default for balance, incomestatement*) - - • ‘--cumulative’ : calculate with postings from report start to - column end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used - to show changes accumulated since the report’s start date. Not - often used. - - • ‘--historical/-H’ : calculate with postings from journal start to - column end, ie "all postings from before report start date until - this column’s end". Typically used to see historical end balances - of assets/liabilities/equity. (*default for balancesheet, - balancesheetequity, cashflow*) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation type, Next: Combining balance report types, Prev: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.3 Valuation type -........................ - -Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, before -displaying the report. It is one of: - - • no valuation type : don’t convert to cost or value (*default*) - • ‘--value=cost[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to - some other commodity) - • ‘--value=then[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on - transaction dates - • ‘--value=end[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on period - end date(s) - (*default with ‘--valuechange’, ‘--gain’*) - • ‘--value=now[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on today’s - date - • ‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on - another date - - or one of the equivalent simpler flags: - - • ‘-B/--cost’ : like –value=cost (though, note –cost and –value are - independent options which can both be used at once) - • ‘-V/--market’ : like –value=end - • ‘-X COMM/--exchange COMM’ : like –value=end,COMM - - See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining balance report types, Prev: Valuation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.4 Combining balance report types -........................................ - -Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, -but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The -following restrictions are applied: - - • ‘--valuechange’ implies ‘--value=end’ - • ‘--valuechange’ makes ‘--change’ the default when used with the - ‘balancesheet’/‘balancesheetequity’ commands - • ‘--cumulative’ or ‘--historical’ disables ‘--row-total/-T’ - - For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and -valuation show: - -Valuation:>no valuation ‘--value= then’ ‘--value= end’ ‘--value= -Accumulation:v YYYY-MM-DD - /now’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -‘--change’change in sum of period-end DATE-value - period posting-date value of of change in - market values change in period - in period period -‘--cumulative’change from sum of period-end DATE-value - report start to posting-date value of of change - period end market values change from from report - from report report start start to - start to period to period end period end - end -‘--historicalchange from sum of period-end DATE-value -/-H’ journal start posting-date value of of change - to period end market values change from from journal - (historical end from journal journal start start to - balance) start to period to period end period end - end - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report, Next: Data layout, Prev: Balance report types, Up: balance - -24.6.14 Budget report ---------------------- - -The ‘--budget’ report type activates extra columns showing any budget -goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by -periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual -income, expenses, time usage, etc. - - For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common -expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: - -;; Budget -~ monthly - income $2000 - expenses:food $400 - expenses:bus $50 - expenses:movies $30 - assets:bank:checking - -;; Two months worth of expenses -2017-11-01 - income $1950 - expenses:food $396 - expenses:bus $49 - expenses:movies $30 - expenses:supplies $20 - assets:bank:checking - -2017-12-01 - income $2100 - expenses:food $412 - expenses:bus $53 - expenses:gifts $100 - assets:bank:checking - - You can now see a monthly budget report: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: - - • Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, - by default. - - • In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget - goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: - budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) - - • All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg - assets, assets:bank, and expenses above. - - • Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, - even in list mode. - - This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg -above, the ‘expenses’ actual amount includes the gifts and supplies -transactions, but the ‘expenses:gifts’ and ‘expenses:supplies’ accounts -are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. - - This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the -‘-E/--empty’ flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted -ones, giving the full picture. Eg: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget --empty -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:gifts || 0 $100 - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - expenses:supplies || $20 0 - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with ‘--cumulative’: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - It’s common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses - -hledger bal -M --budget expenses - - or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): - -hledger bal -M --budget type:rx - - It’s also common to limit or convert them to a single currency -(‘cur:COMM’ or ‘-X COMM [--infer-market-prices]’). If showing multiple -currencies, ‘--layout bare’ or ‘--layout tall’ can help. - - For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. - -* Menu: - -* Budget report start date:: -* Budgets and subaccounts:: -* Selecting budget goals:: -* Budget vs forecast:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report start date, Next: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.1 Budget report start date -.................................. - -This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it’s a -good idea to explicitly set the report’s start date to the first day of -a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ‘~ monthly’ generates -its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no -regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could -exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here the -default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: - -~ monthly in 2020 - (expenses:food) $500 - -2020-01-15 - expenses:food $400 - assets:checking - -$ hledger bal expenses --budget -Budget performance in 2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-15 -==============++============ - || $400 ---------------++------------ - || $400 - - To avoid this, specify the budget report’s period, or at least the -start date, with ‘-b’/‘-e’/‘-p’/‘date:’, to ensure it includes the -budget goal transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, -adding ‘-b 2020/1/1’ to the above: - -$ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 -Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 -===============++======================== - expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] ----------------++------------------------ - || $400 [80% of $500] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budgets and subaccounts, Next: Selecting budget goals, Prev: Budget report start date, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.2 Budgets and subaccounts -................................. - -You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you -have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then -budget(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their -parent, much like account balances behave. - - In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any -account, all its parents would have budget as well. - - To illustrate this, consider the following budget: - -~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and -budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly -means that budget for both ‘expenses:personal’ and ‘expenses’ is $1100. - - Transactions in ‘expenses:personal:electronics’ will be counted both -towards its $100 budget and $1100 of ‘expenses:personal’ , and -transactions in any other subaccount of ‘expenses:personal’ would be -counted towards only towards the budget of ‘expenses:personal’. - - For example, let’s consider these transactions: - -~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/01 Google home hub - expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 - liabilities $-90.00 - -2019/01/02 Phone screen protector - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket - expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/03 Flowers - expenses:personal $30.00 - liabilities - - As you can see, we have transactions in -‘expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades’ and ‘expenses:personal:train -tickets’, and since both of these accounts are without explicitly -defined budget, these transactions would be counted towards budgets of -‘expenses:personal:electronics’ and ‘expenses:personal’ accordingly: - -$ hledger balance --budget -M -Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan -===============================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] --------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - And with ‘--empty’, we can get a better picture of budget allocation -and consumption: - -$ hledger balance --budget -M --empty -Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan -========================================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 - expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] -----------------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Selecting budget goals, Next: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.3 Selecting budget goals -................................ - -The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate -special "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each -account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use -‘print --forecast’ to show these as forecasted transactions: - -$ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated - - By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction -rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report -interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly -periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly -budget report. - - You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to -the ‘--budget’ flag. ‘--budget=DESCPAT’ will match all periodic rules -whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a -regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic -rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then -select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Selecting budget goals, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.4 Budget vs forecast -............................ - -‘hledger --forecast ...’ and ‘hledger balance --budget ...’ are separate -features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules defined -in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transactions for -reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal -transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same -time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of hledger -1.29: - - CLI: - - • –forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command - • –budget is a ‘balance’ command option, usable only with that - command. - - Visibility of generated transactions: - - • forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary - transactions - • budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts - they produce in –budget reports. - - Periodic transaction rules: - - • –forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules - • –budget uses all periodic rules (‘--budget’) or a selected subset - (‘--budget=DESCPAT’) - - Period of generated transactions: - - • –forecast generates forecast transactions - • from after the last regular transaction to the end of the - report period (‘--forecast’) - • or, during a specified period (‘--forecast=PERIODEXPR’) - • possibly further restricted by a period specified in the - periodic transaction rule - • and always restricted within the bounds of the report period - - • –budget generates budget goal transactions - • throughout the report period - • possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic - transaction rule. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Data layout, Next: Useful balance reports, Prev: Budget report, Up: balance - -24.6.15 Data layout -------------------- - -The ‘--layout’ option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity -amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can -also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has -four possible values: - - • ‘--layout=wide[,WIDTH]’: commodities are shown on a single line, - optionally elided to WIDTH - • ‘--layout=tall’: each commodity is shown on a separate line - • ‘--layout=bare’: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts - are bare numbers - • ‘--layout=tidy’: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, - with one row per data value - - Here are the ‘--layout’ modes supported by each output format; note -only CSV output supports all of them: - -- txt csv html json sql ---------------------------------------- -wide Y Y Y -tall Y Y Y -bare Y Y Y -tidy Y - - Examples: - - • Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - - • Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some - commodities will be hidden: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++=========================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - - • Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in - each column), and account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - - • Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each - commodity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++============================================= - Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - ------------------++--------------------------------------------- - || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - - • Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing - data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare - "account","commodity","balance" - "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" - "total","GLD","70.00" - "total","ITOT","17.00" - "total","USD","5120.50" - "total","VEA","36.00" - "total","VHT","294.00" - - • Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable - has its own column and each row represents a single data point. - See - https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html - for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other software to - consume. Here’s how it looks: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy - "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Useful balance reports, Prev: Data layout, Up: balance - -24.6.16 Useful balance reports ------------------------------- - -Some frequently used ‘balance’ options/reports are: - - • ‘bal -M revenues expenses’ - Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the - ‘incomestatement’ command. - - • ‘bal -M -H assets liabilities’ - Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also - available as the ‘balancesheet’ command. - - • ‘bal -M -H assets liabilities equity’ - Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. - Also available as the ‘balancesheetequity’ command. - - • ‘bal -M assets not:receivable’ - Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the - ‘cashflow’ command. - - Also: - - • ‘bal -M expenses -2 -SA’ - Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average - amount. - - • ‘bal -M --budget expenses’ - Show monthly expenses and budget goals. - - • ‘bal -M --valuechange investments’ - Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. - - • ‘bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA - [--invert]’ - Show top gainers [or losers] last week - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheet, Next: balancesheetequity, Prev: balance, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.7 balancesheet -================= - -(bs) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending -balances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use -the balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive -sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Asset’, ‘Cash’ or -‘Liability’ type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are -declared, it shows top-level accounts named ‘asset’ or ‘liability’ (case -insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger balancesheet -Balance Sheet - -Assets: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash --------------------- - $-1 - -Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - $1 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance -H assets liabilities’, but with -smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign -flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheetequity, Next: cashflow, Prev: balancesheet, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.8 balancesheetequity -======================= - -(bse) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending -balances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown -with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Asset’, ‘Cash’, -‘Liability’ or ‘Equity’ type (see account types). Or if no such -accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named ‘asset’, -‘liability’ or ‘equity’ (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their -subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger balancesheetequity -Balance Sheet With Equity - -Assets: - $-2 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-3 cash --------------------- - $-2 - -Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - $1 - -Equity: - $1 equity:owner --------------------- - $1 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity’, but -with smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with -their sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: cashflow, Next: check, Prev: balancesheetequity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.9 cashflow -============= - -(cf) - - This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and -outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. -Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional -financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Cash’ type (see account -types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts - - • under a top-level account named ‘asset’ (case insensitive, plural - allowed) - • whose name contains some variation of ‘cash’, ‘bank’, ‘checking’ or - ‘saving’. - - More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular -expression: - - ‘^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)’ - - and their subaccounts. - - An example cashflow report: - -$ hledger cashflow -Cashflow Statement - -Cash flows: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash --------------------- - $-1 - -Total: --------------------- - $-1 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment -not:receivable’, but with smarter account detection. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: check, Next: close, Prev: cashflow, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.10 check -=========== - -Check for various kinds of errors in your data. - - hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent -problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you can -use this ‘check’ command to run them on demand, with no output and a -zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as -argument(s). - - Some examples: - -hledger check # basic checks -hledger check -s # basic + strict checks -hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks - - If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to -run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. - - Here are the checks currently available: - -* Menu: - -* Basic checks:: -* Strict checks:: -* Other checks:: -* Custom checks:: -* More about specific checks:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Basic checks, Next: Strict checks, Up: check - -24.10.1 Basic checks --------------------- - -These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger -commands, including ‘check’: - - • *parseable* - data files are well-formed and can be successfully - parsed - - • *balancedwithautoconversion* - all transactions are balanced, - inferring missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting - commodities using costs or automatically-inferred costs - - • *assertions* - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. - (This check can be disabled with ‘-I’/‘--ignore-assertions’.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Strict checks, Next: Other checks, Prev: Basic checks, Up: check - -24.10.2 Strict checks ---------------------- - -These additional checks are run when the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ (strict mode) -flag is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to -‘check’: - - • *accounts* - all account names used by transactions have been - declared - - • *commodities* - all commodity symbols used have been declared - - • *balancednoautoconversion* - transactions are balanced, possibly - using explicit costs but not inferred ones - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other checks, Next: Custom checks, Prev: Strict checks, Up: check - -24.10.3 Other checks --------------------- - -These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to -‘check’. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, -therefore optional: - - • *ordereddates* - transactions are ordered by date within each file - - • *payees* - all payees used by transactions have been declared - - • *recentassertions* - all accounts with balance assertions have a - balance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting - - • *tags* - all tags used by transactions have been declared - - • *uniqueleafnames* - all account leaf names are unique - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Custom checks, Next: More about specific checks, Prev: Other checks, Up: check - -24.10.4 Custom checks ---------------------- - -A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in -https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: - - • *hledger-check-tagfiles* - all tag values containing / (a forward - slash) exist as file paths - - • *hledger-check-fancyassertions* - more complex balance assertions - are passing - - You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. -See: Cookbook -> Scripting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More about specific checks, Prev: Custom checks, Up: check - -24.10.5 More about specific checks ----------------------------------- - -‘hledger check recentassertions’ will complain if any balance-asserted -account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its -latest posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are -regularly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances -against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of -data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion -requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be -true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that -case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the -manual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest -assertions against real-world balances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close, Next: codes, Prev: check, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.11 close -=========== - -‘close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY]’ - - By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all -accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query -arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other -modes are supported: - - ‘--retain’: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense -balances. This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each -accounting period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based -accounting, but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. - - ‘--migrate’: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most -equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be -useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection). -Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files -to be combined. - - ‘--open’: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This -can be useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. -Similar to Ledger’s equity command. - - You can change the equity account name with ‘--close-acct ACCT’. It -defaults to ‘equity:retained earnings’ with ‘--retain’, or -‘equity:opening/closing balances’ otherwise. - - You can change the transaction description(s) with ‘--close-desc -'DESC'’ and ‘--open-desc 'DESC'’. It defaults to ‘retain earnings’ with -‘--retain’, or ‘closing balances’ and ‘opening balances’ otherwise. - - Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with -an implicit amount. - - With ‘--x/--explicit’ the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it -involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for -each commodity. - - With ‘--interleaved’, each equity posting is shown next to the -corresponding source/destination posting. - - The default closing date is yesterday or the journal’s end date, -whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end -date; the last day of the report period will be the closing date. Eg -‘-e 2022’ means "close on 2022-12-31". - - The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal’s end date, -whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end -date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the -report period will be the closing date; eg ‘-e 2022’ means "close on -2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing date. - -* Menu: - -* close and costs:: -* close and balance assertions:: -* Example retain earnings:: -* Example migrate balances to a new file:: -* Example excluding closing/opening transactions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close and costs, Next: close and balance assertions, Up: close - -24.11.1 close and costs ------------------------ - -With ‘--show-costs’, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings -for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets, -showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or -investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close and balance assertions, Next: Example retain earnings, Prev: close and costs, Up: close - -24.11.2 close and balance assertions ------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have -been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if -there is an opening transaction). - - These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them -temporarily with ‘-I’, or remove them if you prefer. - - You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or -realness (‘-C’, ‘-R’, ‘status:’), or generating postings (‘--auto’), -with this command, since the balance assertions would depend on these. - - Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the -balance assertions: - -2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 - - To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary -account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two -single-day transactions: - -; in 2022.journal: -2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - equity:pending -5 - -; in 2023.journal: -2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared - equity:pending 5 = 0 - assets:bank:checking -5 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example retain earnings, Next: Example migrate balances to a new file, Prev: close and balance assertions, Up: close - -24.11.3 Example: retain earnings --------------------------------- - -Record 2022’s revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, -appending the generated transaction to the journal: - -$ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal - - Now 2022’s income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again, -exclude the retain transaction. Eg: - -$ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example migrate balances to a new file, Next: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example retain earnings, Up: close - -24.11.4 Example: migrate balances to a new file ------------------------------------------------ - -Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on -2023-01-01: - -$ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 -# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal -# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal - - Now 2022’s balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced -accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that -case, try adding –infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing -transaction. Eg: - -$ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example migrate balances to a new file, Up: close - -24.11.5 Example: excluding closing/opening transactions -------------------------------------------------------- - -When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening -transactions cause some noise in reports like ‘print’ and ‘register’. -You can exclude them as shown above, but ‘not:desc:...’ could be -fragile, and also you will need to avoid excluding the very first -opening transaction, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, -using tags: add ‘clopen:’ tags to all opening/closing balances -transactions except the first, like this: - -; 2021.journal -2021-06-01 first opening balances -... -2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 -... - -; 2022.journal -2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 -... -2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 -... - -; 2023.journal -2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 -... - - Now, assuming a combined journal like: - -; all.journal -include 2021.journal -include 2022.journal -include 2023.journal - - The ‘clopen:’ tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. -To show a clean multi-year checking register: - -$ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen - - And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022’s year-end -balance sheet: - -$ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: codes, Next: commodities, Prev: close, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.12 codes -=========== - -List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. - - This command prints the value of each transaction’s code field, in -the order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional -value written in parentheses between the date and description, often -used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. - - Transactions aren’t required to have a code, and missing or empty -codes will not be shown by default. With the ‘-E’/‘--empty’ flag, they -will be printed as blank lines. - - You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. - - Examples: - -2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket - Food $5.00 - Checking - -2022/1/2 (124) Post Office - Postage $8.32 - Checking - -2022/1/3 Supermarket - Food $11.23 - Checking - -2022/1/4 (126) Post Office - Postage $3.21 - Checking - -$ hledger codes -123 -124 -126 - -$ hledger codes -E -123 -124 - -126 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: commodities, Next: descriptions, Prev: codes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.13 commodities -================= - -List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: descriptions, Next: diff, Prev: commodities, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.14 descriptions -================== - -List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in -transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a -subset of transactions. - - Example: - -$ hledger descriptions -Store Name -Gas Station | Petrol -Person A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: diff, Next: files, Prev: descriptions, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.15 diff -========== - -Compares a particular account’s transactions in two input files. It -shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in -the other. - - More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either -file, it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts -the same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) -Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when -multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal -entry. - - This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account’s transactions -from your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree -about the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your -journal to find out the cause. - - Examples: - -$ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro -These transactions are in the first file only: - -2014/01/01 Opening Balances - assets:bank:giro EUR ... - ... - equity:opening balances EUR -... - -These transactions are in the second file only: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: files, Next: help, Prev: diff, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.16 files -=========== - -List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only -file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: help, Next: import, Prev: files, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.17 help -========== - -Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with ‘info’, ‘man’, or a -pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. TOPIC -can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case insensitive. -Eg: ‘commands’, ‘print’, ‘forecast’, ‘journal’, ‘amount’, ‘"auto -postings"’. - - This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger -version. It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal -to a web browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing -tools are not installed on your system. - - By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info -since the hledger manual is large). You can select a particular viewer -with the ‘-i’, ‘-m’, or ‘-p’ flags. - - Examples - -$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - - -File: hledger.info, Node: import, Next: incomestatement, Prev: help, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.18 import -============ - -Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to -the journal. Or with –dry-run, just print the transactions that would -be added. Or with –catchup, just mark all of the FILEs’ transactions as -imported, without actually importing any. - - This command may append new transactions to the main journal file -(which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not -changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the -journal file (see also ‘add’). - - Unlike other hledger commands, with ‘import’ the journal file is an -output file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing -data will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, -so to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run -‘hledger import bank.csv’ or perhaps ‘hledger import *.csv’. - - Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the -most common import source, and these docs focus on that case. - -* Menu: - -* Deduplication:: -* Import testing:: -* Importing balance assignments:: -* Commodity display styles:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplication, Next: Import testing, Up: import - -24.18.1 Deduplication ---------------------- - -As a convenience ‘import’ does _deduplication_ while reading -transactions. This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the -same", but rather "ignore transactions that have been seen before". -This is intended for when you are periodically importing foreign data -which may contain already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day -you download bank CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely -run ‘hledger import bank.csv’ and only new transactions will be -imported. (‘import’ is idempotent.) - - Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with -unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming -that: - - 1. new items always have the newest dates - 2. item dates do not change across reads - 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order - across reads. - - These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true -enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but -violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won’t matter (and if -you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to be -the ones affected). - - hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by -saving a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when -reading ‘finance/bank.csv’, it will look for and update the -‘finance/.latest.bank.csv’ state file. The format is simple: one or -more lines containing the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I -have processed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on -that date." Normally you won’t see or manipulate these state files -yourself. But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making -all transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a -certain date. - - Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by -‘print --new’, but this is less often used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Import testing, Next: Importing balance assignments, Prev: Deduplication, Up: import - -24.18.2 Import testing ----------------------- - -With ‘--dry-run’, the transactions that will be imported are printed to -the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output -is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse it. -Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not -categorised: - -$ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown - - or (live updating): - -$ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' - - Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it’s currently -possible for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the -actual import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving -them out of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To -prevent this, do a –dry-run first and fix any problems before the real -import. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Importing balance assignments, Next: Commodity display styles, Prev: Import testing, Up: import - -24.18.3 Importing balance assignments -------------------------------------- - -Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit -(like ‘hledger print -x’). This means that any balance assignments in -imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don’t get to see -the main file’s account balances. As a result, importing entries with -balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances -and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting -amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: - -$ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE - - (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, -please test it and send a pull request.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display styles, Prev: Importing balance assignments, Up: import - -24.18.4 Commodity display styles --------------------------------- - -Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity -styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: incomestatement, Next: notes, Prev: import, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.19 incomestatement -===================== - -(is) - - This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and -expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal -positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Revenue’ or ‘Expense’ -type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows -top-level accounts named ‘revenue’ or ‘income’ or ‘expense’ (case -insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger incomestatement -Income Statement - -Revenues: - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary --------------------- - $-2 - -Expenses: - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies --------------------- - $2 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses’, but -with smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their -sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: notes, Next: payees, Prev: incomestatement, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.20 notes -=========== - -List the unique notes that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in -alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of -transactions. The note is the part of the transaction description after -a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - Example: - -$ hledger notes -Petrol -Snacks - - -File: hledger.info, Node: payees, Next: prices, Prev: notes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.21 payees -============ - -List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. - - This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared -with payee directives (–declared), used in transaction descriptions -(–used), or both (the default). - - The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | -character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This -implies –used. - - Example: - -$ hledger payees -Store Name -Gas Station -Person A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: prices, Next: print, Prev: payees, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.22 prices -============ - -Print market price directives from the journal. With -–infer-market-prices, generate additional market prices from costs. -With –infer-reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting -known prices. Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are -displayed with their full precision. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: print, Next: register, Prev: prices, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.23 print -=========== - -Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. - - The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from -the journal file, sorted by date (or with ‘--date2’, by secondary date). - - Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg -the placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their -decimal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one -alteration: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) - - Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not -across all transactions). - - Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. -This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it -to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the -directives and file-level comments. - - Eg: - -$ hledger print -2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - -2008/06/01 gift - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts $-1 - -2008/06/02 save - assets:bank:saving $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - -2008/06/03 * eat & shop - expenses:food $1 - expenses:supplies $1 - assets:cash $-2 - -2008/12/31 * pay off - liabilities:debts $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - print’s output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can -process it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for -certain kinds of search, eg: - -# Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. -# -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. -$ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food - - There are some situations where print’s output can become -unparseable: - - • Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or - balance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. - • Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. - • Account aliases can generate bad account names. - - Normally, the journal entry’s explicit or implicit amount style is -preserved. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it -will not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but -not written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the -‘-x’/‘--explicit’ flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can -be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable -and robust against data entry errors. ‘-x’ is also implied by using any -of ‘-B’,‘-V’,‘-X’,‘--value’. - - Note, ‘-x’/‘--explicit’ will cause postings with a multi-commodity -amount (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an -implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, -keeping the output parseable. - - With ‘-B’/‘--cost’, amounts with costs are converted to cost using -that price. This can be used for troubleshooting. - - With ‘-m DESC’/‘--match=DESC’, print does a fuzzy search for one -recent transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC -should contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough -match, no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be -non-zero. - - With ‘--new’, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a -previous run. This uses the same deduplication system as the ‘import’ -command. (See import’s docs for details.) - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and -(experimental) ‘json’ and ‘sql’. - - Here’s an example of print’s CSV output: - -$ hledger print -Ocsv -"txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" -"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" -"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" -"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" -"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" -"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" -"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" -"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" -"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - - • There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction’s - fields repeated. - • The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong - to the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions - are reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a - different order, etc.) - • The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" - (numeric quantity) fields. - • The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" - column, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the - accounting sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and - zero or greater amounts under debit.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: register, Next: rewrite, Prev: print, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.24 register -============== - -(reg) - - Show postings and their running total. - - The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, -in date order, with their running total or running historical balance. -(See also the ‘aregister’ command, which shows matched transactions in a -specific account.) - - register normally shows line per posting, but note that -multi-commodity amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per -commodity). - - It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to -see that account’s activity: - -$ hledger register checking -2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 -2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 -2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 -2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - With ‘--date2’, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first -1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause -visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to -ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the -‘--align-all’ flag. - - The ‘--historical’/‘-H’ flag adds the balance from any undisplayed -prior postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to -see only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: - -$ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical -2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 -2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 -2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - The ‘--depth’ option limits the amount of sub-account detail -displayed. - - The ‘--average’/‘-A’ flag shows the running average posting amount -instead of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the -average for the whole report period). This flag implies ‘--empty’ (see -below). It is affected by ‘--historical’. It works best when showing -just one account and one commodity. - - The ‘--related’/‘-r’ flag shows the _other_ postings in the -transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - The ‘--invert’ flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used -on an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative -numbers. It’s also useful to show postings on the checking account -together with the related account: - -$ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking - - With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per -interval, aggregating the postings to each account: - -$ hledger register --monthly income -2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 -2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - - Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, -are not shown by default; use the ‘--empty’/‘-E’ flag to see them: - -$ hledger register --monthly income -E -2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 -2008/02 0 $-1 -2008/03 0 $-1 -2008/04 0 $-1 -2008/05 0 $-1 -2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 -2008/07 0 $-2 -2008/08 0 $-2 -2008/09 0 $-2 -2008/10 0 $-2 -2008/11 0 $-2 -2008/12 0 $-2 - - Often, you’ll want to see just one line per interval. The ‘--depth’ -option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: - -$ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h -2008/01 assets $1 $1 -2008/06 assets $-1 0 -2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 - - Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates -these will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of -intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full -length and comparable to the others in the report. - - With ‘-m DESC’/‘--match=DESC’, register does a fuzzy search for one -recent posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should -contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, -no posting will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. - -* Menu: - -* Custom register output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Custom register output, Up: register - -24.24.1 Custom register output ------------------------------- - -register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. -You can override this by setting the ‘COLUMNS’ environment variable (not -a bash shell variable) or by using the ‘--width’/‘-w’ option. - - The description and account columns normally share the space equally -(about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a -description width as part of –width’s argument, comma-separated: -‘--width W,D’ . Here’s a diagram (won’t display correctly in –help): - -<--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> -date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) -DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA - - and some examples: - -$ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) -$ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 -$ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable -$ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) -$ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 -$ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite, Next: roi, Prev: register, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.25 rewrite -============= - -Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. -For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print -–auto. - - This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It -reads the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but -adds one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. -The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing -transaction’s first posting amount. - - Examples: - -$ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' -$ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' -$ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger - - rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: - -= ^income amt:<0 date:2017 - (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income - (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - - Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the -two spaces between account and amount. - - More: - -$ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... -$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' -$ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' -$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' - - Argument for ‘--add-posting’ option is a usual posting of transaction -with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can use -‘'*'’ (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a -factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount -includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new -commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount’s -commodity. - -* Menu: - -* Re-write rules in a file:: -* Diff output format:: -* rewrite vs print --auto:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Re-write rules in a file, Next: Diff output format, Up: rewrite - -24.25.1 Re-write rules in a file --------------------------------- - -During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transactions" -found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this -operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. - -$ rewrite-rules.journal - - Make contents look like this: - -= ^income - (liabilities:tax) *.33 - -= expenses:gifts - budget:gifts *-1 - assets:budget *1 - - Note that ‘'='’ (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in -transactions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you -want to match the posting to add new ones. - -$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - This is something similar to the commands pipeline: - -$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ - | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ - --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ - > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in -journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added -postings. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Diff output format, Next: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Re-write rules in a file, Up: rewrite - -24.25.2 Diff output format --------------------------- - -To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may -find useful output in form of unified diff. - -$ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - - Output might look like: - ---- /tmp/examples/sample.journal -+++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal -@@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ - 2008/01/01 income -- assets:bank:checking $1 -+ assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary -+ (liabilities:tax) 0 -@@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ - 2008/06/01 gift -- assets:bank:checking $1 -+ assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts -+ (liabilities:tax) 0 - - If you’ll pass this through ‘patch’ tool you’ll get transactions -containing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that -multiple files might be update according to list of input files -specified via ‘--file’ options and ‘include’ directives inside of these -files. - - Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of -output from ‘hledger print’. - - See also: - - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Diff output format, Up: rewrite - -24.25.3 rewrite vs. print –auto -------------------------------- - -This command predates print –auto, and currently does much the same -thing, but with these differences: - - • with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all - other files. print –auto uses standard directive scoping; rules - affect only child files. - - • rewrite’s query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are - printed. print –auto’s query limits which transactions are - printed. - - • rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. - print –auto applies rules specified in the journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: roi, Next: stats, Prev: rewrite, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.26 roi -========= - -Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on -your investments. - - At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an -account name) to select your investment(s) with ‘--inv’, and another -query to identify your profit and loss transactions with ‘--pnl’. - - If you do not record changes in the value of your investment -manually, or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), -‘--pnl’ could be an empty query (‘--pnl ""’ or ‘--pnl STR’ where ‘STR’ -does not match any of your accounts). - - This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return -(IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for -the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before -display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. - - Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate -‘--cost’ or ‘--value’ flags (see VALUATION). - - Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: - - • Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return - (IRR). Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of - investment becomes negative at some point in time. - • Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of - Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or - converges too slowly. - - Examples: - - • Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/investing/roi-unrealised.ledger - - • Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html - -* Menu: - -* Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl:: -* Semantics of --inv and --pnl:: -* IRR and TWR explained:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Next: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.1 Spaces and special characters in ‘--inv’ and ----------------------------------------------------- - -‘--pnl’ Note that ‘--inv’ and ‘--pnl’’s argument is a query, and queries -could have several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). - - To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, -you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): - -$ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' - - If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra -level of nested quoting, eg: - -$ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Next: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.2 Semantics of ‘--inv’ and ‘--pnl’ ----------------------------------------- - -Query supplied to ‘--inv’ has to match all transactions that are related -to your investment. Transactions not matching ‘--inv’ will be ignored. - - In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match ‘--inv’ -to be "investment postings" and other postings (not matching ‘--inv’) -will be sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", -as ROI needs to know which part of the investment value is your -contributions and which is due to the return on investment. - - • "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling - assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity - and any other commodity. Example: - - 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil - assets:cash -$100 - investment:snake oil - - 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil - assets:cash $10 - investment:snake oil = 0 - - • "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: - - 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value - investment:snake oil = $57 - equity:unrealized profit or loss - - All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless -they match ‘--pnl’ query. Changes in value of your investment due to -"profit and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment -return. - - Example: if you use ‘--inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized’, then -postings in the example below would be classifed as: - -2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 - assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - investment:snake oil ; investment posting - -2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 - equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting - snake oil ; investment posting - -2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 - equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting - cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - snake oil $50 ; investment posting - - -File: hledger.info, Node: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.3 IRR and TWR explained ------------------------------ - -"ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was -computed as a difference between current value of investment and its -initial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. - - However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where -investments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate -of growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need -different ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements -two of them: IRR and TWR. - - Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate -of return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. -Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains -would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percentage -of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your investment, -you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same rate of -return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each period between -in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a way that gives -you a compound annual rate of return that investment is expected to -generate. - - As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that -you personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are -the postings that match the query in the‘--inv’ argument and NOT match -the query in the‘--pnl’ argument. - - If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as -transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unrealized -gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to -compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate of -return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or -close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. - - In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net -present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present -value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This -could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven’t done -discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger -should produce results that match the ‘XIRR’ formula in Excel. - - Second way to compute rate of return that ‘roi’ command implements is -called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also -break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, -out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period -and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR -are quite different. - - TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where -in-flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment -and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change -in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of -your investment. - - References: - - • Explanation of rate of return - • Explanation of IRR - • Explanation of TWR - • Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations - of both metrics - - -File: hledger.info, Node: stats, Next: tags, Prev: roi, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.27 stats -=========== - -Show journal and performance statistics. - - The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, -or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report -for each report period. - - At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and -number of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate -and will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger -version, haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of -interest. The ‘stats’ command’s run time is similar to that of a -single-column balance report. - - Example: - -$ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal -Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal -Included files : -Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) -Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) -Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) -Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) -Payees/descriptions : 1000 -Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) -Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) -Market prices : 1000 (A) - -Run time : 0.12 s -Throughput : 8342 txns/s - - This command supports the -o/–output-file option (but not --O/–output-format selection). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: tags, Next: test, Prev: stats, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.28 tags -========== - -List the tags used in the journal, or their values. - - This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on -transactions, postings, or account declarations. - - With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular -expression (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. - - With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this -query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, -desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions -and their accounts. - - With the –values flag, the tags’ unique non-empty values are listed -instead. With -E/–empty, blank/empty values are also shown. - - With –parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, -with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are -always shown first.) - - Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, -postings also acquire tags from their account and transaction, -transactions also acquire tags from their postings. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: test, Prev: tags, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.29 test -========== - -Run built-in unit tests. - - This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, -printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will -be non-zero. - - This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to -sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All -tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report as -a bug! - - This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -– (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, -with ANSI colour codes disabled: - -$ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never - - For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options -(‘-- --help’ currently doesn’t show them). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: PART 4 COMMANDS, Up: Top - -25 PART 5: COMMON TASKS -*********************** - -Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. - -* Menu: - -* Getting help:: -* Constructing command lines:: -* Starting a journal file:: -* Setting opening balances:: -* Recording transactions:: -* Reconciling:: -* Reporting:: -* Migrating to a new file:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Getting help, Next: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.1 Getting help -================= - -Here’s how to list commands and view options and command docs: - -$ hledger # show available commands -$ hledger --help # show common options -$ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation - - You can also view your hledger version’s manual in several formats by -using the help command. Eg: - -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual -$ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command - - To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit -https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion archives -can be found at https://hledger.org/support. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Constructing command lines, Next: Starting a journal file, Prev: Getting help, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.2 Constructing command lines -=============================== - -hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it -simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges -described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: - - • command-specific options must go after the command (it’s fine to - put common options there too: ‘hledger CMD OPTS ARGS’) - • running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing - (‘hledger-ui OPTS ARGS’) - • enclose "problematic" args in single quotes - • if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression - metacharacters from the shell - • to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add - ‘--debug=2’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Starting a journal file, Next: Setting opening balances, Prev: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.3 Starting a journal file -============================ - -hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, -‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’ by default: - -$ hledger stats -The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. -Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. -Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. - - You can override this by setting the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment -variable. It’s a good practice to keep this important file under -version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could do -something like this: - -$ mkdir ~/finance -$ cd ~/finance -$ git init -Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ -$ touch 2020.journal -$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc -$ source ~/.bashrc -$ hledger stats -Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal -Included files : -Transactions span : to (0 days) -Last transaction : none -Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) -Payees/descriptions : 0 -Accounts : 0 (depth 0) -Commodities : 0 () -Market prices : 0 () - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting opening balances, Next: Recording transactions, Prev: Starting a journal file, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.4 Setting opening balances -============================= - -Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some -real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit -cards..). - - To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or -two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a -recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can -always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg -going back to january 1st. - - Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the -balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: - - • The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an - entry like this: - - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 - assets:cash $100 = $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances - - These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at - the end of the previous day. - - The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means - "cleared & confirmed". - - The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as - you’ll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. - - The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra - error checking. - - • The second way: run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts to record - a similar transaction: - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 - Description: * opening balances - Account 1: assets:bank:checking - Amount 1: $1000 - Account 2: assets:bank:savings - Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 - Account 3: assets:cash - Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 - Account 4: liabilities:creditcard - Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 - Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances - Amount 5 [$-3050]: - Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2020-01-01]: . - - If you’re using version control, this could be a good time to commit -the journal. Eg: - -$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Recording transactions, Next: Reconciling, Prev: Setting opening balances, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.5 Recording transactions -=========================== - -As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using -one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the -hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to -convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. - - Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual -and hledger.org for more ideas: - -2020/1/10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - -2020.1.12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - -2020-01-15 paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reconciling, Next: Reporting, Prev: Recording transactions, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.6 Reconciling -================ - -Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported -balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your -bank’s website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the -real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made -a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) -frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it -pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and -discrepancies. - - A typical workflow: - - 1. Reconcile cash. Count what’s in your wallet. Compare with what - hledger reports (‘hledger bal cash’). If they are different, try - to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the - already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful - (‘hledger reg cash’). If you can’t find the error, add an - adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and - can’t explain the missing $2, it could be: - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank’s website. Compare - today’s (cleared) balance with hledger’s cleared balance (‘hledger - bal checking -C’). If they are different, track down the error or - record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, - similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually - compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank - with the one reported by ‘hledger reg checking -C’. This will be - easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to - your bank’s clearing dates. - - 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. - - Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a -live-updating register while you edit the journal: ‘hledger-ui --watch ---register checking -C’ - - After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled -transactions’ status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track -that, by adding the ‘*’ marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, -insert ‘*’ between ‘2020-01-15’ and ‘paycheck’ - - If you’re using version control, this can be another good time to -commit: - -$ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reporting, Next: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reconciling, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.7 Reporting -============== - -Here are some basic reports. - - Show all transactions: - -$ hledger print -2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - -2020-01-10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - -2020-01-12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - -2020-01-15 * paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - -2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - Show account names, and their hierarchy: - -$ hledger accounts --tree -assets - bank - checking - savings - cash -equity - opening/closing balances -expenses - food - misc -income - gifts - salary -liabilities - creditcard - - Show all account totals: - -$ hledger balance - $4105 assets - $4000 bank - $2000 checking - $2000 savings - $105 cash - $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances - $15 expenses - $13 food - $2 misc - $-1020 income - $-20 gifts - $-1000 salary - $-50 liabilities:creditcard --------------------- - 0 - - Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to -depth 2: - -$ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 - $4000 assets:bank - $105 assets:cash - $-50 liabilities:creditcard --------------------- - $4055 - - Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple -balance sheet: - -$ hledger bs -2 -Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-16 -========================++============ - Assets || -------------------------++------------ - assets:bank || $4000 - assets:cash || $105 -------------------------++------------ - || $4105 -========================++============ - Liabilities || -------------------------++------------ - liabilities:creditcard || $50 -------------------------++------------ - || $50 -========================++============ - Net: || $4055 - - The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use ‘bse’ -for a full balance sheet with equity.) - - Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: - -hledger is -Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 -===============++======================= - Revenues || ----------------++----------------------- - income:gifts || $20 - income:salary || $1000 ----------------++----------------------- - || $1020 -===============++======================= - Expenses || ----------------++----------------------- - expenses:food || $13 - expenses:misc || $2 ----------------++----------------------- - || $15 -===============++======================= - Net: || $1005 - - The final total is your net income during this period. - - Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: - -$ hledger register cash -2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 -2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 -2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 -2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 - - Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: - -$ hledger activity -W -2019-12-30 ***** -2020-01-06 **** -2020-01-13 **** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reporting, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.8 Migrating to a new file -============================ - -At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new -file, so that old transactions don’t slow down or clutter your reports, -and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the -close command. - - If using version control, don’t forget to ‘git add’ the new file. - - -Tag Table: -Node: Top210 -Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE3946 -Ref: #part-1-user-interface4087 -Node: Options4087 -Ref: #options4206 -Node: General options4348 -Ref: #general-options4473 -Node: Command options8923 -Ref: #command-options9074 -Node: Command arguments9490 -Ref: #command-arguments9648 -Node: Special characters10550 -Ref: #special-characters10713 -Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters10876 -Ref: #single-escaping-shell-metacharacters11117 -Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters11752 -Ref: #double-escaping-regular-expression-metacharacters12063 -Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands12633 -Ref: #triple-escaping-for-add-on-commands12893 -Node: Less escaping13561 -Ref: #less-escaping13715 -Node: Unicode characters14053 -Ref: #unicode-characters14218 -Node: Regular expressions15650 -Ref: #regular-expressions15790 -Node: Environment17644 -Ref: #environment17755 -Node: Input19366 -Ref: #input19466 -Node: Data formats20029 -Ref: #data-formats20142 -Node: Multiple files21594 -Ref: #multiple-files21731 -Node: Strict mode22216 -Ref: #strict-mode22326 -Node: Commands23080 -Ref: #commands23181 -Node: Add-on commands23665 -Ref: #add-on-commands23767 -Node: Output24934 -Ref: #output25037 -Node: Output destination25153 -Ref: #output-destination25284 -Node: Output format25713 -Ref: #output-format25859 -Node: CSV output27431 -Ref: #csv-output27547 -Node: HTML output27652 -Ref: #html-output27790 -Node: JSON output27890 -Ref: #json-output28028 -Node: SQL output28960 -Ref: #sql-output29076 -Node: Commodity styles29599 -Ref: #commodity-styles29739 -Node: Colour30346 -Ref: #colour30464 -Node: Box-drawing30898 -Ref: #box-drawing31022 -Node: Debug output31336 -Ref: #debug-output31447 -Node: Limitations32122 -Ref: #limitations32242 -Node: Troubleshooting33017 -Ref: #troubleshooting33158 -Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS35680 -Ref: #part-2-data-formats35827 -Node: Journal35827 -Ref: #journal35938 -Node: Journal cheatsheet36581 -Ref: #journal-cheatsheet36722 -Node: About journal format40710 -Ref: #about-journal-format40872 -Node: Comments42410 -Ref: #comments42542 -Node: Transactions43396 -Ref: #transactions43521 -Node: Dates44555 -Ref: #dates44664 -Node: Simple dates44709 -Ref: #simple-dates44827 -Node: Posting dates45359 -Ref: #posting-dates45479 -Node: Status46462 -Ref: #status46565 -Node: Code48317 -Ref: #code48422 -Node: Description48654 -Ref: #description48787 -Node: Payee and note49109 -Ref: #payee-and-note49217 -Node: Transaction comments49564 -Ref: #transaction-comments49719 -Node: Postings50090 -Ref: #postings50225 -Node: Account names51234 -Ref: #account-names51366 -Node: Amounts53068 -Ref: #amounts53185 -Node: Decimal marks digit group marks54174 -Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks54351 -Node: Commodity55375 -Ref: #commodity55564 -Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display56546 -Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display56807 -Node: Commodity display style57269 -Ref: #commodity-display-style57477 -Node: Rounding59688 -Ref: #rounding59808 -Node: Costs60109 -Ref: #costs60227 -Node: Other cost/lot notations62258 -Ref: #other-costlot-notations62392 -Node: Balance assertions65145 -Ref: #balance-assertions65298 -Node: Assertions and ordering66391 -Ref: #assertions-and-ordering66582 -Node: Assertions and multiple included files67284 -Ref: #assertions-and-multiple-included-files67546 -Node: Assertions and multiple -f files68054 -Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-files68307 -Node: Assertions and commodities68716 -Ref: #assertions-and-commodities68940 -Node: Assertions and prices70130 -Ref: #assertions-and-prices70338 -Node: Assertions and subaccounts70769 -Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts70992 -Node: Assertions and virtual postings71334 -Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings71574 -Node: Assertions and auto postings71714 -Ref: #assertions-and-auto-postings71946 -Node: Assertions and precision72617 -Ref: #assertions-and-precision72801 -Node: Posting comments73068 -Ref: #posting-comments73216 -Node: Tags73601 -Ref: #tags73717 -Node: Tag values74922 -Ref: #tag-values75013 -Node: Directives75786 -Ref: #directives75915 -Node: Directive effects77783 -Ref: #directive-effects77939 -Node: Directives and multiple files81022 -Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files81202 -Node: account directive81912 -Ref: #account-directive82074 -Node: Account comments83494 -Ref: #account-comments83646 -Node: Account subdirectives84166 -Ref: #account-subdirectives84359 -Node: Account error checking84501 -Ref: #account-error-checking84701 -Node: Account display order85920 -Ref: #account-display-order86110 -Node: Account types87249 -Ref: #account-types87392 -Node: alias directive91127 -Ref: #alias-directive91294 -Node: Basic aliases92354 -Ref: #basic-aliases92487 -Node: Regex aliases93241 -Ref: #regex-aliases93400 -Node: Combining aliases94294 -Ref: #combining-aliases94474 -Node: Aliases and multiple files95768 -Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files95974 -Node: end aliases directive96559 -Ref: #end-aliases-directive96784 -Node: Aliases can generate bad account names96933 -Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names97183 -Node: Aliases and account types97780 -Ref: #aliases-and-account-types97974 -Node: commodity directive98676 -Ref: #commodity-directive98856 -Node: Commodity error checking101460 -Ref: #commodity-error-checking101608 -Node: decimal-mark directive102137 -Ref: #decimal-mark-directive102325 -Node: include directive102726 -Ref: #include-directive102896 -Node: P directive103844 -Ref: #p-directive103995 -Node: payee directive104894 -Ref: #payee-directive105049 -Node: tag directive105369 -Ref: #tag-directive105530 -Node: Periodic transactions106002 -Ref: #periodic-transactions106168 -Node: Periodic rule syntax107906 -Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax108086 -Node: Periodic rules and relative dates108741 -Ref: #periodic-rules-and-relative-dates109009 -Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!109548 -Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description109827 -Node: Other syntax110517 -Ref: #other-syntax110643 -Node: Auto postings111288 -Ref: #auto-postings111424 -Node: Auto postings and multiple files113935 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files114137 -Node: Auto postings and dates114354 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates114626 -Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions114801 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions115140 -Node: Auto posting tags115647 -Ref: #auto-posting-tags115860 -Node: Balance assignments116522 -Ref: #balance-assignments116702 -Node: Balance assignments and prices118036 -Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices118206 -Node: Bracketed posting dates118417 -Ref: #bracketed-posting-dates118603 -Node: D directive119147 -Ref: #d-directive119321 -Node: apply account directive120989 -Ref: #apply-account-directive121175 -Node: Y directive121874 -Ref: #y-directive122040 -Node: Secondary dates122884 -Ref: #secondary-dates123040 -Node: Star comments123872 -Ref: #star-comments124034 -Node: Valuation expressions124574 -Ref: #valuation-expressions124753 -Node: Virtual postings124875 -Ref: #virtual-postings125056 -Node: Other Ledger directives126628 -Ref: #other-ledger-directives126793 -Node: CSV127363 -Ref: #csv127456 -Node: CSV rules cheatsheet129559 -Ref: #csv-rules-cheatsheet129691 -Node: separator131459 -Ref: #separator131590 -Node: skip132168 -Ref: #skip132280 -Node: date-format132863 -Ref: #date-format132988 -Node: timezone133734 -Ref: #timezone133861 -Node: newest-first134894 -Ref: #newest-first135036 -Node: intra-day-reversed135620 -Ref: #intra-day-reversed135778 -Node: decimal-mark136275 -Ref: #decimal-mark136420 -Node: fields list136759 -Ref: #fields-list136900 -Node: Field assignment138623 -Ref: #field-assignment138767 -Node: Field names139816 -Ref: #field-names139947 -Node: date field141168 -Ref: #date-field141286 -Node: date2 field141338 -Ref: #date2-field141479 -Node: status field141541 -Ref: #status-field141684 -Node: code field141739 -Ref: #code-field141884 -Node: description field141935 -Ref: #description-field142095 -Node: comment field142160 -Ref: #comment-field142315 -Node: account field142628 -Ref: #account-field142778 -Node: amount field143374 -Ref: #amount-field143523 -Node: currency field145628 -Ref: #currency-field145781 -Node: balance field146050 -Ref: #balance-field146182 -Node: if block146570 -Ref: #if-block146695 -Node: Matchers148119 -Ref: #matchers148233 -Node: if table149763 -Ref: #if-table149889 -Node: balance-type151325 -Ref: #balance-type151458 -Node: include152166 -Ref: #include152297 -Node: Working with CSV152747 -Ref: #working-with-csv152894 -Node: Rapid feedback153265 -Ref: #rapid-feedback153398 -Node: Valid CSV153854 -Ref: #valid-csv154000 -Node: File Extension154754 -Ref: #file-extension154927 -Node: Reading CSV from standard input155517 -Ref: #reading-csv-from-standard-input155741 -Node: Reading multiple CSV files155907 -Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files156125 -Node: Valid transactions156374 -Ref: #valid-transactions156568 -Node: Deduplicating importing157196 -Ref: #deduplicating-importing157391 -Node: Setting amounts158437 -Ref: #setting-amounts158608 -Node: Amount signs161131 -Ref: #amount-signs161299 -Node: Setting currency/commodity162038 -Ref: #setting-currencycommodity162242 -Node: Amount decimal places163434 -Ref: #amount-decimal-places163640 -Node: Referencing other fields163958 -Ref: #referencing-other-fields164171 -Node: How CSV rules are evaluated165074 -Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated165291 -Node: Well factored rules166804 -Ref: #well-factored-rules166972 -Node: CSV rules examples167310 -Ref: #csv-rules-examples167445 -Node: Bank of Ireland167510 -Ref: #bank-of-ireland167647 -Node: Coinbase169115 -Ref: #coinbase169253 -Node: Amazon170306 -Ref: #amazon170431 -Node: Paypal172156 -Ref: #paypal172264 -Node: Timeclock179910 -Ref: #timeclock180015 -Node: Timedot182183 -Ref: #timedot182306 -Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS187157 -Ref: #part-3-reporting-concepts187321 -Node: Time periods187321 -Ref: #time-periods187455 -Node: Report start & end date187573 -Ref: #report-start-end-date187725 -Node: Smart dates189458 -Ref: #smart-dates189611 -Node: Report intervals191571 -Ref: #report-intervals191726 -Node: Date adjustment192178 -Ref: #date-adjustment192338 -Node: Period expressions193670 -Ref: #period-expressions193811 -Node: Period expressions with a report interval195647 -Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval195881 -Node: More complex report intervals196111 -Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals196356 -Node: Multiple weekday intervals198285 -Ref: #multiple-weekday-intervals198474 -Node: Depth199338 -Ref: #depth199440 -Node: Queries199760 -Ref: #queries199862 -Node: Query types200807 -Ref: #query-types200928 -Node: Combining query terms204268 -Ref: #combining-query-terms204445 -Node: Queries and command options205543 -Ref: #queries-and-command-options205742 -Node: Queries and valuation206007 -Ref: #queries-and-valuation206202 -Node: Querying with account aliases206441 -Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases206652 -Node: Querying with cost or value206794 -Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value206971 -Node: Pivoting207280 -Ref: #pivoting207394 -Node: Generating data208882 -Ref: #generating-data209014 -Node: Forecasting209512 -Ref: #forecasting209637 -Node: Budgeting212524 -Ref: #budgeting212644 -Node: Cost reporting212915 -Ref: #cost-reporting213043 -Node: -B Convert to cost214158 -Ref: #b-convert-to-cost214314 -Node: Equity conversion postings215722 -Ref: #equity-conversion-postings215936 -Node: Inferring equity postings from cost216831 -Ref: #inferring-equity-postings-from-cost217080 -Node: Inferring cost from equity postings217899 -Ref: #inferring-cost-from-equity-postings218147 -Node: When to infer cost/equity219956 -Ref: #when-to-infer-costequity220174 -Node: How to record conversions220582 -Ref: #how-to-record-conversions220774 -Node: Conversion with implicit cost221065 -Ref: #conversion-with-implicit-cost221270 -Node: Conversion with explicit cost222175 -Ref: #conversion-with-explicit-cost222420 -Node: Conversion with equity postings222847 -Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings223116 -Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost223953 -Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings-and-explicit-cost224220 -Node: Cost tips224694 -Ref: #cost-tips224820 -Node: Valuation225556 -Ref: #valuation225680 -Node: -V Value226466 -Ref: #v-value226592 -Node: -X Value in specified commodity226791 -Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity226986 -Node: Valuation date227143 -Ref: #valuation-date227314 -Node: Finding market price227753 -Ref: #finding-market-price227958 -Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions229138 -Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions229416 -Node: Valuation commodity232262 -Ref: #valuation-commodity232475 -Node: Simple valuation examples233720 -Ref: #simple-valuation-examples233918 -Node: --value Flexible valuation234581 -Ref: #value-flexible-valuation234787 -Node: More valuation examples236473 -Ref: #more-valuation-examples236682 -Node: Interaction of valuation and queries238693 -Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries238934 -Node: Effect of valuation on reports239414 -Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports239611 -Node: PART 4 COMMANDS247370 -Ref: #part-4-commands247513 -Node: Commands overview247883 -Ref: #commands-overview248017 -Node: DATA ENTRY248196 -Ref: #data-entry248320 -Node: DATA CREATION248523 -Ref: #data-creation248677 -Node: DATA MANAGEMENT248801 -Ref: #data-management248966 -Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL249091 -Ref: #reports-financial249266 -Node: REPORTS VERSATILE249581 -Ref: #reports-versatile249754 -Node: REPORTS BASIC250015 -Ref: #reports-basic250167 -Node: HELP250700 -Ref: #help250822 -Node: ADD-ONS250881 -Ref: #add-ons250987 -Node: accounts251584 -Ref: #accounts251717 -Node: activity253692 -Ref: #activity253811 -Node: add254185 -Ref: #add254295 -Node: aregister257156 -Ref: #aregister257277 -Node: aregister and custom posting dates260253 -Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates260419 -Node: balance260987 -Ref: #balance261113 -Node: balance features262118 -Ref: #balance-features262258 -Node: Simple balance report264388 -Ref: #simple-balance-report264573 -Node: Balance report line format266218 -Ref: #balance-report-line-format266420 -Node: Filtered balance report268670 -Ref: #filtered-balance-report268862 -Node: List or tree mode269189 -Ref: #list-or-tree-mode269357 -Node: Depth limiting270732 -Ref: #depth-limiting270898 -Node: Dropping top-level accounts271515 -Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts271715 -Node: Showing declared accounts272029 -Ref: #showing-declared-accounts272228 -Node: Sorting by amount272769 -Ref: #sorting-by-amount272936 -Node: Percentages273626 -Ref: #percentages273785 -Node: Multi-period balance report274355 -Ref: #multi-period-balance-report274555 -Node: Balance change end balance276948 -Ref: #balance-change-end-balance277157 -Node: Balance report types278605 -Ref: #balance-report-types278786 -Node: Calculation type279302 -Ref: #calculation-type279457 -Node: Accumulation type279988 -Ref: #accumulation-type280168 -Node: Valuation type281096 -Ref: #valuation-type281284 -Node: Combining balance report types282351 -Ref: #combining-balance-report-types282545 -Node: Budget report284449 -Ref: #budget-report284601 -Node: Budget report start date290335 -Ref: #budget-report-start-date290513 -Node: Budgets and subaccounts291875 -Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts292082 -Node: Selecting budget goals295568 -Ref: #selecting-budget-goals295767 -Node: Budget vs forecast296814 -Ref: #budget-vs-forecast296973 -Node: Data layout298673 -Ref: #data-layout298823 -Node: Useful balance reports306764 -Ref: #useful-balance-reports306914 -Node: balancesheet308067 -Ref: #balancesheet308212 -Node: balancesheetequity309578 -Ref: #balancesheetequity309736 -Node: cashflow311179 -Ref: #cashflow311310 -Node: check312796 -Ref: #check312910 -Node: Basic checks313716 -Ref: #basic-checks313836 -Node: Strict checks314374 -Ref: #strict-checks314517 -Node: Other checks314958 -Ref: #other-checks315100 -Node: Custom checks315677 -Ref: #custom-checks315834 -Node: More about specific checks316255 -Ref: #more-about-specific-checks316417 -Node: close317149 -Ref: #close317260 -Node: close and costs319898 -Ref: #close-and-costs320042 -Node: close and balance assertions320331 -Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions320533 -Node: Example retain earnings321704 -Ref: #example-retain-earnings321921 -Node: Example migrate balances to a new file322279 -Ref: #example-migrate-balances-to-a-new-file322544 -Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions323097 -Ref: #example-excluding-closingopening-transactions323346 -Node: codes324524 -Ref: #codes324641 -Node: commodities325517 -Ref: #commodities325653 -Node: descriptions325723 -Ref: #descriptions325860 -Node: diff326151 -Ref: #diff326266 -Node: files327312 -Ref: #files327421 -Node: help327562 -Ref: #help-1327671 -Node: import328661 -Ref: #import328784 -Node: Deduplication329892 -Ref: #deduplication330017 -Node: Import testing331939 -Ref: #import-testing332104 -Node: Importing balance assignments332955 -Ref: #importing-balance-assignments333161 -Node: Commodity display styles333818 -Ref: #commodity-display-styles333991 -Node: incomestatement334120 -Ref: #incomestatement334262 -Node: notes335629 -Ref: #notes335751 -Node: payees336113 -Ref: #payees336228 -Node: prices336753 -Ref: #prices336868 -Node: print337170 -Ref: #print337285 -Node: register342731 -Ref: #register342853 -Node: Custom register output347962 -Ref: #custom-register-output348093 -Node: rewrite349468 -Ref: #rewrite349586 -Node: Re-write rules in a file351498 -Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file351661 -Node: Diff output format352814 -Ref: #diff-output-format352997 -Node: rewrite vs print --auto354109 -Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto354271 -Node: roi354845 -Ref: #roi354952 -Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl356713 -Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl356961 -Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl357459 -Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl357706 -Node: IRR and TWR explained359584 -Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained359744 -Node: stats362856 -Ref: #stats362964 -Node: tags364361 -Ref: #tags-1364468 -Node: test365485 -Ref: #test365578 -Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS366328 -Ref: #part-5-common-tasks366461 -Node: Getting help366735 -Ref: #getting-help366876 -Node: Constructing command lines367640 -Ref: #constructing-command-lines367841 -Node: Starting a journal file368522 -Ref: #starting-a-journal-file368729 -Node: Setting opening balances369927 -Ref: #setting-opening-balances370132 -Node: Recording transactions373285 -Ref: #recording-transactions373474 -Node: Reconciling374030 -Ref: #reconciling374182 -Node: Reporting376495 -Ref: #reporting376644 -Node: Migrating to a new file380633 -Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file380790 +This is hledger.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.3 from stdin. + +INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications +START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY +* hledger: (hledger). Command-line plain text accounting tool. +END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Top, Next: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: (dir) + +hledger(1) +********** + +hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version) + + 'hledger' +'hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTS] [ARGS]' +'hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTS] [ARGS]' + + hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs +for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry +accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by +and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with +beancount(1). + + This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.2. +It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by +all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some +bookkeeping/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in +here to use hledger productively, but when you have a question about +functionality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip +ahead or skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an +info manual or man page on your system. You can also get it from +hledger itself with +'hledger --man', 'hledger --info' or 'hledger help [TOPIC]'. + + The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files +describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a +useful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). +Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect +other 'hledger-*' executables as extra subcommands. + + hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, +timedot, or CSV format. The default file is '.hledger.journal' in your +home directory; this can be overridden with one or more '-f FILE' +options, or the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable. hledger CLI can +also read from stdin with '-f-'; more on that below. + + Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one +transaction: + +2015-10-16 bought food + expenses:food $10 + assets:cash + + Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more +_accounts_: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, +people, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using ':' to +indicate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account +name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (_debit_), +negatives are outflow from it (_credit_). (Some reports show revenue, +liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; +this is normal.) + + hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can +install other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more +extensive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM ++ vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see +https://hledger.org/editors.html). + + To get started, run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts, or save +some entries like the above in '$HOME/.hledger.journal', then try +commands like: +'hledger print -x' +'hledger aregister assets' +'hledger balance' +'hledger balancesheet' +'hledger incomestatement'. +Run 'hledger' to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal +file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. + +* Menu: + +* PART 1 USER INTERFACE:: +* Options:: +* Environment:: +* Input:: +* Commands:: +* Output:: +* Limitations:: +* Troubleshooting:: +* PART 2 DATA FORMATS:: +* Journal:: +* CSV:: +* Timeclock:: +* Timedot:: +* PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS:: +* Time periods:: +* Depth:: +* Queries:: +* Pivoting:: +* Generating data:: +* Forecasting:: +* Budgeting:: +* Cost reporting:: +* Valuation:: +* PART 4 COMMANDS:: +* PART 5 COMMON TASKS:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Next: Options, Prev: Top, Up: Top + +1 PART 1: USER INTERFACE +************************ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Options, Next: Environment, Prev: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: Top + +2 Options +********* + +* Menu: + +* General options:: +* Command options:: +* Command arguments:: +* Special characters:: +* Unicode characters:: +* Regular expressions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: General options, Next: Command options, Up: Options + +2.1 General options +=================== + +To see general usage help, including general options which are supported +by most hledger commands, run 'hledger -h'. + + General help options: + +'-h --help' + + show general or COMMAND help +'--man' + + show general or COMMAND user manual with man +'--info' + + show general or COMMAND user manual with info +'--version' + + show general or ADDONCMD version +'--debug[=N]' + + show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) + + General input options: + +'-f FILE --file=FILE' + + use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: + '$LEDGER_FILE' or '$HOME/.hledger.journal') +'--rules-file=RULESFILE' + + Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) +'--separator=CHAR' + + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') +'--alias=OLD=NEW' + + rename accounts named OLD to NEW +'--anon' + + anonymize accounts and payees +'--pivot FIELDNAME' + + use some other field or tag for the account name +'-I --ignore-assertions' + + disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance + assignments) +'-s --strict' + + do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are + declared) + + General reporting options: + +'-b --begin=DATE' + + include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to + preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) +'-e --end=DATE' + + include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to + following subperiod end when using a report interval) +'-D --daily' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by day +'-W --weekly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by week +'-M --monthly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by month +'-Q --quarterly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter +'-Y --yearly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by year +'-p --period=PERIODEXP' + + set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once + using period expressions syntax +'--date2' + + match the secondary date instead (see command help for other + effects) +'--today=DATE' + + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for + tests/examples) +'-U --unmarked' + + include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) +'-P --pending' + + include only pending postings/txns +'-C --cleared' + + include only cleared postings/txns +'-R --real' + + include only non-virtual postings +'-NUM --depth=NUM' + + hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep +'-E --empty' + + show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in + hledger-ui/hledger-web) +'-B --cost' + + convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time +'-V --market' + + convert amounts to their market value in default valuation + commodities +'-X --exchange=COMM' + + convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM +'--value' + + convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than + -B/-V/-X +'--infer-market-prices' + + use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market + prices, as if they were P directives +'--auto' + + apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. +'--forecast' + + generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for + the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also + make ordinary future transactions visible. +'--commodity-style' + + Override the commodity style in the output for the specified + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. +'--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)' + + Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a + color-supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg + when piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A + NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. +'--pretty[=WHEN]' + + Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. + Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', 'never' + also work). If you provide an argument you must use '=', e.g. + '-pretty=yes'. + + When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, +the last one takes precedence. + + Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Command options, Next: Command arguments, Prev: General options, Up: Options + +2.2 Command options +=================== + +To see options for a particular command, including command-specific +options, run: 'hledger COMMAND -h'. + + Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: +'hledger print -x'. + + Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its +options after a double-hyphen, eg: 'hledger ui -- --watch'. Or, you can +run the add-on executable directly: 'hledger-ui --watch'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Command arguments, Next: Special characters, Prev: Command options, Up: Options + +2.3 Command arguments +===================== + +Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are +often a query, filtering the data in some way. + + You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and +then reuse them by writing '@FILENAME' as a command line argument. Eg: +'hledger bal @foo.args'. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument +that begins with a literal '@', precede it with '--', eg: 'hledger bal +-- @ARG'). + + Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or +argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see +a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or +nothing). Bad: + +assets depth:2 +-X USD + + Good: + +assets +depth:2 +-X=USD + + For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting +than you would at the command prompt. Bad: + +-X"$" + + Good: + +-X$ + + See also: Save frequently used options. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Special characters, Next: Unicode characters, Prev: Command arguments, Up: Options + +2.4 Special characters +====================== + +* Menu: + +* Single escaping shell metacharacters:: +* Double escaping regular expression metacharacters:: +* Triple escaping for add-on commands:: +* Less escaping:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Next: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.1 Single escaping (shell metacharacters) +-------------------------------------------- + +In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as +spaces, '<', '>', '(', ')', '|', '$' and '\' - should be "shell-escaped" +if you want hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in +single or double quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to +match an account name containing a space: + +$ hledger register 'credit card' + + or: + +$ hledger register credit\ card + + Windows users should keep in mind that 'cmd' treats single quote as a +regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. +PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Next: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Prev: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.2 Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) +--------------------------------------------------------- + +Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such +as '.', '^', '$', '[', ']', '(', ')', '|', and '\' - may need to be +"regex-escaped" if you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's +regular expression engine. This is done by writing backslashes before +them, but since backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both +shell-escaping and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal +'$' sign while using the bash shell: + +$ hledger balance cur:'\$' + + or: + +$ hledger balance cur:\\$ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Next: Less escaping, Prev: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.3 Triple escaping (for add-on commands) +------------------------------------------- + +When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described +below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or +arguments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra +level of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal '$' sign while using the +bash shell and running an add-on command ('ui'): + +$ hledger ui cur:'\\$' + + or: + +$ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ + + If you wondered why _four_ backslashes, perhaps this helps: + +unescaped: '$' +escaped: '\$' +double-escaped: '\\$' +triple-escaped: '\\\\$' + + Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable +directly: + +$ hledger-ui cur:\\$ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Less escaping, Prev: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Up: Special characters + +2.4.4 Less escaping +------------------- + +Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell +command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should +use one less level of escaping. Those places include: + + * an @argumentfile + * hledger-ui's filter field + * hledger-web's search form + * GHCI's prompt (used by developers). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Unicode characters, Next: Regular expressions, Prev: Special characters, Up: Options + +2.5 Unicode characters +====================== + +hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: + + * they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command + line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's + search/add/edit forms, etc.) + + * they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and + on-screen alignment should be preserved. + + This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: + + * A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can + decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale + like this: 'export LANG=en_US.UTF-8'. There are some more details + in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger + will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all + GHC-compiled programs). + + * your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) + must support unicode + + * the terminal must be using a font which includes the required + unicode glyphs + + * the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as + double width (for report alignment) + + * on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same + kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the + standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download + page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys + terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Regular expressions, Prev: Unicode characters, Up: Options + +2.6 Regular expressions +======================= + +hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: + + * query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search + form: 'REGEX', 'desc:REGEX', 'cur:REGEX', 'tag:...=REGEX' + * CSV rules conditional blocks: 'if REGEX ...' + * account alias directive and '--alias' option: 'alias /REGEX/ = + REPLACEMENT', '--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' + + hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If +they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what +they support: + + 1. they are case insensitive + 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing + being matched) + 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) + 4. they also support GNU word boundaries ('\b', '\B', '\<', '\>') + 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write '\1', it will + match the digit '1'. Except when doing text replacement, eg in + account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the + replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search + regexp. + 6. they do not support mode modifiers ('(?s)'), character classes + ('\w', '\d'), or anything else not mentioned above. + + Some things to note: + + * In the 'alias' directive and '--alias' option, regular expressions + must be enclosed in forward slashes ('/REGEX/'). Elsewhere in + hledger, these are not required. + + * In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like '$' as + a literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts + with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write 'cur:\$'. + + * On the command line, some metacharacters like '$' have a special + meaning to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. + See Special characters. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Environment, Next: Input, Prev: Options, Up: Top + +3 Environment +************* + +*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with '-f'. + + On unix computers, the default value is: '~/.hledger.journal'. + + A more typical value is something like '~/finance/YYYY.journal', +where '~/finance' is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is +the current year. Or, '~/finance/current.journal', where +current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. + + The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of +your shell's startup files (eg '~/.profile'): + +export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` + + On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set +environment variables, that will also affect applications started from +the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In +'~/.MacOSX/environment.plist', add an entry like: + +{ + "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" +} + + For this to take effect you might need to 'killall Dock', or reboot. + + On Windows computers, the default value is probably +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'. You can change this by running a +command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be +an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): + +> setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" + + Or, change it in settings: see +https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html. + + *COLUMNS* The screen width used by the register command. Default: +the full terminal width. + + *NO_COLOR* If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not +use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the +-color/-colour option. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Input, Next: Commands, Prev: Environment, Up: Top + +4 Input +******* + +hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default +data file is '$HOME/.hledger.journal' (or on Windows, something like +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'). + + You can override this with the '$LEDGER_FILE' environment variable: + +$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal +$ hledger stats + + or with one or more '-f/--file' options: + +$ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats + + The file name '-' means standard input: + +$ cat some.journal | hledger -f- + +* Menu: + +* Data formats:: +* Multiple files:: +* Strict mode:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Data formats, Next: Multiple files, Up: Input + +4.1 Data formats +================ + +Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in +any of the supported file formats, which currently are: + +Reader: Reads: Used for file + extensions: +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +'journal'hledger journal files and some Ledger '.journal' '.j' + journals, for transactions '.hledger' '.ledger' +'timeclock'timeclock files, for precise time '.timeclock' + logging +'timedot'timedot files, for approximate time '.timedot' + logging +'csv' comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated '.csv' '.ssv' '.tsv' + values, for data import + + These formats are described in more detail below. + + hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions +shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes +'journal' format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a +recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show +relevant error messages. + + You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file +path with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv +format: + +$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats + + Or to read stdin ('-') as timeclock format: + +$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple files, Next: Strict mode, Prev: Data formats, Up: Input + +4.2 Multiple files +================== + +You can specify multiple '-f' options, to read multiple files as one big +journal. There are some limitations with this: + + * most directives do not affect sibling files + * balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous + files + + If you need either of those things, you can + + * use a single parent file which includes the others + * or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: 'cat + a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Strict mode, Prev: Multiple files, Up: Input + +4.3 Strict mode +=============== + +hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most +important errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files +without a lot of declarations: + + * Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? + * Are all transactions balanced ? + * Do all balance assertions pass ? + + With the '-s'/'--strict' flag, additional checks are performed: + + * Are all accounts posted to, declared with an 'account' directive ? + (Account error checking) + * Are all commodities declared with a 'commodity' directive ? + (Commodity error checking) + * Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? + + You can use the check command to run individual checks - the ones +listed above and some more. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commands, Next: Output, Prev: Input, Up: Top + +5 Commands +********** + +hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). +Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. +A few assist with data entry and management. + + Run 'hledger' with no arguments to list the commands available, and +'hledger CMD' to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or +its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous +prefix of the name. Eg: 'hledger bal'. + +* Menu: + +* Add-on commands:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Add-on commands, Up: Commands + +5.1 Add-on commands +=================== + +Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts in +your PATH + + * whose name starts with 'hledger-' + * whose name ends with a recognised file extension: + '.bat','.com','.exe', '.hs','.lhs','.pl','.py','.rb','.rkt','.sh' + or none + * and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. + + Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or +programs have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for +command-line options, parsing and reporting. + + Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. +See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. + + Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a +double dash ('--') preceding them. Eg you must write: + +$ hledger web -- --serve + + and not: + +$ hledger web --serve + + (because the '--serve' flag belongs to 'hledger-web', not 'hledger'). + + The '-h/--help' and '--version' flags don't require '--'. + + If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the +add-on program directly, eg: + +$ hledger-web --serve + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output, Next: Limitations, Prev: Commands, Up: Top + +6 Output +******** + +* Menu: + +* Output destination:: +* Output format:: +* Commodity styles:: +* Colour:: +* Box-drawing:: +* Paging:: +* Debug output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output destination, Next: Output format, Up: Output + +6.1 Output destination +====================== + +hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can +of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: + +$ hledger print > foo.txt + + Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also +provide the '-o/--output-file' option, which does the same thing without +needing the shell. Eg: + +$ hledger print -o foo.txt +$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output format, Next: Commodity styles, Prev: Output destination, Up: Output + +6.2 Output format +================= + +Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the +terminal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: + +- txt csv html json sql +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- +aregister Y Y Y Y +balance Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1,2_ Y +balancesheet Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +balancesheetequity Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +cashflow Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +incomestatement Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +print Y Y Y Y +register Y Y Y + + * _1 Also affected by the balance commands' '--layout' option._ + * _2 'balance' does not support html output without a report interval + or with '--budget'._ + + The output format is selected by the '-O/--output-format=FMT' option: + +$ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout + + or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the +'-o/--output-file=FILE.FMT' option: + +$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv + + The '-O' option can be combined with '-o' to override the file +extension, if needed: + +$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt + + Some notes about the various output formats: + +* Menu: + +* CSV output:: +* HTML output:: +* JSON output:: +* SQL output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV output, Next: HTML output, Up: Output format + +6.2.1 CSV output +---------------- + + * In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are + disabled automatically. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: HTML output, Next: JSON output, Prev: CSV output, Up: Output format + +6.2.2 HTML output +----------------- + + * HTML output can be styled by an optional 'hledger.css' file in the + same directory. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: JSON output, Next: SQL output, Prev: HTML output, Up: Output format + +6.2.3 JSON output +----------------- + + * This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + * Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful + representation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the + JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. + + * hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 + significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can + arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction + prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show + quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We + don't limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under + your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in + practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: SQL output, Prev: JSON output, Up: Output format + +6.2.4 SQL output +---------------- + + * This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + * SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and + Postgres. + + * For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated 'id' + field to be a PRIMARY KEY. Eg: + + $ hledger print -O sql | sed 's/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g' | ... + + * SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will + be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables + created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to + either clear tables of existing data (via 'delete' or 'truncate' + SQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your + postings will be duped. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity styles, Next: Colour, Prev: Output format, Up: Output + +6.3 Commodity styles +==================== + +When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for +each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. + + If needed, this can be overridden by a '-c/--commodity-style' option +(except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the 'print' command, +which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the +following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: + +$ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' + + This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple +commodities/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity +directive. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Colour, Next: Box-drawing, Prev: Commodity styles, Up: Output + +6.4 Colour +========== + +In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal +supports it: + + * if the '--color/--colour' option is given a value of 'yes' or + 'always' (or 'no' or 'never'), colour will (or will not) be used; + * otherwise, if the 'NO_COLOR' environment variable is set, colour + will not be used; + * otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) + supports it. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Box-drawing, Next: Paging, Prev: Colour, Up: Output + +6.5 Box-drawing +=============== + +In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to +render prettier tables: + + * if the '--pretty' option is given a value of 'yes' or 'always' (or + 'no' or 'never'), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; + * otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Paging, Next: Debug output, Prev: Box-drawing, Up: Output + +6.6 Paging +========== + +When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the +pager specified by the 'PAGER' environment variable, or 'less', or +'more'. (A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time +rather than scrolling everything off screen). Currently it does this +only for help output, not for reports; specifically, + + * when listing commands, with 'hledger' + * when showing help with 'hledger [CMD] --help', + * when viewing manuals with 'hledger help' or 'hledger --man'. + + Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses +eg for bold emphasis. For the common pager 'less' (and its 'more' +compatibility mode), we add 'R' to the 'LESS' and 'MORE' environment +variables to make this work. If you use a different pager, you might +need to configure it similarly, to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us +know). Otherwise, you can set the 'NO_COLOR' environment variable to 1 +to disable all ANSI output (see Colour). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Debug output, Prev: Paging, Up: Output + +6.7 Debug output +================ + +We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and +develop. You can add '--debug[=N]' to any hledger command line to see +additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to +9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase until +you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not affected +by '-o/--output-file' (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: +'2>&1'). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help +reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output in +a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: + +hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Limitations, Next: Troubleshooting, Prev: Output, Up: Top + +7 Limitations +************* + +The need to precede add-on command options with '--' when invoked from +hledger is awkward. + + When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system +locale must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on +POSIX, set LANG to something other than C. + + In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours +are not supported. + + On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when +running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. + + In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in +hledger add. + + Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger +and Ledger > Differences > journal format. + + On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than +Ledger. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Next: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Prev: Limitations, Up: Top + +8 Troubleshooting +***************** + +Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and +remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug +tracker): + + *Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found"* +stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should +be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, +that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. + + *I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default +file* +'LEDGER_FILE' should be a real environment variable, not just a shell +variable. The command 'env | grep LEDGER_FILE' should show it. You may +need to use 'export'. Here's an explanation. + + *Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or +incomplete multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: +invalid argument (invalid character)"* +Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to +have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they +will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii +characters. + + To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which +supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. + + Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: + +$ file my.journal +my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded +$ echo $LANG +C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 +$ locale -a # which locales are installed ? +C +en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use +POSIX +$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command + + If available, 'C.UTF-8' will also work. If your preferred locale +isn't listed by 'locale -a', you might need to install it. Eg on +Ubuntu/Debian: + +$ apt-get install language-pack-fr +$ locale -a +C +en_US.utf8 +fr_BE.utf8 +fr_CA.utf8 +fr_CH.utf8 +fr_FR.utf8 +fr_LU.utf8 +POSIX +$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print + + Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: + +$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile +$ bash --login + + Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the +difference on MacOS ('UTF-8', not 'utf8'). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) +allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: + +$ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf +en_US.UTF-8 +$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Next: Journal, Prev: Troubleshooting, Up: Top + +9 PART 2: DATA FORMATS +********************** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Journal, Next: CSV, Prev: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Up: Top + +10 Journal +********** + +hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's a +cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal format. + +* Menu: + +* Journal cheatsheet:: +* About journal format:: +* Comments:: +* Transactions:: +* Dates:: +* Status:: +* Code:: +* Description:: +* Transaction comments:: +* Postings:: +* Account names:: +* Amounts:: +* Costs:: +* Balance assertions:: +* Posting comments:: +* Tags:: +* Directives:: +* account directive:: +* alias directive:: +* commodity directive:: +* decimal-mark directive:: +* include directive:: +* P directive:: +* payee directive:: +* tag directive:: +* Periodic transactions:: +* Other syntax:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Journal cheatsheet, Next: About journal format, Up: Journal + +10.1 Journal cheatsheet +======================= + +# Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format +# (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). +# hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: + +############################################################################### +# 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. +# They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". + +# hash comment line +; semicolon comment line +comment +These lines +are commented. +end comment + +# Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, +# from ; (semicolon) to end of line. + +############################################################################### +# 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. +# They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). + +account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. +account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) +alias chkg = assets:checking +commodity $0.00 +decimal-mark . +include /dev/null +payee Whole Foods +P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 +~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description + expenses:food $400 + expenses:home $1000 + budgeted + +############################################################################### +# 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, +# usually describing movements of money. +# They begin with a date. + +# DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. +# ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. +# ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. +# ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. +# ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). + +2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way + assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. + assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. + assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. + liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. + equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. + +2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes + ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". + ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. + ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: + assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) + expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) + ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" + +Kv +2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. + ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. + assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 + expenses:clothing GBP 10 + assets:gringotts -10 gold + assets:pouch 10 gold + revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols + assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. + +2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ + assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost + assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost + assets:checking $-7.00 + +2022-01-02 assert balances + ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. + assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA + assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold + assets:savings $0 = $1000 + +1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. + ; Postings are not required. + +2022.01.01 These date +2022/1/1 formats are +12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: About journal format, Next: Comments, Prev: Journal cheatsheet, Up: Journal + +10.2 About journal format +========================= + +hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal +entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard +accounting general journal. I use file names ending in '.journal', but +that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction +entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between +two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger +and humans. + + hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's +journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal files +as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and ledger on +the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're getting. + + You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just +use the add or web or import commands to create and update it. + + Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and +track changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons +such as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and +hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, +formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor +configuration at hledger.org for the full list. + + Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's +data model). + + A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file +comments, transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction +rules and auto posting rules as directives). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Comments, Next: Transactions, Prev: About journal format, Up: Journal + +10.3 Comments +============= + +Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash ('#') or +a semicolon (';'). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore +regions beginning with a 'comment' line and ending with an 'end comment' +line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: + + * '#' for top-level notes + * ';' for commenting out things temporarily + * 'comment' for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's + there, or you might get confused) + + Eg: + +# a comment line +; another commentline +comment +A multi-line comment block, +continuing until "end comment" directive +or the end of the current file. +end comment + + Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, +from ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting +comments, and Account comments below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Transactions, Next: Dates, Prev: Comments, Up: Journal + +10.4 Transactions +================= + +Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They +represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities +between two or more named accounts. + + Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a +simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following +optional fields, separated by spaces: + + * a status character (empty, '!', or '*') + * a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) + * a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) + * a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of + line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) + * 0 or more indented _posting_ lines, describing what was transferred + and the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, + but not blank lines or non-indented lines). + + Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: + +2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Dates, Next: Status, Prev: Transactions, Up: Journal + +10.5 Dates +========== + +* Menu: + +* Simple dates:: +* Posting dates:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple dates, Next: Posting dates, Up: Dates + +10.5.1 Simple dates +------------------- + +Dates in the journal file use _simple dates_ format: 'YYYY-MM-DD' or +'YYYY/MM/DD' or 'YYYY.MM.DD', with leading zeros optional. The year may +be omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the +current transaction, the default year set with a 'Y' directive, or the +current date when the command is run. Some examples: '2010-01-31', +'2010/01/31', '2010.1.31', '1/31'. + + (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart +dates documented in the hledger manual.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Posting dates, Prev: Simple dates, Up: Dates + +10.5.2 Posting dates +-------------------- + +You can give individual postings a different date from their parent +transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) +like 'date:DATE'. This is probably the best way to control posting +dates precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May +reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for +easy bank reconciliation: + +2015/5/30 + expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 + assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 + +$ hledger -f t.j register food +2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 + +$ hledger -f t.j register checking +2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 + + DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will +use the year of the transaction's date. +The 'date:' tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg +a 'date:' tag with no value is not allowed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Status, Next: Code, Prev: Dates, Up: Journal + +10.6 Status +=========== + +Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a +status mark, which is a single character before the transaction +description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, +indicating one of three statuses: + +mark status + +----------------- + unmarked +'!' pending +'*' cleared + + When reporting, you can filter by status with the '-U/--unmarked', +'-P/--pending', and '-C/--cleared' flags; or the 'status:', 'status:!', +and 'status:*' queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. + + Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" +state is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to +unmarked for clarity. + + To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching +pending, combine -U and -P. + + Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with +real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and +shortcuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can +toggle transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. + + What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to +you. Here's one suggestion: + +status meaning +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review +pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big + reconciliation) +cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered + correct + + With this scheme, you would use '-PC' to see the current balance at +your bank, '-U' to see things which will probably hit your bank soon +(like uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of +your finances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Code, Next: Description, Prev: Status, Up: Journal + +10.7 Code +========= + +After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally +write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good +place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id +or reference number. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Description, Next: Transaction comments, Prev: Code, Up: Journal + +10.8 Description +================ + +A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date +and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the +"narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you +wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike +comments. + +* Menu: + +* Payee and note:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Payee and note, Up: Description + +10.8.1 Payee and note +--------------------- + +You can optionally include a '|' (pipe) character in descriptions to +subdivide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on +the left (up to the first '|') and an additional note field on the right +(after the first '|'). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more +precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Transaction comments, Next: Postings, Prev: Description, Up: Journal + +10.9 Transaction comments +========================= + +Text following ';', after a transaction description, and/or on indented +lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They +are reproduced by 'print' but otherwise ignored, except they may contain +tags, which are not ignored. + +2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment + ; a second line of transaction comment + expenses 1 + assets + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Postings, Next: Account names, Prev: Transaction comments, Up: Journal + +10.10 Postings +============== + +A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount +from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or +tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: + + * (optional) a status character (empty, '!', or '*'), followed by a + space + * (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing *single + spaces*, until end of line or a double space) + * (optional) *two or more spaces* or tabs followed by an amount. + + Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are +being removed. + + The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a +convenience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to +balance the transaction. + + Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name +and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing +spaces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before +the amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account names, Next: Amounts, Prev: Postings, Up: Journal + +10.11 Account names +=================== + +Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in +Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such +as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed +from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". + + You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the +traditional accounting categories, which in english are 'assets', +'liabilities', 'equity', 'revenues', 'expenses'. (You might see these +referred to as A, L, E, R, X for short.) + + For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts +into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account +name parts. For example, from the account names 'assets:bank:checking' +and 'expenses:food', hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: + +assets +assets:bank +assets:bank:checking +expenses +expenses:food + + Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: + +assets + bank + checking +expenses + food + + hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you +can go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account +names relatively simple may be best when starting out. + + Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, +numbers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an +amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by *two or +more spaces* (or tabs). + + Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate +virtual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to +the account name have no special meaning. + + Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account +aliases. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amounts, Next: Costs, Prev: Account names, Up: Journal + +10.12 Amounts +============= + +After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: between +account name and amount, there must be *two or more spaces*.) + + hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international +formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the +"quantity"): + +1 + + ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this +below), to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a +separating space: + +$1 +4000 AAPL +3 "green apples" + + Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus +is the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side +commodity symbol: + +-$1 +$-1 + + One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable +when parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): + ++ $1 +$- 1 + + Scientific E notation is allowed: + +1E-6 +EUR 1E3 + +* Menu: + +* Decimal marks digit group marks:: +* Commodity:: +* Directives influencing number parsing and display:: +* Commodity display style:: +* Rounding:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Decimal marks digit group marks, Next: Commodity, Up: Amounts + +10.12.1 Decimal marks, digit group marks +---------------------------------------- + +A _decimal mark_ can be written as a period or a comma: + +1.23 +1,23456780000009 + + In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), +groups of digits can optionally be separated by a _digit group mark_ - a +space, comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): + + $1,000,000.00 + EUR 2.000.000,00 +INR 9,99,99,999.00 + 1 000 000.9455 + + Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal +mark is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? + +1,000 +1.000 + + If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above +are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. + + To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, +especially if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands +separators), we recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark +character in each journal file, using a directive at the top of the +file. The 'decimal-mark' directive is best, otherwise 'commodity' +directives will also work. These are described below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity, Next: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Prev: Decimal marks digit group marks, Up: Amounts + +10.12.2 Commodity +----------------- + +Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal +number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or +any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. + + If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or +punctuation), you must always write it inside double quotes ('"green +apples"', '"ABC123"'). + + If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with +name '""'; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". + + Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more +powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of +the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: '1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 +TSLA'. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in +hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. + + (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, +these are the 'Amount' and 'MixedAmount' types.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Next: Commodity display style, Prev: Commodity, Up: Amounts + +10.12.3 Directives influencing number parsing and display +--------------------------------------------------------- + +You can add 'decimal-mark' and 'commodity' directives to the journal, to +declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These +are described below, but here's a quick example: + +# the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) +decimal-mark . + +# display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: +commodity $1,000.00 +commodity EUR 1.000,00 +commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 +commodity 1 000 000.9455 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display style, Next: Rounding, Prev: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Up: Amounts + +10.12.4 Commodity display style +------------------------------- + +For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display +style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all +amounts displayed by the 'print' command, are displayed with all of +their decimal digits visible.) + + A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. + + First, if a default commodity is declared with 'D', this commodity +and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. + + Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in +order of preference: + + * The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol + commodity), if any. + * The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. + (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are + ignored, currently.) + * The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: '$1000.00'. + (Symbol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) + + A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: + + * Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first + amount + * Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group + sizes), if any + * Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. + + Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but +occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is +inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a +commodity directive to fix the display style. + + To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the +style declared by a 'commodity' directive, or (b) the style of the first +posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style and +the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are +showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal +places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: + +# declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their +# input number formats and output display styles: +commodity EUR 1.000, +commodity $1000.00 +commodity 1000.00000000 BTC +commodity 1 000. + + The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command +line option. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Rounding, Prev: Commodity display style, Up: Amounts + +10.12.5 Rounding +---------------- + +Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal +places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by the +commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it +rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal +places is "0"). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Costs, Next: Balance assertions, Prev: Amounts, Up: Journal + +10.13 Costs +=========== + +After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling +price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either '@ +UNITPRICE' or '@@ TOTALPRICE' after it. This indicates a conversion +transaction, where one commodity is exchanged for another. + + (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, +discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded +that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it +"cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase +or a sale.) + + Costs are usually written explicitly with '@' or '@@', but can also +be inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. +Note, if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the +first posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. + + As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign +currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or +implicitly: + + 1. Write the price per unit, as '@ UNITPRICE' after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 + + 2. Write the total price, as '@@ TOTALPRICE' after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot + assets:dollars + + 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, + and let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. + Note the effect of posting order: the price is added to first + posting, making it '€100 @@ $135', as in example 2: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 ; one hundred euros purchased + assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 + + Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the '-B/--cost' +flag; this is discussed more in the ˜COST REPORTING section. + +* Menu: + +* Other cost/lot notations:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other cost/lot notations, Up: Costs + +10.13.1 Other cost/lot notations +-------------------------------- + +A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a number +of cost/lot-related notations: + + * '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST' + * expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger + * when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at + selling time + + * '(@) UNITCOST' and '(@@) TOTALCOST' (virtual cost) + * like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, + don't use it when inferring market prices". + + Currently, hledger treats the above like '@' and '@@'; the +parentheses are ignored. + + * '{=FIXEDUNITCOST}' and '{{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}}' (fixed price) + * when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't + let it fluctuate in value reports" + + * '{UNITCOST}' and '{{TOTALCOST}}' (lot price) + * can be used identically to '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST', + also creates a lot + * when selling, combined with '@ ...', specifies an investment + lot by its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present + + * and related: '[YYYY/MM/DD]' (lot date) + * when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot + * when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date + + * '(SOME TEXT)' (lot note) + * when buying, attaches this note to the lot + * when selling, selects a lot by its note + + Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after +the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction +balancing.) + + For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: + + * '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST' + * expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger + * when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined + with '{...}': documents the cost/selling price (not used for + transaction balancing) + + * '{UNITCOST}' and '{{TOTALCOST}}' + * when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction + balancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis + attached + * when selling (reducing), + * selects a lot by its cost basis + * raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be + selected unambiguously (depending on booking method + configured) + * expresses the selling price for transaction balancing + + Currently, hledger accepts the '{UNITCOST}'/'{{TOTALCOST}}' notation +but ignores it. + + * variations: '{}', '{YYYY-MM-DD}', '{"LABEL"}', '{UNITCOST, + "LABEL"}', '{UNITCOST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"}' etc. + + Currently, hledger rejects these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assertions, Next: Posting comments, Prev: Costs, Up: Journal + +10.14 Balance assertions +======================== + +hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. +These look like, for example, '= EXPECTEDBALANCE' following a posting's +amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and +b after each posting: + +2013/1/1 + a $1 =$1 + b =$-1 + +2013/1/2 + a $1 =$2 + b $-1 =$-2 + + After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance +assertions and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions +can protect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances +while cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with +the '-I/--ignore-assertions' flag, which can be useful for +troubleshooting or for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently +does not disable balance assignments, described below). + +* Menu: + +* Assertions and ordering:: +* Assertions and multiple included files:: +* Assertions and multiple -f files:: +* Assertions and commodities:: +* Assertions and prices:: +* Assertions and subaccounts:: +* Assertions and virtual postings:: +* Assertions and auto postings:: +* Assertions and precision:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and ordering, Next: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.1 Assertions and ordering +------------------------------- + +hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and +then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is +different from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. +(Also, Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated +postings to the same account within a transaction.) + + So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder +differently-dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder +same-dated transactions or postings, assertions might break and require +updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise +control over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you +can assert intra-day balances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple included files, Next: Assertions and multiple -f files, Prev: Assertions and ordering, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.2 Assertions and multiple included files +---------------------------------------------- + +Multiple files included with the 'include' directive are processed as if +concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting order +within each file. It means that balance assertions in later files will +see balance from earlier files. + + And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, +split across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's +balance on that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file +- the last one in the sequence, probably. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple -f files, Next: Assertions and commodities, Prev: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.3 Assertions and multiple -f files +---------------------------------------- + +Unlike 'include', when multiple files are specified on the command line +with multiple '-f/--file' options, balance assertions will not see +balance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want +problems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. + + If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use +'include', or concatenate the files temporarily. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and commodities, Next: Assertions and prices, Prev: Assertions and multiple -f files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.4 Assertions and commodities +---------------------------------- + +The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in +fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the +(possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions work +in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. + + To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you +can write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. + + You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double +equals sign ('== EXPECTEDBALANCE'). This asserts that there are no +other commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, +that their balance is 0). + +2013/1/1 + a $1 + a 1€ + b $-1 + c -1€ + +2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed + a 0 = $1 + a 0 = 1€ + b 0 == $-1 + c 0 == -1€ + +2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1€ + a 0 == $1 + + It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance +that has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each +commodity into its own subaccount: + +2013/1/1 + a:usd $1 + a:euro 1€ + b + +2013/1/2 + a 0 == 0 + a:usd 0 == $1 + a:euro 0 == 1€ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and prices, Next: Assertions and subaccounts, Prev: Assertions and commodities, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.5 Assertions and prices +----------------------------- + +Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without +one: + +2019/1/1 + (a) $1 @ €1 = $1 + + We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows +them, even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or +fails. This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used +to generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance +_assignments_ do use them (see below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and subaccounts, Next: Assertions and virtual postings, Prev: Assertions and prices, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.6 Assertions and subaccounts +---------------------------------- + +The balance assertions above ('=' and '==') do not count the balance +from subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You +can assert the balance including subaccounts by writing '=*' or '==*', +eg: + +2019/1/1 + equity:opening balances + checking:a 5 + checking:b 5 + checking 1 ==* 11 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and virtual postings, Next: Assertions and auto postings, Prev: Assertions and subaccounts, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.7 Assertions and virtual postings +--------------------------------------- + +Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they +are not affected by the '--real/-R' flag or 'real:' query. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and auto postings, Next: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and virtual postings, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.8 Assertions and auto postings +------------------------------------ + +Balance assertions _are_ affected by the '--auto' flag, which generates +auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings +are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two +balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of +these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: + + * assert the balance calculated with '--auto', and always use + '--auto' with that file + * or assert the balance calculated without '--auto', and never use + '--auto' with that file + * or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings + (or avoid auto postings entirely). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and auto postings, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.9 Assertions and precision +-------------------------------- + +Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are not +always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may limit the +display precision, but this will not affect balance assertions. Balance +assertion failure messages show exact amounts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Posting comments, Next: Tags, Prev: Balance assertions, Up: Journal + +10.15 Posting comments +====================== + +Text following ';', at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented +lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are +reproduced by 'print' but otherwise ignored, except they may contain +tags, which are not ignored. + +2012-01-01 + expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 + assets + ; a comment for posting 2 + ; a second comment line for posting 2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Tags, Next: Directives, Prev: Posting comments, Up: Journal + +10.16 Tags +========== + +Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, +postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. + + They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately +followed by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account +directive's comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that +things in comments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are +recorded: one on the checking account, two on the transaction, and one +on the expenses posting: + +account assets:checking ; accounttag: + +2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: + ; transactiontag-2: + assets:checking $-1 + expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: + + Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. +And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' +accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively +has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the +transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses +posting). + + You can list tag names with 'hledger tags [NAMEREGEX]', or match by +tag name with a 'tag:NAMEREGEX' query. + +* Menu: + +* Tag values:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Tag values, Up: Tags + +10.16.1 Tag values +------------------ + +Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a +comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this +means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the +following posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and +"" (empty) respectively: + + expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz + + Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than +overriding: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the +new name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to +override a tag's value or remove a tag.) + + You can list a tag's values with 'hledger tags TAGNAME --values', or +match by tag value with a 'tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX' query. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives, Next: account directive, Prev: Tags, Up: Journal + +10.17 Directives +================ + +A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, +that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, +and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, +but there are many differences, and also some differences between +hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: + + * _subdirective_ - Some directives support subdirectives, written + indented below the parent directive. + + * _decimal mark_ - The character to interpret as a decimal mark + (period or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. + + * _display style_ - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: + symbol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of + decimal places. + + Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you +will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key +directives for particular needs: + +purpose directives +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +*READING DATA:* +Declare file's decimal mark to help parse 'decimal-mark' +amounts accurately +Rewrite account names 'alias' +Comment out sections of the data 'comment' +Include extra data files 'include' +*GENERATING DATA:* +Generate recurring transactions or budget '~' +goals +Generate extra postings on transactions '=' +*CHECKING FOR ERRORS:* +Define valid entities to provide more 'account', 'commodity', +error checking 'payee' +*REPORTING:* +Declare accounts' type and display order 'account' +Declare commodity display styles 'commodity' +Declare market prices 'P' + +* Menu: + +* Directive effects:: +* Directives and multiple files:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directive effects, Next: Directives and multiple files, Up: Directives + +10.17.1 Directive effects +------------------------- + +And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal +entries (transactions) it affects: + +directivewhat it does ends + at + file + end? +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- +*'account'*Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; andN + its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. +*'alias'*Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of Y + current file or 'end aliases'. Command line equivalent: + '--alias' +*'comment'*Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file orY + 'end comment'. +*'commodity'*Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checkingN,Y,N,N + all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing + amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of + current file (if there is no 'decimal-mark' directive) 3. and + the display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is + also the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in + this commodity. Takes precedence over 'D'. Subdirectives: + 'format' (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: + '-c/--commodity-style' +*'decimal-mark'*Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all Y + commodities in following entries until next 'decimal-mark' or + end of current file. Included files can override. Takes + precedence over 'commodity' and 'D'. +*'include'*Includes entries and directives from another file, as if theyN + were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple + '-f/--file' +*'payee'*Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N +*'P'*Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N + reports. +*'~'*Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N +(tilde)transactions with '--forecast' and budget goals with 'balance + --budget'. +Other +syntax: +*'applyPrepends a common parent account to all account names, in Y +account'*following entries until end of current file or 'end apply + account'. +*'D'*Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N + there is no 'commodity' directive for this commodity: its + decimal mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. +*'Y'*Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y + entries until end of current file. +*'='*Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly +(equals)matched transactions with '--auto', in current, parent, and + child files (but not sibling files, see #1212). +*OtherOther directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but +Ledgerignored. +directives* + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives and multiple files, Prev: Directive effects, Up: Directives + +10.17.2 Directives and multiple files +------------------------------------- + +If you use multiple '-f'/'--file' options, or the 'include' directive, +hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect +input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which they +occur (and on any included files in that region). + + This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports +stable and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise +you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in a +different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up your +files. + + It can be surprising though; for example, it means that 'alias' +directives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: account directive, Next: alias directive, Prev: Directives, Up: Journal + +10.18 'account' directive +========================= + +'account' directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places +that amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these +declarations can provide several benefits: + + * They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a + reference. + * In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by + transactions, which helps detect typos. + * They control account display order in reports, allowing + non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). + * They help with account name completion (in hledger add, + hledger-web, hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) + * They can store additional account information as comments, or as + tags which can be used to filter or pivot reports. + * They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, + equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement. + + They are written as the word 'account' followed by a hledger-style +account name, eg: + +account assets:bank:checking + + Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not +allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts +used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: + +account (assets:bank:checking) + +* Menu: + +* Account comments:: +* Account subdirectives:: +* Account error checking:: +* Account display order:: +* Account types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account comments, Next: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive + +10.18.1 Account comments +------------------------ + +Text following *two or more spaces* and ';' at the end of an account +directive line, and/or following ';' on indented lines immediately below +it, form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may +contain tags, which are not ignored. + + The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because +';' is allowed in account names. + +account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon + ; next-line comment + ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account subdirectives, Next: Account error checking, Prev: Account comments, Up: account directive + +10.18.2 Account subdirectives +----------------------------- + +Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently +ignored: + +account assets:bank:checking + format subdirective is ignored + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account error checking, Next: Account display order, Prev: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive + +10.18.3 Account error checking +------------------------------ + +By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence when +a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means hledger +can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the journal. +Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in balance +reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. + + In strict mode, enabled with the '-s'/'--strict' flag, hledger will +report an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not +been declared by an account directive. Some notes: + + * The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the + correct account name capitalisation. + * The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see + directives). This means it affects all of the current file, and + any files it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The + position of account directives within the file does not matter, + though it's usual to put them at the top. + * Accounts can only be declared in 'journal' files, but will affect + included files of all types. + * It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" + with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account display order, Next: Account types, Prev: Account error checking, Up: account directive + +10.18.4 Account display order +----------------------------- + +The order in which account directives are written influences the order +in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By +default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these +account directives to the journal file: + +account assets +account liabilities +account equity +account revenues +account expenses + + those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: + +$ hledger accounts -1 +assets +liabilities +equity +revenues +expenses + + Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. + + Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group +of sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this +directive: + +account other:zoo + + would influence the position of 'zoo' among 'other''s subaccounts, +but not the position of 'other' among the top-level accounts. This +means: + + * you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg 'account other' + above) that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their + display order + * sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display 'x:y' in + between 'a:b' and 'a:c'). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account types, Prev: Account display order, Up: account directive + +10.18.5 Account types +--------------------- + +hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, +expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and +incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the 'type:' query. + + As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types +automatically if you are using common english-language top-level account +names (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types +explicitly, by adding a 'type:' tag to your top-level account +directives. Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The +tag's value should be one of the five main account types: + + * 'A' or 'Asset' (things you own) + * 'L' or 'Liability' (things you owe) + * 'E' or 'Equity' (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of + assets & liabilities) + * 'R' or 'Revenue' (what you received money from, AKA income; + technically part of Equity) + * 'X' or 'Expense' (what you spend money on; technically part of + Equity) + + or, it can be (these are used less often): + + * 'C' or 'Cash' (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the + cashflow report) + * 'V' or 'Conversion' (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST + REPORTING).) + + Here is a typical set of account type declarations: + +account assets ; type: A +account liabilities ; type: L +account equity ; type: E +account revenues ; type: R +account expenses ; type: X + +account assets:bank ; type: C +account assets:cash ; type: C + +account equity:conversion ; type: V + + Here are some tips for working with account types. + + * The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. + These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get + going; if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare + your account types. See also Regular expressions. + + If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: + --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash + ^assets?(:|$) | Asset + ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability + ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion + ^equity(:|$) | Equity + ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue + ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + + * If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an + account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared + and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. + + * Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See + Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. + + * As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their + parent account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by + the first of these that exists: + + 1. A 'type:' declaration for this account. + 2. A 'type:' declaration in the parent accounts above it, + preferring the nearest. + 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. + 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, + preferring the nearest parent. + 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. + + * For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: + + $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: alias directive, Next: commodity directive, Prev: account directive, Up: Journal + +10.19 'alias' directive +======================= + +You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or +parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: + + * expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing + easier data entry and a less verbose journal + * adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts + * experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy + * combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference + on one line + * customising reports + + Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. +They do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or +hledger-web. + + Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use +correctly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; +more on this below. + + See also Rewrite account names. + +* Menu: + +* Basic aliases:: +* Regex aliases:: +* Combining aliases:: +* Aliases and multiple files:: +* end aliases directive:: +* Aliases can generate bad account names:: +* Aliases and account types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Basic aliases, Next: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.1 Basic aliases +--------------------- + +To set an account alias, use the 'alias' directive in your journal file. +This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its +included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces +around the = are optional: + +alias OLD = NEW + + Or, you can use the '--alias 'OLD=NEW'' option on the command line. +This affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases +interactively. + + OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will +replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. +Subaccounts are also affected. Eg: + +alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking +; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Regex aliases, Next: Combining aliases, Prev: Basic aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.2 Regex aliases +--------------------- + +There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, +indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the only +place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular +expression.) + + Eg: + +alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT + + or: + +$ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... + + Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by +REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. + + If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg +'/\/=:'. + + If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced +by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: + +alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 +; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" + + REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end +of option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining aliases, Next: Aliases and multiple files, Prev: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.3 Combining aliases +------------------------- + +You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives +and/or command line options. + + Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, +then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the +effect of previously applied aliases. + + In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be +applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal +entry, we apply: + + 1. 'alias' directives preceding the journal entry, most recently + parsed first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to + top) + 2. '--alias' options, in the order they appeared on the command line + (left to right). + + In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: + + * the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied + first + * the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on + * aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. + + This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps +provide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way +independent of which files are being read and in which order. + + In case of trouble, adding '--debug=6' to the command line will show +which aliases are being applied when. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and multiple files, Next: end aliases directive, Prev: Combining aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.4 Aliases and multiple files +---------------------------------- + +As explained at Directives and multiple files, 'alias' directives do not +affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, + +hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal + + account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. +Including the aliases doesn't work either: + +include a.aliases + +2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases + foo 1 + bar + + This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the +start of your top-most file, like this: + +alias foo=Foo +alias bar=Bar + +2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above + foo 1 + bar + +include c.journal ; also affected + + +File: hledger.info, Node: end aliases directive, Next: Aliases can generate bad account names, Prev: Aliases and multiple files, Up: alias directive + +10.19.5 'end aliases' directive +------------------------------- + +You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the +journal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: + +end aliases + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Next: Aliases and account types, Prev: end aliases directive, Up: alias directive + +10.19.6 Aliases can generate bad account names +---------------------------------------------- + +Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, which +could cause confusing reports or invalid 'print' output. For example, +you could erase all account names: + +2021-01-01 + a:aa 1 + b + +$ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' +2021-01-01 + 1 + + The above 'print' output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert +an illegal double space, causing 'print' output that would give a +different journal when reparsed: + +2021-01-01 + old 1 + other + +$ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print +2021-01-01 + new USD 1 + other + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and account types, Prev: Aliases can generate bad account names, Up: alias directive + +10.19.7 Aliases and account types +--------------------------------- + +If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account +types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in +effect. + + However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg +renaming parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could +prevent child accounts from inheriting the account type of their +parents. + + Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, +renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. + + If you are using account aliases and the 'type:' query is not +matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts +command, eg something like: + +$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a + + +File: hledger.info, Node: commodity directive, Next: decimal-mark directive, Prev: alias directive, Up: Journal + +10.20 'commodity' directive +=========================== + +You can use 'commodity' directives to declare your commodities. In fact +the 'commodity' directive performs several functions at once: + + 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can + optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf + Commodity error checking) + + 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to + expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international + number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both + '1,000' and '1.000' as 1. (Cf Amounts) + + 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying + output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of + decimal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display + style) + + You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives +sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable +parsing and display. + + Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since +for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). + + A commodity directive is just the word 'commodity' followed by a +sample amount, like this: + +;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT + +commodity $1000.00 +commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment + + It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the 'format' +subdirective, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol +appears twice; it must be the same in both places: + +;commodity SYMBOL +; format SAMPLEAMOUNT + +; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, +; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, +; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. +commodity INR + format INR 1,00,00,000.00 + + Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or +punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). + + The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is +significant. It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a +comma - followed by 0 or more decimal digits. + + A few more examples: + +# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: +commodity $1,000.00 +commodity EUR 1.000,00 +commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 +commodity 1 000 000. + + Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with +zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) + + Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display +style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. + +* Menu: + +* Commodity error checking:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity error checking, Up: commodity directive + +10.20.1 Commodity error checking +-------------------------------- + +In strict mode, enabled with the '-s'/'--strict' flag, hledger will +report an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared +by a 'commodity' directive. This works similarly to account error +checking, see the notes there for more details. + + Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because +currently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity +with a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts +are always allowed to have no commodity symbol. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark directive, Next: include directive, Prev: commodity directive, Up: Journal + +10.21 'decimal-mark' directive +============================== + +You can use a 'decimal-mark' directive - usually one per file, at the +top of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark +when parsing amounts in this file. It can look like + +decimal-mark . + + or + +decimal-mark , + + This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we +recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg +thousands separators). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: include directive, Next: P directive, Prev: decimal-mark directive, Up: Journal + +10.22 'include' directive +========================= + +You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include +directive, like this: + +include FILEPATH + + Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or +timedot files can be included (not CSV files, currently). + + If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the +current file's folder. + + A tilde means home directory, eg: 'include ~/main.journal'. + + The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: +'include *.journal'. + + There is limited support for recursive wildcards: '**/' (the slash is +required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient +since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but +this can be done, eg: 'include */**/*.journal'. + + The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, +overriding the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input +files): 'include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: P directive, Next: payee directive, Prev: include directive, Up: Journal + +10.23 'P' directive +=================== + +The 'P' directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate +between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports to +convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or after +that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock exchange, +cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. + + The format is: + +P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT + + DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the +commodity being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and +quantity) of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this +date. Examples: + +# one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: +P 2009-01-01 € $1.35 + +# and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: +P 2010-01-01 € $1.40 + + The '-V', '-X' and '--value' flags use these market prices to show +amount values in another commodity. See Valuation. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: payee directive, Next: tag directive, Prev: P directive, Up: Journal + +10.24 'payee' directive +======================= + +'payee PAYEE NAME' + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which +may appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report +an error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been +declared. Eg: + +payee Whole Foods + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: tag directive, Next: Periodic transactions, Prev: payee directive, Up: Journal + +10.25 'tag' directive +===================== + +'tag TAGNAME' + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names +allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: + +tag item-id + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is +used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use +of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can +declare and check your tags . + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic transactions, Next: Other syntax, Prev: tag directive, Up: Journal + +10.26 Periodic transactions +=========================== + +The '~' directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives +allow hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in +reports, not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. + + Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, +read this whole section, or at least these tips: + + 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - + read about this below. + 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with 'hledger + print --forecast tag:generated' or 'hledger register --forecast + tag:generated'. + 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last + non-forecasted transaction's date. + 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. + See below for the exact start/end rules. + 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs + improvement, but is worth studying. + 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a + natural boundary of that interval. Eg in 'weekly from DATE', DATE + must be a monday. '~ weekly from 2019/10/1' (a tuesday) will give + an error. + 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically + expanded to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done + to improve reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. + Yes, it's a bit inconsistent with the above.) Eg: '~ every 10th + day of month from 2020/01', which is equivalent to '~ every 10th + day of month from 2020/01/01', will be adjusted to start on + 2019/12/10. + +* Menu: + +* Periodic rule syntax:: +* Periodic rules and relative dates:: +* Two spaces between period expression and description!:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rule syntax, Next: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.1 Periodic rule syntax +---------------------------- + +A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the +date replaced by a tilde ('~') followed by a period expression +(mnemonic: '~' looks like a recurring sine wave.): + +# every first of month +~ monthly + expenses:rent $2000 + assets:bank:checking + +# every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: +~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 + expenses:utilities $400 + assets:bank:checking + + The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying +multi-period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies +report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start +dates). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rules and relative dates, Next: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rule syntax, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.2 Periodic rules and relative dates +----------------------------------------- + +Partial or relative dates (like '12/31', '25', 'tomorrow', 'last week', +'next quarter') are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the +results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted +relative to, in order of preference: + + 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent 'Y' + directive + 2. or the date specified with '--today' + 3. or the date on which you are running the report. + + They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period +dates. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.3 Two spaces between period expression and description! +------------------------------------------------------------- + +If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, these +must be separated by *two or more spaces*. This helps hledger know +where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not +accidentally alter their meaning, as in this example: + +; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" +; || +; vv +~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review + assets:bank:checking $1500 + income:acme inc + + So, + + * Do write two spaces between your period expression and your + transaction description, if any. + * Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period + expression. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other syntax, Prev: Periodic transactions, Up: Journal + +10.27 Other syntax +================== + +hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to +make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some of +the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, but +in general, features in this section are considered less important or +even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to help +you decide if you want to use them. + +* Menu: + +* Auto postings:: +* Balance assignments:: +* Bracketed posting dates:: +* D directive:: +* apply account directive:: +* Y directive:: +* Secondary dates:: +* Star comments:: +* Valuation expressions:: +* Virtual postings:: +* Other Ledger directives:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings, Next: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.1 Auto postings +--------------------- + +The '=' directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary +extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all +transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the '--auto' flag. + + Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your +financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy in +an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features like +balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. + + An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: + += QUERY + ACCOUNT AMOUNT + ... + ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] + + except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: '=' suggests +matching), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and +each "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting +amounts can be: + + * a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg '$2'. This will be + used as-is. + * a number, eg '2'. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched + posting will be added to this. + * a numeric multiplier, eg '*2' (a star followed by a number N). The + matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be + multiplied by N. + * a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg '*$2' (a star, number N, + and symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by + N, and its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. + + Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double +quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second +query term below: + += expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' + (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 + + Some examples: + +; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation += expenses:food + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + +; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount += expenses:gifts + assets:checking:gifts *-1 + assets:checking *1 + +2017/12/1 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + +2017/12/14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + +$ hledger print --auto +2017-12-01 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + +2017-12-14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + assets:checking:gifts -$20 + assets:checking $20 + +* Menu: + +* Auto postings and multiple files:: +* Auto postings and dates:: +* Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions:: +* Auto posting tags:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and multiple files, Next: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.1 Auto postings and multiple files +.......................................... + +An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or +in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect +sibling files (when multiple '-f'/'--file' are used - see #1212). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and dates, Next: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Prev: Auto postings and multiple files, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.2 Auto postings and dates +................................. + +A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking +precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also be +used in the generated posting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Next: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.3 Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred +............................................................ + +amounts / balance assertions Currently, auto postings are added: + + * after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked + for balancedness, + * but before balance assertions are checked. + + Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and +after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 +for background. + + This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with +a missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to +infer amounts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.4 Auto posting tags +........................... + +Automated postings will have some extra tags: + + * 'generated-posting:= QUERY' - shows this was generated by an auto + posting rule, and the query + * '_generated-posting:= QUERY' - a hidden tag, which does not appear + in hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated + "just now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the + journal. + + Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules +will have these tags added: + + * 'modified:' - this transaction was modified + * '_modified:' - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this + transaction was modified "just now". + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments, Next: Bracketed posting dates, Prev: Auto postings, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.2 Balance assignments +--------------------------- + +Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like +balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the +equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy the +assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when setting +opening balances: + +; starting a new journal, set asset account balances +2016/1/1 opening balances + assets:checking = $409.32 + assets:savings = $735.24 + assets:cash = $42 + equity:opening balances + + or when adjusting a balance to reality: + +; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense +2016/1/15 + assets:cash = $0 + expenses:misc + + The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the +commodity at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings +of the commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or +assignment). + + Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less +explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do +the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance +assignments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make +your financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less +trustworthy in an audit. + +* Menu: + +* Balance assignments and prices:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments and prices, Up: Balance assignments + +10.27.2.1 Balance assignments and prices +........................................ + +A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have +that price attached: + +2019/1/1 + (a) = $1 @ €2 + +$ hledger print --explicit +2019-01-01 + (a) $1 @ €2 = $1 @ €2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Bracketed posting dates, Next: D directive, Prev: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.3 Bracketed posting dates +------------------------------- + +For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's +bracketed date syntax is also supported: '[DATE]', '[DATE=DATE2]' or +'[=DATE2]' in posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any +square-bracketed sequence of the '0123456789/-.=' characters in this +way. With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and +DATE2 infers its year from DATE. + + Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's +'date:'/'date2:' tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date +syntax. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: D directive, Next: apply account directive, Prev: Bracketed posting dates, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.4 'D' directive +--------------------- + +'D AMOUNT' + + This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any +subsequent commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing +the journal. This effect lasts until the next 'D' directive, or the end +of the journal. + + For compatibility/historical reasons, 'D' also acts like a +'commodity' directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing +and display style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity +symbol, but a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must +include a decimal mark (either period or comma). Eg: + +; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars +; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) +D $1,000.00 + +1/1 + a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 + b + + Interactions with other directives: + + For setting a commodity's display style, a 'commodity' directive has +highest priority, then a 'D' directive. + + For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, +'decimal-mark' has highest priority, then 'commodity', then 'D'. + + For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a 'commodity' +directive is required ('hledger check commodities' ignores 'D' +directives). + + Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less +explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is +usually an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to +track multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant +with 'commodity' and 'decimal-mark'. And it works differently from +Ledger's 'D'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: apply account directive, Next: Y directive, Prev: D directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.5 'apply account' directive +--------------------------------- + +This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended to +all accounts in following entries, until an 'end apply account' +directive or end of current file. Eg: + +apply account home + +2010/1/1 + food $10 + cash + +end apply account + + is equivalent to: + +2010/01/01 + home:food $10 + home:cash $-10 + + 'account' directives are also affected, and so is any 'include'd +content. + + Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not +affected. + + Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is +prepended. + + Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less +portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Y directive, Next: Secondary dates, Prev: apply account directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.6 'Y' directive +--------------------- + +'Y YEAR' + + or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): + + 'year YEAR' 'apply year YEAR' + + The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for +subsequent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: + +Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 + +12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 + expenses 1 + assets + +year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 + +2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected + expenses 1 + assets + +1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 + expenses 1 + assets + + Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at +least) makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less +trustworthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their +corresponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in +your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's +date. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Secondary dates, Next: Star comments, Prev: Y directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.7 Secondary dates +----------------------- + +A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals +sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. When +running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but with +the '--date2' flag (or '--aux-date' or '--effective'), the secondary +(right) date will be used instead. + + The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow +a consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = +date the transaction was initiated, if different". + + Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, +and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates +consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which reporting +mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler and +better. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Star comments, Next: Valuation expressions, Prev: Secondary dates, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.8 Star comments +--------------------- + +Lines beginning with '*' (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This +feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, +allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed +with org mode. + + Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. +Decreases your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode +just for folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; +nowadays you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without +losing ledger mode's features. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation expressions, Next: Virtual postings, Prev: Star comments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.9 Valuation expressions +----------------------------- + +Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double +parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Virtual postings, Next: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Valuation expressions, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.10 Virtual postings +------------------------- + +A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a _virtual +posting_ or _unbalanced posting_, which means it is exempt from the +usual rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. + + This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to +avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special +cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances +without using a balancing equity account: + +2022-01-01 opening balances + (assets:checking) $1000 + (assets:savings) $2000 + + A posting with brackets around the account name is called a _balanced +virtual posting_. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must +add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: + +2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else + assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other + expenses:food $7 ; <- + expenses:food $3 ; <- + [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other + [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- + (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance + + Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed +are called _real postings_. You can exclude virtual postings from +reports with the '-R/--real' flag or a 'real:1' query. + + Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid +figuring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable +and less trustworthy in an audit. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Virtual postings, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.11 Other Ledger directives +-------------------------------- + +These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This +allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's +reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. + +apply fixed COMM AMT +apply tag TAG +assert EXPR +bucket / A ACCT +capture ACCT REGEX +check EXPR +define VAR=EXPR +end apply fixed +end apply tag +end apply year +end tag +eval / expr EXPR +python + PYTHONCODE +tag NAME +value EXPR +--command-line-flags + + See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed +hledger/Ledger syntax comparison. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV, Next: Timeclock, Prev: Journal, Up: Top + +11 CSV +****** + +hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, +semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting +each record into a transaction. + + (To learn about _writing_ CSV, see CSV output.) + + For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure +they have a corresponding '.csv', '.tsv' or '.ssv' file extension or use +a hledger file prefix (see File Extension below). + + Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding _rules file_. +This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields layout, +date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, and +how to categorise transactions based on description or other attributes. + + By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file +with an extra '.rules' extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked +to read 'foo/FILE.csv', hledger looks for 'foo/FILE.csv.rules'. You can +specify a different rules file with the '--rules-file' option. If no +rules file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which +you'll need to adjust. + + At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, +and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines +there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: + +Date, Description, Id, Amount +12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 + +# basic.csv.rules +skip 1 +fields date, description, , amount +date-format %d/%m/%Y + +$ hledger print -f basic.csv +2019-11-12 Foo + expenses:unknown 10.23 + income:unknown -10.23 + + There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, +and more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at +https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. + +* Menu: + +* CSV rules cheatsheet:: +* separator:: +* skip:: +* date-format:: +* timezone:: +* newest-first:: +* intra-day-reversed:: +* decimal-mark:: +* fields list:: +* Field assignment:: +* Field names:: +* if block:: +* Matchers:: +* if table:: +* balance-type:: +* include:: +* Working with CSV:: +* CSV rules examples:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules cheatsheet, Next: separator, Up: CSV + +11.1 CSV rules cheatsheet +========================= + +The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. +(Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' or ';' or '*' are ignored.) + +*'separator'* declare the field separator, instead of + relying on file extension +*'skip'* skip one or more header lines at start of file +*'date-format'* declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times +*'timezone'* declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV + date-times +*'newest-first'* improve txn order when: there are multiple + records, newest first, all with the same date +*'intra-day-reversed'* improve txn order when: same-day txns are in + opposite order to the overall file +*'decimal-mark'* declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, + when ambiguous +*'fields' list* name CSV fields for easy reference, and + optionally assign their values to hledger + fields +*Field assignment* assign a CSV value or interpolated text value + to a hledger field +*'if' block* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + or 'skip' a record or 'end' (skip rest of + file) +*'if' table* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + using compact syntax +*'balance-type'* select which type of balance + assertions/assignments to generate +*'include'* inline another CSV rules file + + Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are +evaluated. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: separator, Next: skip, Prev: CSV rules cheatsheet, Up: CSV + +11.2 'separator' +================ + +You can use the 'separator' rule to read other kinds of +character-separated data. The argument is any single separator +character, or the words 'tab' or 'space' (case insensitive). Eg, for +comma-separated values (CSV): + +separator , + + or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): + +separator ; + + or for tab-separated values (TSV): + +separator TAB + + If the input file has a '.csv', '.ssv' or '.tsv' file extension (or a +'csv:', 'ssv:', 'tsv:' prefix), the appropriate separator will be +inferred automatically, and you won't need this rule. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: skip, Next: date-format, Prev: separator, Up: CSV + +11.3 'skip' +=========== + +skip N + + The word 'skip' followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells +hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input +data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need +to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains +header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not +parsed as CSV. + + 'skip' can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip +individual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still +required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date-format, Next: timezone, Prev: skip, Up: CSV + +11.4 'date-format' +================== + +date-format DATEFMT + + This is a helper for the 'date' (and 'date2') fields. If your CSV +dates are not formatted like 'YYYY-MM-DD', 'YYYY/MM/DD' or 'YYYY.MM.DD', +you'll need to add a date-format rule describing them with a +strptime-style date parsing pattern - see +https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. +The pattern must parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: + +# MM/DD/YY +date-format %m/%d/%y + +# D/M/YYYY +# The - makes leading zeros optional. +date-format %-d/%-m/%Y + +# YYYY-Mmm-DD +date-format %Y-%h-%d + +# M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk +# Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. +date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk + + +File: hledger.info, Node: timezone, Next: newest-first, Prev: date-format, Up: CSV + +11.5 'timezone' +=============== + +timezone TIMEZONE + + When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone +other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you +can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps +prevent off-by-one dates. + + When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't +need this rule; instead, use '%Z' in 'date-format' (or '%z', '%EZ', +'%Ez'; see the formatTime link above). + + In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware +conversion, localising the CSV date-times to your current system time +zone. If you prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for +reproducibility, you can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with +the TZ environment variable, eg: + +$ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv + + 'timezone' currently does not understand timezone names, except +"UTC", "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". +For others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: newest-first, Next: intra-day-reversed, Prev: timezone, Up: CSV + +11.6 'newest-first' +=================== + +hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered +chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can +auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV +where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are +oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, +like: + +2022-10-01, txn 3... +2022-10-01, txn 2... +2022-10-01, txn 1... + + you can add the 'newest-first' rule to help hledger generate the +transactions in correct order. + +# same-day CSV records are newest first +newest-first + + +File: hledger.info, Node: intra-day-reversed, Next: decimal-mark, Prev: newest-first, Up: CSV + +11.7 'intra-day-reversed' +========================= + +CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to +the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the +transactions on each date are oldest first: + +2022-10-02, txn 3... +2022-10-02, txn 4... +2022-10-01, txn 1... +2022-10-01, txn 2... + + In this situation, add the 'intra-day-reversed' rule, and hledger +will compensate, improving the order of transactions. + +# transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order +intra-day-reversed + + +File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark, Next: fields list, Prev: intra-day-reversed, Up: CSV + +11.8 'decimal-mark' +=================== + +decimal-mark . + + or: + +decimal-mark , + + hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal +mark when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the +CSV contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you +should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid +misparsed numbers. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: fields list, Next: Field assignment, Prev: decimal-mark, Up: CSV + +11.9 'fields' list +================== + +fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... + + A fields list (the word 'fields' followed by comma-separated field +names) is optional, but convenient. It does two things: + + 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if + you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say + '%SomeField' instead of remembering '%13'. + + 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described + below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger + field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and + build a transaction. + + Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the +transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields for +later reference; and ignore the others": + +fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield + + In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to +the CSV file's separator. Also: + + * There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). + * Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field + names are optional. + * Field names may contain '_' (underscore) or '-' (hyphen). + * Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty + name. + + If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for +your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces replaced +by underscores). + + Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning +to a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's +"balance" field 'balance_' to avoid directly setting hledger's 'balance' +field (and generating a balance assertion). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Field assignment, Next: Field names, Prev: fields list, Up: CSV + +11.10 Field assignment +====================== + +HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE + + Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to +hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields +list (see above). + + To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of +the standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, +followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may +interpolate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV +record ('%N'), or by the name they were given in the fields list +('%CSVFIELD'). + + Some examples: + +# set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended +amount %4 USD + +# combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags +comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 + + Tips: + + * Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like '" 1 "' + becomes '1' when interpolated) (#1051). + * Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate + a hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Field names, Next: if block, Prev: Field assignment, Up: CSV + +11.11 Field names +================= + +Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in +hledger CSV rules files: + + 1. *CSV field names* ('CSVFIELD' in these docs): you can optionally + name the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet + automatically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing + arbitrary names in a 'fields' list, eg: + + fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar + + 2. Special *hledger field names* ('HLEDGERFIELD' in these docs): you + must set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction + from a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field + assignment, eg: + + date %When + code %Some_Id + description %What + comment %Foo %Bar + amount1 $ %Total + + or directly in a 'fields' list: + + fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar + currency $ + comment %Foo %Bar + + Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what +happens when you assign values to them: + +* Menu: + +* date field:: +* date2 field:: +* status field:: +* code field:: +* description field:: +* comment field:: +* account field:: +* amount field:: +* currency field:: +* balance field:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date field, Next: date2 field, Up: Field names + +11.11.1 date field +------------------ + +Assigning to 'date' sets the transaction date. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date2 field, Next: status field, Prev: date field, Up: Field names + +11.11.2 date2 field +------------------- + +'date2' sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: status field, Next: code field, Prev: date2 field, Up: Field names + +11.11.3 status field +-------------------- + +'status' sets the transaction's status, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: code field, Next: description field, Prev: status field, Up: Field names + +11.11.4 code field +------------------ + +'code' sets the transaction's code, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: description field, Next: comment field, Prev: code field, Up: Field names + +11.11.5 description field +------------------------- + +'description' sets the transaction's description, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: comment field, Next: account field, Prev: description field, Up: Field names + +11.11.6 comment field +--------------------- + +'comment' sets the transaction's comment, if any. + + 'commentN', where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. + + You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal '\n' in the +code. A comment starting with '\n' will begin on a new line. + + Comments can contain tags, as usual. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: account field, Next: amount field, Prev: comment field, Up: Field names + +11.11.7 account field +--------------------- + +Assigning to 'accountN', where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of +the Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. + + Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set 'account1' +and 'account2'. Typically 'account1' is associated with the CSV file, +and is set once with a top-level assignment, while 'account2' is set +based on each transaction's description, in conditional rules. + + If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see +below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" +or "income:unknown"). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: amount field, Next: currency field, Prev: account field, Up: Field names + +11.11.8 amount field +-------------------- + +There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different +situations: + + * 'amountN' sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that + posting to be generated. By assigning to 'amount1', 'amount2', ... + etc. you can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't + have to be consecutive; in certain situations using a high number + might be helpful to influence the layout of postings. + + * 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out' should be used instead, as a pair, + when and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. + Eg when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a + single Amount field. Note: + + * Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the + second posting" - that's not correct. Think: "'amountN-in' + and 'amountN-out' together detect the amount for posting N, by + inspecting two CSV fields at once." + * hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will + automatically negate the -out value. + * It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or + zero, so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case + you'll need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). + + * 'amount', with no posting number (and similarly, 'amount-in' and + 'amount-out' with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for + backwards compatibility, and because they have special behaviour + that is sometimes convenient: + + * They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of + posting 2. + * Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost + price. + * Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like 'amount1', or + 'amount2-in' and 'amount2-out') will take precedence. This + allows incrementally migrating old rules files to the new + syntax. + + There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; +please see also "Setting amounts" below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: currency field, Next: balance field, Prev: amount field, Up: Field names + +11.11.9 currency field +---------------------- + +'currency' sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' +amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency +symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. + + 'currencyN' prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's +amount. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance field, Prev: currency field, Up: Field names + +11.11.10 balance field +---------------------- + +'balanceN' sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is +left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. + + 'balance' is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is +equivalent to 'balance1'. + + You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the +'balance-type' rule (see below). + + See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: if block, Next: Matchers, Prev: Field names, Up: CSV + +11.12 'if' block +================ + +Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV +data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can +categorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on +their description (for example). There are two ways to write +conditional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", +described below. + + An if block is the word 'if' and one or more "matcher" expressions +(can be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or +next line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, + +if MATCHER + RULE + + or + +if +MATCHER +MATCHER +MATCHER + RULE + RULE + + If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be +applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special +rules may also be used within an if block: + + * 'skip' - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction + from it) + * 'end' - skips the rest of the current CSV file. + + Some examples: + +# if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" +if groceries + account2 expenses:groceries + +# if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown +if +monthly service fee +atm transaction fee +banking thru software + account2 expenses:business:banking + comment XXX deductible ? check it + +# if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file +if ,,,, + end + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Matchers, Next: if table, Prev: if block, Up: CSV + +11.13 Matchers +============== + +There are two kinds: + + 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular + expression ('REGEX'), which hledger will try to match + case-insensitively anywhere within the CSV record. + Eg: 'whole foods' + + 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name + ('%CSVFIELD REGEX'). hledger will try to match these just within + the named CSV field. + Eg: '%date 2023' + + The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended +regular expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries ('\b', '\B', +'\<', '\>'), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular +expressions" in the hledger manual +(https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions). + + With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched +is not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be +converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing +whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if +the original record was: + +2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 + + the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: + +2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 + + When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: + + * By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) + * When a matcher is preceded by ampersand ('&') it will be AND'ed + with the previous matcher (both of them must match). + + There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: if table, Next: balance-type, Prev: Matchers, Up: CSV + +11.14 'if' table +================ + +"if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many +matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like +this: + +if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... +MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... +MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... +MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + + + The first character after 'if' is taken to be the separator for the +rest of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like ',' +or '|' that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is +unrelated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the +matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The +table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line +must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. + + The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher +succeeds, assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding +hledger fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is +equivalent to this sequence of if blocks: + +if MATCHERA + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + +if MATCHERB + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + +if MATCHERC + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + Example: + +if,account2,comment +atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it +%description groceries,expenses:groceries, +2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance-type, Next: include, Prev: if table, Up: CSV + +11.15 'balance-type' +==================== + +Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple +'=' type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding +assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, +eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help with +budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the +'balance-type' rule: + +# balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts +balance-type ==* + + Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: + += single commodity, exclude subaccounts +=* single commodity, include subaccounts +== multi commodity, exclude subaccounts +==* multi commodity, include subaccounts + + +File: hledger.info, Node: include, Next: Working with CSV, Prev: balance-type, Up: CSV + +11.16 'include' +=============== + +include RULESFILE + + This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. +'RULESFILE' is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current +file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between +several rules files, eg: + +# someaccount.csv.rules + +## someaccount-specific rules +fields date,description,amount +account1 assets:someaccount +account2 expenses:misc + +## common rules +include categorisation.rules + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Working with CSV, Next: CSV rules examples, Prev: include, Up: CSV + +11.17 Working with CSV +====================== + +Some tips: + +* Menu: + +* Rapid feedback:: +* Valid CSV:: +* File Extension:: +* Reading CSV from standard input:: +* Reading multiple CSV files:: +* Valid transactions:: +* Deduplicating importing:: +* Setting amounts:: +* Amount signs:: +* Setting currency/commodity:: +* Amount decimal places:: +* Referencing other fields:: +* How CSV rules are evaluated:: +* Well factored rules:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Rapid feedback, Next: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.1 Rapid feedback +---------------------- + +It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting +CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: + +$ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' + + A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions +of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can echo +a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to read the +output. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valid CSV, Next: File Extension, Prev: Rapid feedback, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.2 Valid CSV +----------------- + +Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, and +equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or tab +as separators). This means, eg: + + * Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in + single quotes is not allowed. (Eg ''A','B'' is rejected.) + * When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the + quotes are not allowed. (Eg '"A", "B"' is rejected.) + * When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double + quotes. (Eg 'A"A, B' is rejected.) + + If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to +transform it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more +permissive CSV parser like python's csv lib. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: File Extension, Next: Reading CSV from standard input, Prev: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.3 File Extension +---------------------- + +To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error +messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), +it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a '.csv', '.ssv' or '.tsv' +filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) + + When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV +reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path with +'csv:', 'ssv:' or 'tsv:': Eg: + +$ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print + + You can also override the default field separator with a separator +rule if needed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reading CSV from standard input, Next: Reading multiple CSV files, Prev: File Extension, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.4 Reading CSV from standard input +--------------------------------------- + +You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, +since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: + +$ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reading multiple CSV files, Next: Valid transactions, Prev: Reading CSV from standard input, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.5 Reading multiple CSV files +---------------------------------- + +If you use multiple '-f' options to read multiple CSV files at once, +hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV +file. But if you use the '--rules-file' option, that rules file will be +used for all the CSV files. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valid transactions, Next: Deduplicating importing, Prev: Reading multiple CSV files, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.6 Valid transactions +-------------------------- + +After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the +generated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing +them, applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. +Any errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying +the problem entry. + + There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated +them, will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the +CSV data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance +assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: + +$ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplicating importing, Next: Setting amounts, Prev: Valid transactions, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.7 Deduplicating, importing +-------------------------------- + +When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank +transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing some +of the same records. + + The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) +append just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, +so you don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which +version of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden '.latest.FILE.csv' +file.) This is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: + +# download the latest CSV files, then run this command. +# Note, no -f flags needed here. +$ hledger import *.csv [--dry] + + This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable +chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) + + A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and +otherwise, exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing +CSV data. See: + + * https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows + * https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting amounts, Next: Amount signs, Prev: Deduplicating importing, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.8 Setting amounts +----------------------- + +Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling +various amount-setting situations: + + 1. *If the amount is in a single CSV field:* + + a. *If its sign indicates direction of flow:* + Assign it to 'amountN', to set the Nth posting's amount. N is + usually 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. + + b. *If another field indicates direction of flow:* + Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate + amount sign. Eg: + + # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": + amount1 -%Amount + if %Type deposit + amount1 %Amount + + 2. *If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit):* + + a. *If both fields are unsigned:* + Assign the fields to 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out'. This + sets posting N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero + value. If it's the -out value, the amount will be negated. + + b. *If either field is signed:* + Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg + below, the -out value already has a minus sign so we undo + hledger's automatic negating by negating once more (but only + if the field is non-empty, so that we don't leave a minus sign + by itself): + + fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out + if %amount1-out [1-9] + amount1-out -%amount1-out + + c. *If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be + empty):* + The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is + non-zero/non-empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such + as '1' and 'none'. For such cases, use conditional rules to + help select the amount. Eg, to handle the above you could + select the value containing non-zero digits: + + fields date, description, in, out + if %in [1-9] + amount1 %in + if %out [1-9] + amount1 %out + + 3. *If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost:* + Use the unnumbered 'amount' (or 'amount-in' and 'amount-out') + syntax. + + 4. *If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts:* + Assign to 'balanceN', to set a balance assignment on the Nth + posting, causing the posting's amount to be calculated + automatically. 'balance' with no number is equivalent to + 'balance1'. In this situation hledger is more likely to guess the + wrong default account name, so you may need to set that explicitly. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amount signs, Next: Setting currency/commodity, Prev: Setting amounts, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.9 Amount signs +-------------------- + +There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing and +sign-flipping: + + * *If an amount value begins with a plus sign:* + that will be removed: '+AMT' becomes 'AMT' + + * *If an amount value is parenthesised:* + it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: '(AMT)' becomes + '-AMT' + + * *If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of + parentheses, or a minus sign and parentheses):* + they cancel out and will be removed: '--AMT' or '-(AMT)' becomes + 'AMT' + + * *If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of + parentheses):* + that is removed, making it an empty value. '"+"' or '"-"' or + '"()"' becomes '""'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting currency/commodity, Next: Amount decimal places, Prev: Amount signs, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.10 Setting currency/commodity +----------------------------------- + +If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount +field(s): + +2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 + + you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it +will be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: + +fields date,description,amount + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown $123.00 + income:unknown $-123.00 + + If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: + +2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 + + You can assign that to the 'currency' pseudo-field, which has the +special effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction +(on the left, with no separating space): + +fields date,description,currency,amount + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown USD123.00 + income:unknown USD-123.00 + + Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, +with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by +a space: + +fields date,description,cur,amt +amount %amt %cur + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown 123.00 USD + income:unknown -123.00 USD + + Note we used a temporary field name ('cur') that is not 'currency' - +that would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amount decimal places, Next: Referencing other fields, Prev: Setting currency/commodity, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.11 Amount decimal places +------------------------------ + +Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like +'amount1' influence commodity display styles, such as the number of +decimal places displayed in reports. + + The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display +style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Referencing other fields, Next: How CSV rules are evaluated, Prev: Amount decimal places, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.12 Referencing other fields +--------------------------------- + +In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger +fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger +field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the +hledger field: + +# Name the third CSV field "amount1" +fields date,description,amount1 + +# Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD +amount1 %amount1 USD + +# Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) +comment %amount1 + + Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a +literal "amount1": + +fields date,description,csvamount +amount1 %csvamount USD +# Can't interpolate amount1 here +comment %amount1 + + When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, +only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or +C if "something" is matched, but never A: + +comment A +comment B +if something + comment C + + +File: hledger.info, Node: How CSV rules are evaluated, Next: Well factored rules, Prev: Referencing other fields, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.13 How CSV rules are evaluated +------------------------------------ + +Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need +to). First, + + * 'include' - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth + first. (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for + further includes, recursively, before proceeding.) + + Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is +repeated, the last one wins: + + * 'skip' (at top level) + * 'date-format' + * 'newest-first' + * 'fields' - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial + assignments to hledger fields + + Then for each CSV record in turn: + + * test all 'if' blocks. If any of them contain a 'end' rule, skip + all remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a + 'skip' rule, skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple + matched 'skip' rules, the first one wins. + * collect all field assignments at top level and in matched 'if' + blocks. When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only + the last one. + * compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was + assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a + default + * generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. + + This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger +can use to parse input files. When all files have been read +successfully, the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger +command the user specified. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Well factored rules, Prev: How CSV rules are evaluated, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.14 Well factored rules +---------------------------- + +Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules +files: + + * Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a + 'common.rules', and adding 'include common.rules' to each CSV's + rules file. + + * Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the + frequently used parts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules examples, Prev: Working with CSV, Up: CSV + +11.18 CSV rules examples +======================== + +* Menu: + +* Bank of Ireland:: +* Coinbase:: +* Amazon:: +* Paypal:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Bank of Ireland, Next: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.1 Bank of Ireland +----------------------- + +Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance +field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not +necessary but provides extra error checking: + +Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance +07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 +07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 + +# bankofireland-checking.csv.rules + +# skip the header line +skip + +# name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields +fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance + +# We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" +# above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: +# +# - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, +# by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience +# +# - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, +# eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day + +# date is in UK/Ireland format +date-format %d/%m/%Y + +# set the currency +currency EUR + +# set the base account for all txns +account1 assets:bank:boi:checking + +$ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print +2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 + income:unknown EUR-10.0 + +2012-12-07 PAYMENT + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 + expenses:unknown EUR5.0 + + The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're +reading directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are +imported into a journal file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Coinbase, Next: Amazon, Prev: Bank of Ireland, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.2 Coinbase +---------------- + +A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is +recorded using cost notation. The legacy 'amount' field name +conveniently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. + +# Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes +# 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" + +# coinbase.csv.rules +skip 1 +fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes +date %Timestamp +date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z +description %Notes +account1 assets:coinbase:cc +amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency + +$ hledger print -f coinbase.csv +2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account + assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP + income:unknown -74.000000 GBP + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amazon, Next: Paypal, Prev: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.3 Amazon +-------------- + +Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to +generate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably +get this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) + +"Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" +"Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" +"Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + +# amazon-orders.csv.rules + +# skip one header line +skip 1 + +# name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. +# Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. +fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code + +# how to parse the date +date-format %b %-d, %Y + +# combine two fields to make the description +description %toorfrom %name + +# save the status as a tag +comment status:%amzstatus + +# set the base account for all transactions +account1 assets:amazon +# leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). +# I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember + +# set a generic account2 +account2 expenses:misc +amount2 %amzamount +# and maybe refine it further: +#include categorisation.rules + +# add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. +if %fees [1-9] + account3 expenses:fees + amount3 %fees + +$ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print +2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $20.00 + +2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $25.00 + expenses:fees $1.00 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Paypal, Prev: Amazon, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.4 Paypal +-------------- + +Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some +Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: + +"Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" +"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" +"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" +"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" +"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" +"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" +"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" +"10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" + +# paypal-custom.csv.rules + +# Tips: +# Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download +# Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" +# Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: +# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" +# This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": +# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + +fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note + +skip 1 + +date-format %-m/%-d/%Y + +# ignore some paypal events +if +In Progress +Temporary Hold +Update to + skip + +# add more fields to the description +description %description_ %itemtitle + +# save some other fields as tags +comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ + +# convert to short currency symbols +if %currency USD + currency $ +if %currency EUR + currency E +if %currency GBP + currency P + +# generate postings + +# the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account +# (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) +account1 assets:online:paypal +amount1 %netamount + +# the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party +# (account2 is set below) +amount2 -%grossamount + +# if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. +if %feeamount [1-9] + account3 expenses:banking:paypal + amount3 -%feeamount + comment3 business: + +# choose an account for the second posting + +# override the default account names: +# if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) +if %grossamount ^[^-] + account2 income:unknown +# if negative, it's an expense (a credit) +if %grossamount ^- + account2 expenses:unknown + +# apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks +include common.rules + +# apply some overrides specific to this csv + +# Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, +# which can be disregarded in this case. +if +Bank Account +Bank Deposit to PP Account + description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle + account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking + account1 assets:online:paypal + +# Currency conversions +if Currency Conversion + account2 equity:currency conversion + +# common.rules + +if +darcs +noble benefactor + account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub + comment2 business: + +if +Calm Radio + account2 expenses:online:apps + +if +electronic frontier foundation +Patreon +wikimedia +Advent of Code + account2 expenses:dues + +if Google + account2 expenses:online:apps + description google | music + +$ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print +2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 + expenses:online:apps $6.99 + +2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 + +2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 + expenses:dues $7.00 + +2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 + +2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 + expenses:dues $2.00 + expenses:banking:paypal ; business: + +2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 + +2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 + revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: + expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Timeclock, Next: Timedot, Prev: CSV, Up: Top + +12 Timeclock +************ + +The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. + + hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, +these are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and +clock-out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. +The time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are +optional. The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored +(currently the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines +beginning with '#' or ';' or '*', and blank lines, are ignored. + +i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces +o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 +i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account +o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 + + hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting +some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than +one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For +the above time log, 'hledger print' generates these journal entries: + +$ hledger -f t.timeclock print +2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces + (some:account name) 0.33h + +2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 + (another account) 1.64h + +2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 + (another account) 2.01h + + Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: + +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week + + To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: + + * use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended + timeclock-x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el + + * at the command line, use these bash aliases: 'shell alias ti="echo + i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o + `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"' + + * or use the old 'ti' and 'to' scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. + These rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the + ledger 2 executable renamed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Timedot, Next: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Prev: Timeclock, Up: Top + +13 Timedot +********** + +'timedot' format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. +Compared to 'timeclock' format, it is + + * convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging + * readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. + + A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look +like this: + +2021-08-04 +hom:errands .... .... +fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs +per:admin:finance + + hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each +dot representing a quarter-hour spent: + +$ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader +2021-08-04 * + (hom:errands) 2.00 + +2021-08-04 * + (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 + +2021-08-04 * + (per:admin:finance) 0 + + A day entry begins with a date line: + + * a non-indented *simple date* (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). + + Optionally this can be followed on the same line by + + * a common *transaction description* for this day + * a common *transaction comment* for this day, after a semicolon + (';'). + + After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time +transaction lines, consisting of: + + * an *account name* - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style + account name. + * *two or more spaces* - a field separator, required if there is an + amount (as in journal format). + * a *timedot amount* - dots representing quarter hours, or a number + representing hours. + * an optional *comment* beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. + + In more detail, timedot amounts can be: + + * *dots*: zero or more period characters, each representing one + quarter-hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. + Eg: '.... ..' + + * a *number*, representing hours. Eg: '1.5' + + * a *number immediately followed by a unit symbol* 's', 'm', 'h', + 'd', 'w', 'mo', or 'y', representing seconds, minutes, hours, days + weeks, months or years. Eg '1.5h' or '90m'. The following + equivalencies are assumed: + '60s' = '1m', '60m' = '1h', '24h' = '1d', '7d' = '1w', '30d' = + '1mo', '365d' = '1y'. (This unit will not be visible in the + generated transaction amount, which is always in hours.) + + There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in +the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: + + * Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' or ';' are ignored. + + * Before the first date line, lines beginning with '*' are ignored. + From the first date line onward, a sequence of '*''s followed by a + space at beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs + Org mode) is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an + Org headline, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org + headlines. + + * Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as + transactions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by + default; add -E to see them.) + + More examples: + +# on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. +2016/2/1 +inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... +fos:haskell .... .. +biz:research . + +2016/2/2 +inc:client1 .... .... +biz:research . + +2016/2/3 +inc:client1 4 +fos:hledger 3 +biz:research 1 + +* Time log +** 2020-01-01 +*** adm:time . +*** adm:finance . + +* 2020 Work Diary +** Q1 +*** 2020-02-29 +**** DONE +0700 yoga +**** UNPLANNED +**** BEGUN +hom:chores + cleaning ... + water plants + outdoor - one full watering can + indoor - light watering +**** TODO +adm:planning: trip +*** LATER + + Reporting: + +$ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 +2016-02-02 * + (inc:client1) 2.00 + +2016-02-02 * + (biz:research) 0.25 + +$ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree +Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: + + || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d +============++======================================== + biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + fos || 1.50 0 3.00 + haskell || 1.50 0 0 + hledger || 0 0 3.00 + inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 +------------++---------------------------------------- + || 7.75 2.25 8.00 + + Using period instead of colon as account name separator: + +2016/2/4 +fos.hledger.timedot 4 +fos.ledger .. + +$ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree + 4.50 fos + 4.00 hledger:timedot + 0.50 ledger +-------------------- + 4.50 + + A sample.timedot file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Next: Time periods, Prev: Timedot, Up: Top + +14 PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS +***************************** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Time periods, Next: Depth, Prev: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Up: Top + +15 Time periods +*************** + +* Menu: + +* Report start & end date:: +* Smart dates:: +* Report intervals:: +* Date adjustment:: +* Period expressions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Report start & end date, Next: Smart dates, Up: Time periods + +15.1 Report start & end date +============================ + +By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time +represented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest +transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest +transaction, posting, or market price date. + + Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current +month. You can specify a start and/or end date using '-b/--begin', +'-e/--end', '-p/--period' or a 'date:' query (described below). All of +these accept the smart date syntax (below). + + Some notes: + + * End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date + _after_ the last day you want to see in the report. + * As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with + _options_, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. + * The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of + the start/end dates from options and that from 'date:' queries. + That is, 'date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030'' yields January + 2019, the smallest common time span. + * In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall + on interval boundaries (see below). + + Examples: + +'-b begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 +2016/3/17' +'-e 12/1' end at the start of december 1st of the current year + (11/30 will be the last date included) +'-b all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month +thismonth' +'-p all transactions in the current month +thismonth' +'date:2016/3/17..'the above written as queries instead ('..' can also be + replaced with '-') +'date:..12/1' +'date:thismonth..' +'date:thismonth' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Smart dates, Next: Report intervals, Prev: Report start & end date, Up: Time periods + +15.2 Smart dates +================ + +hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added +convenience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be +written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted +(missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: + +'2004/10/1', exact date, several separators allowed. Year +'2004-01-01', is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 +'2004.9.1' +'2004' start of year +'2004/10' start of month +'10/1' month and day in current year +'21' day in current month +'october, oct' start of month in current year +'yesterday, today, -1, 0, 1 days from today +tomorrow' +'last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period +day/week/month/quarter/year' +'in n n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years' +'n n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years +ahead' +'n -n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years +ago' +'20181201' 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and + day +'201812' 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month + + Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give +surprising results: + +'201813' 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 6-digit year +'20181301' 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 8-digit year +'20181232' 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error +'201801012' 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error + + "Today's date" can be overridden with the '--today' option, in case +it's needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for +periodic transaction rules, which are not affected by '--today'.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Report intervals, Next: Date adjustment, Prev: Smart dates, Up: Time periods + +15.3 Report intervals +===================== + +A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, +balance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a +separate row or column. + + The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line +flags: + + * '-D/--daily' + * '-W/--weekly' + * '-M/--monthly' + * '-Q/--quarterly' + * '-Y/--yearly' + + More complex intervals can be specified using '-p/--period', +described below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Date adjustment, Next: Period expressions, Prev: Report intervals, Up: Time periods + +15.4 Date adjustment +==================== + +When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end +dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically +adjusted to natural period boundaries. This is convenient for producing +simple periodic reports. More precisely: + + * an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall + on a natural period boundary + + * an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the + last period the same length as the others. + + By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, +with '-b', '-e', '-p' or 'date:', will not be adjusted (since hledger +1.29). This makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, +but it also means that if you are specifying a start date, you should +pick one that's on a period boundary if you want to see simple report +period headings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions, Prev: Date adjustment, Up: Time periods + +15.5 Period expressions +======================= + +The '-p/--period' option specifies a period expression, which is a +compact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report +interval. + + Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the +first quarter of 2009): + +'-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"' + + Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; +these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The +spaces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. +So the following are equivalent to the above: + +'-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"' +'-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1' +'-p2009/1/1..2009/4/1' + + Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also +equivalent to the above: + +'-p "1/1 4/1"' +'-p "jan-apr"' +'-p "this year to 4/1"' + + If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be +the earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: + +'-p "from 2009/1/1"' everything after january 1, 2009 +'-p "since 2009/1"' the same, since is a synonym +'-p "from 2009"' the same +'-p "to 2009"' everything before january 1, 2009 + + You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full +date: + +'-p "2009"' the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1” +'-p "2009/1"' the month of january 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to + 2009/2/1” +'-p the first day of 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to +"2009/1/1"' 2009/1/2” + + or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): + +'-p "2009Q1"' first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to + 2009/4/1” +'-p "q4"' fourth quarter of the current year + +* Menu: + +* Period expressions with a report interval:: +* More complex report intervals:: +* Multiple weekday intervals:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions with a report interval, Next: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.1 Period expressions with a report interval +------------------------------------------------ + +A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated +from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word 'in': + +'-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"' +'-p "monthly in 2008"' +'-p "quarterly"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More complex report intervals, Next: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: Period expressions with a report interval, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.2 More complex report intervals +------------------------------------ + +Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, +such as: + + * 'biweekly' (every two weeks) + * 'fortnightly' + * 'bimonthly' (every two months) + * 'every day|week|month|quarter|year' + * 'every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years' + + Weekly on a custom day: + + * 'every Nth day of week' ('th', 'nd', 'rd', or 'st' are all accepted + after the number) + * 'every WEEKDAYNAME' (full or three-letter english weekday name, + case insensitive) + + Monthly on a custom day: + + * 'every Nth day [of month]' + * 'every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]' + + Yearly on a custom day: + + * 'every MM/DD [of year]' (month number and day of month number) + * 'every MONTHNAME DDth [of year]' (full or three-letter english + month name, case insensitive, and day of month number) + * 'every DDth MONTHNAME [of year]' (equivalent to the above) + + Examples: + +'-p "bimonthly from +2008"' +'-p "every 2 weeks"' +'-p "every 5 months from +2009/03"' +'-p "every 2nd day of periods will go from Tue to Tue +week"' +'-p "every Tue"' same +'-p "every 15th day"' period boundaries will be on 15th of each + month +'-p "every 2nd Monday"' period boundaries will be on second Monday + of each month +'-p "every 11/05"' yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of + November +'-p "every 5th November"' same +'-p "every Nov 5th"' same + + Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is +an end date, exclusive as always): + +$ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" + + Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following +tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): + +$ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.3 Multiple weekday intervals +--------------------------------- + +This special form is also supported: + + * 'every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,...' (full or three-letter english + weekday names, case insensitive) + + Also, 'weekday' and 'weekendday' are shorthand for +'mon,tue,wed,thu,fri' and 'sat,sun'. + + This is mainly intended for use with '--forecast', to generate +periodic transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less +useful with '-p', since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal +length, which is unusual. (Related: #1632) + + Examples: + +'-p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be +mon,wed,fri"' Mon-Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun +'-p "every dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will +weekday"' be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun +'-p "every dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri +weekendday"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Depth, Next: Queries, Prev: Time periods, Up: Top + +16 Depth +******** + +With the '--depth NUM' option (short form: '-NUM'), reports will show +accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use +this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same +effect as a 'depth:' query argument: 'depth:2', '--depth=2' or '-2' are +equivalent. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries, Next: Pivoting, Prev: Depth, Up: Top + +17 Queries +********** + +One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise +subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query +arguments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: + + * Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often + account name substrings: + + 'utilities food:groceries' + + * Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in + quotes: + + '"personal care"' + + * Regular expressions are also supported: + + '"^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"' + + * Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: + + 'date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:' + + * Add a 'not:' prefix to negate a term: + + 'not:cur:USD' + +* Menu: + +* Query types:: +* Combining query terms:: +* Queries and command options:: +* Queries and valuation:: +* Querying with account aliases:: +* Querying with cost or value:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Query types, Next: Combining query terms, Up: Queries + +17.1 Query types +================ + +Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be +prefixed with *'not:'* to convert them into a negative match. + + *'acct:REGEX', 'REGEX'* +Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular +expression. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and +regular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just +write an account name substring, like 'expenses' or 'food'. + + *'amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N'* +Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or +greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested +and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded +by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. +Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. + + *'code:REGEX'* +Match by transaction code (eg check number). + + *'cur:REGEX'* +Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose +currency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial +match, use '.*REGEX.*'). Note, to match special characters which are +regex-significant, you need to escape them with '\'. And for characters +which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of +escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: +'hledger print cur:\\$'. + + *'desc:REGEX'* +Match transaction descriptions. + + *'date:PERIODEXPR'* +Match dates (or with the '--date2' flag, secondary dates) within the +specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report +interval. Examples: +'date:2016', 'date:thismonth', 'date:2/1-2/15', +'date:2021-07-27..nextquarter'. + + *'date2:PERIODEXPR'* +Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the +'--date2' flag). + + *'depth:N'* +Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this +depth. + + *'note:REGEX'* +Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of '|', or +the whole description if there's no '|'). + + *'payee:REGEX'* +Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left of +'|', or the whole description if there's no '|'). + + *'real:, real:0'* +Match real or virtual postings respectively. + + *'status:, status:!, status:*'* +Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. + + *'type:TYPECODES'* +Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). +'TYPECODES' is one or more of the single-letter account type codes +'ALERXCV', case insensitive. Note 'type:A' and 'type:E' will also match +their respective subtypes 'C' (Cash) and 'V' (Conversion). Certain +kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts +> Aliases and account types. + + *'tag:REGEX[=REGEX]'* +Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by +value, use 'tag:.=REGEX'.) + + When querying by tag, note that: + + * Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts + * Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their + transaction + * Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. + + (*'inacct:ACCTNAME'* +A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells +hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining query terms, Next: Queries and command options, Prev: Query types, Up: Queries + +17.2 Combining query terms +========================== + +When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which +match: + + * any of the description terms AND + * any of the account terms AND + * any of the status terms AND + * all the other terms. + + The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: + + * match any of the description terms AND + * have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND + * have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND + * match all the other terms. + + Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not +support full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND +or OR in your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but +here are some tricks that can help: + + 1. Use a doubled 'not:' prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses + paid with cash: + + $ hledger print food not:not:cash + + 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with 'print', piping the result into + a second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): + + $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and command options, Next: Queries and valuation, Prev: Combining query terms, Up: Queries + +17.3 Queries and command options +================================ + +Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: 'depth:2' is +equivalent to '--depth 2', 'date:2020' is equivalent to '-p 2020', etc. +When you mix command options and query arguments, generally the +resulting query is their intersection. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and valuation, Next: Querying with account aliases, Prev: Queries and command options, Up: Queries + +17.4 Queries and valuation +========================== + +When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value +reports, 'cur:' and 'amt:' match the old commodity symbol and the old +amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's +reversed, see #1625). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with account aliases, Next: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Queries and valuation, Up: Queries + +17.5 Querying with account aliases +================================== + +When account names are rewritten with '--alias' or 'alias', note that +'acct:' will match either the old or the new account name. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Querying with account aliases, Up: Queries + +17.6 Querying with cost or value +================================ + +When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value +reports, note that 'cur:' matches the new commodity symbol, and not the +old one, and 'amt:' matches the new quantity, and not the old one. +Note: this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see +the discussion at #1625. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Pivoting, Next: Generating data, Prev: Queries, Up: Top + +18 Pivoting +*********** + +Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The +'--pivot FIELD' option substitutes some other transaction field for +account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's +value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields 'status', +'code', 'description', 'payee', 'note', or a tag name. When pivoting on +a tag and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first +value is displayed. Values containing 'colon:separated:parts' will be +displayed hierarchically, like account names. + + Some examples: + +2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment + assets:bank account 2 EUR + income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe + + Normal balance report showing account names: + +$ hledger balance + 2 EUR assets:bank account + -2 EUR income:dues +-------------------- + 0 + + Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: + +$ hledger balance --pivot member + 2 EUR + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + 0 + + One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): + +$ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + -2 EUR + + Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account +name"): + +$ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + -2 EUR + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Generating data, Next: Forecasting, Prev: Pivoting, Up: Top + +19 Generating data +****************** + +Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report time) +are built in to hledger's journal format: + + * Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain + transactions. They are activated by the '--auto' flag. + + * Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, + usually dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. + They are activated by the '--forecast' or 'balance --budget' + options, described next. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Forecasting, Next: Budgeting, Prev: Generating data, Up: Top + +20 Forecasting +************** + +The '--forecast' flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the +journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usually +recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. 'hledger +print --forecast' is a good way to see them. + + This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps +experimenting with different scenarios. + + It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe +recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of 'print +--forecast' into the journal. + + The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like +'generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR', indicating which periodic rule +generated them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named +'_generated-transaction:', which you can use to reliably match +transactions generated "just now" (rather than 'print'ed in the past). + + The forecast transactions are generated within a _forecast period_, +which is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the +bounds for generated transactions, report period controls which +transactions are reported.) The forecast period begins on: + + * the start date provided within '--forecast''s argument, if any + * otherwise, the later of + * the report start date, if specified (with '-b'/'-p'/'date:') + * the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, + if any + + * otherwise today. + + It ends on: + + * the end date provided within '--forecast''s argument, if any + * otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with + '-e'/'-p'/'date:') + * otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. + + Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic +transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start until +after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, but +you can get around it in two ways: + + * If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them + periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: '~ + YYYY-MM-DD') rather than ordinary transactions. That way they + won't suppress other periodic transactions. + + * Or give '--forecast' a period expression argument. A forecast + period specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and + need not be in the future. Some things to note: + + * You must use '=' between flag and argument; a space won't + work. + * The period expression can specify the forecast period's start + date, end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. + * The period expression should not specify a report interval. + (Each periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) + + Some examples: '--forecast=202001-202004', '--forecast=jan-', +'--forecast=2021'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budgeting, Next: Cost reporting, Prev: Forecasting, Up: Top + +21 Budgeting +************ + +With the balance command's '--budget' report, each periodic transaction +rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals +and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc +below. + + See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Cost reporting, Next: Valuation, Prev: Budgeting, Up: Top + +22 Cost reporting +***************** + +This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions +where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of +currency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: + + * Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. + Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or + cryptocurrency. + + * Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more + conversions. + + * Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, + ie the exchange rate. + + * Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. + And more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the + "secondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a + purchase or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. + Also, the "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. + +* Menu: + +* -B Convert to cost:: +* Equity conversion postings:: +* Inferring equity postings from cost:: +* Inferring cost from equity postings:: +* When to infer cost/equity:: +* How to record conversions:: +* Cost tips:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -B Convert to cost, Next: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.1 -B: Convert to cost +======================== + +As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can +also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding '@ +UNITPRICE' or '@@ TOTALPRICE'. + + Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding +the '-B/--cost' flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). +Eg: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + +$ hledger bal -N + $-135 assets:dollars + €100 assets:euros +$ hledger bal -N -B + $-135 assets:dollars + $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost + + Notes: + + -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the +inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if +example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, +-B shows something different: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold + assets:euros €100 ; for 100 euros + +$ hledger bal -N -B + €-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price + €100 assets:euros + + The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does +not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting +equation and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Equity conversion postings, Next: Inferring equity postings from cost, Prev: -B Convert to cost, Up: Cost reporting + +22.2 Equity conversion postings +=============================== + +By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a +different notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance +conversion transactions. In this style, the above entry might be +written: + +2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost +reporting more difficult for PTA tools. + + Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to +the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. + + You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at +the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But be +sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a +not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring equity postings from cost, Next: Inferring cost from equity postings, Prev: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.3 Inferring equity postings from cost +======================================== + +With '--infer-equity', hledger detects transactions written with PTA +cost notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars -$135 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 + +$ hledger print --infer-equity +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 + equity:conversion:$-€:€ €-100 ; generated-posting: + equity:conversion:$-€:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: + + The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion +account type declaration. + + -infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded +using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and +balance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal +entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring cost from equity postings, Next: When to infer cost/equity, Prev: Inferring equity postings from cost, Up: Cost reporting + +22.4 Inferring cost from equity postings +======================================== + +The reverse operation is possible using '--infer-costs', which detects +transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost +notation to them: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + +$ hledger print --infer-costs +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 @@ €100 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + -infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/-cost, allowing cost +reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity +postings: + +$ hledger print --infer-costs -B +2009-01-01 + assets:dollars €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + Notes: + + For '--infer-costs' to work, an exchange must consist of four +postings: + + 1. two non-equity postings + 2. two equity postings, next to one another + 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type + 'V'/'Conversion' (or if they are not declared, they must be named + 'equity:conversion', 'equity:trade', 'equity:trading' or + subaccounts of these) + 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity + postings' amounts. + + Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. + + When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added +to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in the +commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. If +you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can use +explicit cost notation instead. + + -infer-equity and -infer-costs can be used together, if you have a +mixture of both notations in your journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: When to infer cost/equity, Next: How to record conversions, Prev: Inferring cost from equity postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.5 When to infer cost/equity +============================== + +Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled +by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two +suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: + + 1. When you use -B, always use -infer-costs as well. Eg: 'hledger bal + -B --infer-costs' + + 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: 'alias hl="hledger + --infer-equity --infer-costs"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: How to record conversions, Next: Cost tips, Prev: When to infer cost/equity, Up: Cost reporting + +22.6 How to record conversions +============================== + +Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in +hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. + +* Menu: + +* Conversion with implicit cost:: +* Conversion with explicit cost:: +* Conversion with equity postings:: +* Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with implicit cost, Next: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.1 Conversion with implicit cost +------------------------------------ + +Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the +outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset account: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + assets:cash 120 USD + + hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the +conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred rate +by using 'hledger print -x'. + + Pro: + + * Concise, easy + + Con: + + * Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not + be detected + * Conversion rate is not clear + * Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the -infer-equity + flag + + You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped +commodity symbol, by using 'hledger check commodities'. + + You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using 'hledger +check balancednoautoconversion', or '-s/--strict'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with explicit cost, Next: Conversion with equity postings, Prev: Conversion with implicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.2 Conversion with explicit cost +------------------------------------ + +You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an +error otherwise. + + Pro: + + * Still concise + * Makes the conversion rate clear + * Provides more error checking + + Con: + + * Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the -infer-equity + flag + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings, Next: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.3 Conversion with equity postings +-------------------------------------- + +In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not +balanced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD +appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents +reports like 'balancesheetequity' from showing a zero total. + + The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for +each commodity, using an equity account: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + * Preserves the accounting equation + * Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + * Standard, works in any double entry accounting system + + Con: + + * More verbose + * Conversion rate is not obvious + * Cost reporting requires adding the -infer-costs flag + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with equity postings, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.4 Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost +-------------------------------------------------------- + +Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + * Preserves the accounting equation + * Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + * Makes the conversion rate clear + * Provides more error checking + + Con: + + * Most verbose + * Not compatible with ledger + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Cost tips, Prev: How to record conversions, Up: Cost reporting + +22.7 Cost tips +============== + + * Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it + makes that clear and helps detect errors. + * Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping + and preserves the accounting equation. + * Combining these is possible. + * When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use + '-B' (short form of '--cost'). + * If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add + '--infer-costs' also. + * If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want + to see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, + use '--infer-equity'. + * Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation, Next: PART 4 COMMANDS, Prev: Cost reporting, Up: Top + +23 Valuation +************ + +Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can +convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in +the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a +certain date). This is controlled by the '--value=TYPE[,COMMODITY]' +option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler '-V' +and '-X COMMODITY' options, and often one of these is all you need: + +* Menu: + +* -V Value:: +* -X Value in specified commodity:: +* Valuation date:: +* Finding market price:: +* --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions:: +* Valuation commodity:: +* Simple valuation examples:: +* --value Flexible valuation:: +* More valuation examples:: +* Interaction of valuation and queries:: +* Effect of valuation on reports:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -V Value, Next: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.1 -V: Value +============== + +The '-V/--market' flag converts amounts to market value in their default +_valuation commodity_, using the market prices in effect on the +_valuation date(s)_, if any. More on these in a minute. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -X Value in specified commodity, Next: Valuation date, Prev: -V Value, Up: Valuation + +23.2 -X: Value in specified commodity +===================================== + +The '-X/--exchange=COMM' option is like '-V', except you tell it which +currency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to +that. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation date, Next: Finding market price, Prev: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.3 Valuation date +=================== + +Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports +have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market +prices will be used. + + For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is +specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the +valuation date is the journal's end date. + + For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day +of the period, by default. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Finding market price, Next: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Prev: Valuation date, Up: Valuation + +23.4 Finding market price +========================= + +To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, +hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in +this order of preference : + + 1. A _declared market price_ or _inferred market price_: A's latest + market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a + P directive, or (with the '--infer-market-prices' flag) inferred + from costs. + + 2. A _reverse market price_: the inverse of a declared or inferred + market price from B to A. + + 3. A _forward chain of market prices_: a synthetic price formed by + combining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market + prices, leading from A to B. + + 4. _Any chain of market prices_: a chain of any market prices, + including both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading + from A to B. + + There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger +reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all +possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in +'--debug=2' output). That limit is currently 1000. + + Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not +converted. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Next: Valuation commodity, Prev: Finding market price, Up: Valuation + +23.5 -infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions +========================================================== + +Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, +P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a +chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market +value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as +Ledger does) ? Adding the '--infer-market-prices' flag to '-V', '-X' or +'--value' enables this. + + So for example, 'hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices' will get market +prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on +the same day, the P directive takes precedence. + + There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in +confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to +you, read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding +'--debug' or '--debug=2' to troubleshoot. + + '--infer-market-prices' can infer market prices from: + + * multicommodity transactions with explicit prices ('@'/'@@') + + * multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no '@', two + commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings + matters. 'hledger print -x' can be useful for troubleshooting.) + + * multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is + inferred with '--infer-costs'. + + There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is +not specified, prices inferred with '--infer-market-prices' do not help +select a default valuation commodity, as 'P' prices would. So +conversion might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected +('--debug=2' will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation +commmodity, eg: + + * '-X EUR --infer-market-prices', not '-V --infer-market-prices' + * '--value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices', not '--value=then + --infer-market-prices' + + Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here +is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should +work differently, see #1870.) + +2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @ A 1 + +2022-01-01 Positive Total prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @@ A 1 + + +2022-01-02 Negative unit prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @ A -1 + +2022-01-02 Negative total prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @@ A -1 + + +2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @ A -1 + +2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @@ A -1 + + All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each +day, the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the +market prices inferred for B: + +$ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices +P 2022-01-01 B A 1 +P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 +P 2022-01-02 B A -1 +P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 +P 2022-01-03 B A -1 +P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation commodity, Next: Simple valuation examples, Prev: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Up: Valuation + +23.6 Valuation commodity +======================== + +*When you specify a valuation commodity ('-X COMM' or '--value +TYPE,COMM'):* +hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a +suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). + + *When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified ('-V' or '--value +TYPE'):* +For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as +follows, in this order of preference: + + 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A + on or before valuation date. + + 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A + on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred + prices before the valuation date.) + + 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the + '--infer-market-prices' flag is used: the price commodity from the + latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation + date. + + This means: + + * If you have P directives, they determine which commodities '-V' + will convert, and to what. + + * If you have no P directives, and use the '--infer-market-prices' + flag, costs determine it. + + Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not +converted. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple valuation examples, Next: --value Flexible valuation, Prev: Valuation commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.7 Simple valuation examples +============================== + +Here are some quick examples of '-V': + +; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 +P 2016/11/01 € $1.10 + +; purchase some euros on nov 3 +2016/11/3 + assets:euros €100 + assets:checking + +; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 +P 2016/12/21 € $1.03 + + How many euros do I have ? + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros + €100 assets:euros + + What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 + $110.00 assets:euros + + What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date +specified, defaults to today) + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V + $103.00 assets:euros + + +File: hledger.info, Node: --value Flexible valuation, Next: More valuation examples, Prev: Simple valuation examples, Up: Valuation + +23.8 -value: Flexible valuation +=============================== + +'-V' and '-X' are special cases of the more general '--value' option: + + --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. + COMM is an optional commodity symbol. + Shows amounts converted to: + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date + + The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: + +'--value=then' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, + using market prices on each posting's date. +'--value=end' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, + using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if + unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod reports, + market prices on the last day of each subperiod. +'--value=now' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity + using current market prices (as of when report is generated). +'--value=YYYY-MM-DD' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity + using market prices on this date. + + To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ',COMM' +part: a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: +*'--value=now,EUR'*. hledger will do its best to convert amounts to +this commodity, deducing market prices as described above. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More valuation examples, Next: Interaction of valuation and queries, Prev: --value Flexible valuation, Up: Valuation + +23.9 More valuation examples +============================ + +Here are some examples showing the effect of '--value', as seen with +'print': + +P 2000-01-01 A 1 B +P 2000-02-01 A 2 B +P 2000-03-01 A 3 B +P 2000-04-01 A 4 B + +2000-01-01 + (a) 1 A @ 5 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 1 A @ 6 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 1 A @ 7 B + + Show the cost of each posting: + +$ hledger -f- print --cost +2000-01-01 + (a) 5 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 6 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 7 B + + Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 +2000-01-01 + (a) 2 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 2 B + + With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last +day of the journal (2000-03-01): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=end +2000-01-01 + (a) 3 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 3 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 3 B + + Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect +today): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=now +2000-01-01 + (a) 4 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 4 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 4 B + + Show the value on 2000/01/15: + +$ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 +2000-01-01 + (a) 1 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 1 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 1 B + + You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when +reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: + +P 2000-01-01 A 2B + +2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + +$ hledger print -x -X A +2000-01-01 + a 0 + b 0 + + Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive +specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which +shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, +the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a +commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A: + +P 2000-01-01 A 2B +commodity 0.00A + +2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + +$ hledger print -X A +2000-01-01 + a 0.50A + b -0.50A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Interaction of valuation and queries, Next: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: More valuation examples, Up: Valuation + +23.10 Interaction of valuation and queries +========================================== + +When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, +the following happens. + + 1. The query is separated into two parts: + 1. the currency ('cur:') or amount ('amt:'). + 2. all other parts. + + 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based + on pre-valued amounts. + 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. + 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on + post-valued amounts. + + See: 1625 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: Interaction of valuation and queries, Up: Valuation + +23.11 Effect of valuation on reports +==================================== + +Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of +hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to scroll +sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find +problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. +Related: #329, #1083. + +Report '-B', '-V', '-X' '--value=then' '--value=end''--value=DATE', +type '--cost' '--value=now' +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +*print* +posting cost value at value at posting value at value +amounts report end date report or at + or today journal DATE/today + end +balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged +assertions/assignments +*register* +starting cost value at valued at day value at value +balance report or each historical report or at +(-H) journal posting was made journal DATE/today + end end +starting cost value at valued at day value at value +balance day before each historical day before at +(-H) report or posting was made report or DATE/today +with journal journal +report start start +interval +posting cost value at value at posting value at value +amounts report or date report or at + journal journal DATE/today + end end +summary summarised value at sum of postings value at value +posting cost period in interval, period at +amounts ends valued at ends DATE/today +with interval start +report +interval +running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average +total/averageof of displayed values of of + displayed displayed displayed displayed + values values values values +*balance +(bs, +bse, cf, +is)* +balance sums of value at value at posting value at value +changes costs report end date report or at + or today journal DATE/today + of sums of end of of + postings sums of sums + postings of + postings +budget like like like balance like like +amounts balance balance changes balances balance +(-budget) changes changes changes +grand sum of sum of sum of displayed sum of sum of +total displayed displayed valued displayed displayed + values values values values +*balance +(bs, +bse, cf, +is) with +report +interval* +starting sums of value at sums of values value at sums +balances costs of report of postings report of +(-H) postings start of before report start of postings + before sums of start at sums of before + report all respective all report + start postings posting dates postings start + before before + report report + start start +balance sums of same as sums of values balance value +changes costs of -value=end of postings in change in at +(bal, postings period at each DATE/today +is, bs in period respective period, of +-change, posting dates valued at sums +cf period of +-change) ends postings +end sums of same as sums of values period end value +balances costs of -value=end of postings from balances, at +(bal -H, postings before period valued at DATE/today +is -H, from start to period period of +bs, cf) before end at ends sums + report respective of + start to posting dates postings + period end +budget like like like balance like like +amounts balance balance changes/end balances balance +(-budget) changes/end changes/end balances changes/end + balances balances balances +row sums, sums, sums, averages sums, sums, +totals, averages averages of displayed averages averages +row of of values of of +averages displayed displayed displayed displayed +(-T, -A) values values values values +column sums of sums of sums of sums of sums +totals displayed displayed displayed values displayed of + values values values displayed + values +grand sum, sum, sum, average of sum, sum, +total, average of average of column totals average of average +grand column column column of +average totals totals totals column + totals + + '--cumulative' is omitted to save space, it works like '-H' but with +a zero starting balance. + + *Glossary:* + +_cost_ + + calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). +_value_ + + market value using available market price declarations, or the + unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. +_report start_ + + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise today. +_report or journal start_ + + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. +_report end_ + + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, + otherwise today. +_report or journal end_ + + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, + otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise + today. +_report interval_ + + a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the + report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many + subperiods). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 4 COMMANDS, Next: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: Valuation, Up: Top + +24 PART 4: COMMANDS +******************* + +* Menu: + +* Commands overview:: +* accounts:: +* activity:: +* add:: +* aregister:: +* balance:: +* balancesheet:: +* balancesheetequity:: +* cashflow:: +* check:: +* close:: +* codes:: +* commodities:: +* descriptions:: +* diff:: +* files:: +* help:: +* import:: +* incomestatement:: +* notes:: +* payees:: +* prices:: +* print:: +* register:: +* rewrite:: +* roi:: +* stats:: +* tags:: +* test:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commands overview, Next: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.1 Commands overview +====================== + +Here are the built-in commands: + +* Menu: + +* DATA ENTRY:: +* DATA CREATION:: +* DATA MANAGEMENT:: +* REPORTS FINANCIAL:: +* REPORTS VERSATILE:: +* REPORTS BASIC:: +* HELP:: +* ADD-ONS:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA ENTRY, Next: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.1 DATA ENTRY +----------------- + +These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your +journal file. + + * add - add transactions using terminal prompts + * import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA CREATION, Next: DATA MANAGEMENT, Prev: DATA ENTRY, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.2 DATA CREATION +-------------------- + + * close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions + * rewrite - generate auto postings, like print -auto + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA MANAGEMENT, Next: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Prev: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.3 DATA MANAGEMENT +---------------------- + + * check - check for various kinds of error in the data + * diff - compare account transactions in two journal files + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Next: REPORTS VERSATILE, Prev: DATA MANAGEMENT, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.4 REPORTS, FINANCIAL +------------------------- + + * aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account + * balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth + * balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity + * cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets + * incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS VERSATILE, Next: REPORTS BASIC, Prev: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.5 REPORTS, VERSATILE +------------------------- + + * balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, + gains.. + * print - show transactions or export journal data + * register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running + total + * roi - show return on investments + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS BASIC, Next: HELP, Prev: REPORTS VERSATILE, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.6 REPORTS, BASIC +--------------------- + + * accounts - show account names + * activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period + * codes - show transaction codes + * commodities - show commodity/currency symbols + * descriptions - show transaction descriptions + * files - show input file paths + * notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions + * payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions + * prices - show market prices + * stats - show journal statistics + * tags - show tag names + * test - run self tests + + +File: hledger.info, Node: HELP, Next: ADD-ONS, Prev: REPORTS BASIC, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.7 HELP +----------- + + * help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager + + +File: hledger.info, Node: ADD-ONS, Prev: HELP, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.8 ADD-ONS +-------------- + +And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed +by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in +hledger's commands list: + + * ui - run hledger's terminal UI + * web - run hledger's web UI + * iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) + * interest - generate interest transactions + * stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage + * Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, + pijul, plot, and more.. + + Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: accounts, Next: activity, Prev: Commands overview, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.2 accounts +============= + +Show account names. + + This command lists account names. By default it shows all known +accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account +directives. + + With query arguments, only matched account names and account names +referenced by matched postings are shown. + + Or it can show just the used accounts ('--used'/'-u'), the declared +accounts ('--declared'/'-d'), the accounts declared but not used +('--unused'), the accounts used but not declared ('--undeclared'), or +the first account matched by an account name pattern, if any ('--find'). + + It shows a flat list by default. With '--tree', it uses indentation +to show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add '--drop N' to +omit the first few account name components. Account names can be +depth-clipped with 'depth:N' or '--depth N' or '-N'. + + With '--types', it also shows each account's type, if it's known. +(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) + + With '--positions', it also shows the file and line number of each +account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration +order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. + + With '--directives', it adds the 'account' keyword, showing valid +account directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is +useful together with '--undeclared' when updating your account +declarations to satisfy 'hledger check accounts'. + + The '--find' flag can be used to look up a single account name, in +the same way that the 'aregister' command does. It returns the +alphanumerically-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it +fails with a non-zero exit code. + + Examples: + +$ hledger accounts +assets:bank:checking +assets:bank:saving +assets:cash +expenses:food +expenses:supplies +income:gifts +income:salary +liabilities:debts + +$ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE +$ hledger check accounts + + +File: hledger.info, Node: activity, Next: add, Prev: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.3 activity +============= + +Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. + + The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction +counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the +default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. + + Examples: + +$ hledger activity --quarterly +2008-01-01 ** +2008-04-01 ******* +2008-07-01 +2008-10-01 ** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: add, Next: aregister, Prev: activity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.4 add +======== + +Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments will +be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. + + Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, +or generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the +'add' command, which prompts interactively on the console for new +transactions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be +in journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one +of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also +'import'). + + To use it, just run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts. You can +add as many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter '.' +or press control-d or control-c to exit. + + Features: + + * add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by + description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as + a template. + * You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. + * Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. + * The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, + payees/descriptions, dates ('yesterday', 'today', 'tomorrow'). If + the input area is empty, it will insert the default value. + * If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any + bare numbers entered. + * A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. + * Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. + * If you make a mistake, enter '<' at any prompt to go one step + backward. + * Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal + supports it. + + Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): + +$ hledger add +Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal +Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. +Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. +An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. +An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. +If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. +To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. +To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. +Date [2015/05/22]: +Description: supermarket +Account 1: expenses:food +Amount 1: $10 +Account 2: assets:checking +Amount 2 [$-10.0]: +Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . +2015/05/22 supermarket + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking $-10.0 + +Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: +Saved. +Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) +Date [2015/05/22]: $ + + On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the +file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: aregister, Next: balance, Prev: add, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.5 aregister +============== + +(areg) + + Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single +account, with each transaction displayed as one line. + + 'aregister' shows the overall transactions affecting a particular +account (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one +transaction in this account. Transactions before the report start date +are always included in the running balance ('--historical' mode is +always on). + + This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the 'register' +command (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple +accounts, not necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of +thumb: - use 'aregister' for reviewing and reconciling real-world +asset/liability accounts - use 'register' for reviewing detailed +revenues/expenses. + + 'aregister' requires one argument: the account to report on. You can +write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular +expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. + + When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can +be surprising; eg if you have 'assets:per:checking 1' and +'assets:biz:checking 2' accounts, 'hledger areg checking' would select +'assets:biz:checking 2'. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if +in doubt, write the full account name, or a distinctive substring that +matches uniquely. + + Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be +shown. 'aregister' ignores depth limits, so its final total will always +match a balance report with similar arguments. + + Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the +transactions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, +causing it to be different from the account's real-world running +balance. + + An example: this shows the transactions and historical running +balance during july, in the first account whose name contains +"checking": + +$ hledger areg checking date:jul + + Each 'aregister' line item shows: + + * the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if + different, see below) + * the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction + (probably abbreviated) + * the total change to this account's balance from this transaction + * the account's historical running balance after this transaction. + + Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; +add the '-E/--empty' flag to show them. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first +1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause +visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to +ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the +'--align-all' flag. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options. The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and 'json'. + +* Menu: + +* aregister and custom posting dates:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: aregister and custom posting dates, Up: aregister + +24.5.1 aregister and custom posting dates +----------------------------------------- + +Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, +if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report period. +(And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This ensures +that 'aregister' can show an accurate historical running balance, +matching the one shown by 'register -H' with the same arguments. + + To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the '--txn-dates' +flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom dates, +it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance, Next: balancesheet, Prev: aregister, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.6 balance +============ + +(bal) + + Show accounts and their balances. + + 'balance' is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for +listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and +more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with +rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. + + Note there are some higher-level variants of the 'balance' command +with convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: 'balancesheet', +'balancesheetequity', 'cashflow' and 'incomestatement'. When you need +more control, then use 'balance'. + +* Menu: + +* balance features:: +* Simple balance report:: +* Balance report line format:: +* Filtered balance report:: +* List or tree mode:: +* Depth limiting:: +* Dropping top-level accounts:: +* Showing declared accounts:: +* Sorting by amount:: +* Percentages:: +* Multi-period balance report:: +* Balance change end balance:: +* Balance report types:: +* Budget report:: +* Data layout:: +* Useful balance reports:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance features, Next: Simple balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.1 balance features +----------------------- + +Here's a quick overview of the 'balance' command's features, followed by +more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the +higher-level commands as well. + + 'balance' can show.. + + * accounts as a list ('-l') or a tree ('-t') + * optionally depth-limited ('-[1-9]') + * sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount + + ..and their.. + + * balance changes (the default) + * or actual and planned balance changes ('--budget') + * or value of balance changes ('-V') + * or change of balance values ('--valuechange') + * or unrealised capital gain/loss ('--gain') + + ..in.. + + * one time period (the whole journal period by default) + * or multiple periods ('-D', '-W', '-M', '-Q', '-Y', '-p INTERVAL') + + ..either.. + + * per period (the default) + * or accumulated since report start date ('--cumulative') + * or accumulated since account creation ('--historical/-H') + + ..possibly converted to.. + + * cost ('--value=cost[,COMM]'/'--cost'/'-B') + * or market value, as of transaction dates ('--value=then[,COMM]') + * or at period ends ('--value=end[,COMM]') + * or now ('--value=now') + * or at some other date ('--value=YYYY-MM-DD') + + ..with.. + + * totals ('-T'), averages ('-A'), percentages ('-%'), inverted sign + ('--invert') + * rows and columns swapped ('--transpose') + * another field used as account name ('--pivot') + * custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) + ('--format') + * commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines + ('--layout') + + This command supports the output destination and output format +options, with output formats 'txt', 'csv', 'json', and (multi-period +reports only:) 'html'. In 'txt' output in a colour-supporting terminal, +negative amounts are shown in red. + + The '--related'/'-r' flag shows the balance of the _other_ postings +in the transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple balance report, Next: Balance report line format, Prev: balance features, Up: balance + +24.6.2 Simple balance report +---------------------------- + +With no arguments, 'balance' shows a list of all accounts and their +change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and +outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here +means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can +also have multi-period reports, described later.) + + For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end +balance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. + + Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then +alphabetically by account name. For instance (using +examples/sample.journal): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree +mode - see below) are hidden by default. Use '-E/--empty' to show them +(revealing 'assets:bank:checking' here): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E + 0 assets:bank:checking + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless +'-N'/'--no-total' is used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report line format, Next: Filtered balance report, Prev: Simple balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.3 Balance report line format +--------------------------------- + +For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you +can use '--format FMT' to customise the format and content of each line. +Eg: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" + assets $-1 + bank:saving $1 + cash $-2 + expenses $2 + food $1 + supplies $1 + income $-2 + gifts $-1 + salary $-1 + liabilities:debts $1 +--------------------------------- + 0 + + The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each +account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data +fields interpolated like so: + + '%[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)' + + * MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) + + * MAX truncates at this width (optional) + + * FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: + + * 'depth_spacer' - a number of spaces equal to the account's + depth, or if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. + * 'account' - the account's name + * 'total' - the account's balance/posted total, right justified + + Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how +multi-commodity amounts are rendered: + + * '%_' - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) + * '%^' - render on multiple lines, top-aligned + * '%,' - render on one line, comma-separated + + There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, '%(depth_spacer)' has no +effect, instead '%(account)' has indentation built in. Experimentation +may be needed to get pleasing results. + + Some example formats: + + * '%(total)' - the account's total + * '%-20.20(account)' - the account's name, left justified, padded to + 20 characters and clipped at 20 characters + * '%,%-50(account) %25(total)' - account name padded to 50 + characters, total padded to 20 characters, with multiple + commodities rendered on one line + * '%20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)' - the default format for + the single-column balance report + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Filtered balance report, Next: List or tree mode, Prev: Balance report line format, Up: balance + +24.6.4 Filtered balance report +------------------------------ + +You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from +cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to +limit the postings being matched. Eg: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 + $-2 assets:cash +-------------------- + $-2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: List or tree mode, Next: Depth limiting, Prev: Filtered balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.5 List or tree mode +------------------------ + +By default, or with '-l/--flat', accounts are shown as a flat list with +their full names visible, as in the examples above. + + With '-t/--tree', the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' +"leaf" names indented below their parent: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + Notes: + + * "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more + compact output, unless '--no-elide' is used. Boring accounts have + no balance of their own and just one subaccount (eg 'assets:bank' + and 'liabilities' above). + + * All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from + all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, + which requires explanation when sharing reports with + non-plaintextaccounting-users. A tree mode report's final total is + the sum of the top-level balances shown, not of all the balances + shown. + + * Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is + sorted separately. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Depth limiting, Next: Dropping top-level accounts, Prev: List or tree mode, Up: balance + +24.6.6 Depth limiting +--------------------- + +With a 'depth:NUM' query, or '--depth NUM' option, or just '-NUM' (eg: +'-3') balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, +hiding the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an +overview without too much detail. + + Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from +any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 + $-1 assets + $2 expenses + $-2 income + $1 liabilities +-------------------- + 0 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Dropping top-level accounts, Next: Showing declared accounts, Prev: Depth limiting, Up: balance + +24.6.7 Dropping top-level accounts +---------------------------------- + +You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using +'--drop NUM'. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level +account names: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 + $1 food + $1 supplies +-------------------- + $2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Showing declared accounts, Next: Sorting by amount, Prev: Dropping top-level accounts, Up: balance + +24.6.8 Showing declared accounts +-------------------------------- + +With '--declared', accounts which have been declared with an account +directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no +transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need +'-E/--empty' to see them.) + + More precisely, _leaf_ declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will +be included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. + + The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance +report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared +accounts yet. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Sorting by amount, Next: Percentages, Prev: Showing declared accounts, Up: balance + +24.6.9 Sorting by amount +------------------------ + +With '-S/--sort-amount', accounts with the largest (most positive) +balances are shown first. Eg: 'hledger bal expenses -MAS' shows your +biggest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity +is present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity +first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a +commodity, it is treated as 0). + + Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so +'-S' shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add +'--invert' to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, +which flip the sign automatically. Eg: 'hledger incomestatement -MAS'). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Percentages, Next: Multi-period balance report, Prev: Sorting by amount, Up: balance + +24.6.10 Percentages +------------------- + +With '-%/--percent', balance reports show each account's value expressed +as a percentage of the (column) total. + + Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a +column have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each +sign, eg: + +$ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` +$ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` + + Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert +them to one commodity with '-B', '-V', '-X' or '--value', or make a +separate report for each commodity: + +$ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ +$ hledger bal -% cur:€ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multi-period balance report, Next: Balance change end balance, Prev: Percentages, Up: balance + +24.6.11 Multi-period balance report +----------------------------------- + +With a report interval (set by the '-D/--daily', '-W/--weekly', +'-M/--monthly', '-Q/--quarterly', '-Y/--yearly', or '-p/--period' flag), +'balance' shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive +time periods (and a title): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E +Balance changes in 2008: + + || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 +===================++================================= + expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 + expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 + income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 + income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 +-------------------++--------------------------------- + || $-1 $1 0 0 + + Notes: + + * The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to + fully encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and + last subperiods have the same duration as the others). + * Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are + not shown, unless '-E/--empty' is used. + * Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless + '-E/--empty' is used. + * Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless + '--no-elide' is used. _(experimental)_ + * Average and/or total columns can be added with the '-A/--average' + and '-T/--row-total' flags. + * The '--transpose' flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. + * The '--pivot FIELD' option causes a different transaction field to + be used as "account name". See PIVOTING. + + Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy +viewing in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: + + * Hide the totals row with '-N/--no-total' + * Convert to a single currency with '-V' + * Maximize the terminal window + * Reduce the terminal's font size + * View with a pager like less, eg: 'hledger bal -D --color=yes | less + -RS' + * Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata ('hledger bal -D + -O csv | vd -f csv'), Emacs' csv-mode ('M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a'), or + a spreadsheet ('hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv') + * Output as HTML and view with a browser: 'hledger bal -D -o a.html + && open a.html' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance change end balance, Next: Balance report types, Prev: Multi-period balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.12 Balance change, end balance +----------------------------------- + +It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in +balance reports. Here is some terminology we use: + + A *_balance change_* is the net amount added to, or removed from, an +account during some period. + + An *_end balance_* is the amount accumulated in an account as of some +date (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day +in your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. + + We call it a *_historical end balance_* if it includes all balance +changes since the account was created. For a real world account, this +means it will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in +your bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) + + In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing +revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to +see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. + + 'balance' shows balance changes by default. To see accurate +historical end balances: + + 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" + transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the + journal covers the account's full lifetime. + + 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by + not specifying a report start date, or by using the + '-H/--historical' flag. ('-H' causes report start date to be + ignored when summing postings.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report types, Next: Budget report, Prev: Balance change end balance, Up: balance + +24.6.13 Balance report types +---------------------------- + +The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how to +control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't +worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some +time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. + + There are three important option groups: + + 'hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] +...' + +* Menu: + +* Calculation type:: +* Accumulation type:: +* Valuation type:: +* Combining balance report types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Calculation type, Next: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.1 Calculation type +.......................... + +The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: + + * '--sum' : sum the posting amounts (*default*) + * '--budget' : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount + (for each account/period) + * '--valuechange' : show the change in period-end historical balance + values (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price + fluctuations) + * '--gain' : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current + valued balance minus each amount's original cost) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Accumulation type, Next: Valuation type, Prev: Calculation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.2 Accumulation type +........................... + +How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to say +it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's +calculation. It is one of: + + * '--change' : calculate with postings from column start to column + end, ie "just this column". Typically used to see + revenues/expenses. (*default for balance, incomestatement*) + + * '--cumulative' : calculate with postings from report start to + column end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used + to show changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not + often used. + + * '--historical/-H' : calculate with postings from journal start to + column end, ie "all postings from before report start date until + this column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances + of assets/liabilities/equity. (*default for balancesheet, + balancesheetequity, cashflow*) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation type, Next: Combining balance report types, Prev: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.3 Valuation type +........................ + +Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, before +displaying the report. It is one of: + + * no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (*default*) + * '--value=cost[,COMM]' : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to + some other commodity) + * '--value=then[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on + transaction dates + * '--value=end[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on period + end date(s) + (*default with '--valuechange', '--gain'*) + * '--value=now[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on today's + date + * '--value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on + another date + + or one of the equivalent simpler flags: + + * '-B/--cost' : like -value=cost (though, note -cost and -value are + independent options which can both be used at once) + * '-V/--market' : like -value=end + * '-X COMM/--exchange COMM' : like -value=end,COMM + + See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining balance report types, Prev: Valuation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.4 Combining balance report types +........................................ + +Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, +but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The +following restrictions are applied: + + * '--valuechange' implies '--value=end' + * '--valuechange' makes '--change' the default when used with the + 'balancesheet'/'balancesheetequity' commands + * '--cumulative' or '--historical' disables '--row-total/-T' + + For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and +valuation show: + +Valuation:>no valuation '--value= then' '--value= end' '--value= +Accumulation:v YYYY-MM-DD + /now' +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- +'--change'change in sum of period-end DATE-value + period posting-date value of of change in + market values change in period + in period period +'--cumulative'change from sum of period-end DATE-value + report start to posting-date value of of change + period end market values change from from report + from report report start start to + start to period to period end period end + end +'--historicalchange from sum of period-end DATE-value +/-H' journal start posting-date value of of change + to period end market values change from from journal + (historical end from journal journal start start to + balance) start to period to period end period end + end + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report, Next: Data layout, Prev: Balance report types, Up: balance + +24.6.14 Budget report +--------------------- + +The '--budget' report type activates extra columns showing any budget +goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by +periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual +income, expenses, time usage, etc. + + For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common +expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: + +;; Budget +~ monthly + income $2000 + expenses:food $400 + expenses:bus $50 + expenses:movies $30 + assets:bank:checking + +;; Two months worth of expenses +2017-11-01 + income $1950 + expenses:food $396 + expenses:bus $49 + expenses:movies $30 + expenses:supplies $20 + assets:bank:checking + +2017-12-01 + income $2100 + expenses:food $412 + expenses:bus $53 + expenses:gifts $100 + assets:bank:checking + + You can now see a monthly budget report: + +$ hledger balance -M --budget +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: + + * Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, + by default. + + * In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget + goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: + budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) + + * All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg + assets, assets:bank, and expenses above. + + * Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, + even in list mode. + + This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg +above, the 'expenses' actual amount includes the gifts and supplies +transactions, but the 'expenses:gifts' and 'expenses:supplies' accounts +are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. + + This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the +'-E/--empty' flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted +ones, giving the full picture. Eg: + +$ hledger balance -M --budget --empty +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:gifts || 0 $100 + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + expenses:supplies || $20 0 + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with '--cumulative': + +$ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses + +hledger bal -M --budget expenses + + or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): + +hledger bal -M --budget type:rx + + It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency +('cur:COMM' or '-X COMM [--infer-market-prices]'). If showing multiple +currencies, '--layout bare' or '--layout tall' can help. + + For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. + +* Menu: + +* Budget report start date:: +* Budgets and subaccounts:: +* Selecting budget goals:: +* Budget vs forecast:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report start date, Next: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.1 Budget report start date +.................................. + +This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a +good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of +a reporting period, because a periodic rule like '~ monthly' generates +its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no +regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could +exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here the +default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: + +~ monthly in 2020 + (expenses:food) $500 + +2020-01-15 + expenses:food $400 + assets:checking + +$ hledger bal expenses --budget +Budget performance in 2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-15 +==============++============ + || $400 +--------------++------------ + || $400 + + To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the +start date, with '-b'/'-e'/'-p'/'date:', to ensure it includes the +budget goal transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, +adding '-b 2020/1/1' to the above: + +$ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 +Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 +===============++======================== + expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] +---------------++------------------------ + || $400 [80% of $500] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budgets and subaccounts, Next: Selecting budget goals, Prev: Budget report start date, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.2 Budgets and subaccounts +................................. + +You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you +have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then +budget(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their +parent, much like account balances behave. + + In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any +account, all its parents would have budget as well. + + To illustrate this, consider the following budget: + +~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and +budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly +means that budget for both 'expenses:personal' and 'expenses' is $1100. + + Transactions in 'expenses:personal:electronics' will be counted both +towards its $100 budget and $1100 of 'expenses:personal' , and +transactions in any other subaccount of 'expenses:personal' would be +counted towards only towards the budget of 'expenses:personal'. + + For example, let's consider these transactions: + +~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/01 Google home hub + expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 + liabilities $-90.00 + +2019/01/02 Phone screen protector + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket + expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/03 Flowers + expenses:personal $30.00 + liabilities + + As you can see, we have transactions in +'expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades' and 'expenses:personal:train +tickets', and since both of these accounts are without explicitly +defined budget, these transactions would be counted towards budgets of +'expenses:personal:electronics' and 'expenses:personal' accordingly: + +$ hledger balance --budget -M +Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan +===============================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] +-------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + And with '--empty', we can get a better picture of budget allocation +and consumption: + +$ hledger balance --budget -M --empty +Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan +========================================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 + expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] +----------------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Selecting budget goals, Next: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.3 Selecting budget goals +................................ + +The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate +special "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each +account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use +'print --forecast' to show these as forecasted transactions: + +$ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated + + By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction +rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report +interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly +periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly +budget report. + + You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to +the '--budget' flag. '--budget=DESCPAT' will match all periodic rules +whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a +regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic +rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then +select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Selecting budget goals, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.4 Budget vs forecast +............................ + +'hledger --forecast ...' and 'hledger balance --budget ...' are separate +features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules defined +in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transactions for +reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal +transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same +time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of hledger +1.29: + + CLI: + + * -forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command + * -budget is a 'balance' command option, usable only with that + command. + + Visibility of generated transactions: + + * forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary + transactions + * budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts + they produce in -budget reports. + + Periodic transaction rules: + + * -forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules + * -budget uses all periodic rules ('--budget') or a selected subset + ('--budget=DESCPAT') + + Period of generated transactions: + + * -forecast generates forecast transactions + * from after the last regular transaction to the end of the + report period ('--forecast') + * or, during a specified period ('--forecast=PERIODEXPR') + * possibly further restricted by a period specified in the + periodic transaction rule + * and always restricted within the bounds of the report period + + * -budget generates budget goal transactions + * throughout the report period + * possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic + transaction rule. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Data layout, Next: Useful balance reports, Prev: Budget report, Up: balance + +24.6.15 Data layout +------------------- + +The '--layout' option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity +amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can +also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has +four possible values: + + * '--layout=wide[,WIDTH]': commodities are shown on a single line, + optionally elided to WIDTH + * '--layout=tall': each commodity is shown on a separate line + * '--layout=bare': commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts + are bare numbers + * '--layout=tidy': data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, + with one row per data value + + Here are the '--layout' modes supported by each output format; note +only CSV output supports all of them: + +- txt csv html json sql +--------------------------------------- +wide Y Y Y +tall Y Y Y +bare Y Y Y +tidy Y + + Examples: + + * Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + + * Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some + commodities will be hidden: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++=========================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + + * Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in + each column), and account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + + * Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each + commodity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++============================================= + Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + ------------------++--------------------------------------------- + || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + + * Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing + data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare + "account","commodity","balance" + "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" + "total","GLD","70.00" + "total","ITOT","17.00" + "total","USD","5120.50" + "total","VEA","36.00" + "total","VHT","294.00" + + * Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable + has its own column and each row represents a single data point. + See + https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html + for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other software to + consume. Here's how it looks: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy + "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Useful balance reports, Prev: Data layout, Up: balance + +24.6.16 Useful balance reports +------------------------------ + +Some frequently used 'balance' options/reports are: + + * 'bal -M revenues expenses' + Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the + 'incomestatement' command. + + * 'bal -M -H assets liabilities' + Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also + available as the 'balancesheet' command. + + * 'bal -M -H assets liabilities equity' + Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. + Also available as the 'balancesheetequity' command. + + * 'bal -M assets not:receivable' + Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the + 'cashflow' command. + + Also: + + * 'bal -M expenses -2 -SA' + Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average + amount. + + * 'bal -M --budget expenses' + Show monthly expenses and budget goals. + + * 'bal -M --valuechange investments' + Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. + + * 'bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA + [--invert]' + Show top gainers [or losers] last week + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheet, Next: balancesheetequity, Prev: balance, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.7 balancesheet +================= + +(bs) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending +balances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use +the balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive +sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Asset', 'Cash' or +'Liability' type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are +declared, it shows top-level accounts named 'asset' or 'liability' (case +insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger balancesheet +Balance Sheet + +Assets: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash +-------------------- + $-1 + +Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + $1 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance -H assets liabilities', but with +smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign +flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheetequity, Next: cashflow, Prev: balancesheet, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.8 balancesheetequity +======================= + +(bse) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending +balances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown +with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Asset', 'Cash', +'Liability' or 'Equity' type (see account types). Or if no such +accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named 'asset', +'liability' or 'equity' (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their +subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger balancesheetequity +Balance Sheet With Equity + +Assets: + $-2 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-3 cash +-------------------- + $-2 + +Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + $1 + +Equity: + $1 equity:owner +-------------------- + $1 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity', but +with smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with +their sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: cashflow, Next: check, Prev: balancesheetequity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.9 cashflow +============= + +(cf) + + This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and +outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. +Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional +financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Cash' type (see account +types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts + + * under a top-level account named 'asset' (case insensitive, plural + allowed) + * whose name contains some variation of 'cash', 'bank', 'checking' or + 'saving'. + + More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular +expression: + + '^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)' + + and their subaccounts. + + An example cashflow report: + +$ hledger cashflow +Cashflow Statement + +Cash flows: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash +-------------------- + $-1 + +Total: +-------------------- + $-1 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment +not:receivable', but with smarter account detection. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: check, Next: close, Prev: cashflow, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.10 check +=========== + +Check for various kinds of errors in your data. + + hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent +problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you can +use this 'check' command to run them on demand, with no output and a +zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as +argument(s). + + Some examples: + +hledger check # basic checks +hledger check -s # basic + strict checks +hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks + + If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to +run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. + + Here are the checks currently available: + +* Menu: + +* Basic checks:: +* Strict checks:: +* Other checks:: +* Custom checks:: +* More about specific checks:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Basic checks, Next: Strict checks, Up: check + +24.10.1 Basic checks +-------------------- + +These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger +commands, including 'check': + + * *parseable* - data files are well-formed and can be successfully + parsed + + * *balancedwithautoconversion* - all transactions are balanced, + inferring missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting + commodities using costs or automatically-inferred costs + + * *assertions* - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. + (This check can be disabled with '-I'/'--ignore-assertions'.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Strict checks, Next: Other checks, Prev: Basic checks, Up: check + +24.10.2 Strict checks +--------------------- + +These additional checks are run when the '-s'/'--strict' (strict mode) +flag is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to +'check': + + * *accounts* - all account names used by transactions have been + declared + + * *commodities* - all commodity symbols used have been declared + + * *balancednoautoconversion* - transactions are balanced, possibly + using explicit costs but not inferred ones + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other checks, Next: Custom checks, Prev: Strict checks, Up: check + +24.10.3 Other checks +-------------------- + +These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to +'check'. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, +therefore optional: + + * *ordereddates* - transactions are ordered by date within each file + + * *payees* - all payees used by transactions have been declared + + * *recentassertions* - all accounts with balance assertions have a + balance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting + + * *tags* - all tags used by transactions have been declared + + * *uniqueleafnames* - all account leaf names are unique + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Custom checks, Next: More about specific checks, Prev: Other checks, Up: check + +24.10.4 Custom checks +--------------------- + +A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in +https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: + + * *hledger-check-tagfiles* - all tag values containing / (a forward + slash) exist as file paths + + * *hledger-check-fancyassertions* - more complex balance assertions + are passing + + You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. +See: Cookbook -> Scripting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More about specific checks, Prev: Custom checks, Up: check + +24.10.5 More about specific checks +---------------------------------- + +'hledger check recentassertions' will complain if any balance-asserted +account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its +latest posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are +regularly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances +against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of +data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion +requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be +true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that +case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the +manual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest +assertions against real-world balances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: close, Next: codes, Prev: check, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.11 close +=========== + +(equity) + + Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from +another account (typically equity). This can be useful for migrating +balances to a new journal file, or for merging earnings into equity at +end of accounting period. + + By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts +(asset, liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be +configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. + + _(experimental)_ + + This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common +use cases: + + 1. With '--close' (default), it prints a "closing balances" + transaction that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts + by default (this requires account types to be inferred or + declared); or, the accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY + arguments. + + 2. With '--open', it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction + that restores those balances from zero. This is similar to + Ledger's equity command. + + 3. With '--migrate', it prints both the closing and opening + transactions. This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a + new file: run 'hledger close --migrate', add the closing + transaction at the end of the old file, and add the opening + transaction at the start of the new file. The matching + closing/opening transactions cancel each other out, preserving + correct balances during multi-file reporting. + + 4. With '--retain', it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that + transfers RX (revenue and expense) balances to 'equity:retained + earnings'. Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each + accounting period; it is less necessary with computer-based + accounting, but it could still be useful if you want to see the + accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied. + + In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: + + * the transaction descriptions can be changed with + '--close-desc=DESC' and '--open-desc=DESC' + * the account to transfer to/from can be changed with + '--close-acct=ACCT' and '--open-acct=ACCT' + * the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with 'ACCTQUERY' + (account query arguments). + + By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its +amount left implicit. With '--x/--explicit', the amount will be shown +explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting +will be generated for each of them (similar to 'print -x'). + + With '--show-costs', any amount costs are shown, with separate +postings for each cost. This is currently the best way to view +investment lots. If you have many currency conversion or investment +transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. + + With '--interleaved', each individual transfer is shown with source +and destination postings next to each other. This could be useful for +troubleshooting. + + The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, +whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end +date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the +report period will be the closing date; eg '-e 2022' means "close on +2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing date. + +* Menu: + +* close and balance assertions:: +* Example retain earnings:: +* Example migrate balances to a new file:: +* Example excluding closing/opening transactions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: close and balance assertions, Next: Example retain earnings, Up: close + +24.11.1 close and balance assertions +------------------------------------ + +Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have +been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if +there is an opening transaction). + + These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them +temporarily with '-I', or remove them if you prefer. + + You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or +realness ('-C', '-R', 'status:'), or generating postings ('--auto'), +with this command, since the balance assertions would depend on these. + + Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the +balance assertions: + +2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 + + To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary +account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two +single-day transactions: + +; in 2022.journal: +2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + equity:pending -5 + +; in 2023.journal: +2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared + equity:pending 5 = 0 + assets:bank:checking -5 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example retain earnings, Next: Example migrate balances to a new file, Prev: close and balance assertions, Up: close + +24.11.2 Example: retain earnings +-------------------------------- + +Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, +appending the generated transaction to the journal: + +$ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal + + Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because +revenues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. To see them +again, you could exclude the retain transaction: + +$ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example migrate balances to a new file, Next: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example retain earnings, Up: close + +24.11.3 Example: migrate balances to a new file +----------------------------------------------- + +Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on +2023-01-01: + +$ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 +# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal +# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal + + Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced +accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that +case, try adding -infer-equity.) To see the end-of-year balances again, +you could exclude the closing transaction: + +$ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example migrate balances to a new file, Up: close + +24.11.4 Example: excluding closing/opening transactions +------------------------------------------------------- + +When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening +transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like +'print' and 'register'. You can exclude them as shown above, but +'not:desc:...' is not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; +also you will want to avoid excluding the very first opening +transaction, which could be awkward. Here is one alternative, using +tags: + + Add 'clopen:' tags to all opening/closing balances transactions +except the first, like this: + +; 2021.journal +2021-06-01 first opening balances +... +2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 +... + +; 2022.journal +2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 +... +2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 +... + +; 2023.journal +2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 +... + + Now, assuming a combined journal like: + +; all.journal +include 2021.journal +include 2022.journal +include 2023.journal + + The 'clopen:' tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. +To show a clean multi-year checking register: + +$ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen + + And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end +balance sheet: + +$ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: codes, Next: commodities, Prev: close, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.12 codes +=========== + +List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. + + This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in +the order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional +value written in parentheses between the date and description, often +used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. + + Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty +codes will not be shown by default. With the '-E'/'--empty' flag, they +will be printed as blank lines. + + You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. + + Examples: + +2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket + Food $5.00 + Checking + +2022/1/2 (124) Post Office + Postage $8.32 + Checking + +2022/1/3 Supermarket + Food $11.23 + Checking + +2022/1/4 (126) Post Office + Postage $3.21 + Checking + +$ hledger codes +123 +124 +126 + +$ hledger codes -E +123 +124 + +126 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: commodities, Next: descriptions, Prev: codes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.13 commodities +================= + +List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: descriptions, Next: diff, Prev: commodities, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.14 descriptions +================== + +List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in +transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a +subset of transactions. + + Example: + +$ hledger descriptions +Store Name +Gas Station | Petrol +Person A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: diff, Next: files, Prev: descriptions, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.15 diff +========== + +Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It +shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in +the other. + + More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either +file, it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts +the same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) +Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when +multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal +entry. + + This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions +from your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree +about the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your +journal to find out the cause. + + Examples: + +$ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro +These transactions are in the first file only: + +2014/01/01 Opening Balances + assets:bank:giro EUR ... + ... + equity:opening balances EUR -... + +These transactions are in the second file only: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: files, Next: help, Prev: diff, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.16 files +=========== + +List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only +file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: help, Next: import, Prev: files, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.17 help +========== + +Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with 'info', 'man', or a +pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. TOPIC +can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case insensitive. +Eg: 'commands', 'print', 'forecast', 'journal', 'amount', '"auto +postings"'. + + This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger +version. It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal +to a web browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing +tools are not installed on your system. + + By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this +order): 'info', 'man', '$PAGER', 'less', 'more'. You can force the use +of info, man, or a pager with the '-i', '-m', or '-p' flags, If no +viewer can be found, or the command is run non-interactively, it just +prints the manual to stdout. + + If using 'info', note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC +lookup. If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should +consider installing a newer version, eg with 'brew install texinfo' +(#1770). + + Examples + +$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed + + +File: hledger.info, Node: import, Next: incomestatement, Prev: help, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.18 import +============ + +Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to +the journal. Or with -dry-run, just print the transactions that would +be added. Or with -catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' transactions as +imported, without actually importing any. + + This command may append new transactions to the main journal file +(which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not +changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the +journal file (see also 'add'). + + Unlike other hledger commands, with 'import' the journal file is an +output file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing +data will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, +so to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run +'hledger import bank.csv' or perhaps 'hledger import *.csv'. + + Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the +most common import source, and these docs focus on that case. + +* Menu: + +* Deduplication:: +* Import testing:: +* Importing balance assignments:: +* Commodity display styles:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplication, Next: Import testing, Up: import + +24.18.1 Deduplication +--------------------- + +As a convenience 'import' does _deduplication_ while reading +transactions. This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the +same", but rather "ignore transactions that have been seen before". +This is intended for when you are periodically importing foreign data +which may contain already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day +you download bank CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely +run 'hledger import bank.csv' and only new transactions will be +imported. ('import' is idempotent.) + + Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with +unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming +that: + + 1. new items always have the newest dates + 2. item dates do not change across reads + 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order + across reads. + + These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true +enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but +violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if +you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to be +the ones affected). + + hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by +saving a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when +reading 'finance/bank.csv', it will look for and update the +'finance/.latest.bank.csv' state file. The format is simple: one or +more lines containing the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I +have processed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on +that date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files +yourself. But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making +all transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a +certain date. + + Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by +'print --new', but this is less often used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Import testing, Next: Importing balance assignments, Prev: Deduplication, Up: import + +24.18.2 Import testing +---------------------- + +With '--dry-run', the transactions that will be imported are printed to +the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output +is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse it. +Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not +categorised: + +$ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown + + or (live updating): + +$ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' + + Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently +possible for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the +actual import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving +them out of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To +prevent this, do a -dry-run first and fix any problems before the real +import. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Importing balance assignments, Next: Commodity display styles, Prev: Import testing, Up: import + +24.18.3 Importing balance assignments +------------------------------------- + +Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit +(like 'hledger print -x'). This means that any balance assignments in +imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see +the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with +balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances +and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting +amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: + +$ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE + + (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, +please test it and send a pull request.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display styles, Prev: Importing balance assignments, Up: import + +24.18.4 Commodity display styles +-------------------------------- + +Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity +styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: incomestatement, Next: notes, Prev: import, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.19 incomestatement +===================== + +(is) + + This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and +expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal +positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Revenue' or 'Expense' +type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows +top-level accounts named 'revenue' or 'income' or 'expense' (case +insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger incomestatement +Income Statement + +Revenues: + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary +-------------------- + $-2 + +Expenses: + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies +-------------------- + $2 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses', but +with smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their +sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: notes, Next: payees, Prev: incomestatement, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.20 notes +=========== + +List the unique notes that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in +alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of +transactions. The note is the part of the transaction description after +a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + Example: + +$ hledger notes +Petrol +Snacks + + +File: hledger.info, Node: payees, Next: prices, Prev: notes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.21 payees +============ + +List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. + + This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared +with payee directives (-declared), used in transaction descriptions +(-used), or both (the default). + + The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | +character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This +implies -used. + + Example: + +$ hledger payees +Store Name +Gas Station +Person A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: prices, Next: print, Prev: payees, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.22 prices +============ + +Print market price directives from the journal. With +-infer-market-prices, generate additional market prices from costs. +With -infer-reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting +known prices. Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are +displayed with their full precision. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: print, Next: register, Prev: prices, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.23 print +=========== + +Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. + + The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from +the journal file, sorted by date (or with '--date2', by secondary date). + + Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg +the placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their +decimal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one +alteration: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) + + Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not +across all transactions). + + Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. +This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it +to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the +directives and file-level comments. + + Eg: + +$ hledger print +2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + +2008/06/01 gift + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts $-1 + +2008/06/02 save + assets:bank:saving $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + +2008/06/03 * eat & shop + expenses:food $1 + expenses:supplies $1 + assets:cash $-2 + +2008/12/31 * pay off + liabilities:debts $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can +process it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for +certain kinds of search, eg: + +# Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. +# -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. +$ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food + + There are some situations where print's output can become +unparseable: + + * Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or + balance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. + * Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. + * Account aliases can generate bad account names. + + Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is +preserved. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it +will not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but +not written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the +'-x'/'--explicit' flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can +be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable +and robust against data entry errors. '-x' is also implied by using any +of '-B','-V','-X','--value'. + + Note, '-x'/'--explicit' will cause postings with a multi-commodity +amount (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an +implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, +keeping the output parseable. + + With '-B'/'--cost', amounts with costs are converted to cost using +that price. This can be used for troubleshooting. + + With '-m DESC'/'--match=DESC', print does a fuzzy search for one +recent transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC +should contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough +match, no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be +non-zero. + + With '--new', hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a +previous run. This uses the same deduplication system as the 'import' +command. (See import's docs for details.) + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and +(experimental) 'json' and 'sql'. + + Here's an example of print's CSV output: + +$ hledger print -Ocsv +"txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" +"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" +"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" +"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" +"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" +"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" +"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" +"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" +"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + + * There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's + fields repeated. + * The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong + to the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions + are reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a + different order, etc.) + * The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" + (numeric quantity) fields. + * The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" + column, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the + accounting sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and + zero or greater amounts under debit.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: register, Next: rewrite, Prev: print, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.24 register +============== + +(reg) + + Show postings and their running total. + + The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, +in date order, with their running total or running historical balance. +(See also the 'aregister' command, which shows matched transactions in a +specific account.) + + register normally shows line per posting, but note that +multi-commodity amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per +commodity). + + It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to +see that account's activity: + +$ hledger register checking +2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 +2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 +2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 +2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + With '--date2', it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first +1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause +visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to +ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the +'--align-all' flag. + + The '--historical'/'-H' flag adds the balance from any undisplayed +prior postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to +see only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: + +$ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical +2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 +2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 +2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + The '--depth' option limits the amount of sub-account detail +displayed. + + The '--average'/'-A' flag shows the running average posting amount +instead of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the +average for the whole report period). This flag implies '--empty' (see +below). It is affected by '--historical'. It works best when showing +just one account and one commodity. + + The '--related'/'-r' flag shows the _other_ postings in the +transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + The '--invert' flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used +on an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative +numbers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account +together with the related account: + +$ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking + + With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per +interval, aggregating the postings to each account: + +$ hledger register --monthly income +2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 +2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + + Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, +are not shown by default; use the '--empty'/'-E' flag to see them: + +$ hledger register --monthly income -E +2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 +2008/02 0 $-1 +2008/03 0 $-1 +2008/04 0 $-1 +2008/05 0 $-1 +2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 +2008/07 0 $-2 +2008/08 0 $-2 +2008/09 0 $-2 +2008/10 0 $-2 +2008/11 0 $-2 +2008/12 0 $-2 + + Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The '--depth' +option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: + +$ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h +2008/01 assets $1 $1 +2008/06 assets $-1 0 +2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 + + Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates +these will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of +intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full +length and comparable to the others in the report. + + With '-m DESC'/'--match=DESC', register does a fuzzy search for one +recent posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should +contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, +no posting will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. + +* Menu: + +* Custom register output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Custom register output, Up: register + +24.24.1 Custom register output +------------------------------ + +register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. +You can override this by setting the 'COLUMNS' environment variable (not +a bash shell variable) or by using the '--width'/'-w' option. + + The description and account columns normally share the space equally +(about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a +description width as part of -width's argument, comma-separated: +'--width W,D' . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in -help): + +<--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> +date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) +DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA + + and some examples: + +$ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) +$ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 +$ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable +$ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) +$ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 +$ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite, Next: roi, Prev: register, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.25 rewrite +============= + +Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. +For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print +-auto. + + This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It +reads the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but +adds one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. +The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing +transaction's first posting amount. + + Examples: + +$ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' +$ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' +$ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger + + rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: + += ^income amt:<0 date:2017 + (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income + (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + + Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the +two spaces between account and amount. + + More: + +$ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... +$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' +$ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' +$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' + + Argument for '--add-posting' option is a usual posting of transaction +with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can use +''*'' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a +factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount +includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new +commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's +commodity. + +* Menu: + +* Re-write rules in a file:: +* Diff output format:: +* rewrite vs print --auto:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Re-write rules in a file, Next: Diff output format, Up: rewrite + +24.25.1 Re-write rules in a file +-------------------------------- + +During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transactions" +found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this +operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. + +$ rewrite-rules.journal + + Make contents look like this: + += ^income + (liabilities:tax) *.33 + += expenses:gifts + budget:gifts *-1 + assets:budget *1 + + Note that ''='' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in +transactions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you +want to match the posting to add new ones. + +$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + This is something similar to the commands pipeline: + +$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ + | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ + --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ + > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in +journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added +postings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Diff output format, Next: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Re-write rules in a file, Up: rewrite + +24.25.2 Diff output format +-------------------------- + +To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may +find useful output in form of unified diff. + +$ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + + Output might look like: + +--- /tmp/examples/sample.journal ++++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal +@@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ + 2008/01/01 income +- assets:bank:checking $1 ++ assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary ++ (liabilities:tax) 0 +@@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ + 2008/06/01 gift +- assets:bank:checking $1 ++ assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts ++ (liabilities:tax) 0 + + If you'll pass this through 'patch' tool you'll get transactions +containing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that +multiple files might be update according to list of input files +specified via '--file' options and 'include' directives inside of these +files. + + Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of +output from 'hledger print'. + + See also: + + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Diff output format, Up: rewrite + +24.25.3 rewrite vs. print -auto +------------------------------- + +This command predates print -auto, and currently does much the same +thing, but with these differences: + + * with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all + other files. print -auto uses standard directive scoping; rules + affect only child files. + + * rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are + printed. print -auto's query limits which transactions are + printed. + + * rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. + print -auto applies rules specified in the journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: roi, Next: stats, Prev: rewrite, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.26 roi +========= + +Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on +your investments. + + At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an +account name) to select your investment(s) with '--inv', and another +query to identify your profit and loss transactions with '--pnl'. + + If you do not record changes in the value of your investment +manually, or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), +'--pnl' could be an empty query ('--pnl ""' or '--pnl STR' where 'STR' +does not match any of your accounts). + + This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return +(IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for +the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before +display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. + + Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate +'--cost' or '--value' flags (see VALUATION). + + Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: + + * Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return + (IRR). Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of + investment becomes negative at some point in time. + * Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of + Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or + converges too slowly. + + Examples: + + * Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/investing/roi-unrealised.ledger + + * Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html + +* Menu: + +* Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl:: +* Semantics of --inv and --pnl:: +* IRR and TWR explained:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Next: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.1 Spaces and special characters in '--inv' and +---------------------------------------------------- + +'--pnl' Note that '--inv' and '--pnl''s argument is a query, and queries +could have several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). + + To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, +you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): + +$ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' + + If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra +level of nested quoting, eg: + +$ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Next: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.2 Semantics of '--inv' and '--pnl' +---------------------------------------- + +Query supplied to '--inv' has to match all transactions that are related +to your investment. Transactions not matching '--inv' will be ignored. + + In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match '--inv' +to be "investment postings" and other postings (not matching '--inv') +will be sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", +as ROI needs to know which part of the investment value is your +contributions and which is due to the return on investment. + + * "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling + assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity + and any other commodity. Example: + + 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil + assets:cash -$100 + investment:snake oil + + 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil + assets:cash $10 + investment:snake oil = 0 + + * "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: + + 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value + investment:snake oil = $57 + equity:unrealized profit or loss + + All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless +they match '--pnl' query. Changes in value of your investment due to +"profit and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment +return. + + Example: if you use '--inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized', then +postings in the example below would be classifed as: + +2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 + assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + investment:snake oil ; investment posting + +2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 + equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting + snake oil ; investment posting + +2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 + equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting + cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + snake oil $50 ; investment posting + + +File: hledger.info, Node: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.3 IRR and TWR explained +----------------------------- + +"ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was +computed as a difference between current value of investment and its +initial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. + + However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where +investments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate +of growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need +different ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements +two of them: IRR and TWR. + + Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate +of return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. +Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains +would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percentage +of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your investment, +you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same rate of +return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each period between +in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a way that gives +you a compound annual rate of return that investment is expected to +generate. + + As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that +you personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are +the postings that match the query in the'--inv' argument and NOT match +the query in the'--pnl' argument. + + If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as +transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unrealized +gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to +compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate of +return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or +close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. + + In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net +present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present +value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This +could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done +discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger +should produce results that match the 'XIRR' formula in Excel. + + Second way to compute rate of return that 'roi' command implements is +called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also +break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, +out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period +and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR +are quite different. + + TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where +in-flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment +and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change +in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of +your investment. + + References: + + * Explanation of rate of return + * Explanation of IRR + * Explanation of TWR + * Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations + of both metrics + + +File: hledger.info, Node: stats, Next: tags, Prev: roi, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.27 stats +=========== + +Show journal and performance statistics. + + The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, +or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report +for each report period. + + At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and +number of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate +and will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger +version, haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of +interest. The 'stats' command's run time is similar to that of a +single-column balance report. + + Example: + +$ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal +Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal +Included files : +Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) +Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) +Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) +Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) +Payees/descriptions : 1000 +Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) +Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) +Market prices : 1000 (A) + +Run time : 0.12 s +Throughput : 8342 txns/s + + This command supports the -o/-output-file option (but not +-O/-output-format selection). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: tags, Next: test, Prev: stats, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.28 tags +========== + +List the tags used in the journal, or their values. + + This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on +transactions, postings, or account declarations. + + With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular +expression (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. + + With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this +query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, +desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions +and their accounts. + + With the -values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed +instead. With -E/-empty, blank/empty values are also shown. + + With -parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, +with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are +always shown first.) + + Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, +postings also acquire tags from their account and transaction, +transactions also acquire tags from their postings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: test, Prev: tags, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.29 test +========== + +Run built-in unit tests. + + This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, +printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will +be non-zero. + + This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to +sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All +tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report as +a bug! + + This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a +- (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, +with ANSI colour codes disabled: + +$ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never + + For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options +('-- --help' currently doesn't show them). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: PART 4 COMMANDS, Up: Top + +25 PART 5: COMMON TASKS +*********************** + +Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. + +* Menu: + +* Getting help:: +* Constructing command lines:: +* Starting a journal file:: +* Setting opening balances:: +* Recording transactions:: +* Reconciling:: +* Reporting:: +* Migrating to a new file:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Getting help, Next: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.1 Getting help +================= + +Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: + +$ hledger # show available commands +$ hledger --help # show common options +$ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation + + You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by +using the help command. Eg: + +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command + + To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit +https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion archives +can be found at https://hledger.org/support. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Constructing command lines, Next: Starting a journal file, Prev: Getting help, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.2 Constructing command lines +=============================== + +hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it +simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges +described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: + + * command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to + put common options there too: 'hledger CMD OPTS ARGS') + * running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing + ('hledger-ui OPTS ARGS') + * enclose "problematic" args in single quotes + * if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression + metacharacters from the shell + * to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add + '--debug=2'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Starting a journal file, Next: Setting opening balances, Prev: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.3 Starting a journal file +============================ + +hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, +'$HOME/.hledger.journal' by default: + +$ hledger stats +The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. +Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. +Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. + + You can override this by setting the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment +variable. It's a good practice to keep this important file under +version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could do +something like this: + +$ mkdir ~/finance +$ cd ~/finance +$ git init +Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ +$ touch 2020.journal +$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc +$ source ~/.bashrc +$ hledger stats +Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal +Included files : +Transactions span : to (0 days) +Last transaction : none +Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) +Payees/descriptions : 0 +Accounts : 0 (depth 0) +Commodities : 0 () +Market prices : 0 () + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting opening balances, Next: Recording transactions, Prev: Starting a journal file, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.4 Setting opening balances +============================= + +Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some +real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit +cards..). + + To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or +two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a +recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can +always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg +going back to january 1st. + + Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the +balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: + + * The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an + entry like this: + + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 + assets:cash $100 = $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances + + These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at + the end of the previous day. + + The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means + "cleared & confirmed". + + The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as + you'll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. + + The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra + error checking. + + * The second way: run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts to record + a similar transaction: + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 + Description: * opening balances + Account 1: assets:bank:checking + Amount 1: $1000 + Account 2: assets:bank:savings + Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 + Account 3: assets:cash + Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 + Account 4: liabilities:creditcard + Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 + Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances + Amount 5 [$-3050]: + Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2020-01-01]: . + + If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit +the journal. Eg: + +$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Recording transactions, Next: Reconciling, Prev: Setting opening balances, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.5 Recording transactions +=========================== + +As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using +one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the +hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to +convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. + + Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual +and hledger.org for more ideas: + +2020/1/10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + +2020.1.12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + +2020-01-15 paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reconciling, Next: Reporting, Prev: Recording transactions, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.6 Reconciling +================ + +Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported +balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your +bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the +real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made +a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) +frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it +pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and +discrepancies. + + A typical workflow: + + 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what + hledger reports ('hledger bal cash'). If they are different, try + to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the + already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful + ('hledger reg cash'). If you can't find the error, add an + adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and + can't explain the missing $2, it could be: + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare + today's (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance ('hledger + bal checking -C'). If they are different, track down the error or + record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, + similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually + compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank + with the one reported by 'hledger reg checking -C'. This will be + easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to + your bank's clearing dates. + + 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. + + Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a +live-updating register while you edit the journal: 'hledger-ui --watch +--register checking -C' + + After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled +transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track +that, by adding the '*' marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, +insert '*' between '2020-01-15' and 'paycheck' + + If you're using version control, this can be another good time to +commit: + +$ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reporting, Next: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reconciling, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.7 Reporting +============== + +Here are some basic reports. + + Show all transactions: + +$ hledger print +2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + +2020-01-10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + +2020-01-12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + +2020-01-15 * paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + +2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + Show account names, and their hierarchy: + +$ hledger accounts --tree +assets + bank + checking + savings + cash +equity + opening/closing balances +expenses + food + misc +income + gifts + salary +liabilities + creditcard + + Show all account totals: + +$ hledger balance + $4105 assets + $4000 bank + $2000 checking + $2000 savings + $105 cash + $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances + $15 expenses + $13 food + $2 misc + $-1020 income + $-20 gifts + $-1000 salary + $-50 liabilities:creditcard +-------------------- + 0 + + Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to +depth 2: + +$ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 + $4000 assets:bank + $105 assets:cash + $-50 liabilities:creditcard +-------------------- + $4055 + + Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple +balance sheet: + +$ hledger bs -2 +Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-16 +========================++============ + Assets || +------------------------++------------ + assets:bank || $4000 + assets:cash || $105 +------------------------++------------ + || $4105 +========================++============ + Liabilities || +------------------------++------------ + liabilities:creditcard || $50 +------------------------++------------ + || $50 +========================++============ + Net: || $4055 + + The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use 'bse' +for a full balance sheet with equity.) + + Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: + +hledger is +Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 +===============++======================= + Revenues || +---------------++----------------------- + income:gifts || $20 + income:salary || $1000 +---------------++----------------------- + || $1020 +===============++======================= + Expenses || +---------------++----------------------- + expenses:food || $13 + expenses:misc || $2 +---------------++----------------------- + || $15 +===============++======================= + Net: || $1005 + + The final total is your net income during this period. + + Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: + +$ hledger register cash +2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 +2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 +2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 +2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 + + Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: + +$ hledger activity -W +2019-12-30 ***** +2020-01-06 **** +2020-01-13 **** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reporting, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.8 Migrating to a new file +============================ + +At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new +file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, +and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the +close command. + + If using version control, don't forget to 'git add' the new file. + + +Tag Table: +Node: Top210 +Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE3860 +Ref: #part-1-user-interface4001 +Node: Options4001 +Ref: #options4120 +Node: General options4262 +Ref: #general-options4387 +Node: Command options8600 +Ref: #command-options8751 +Node: Command arguments9151 +Ref: #command-arguments9309 +Node: Special characters10189 +Ref: #special-characters10352 +Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters10515 +Ref: #single-escaping-shell-metacharacters10756 +Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters11359 +Ref: #double-escaping-regular-expression-metacharacters11670 +Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands12196 +Ref: #triple-escaping-for-add-on-commands12456 +Node: Less escaping13100 +Ref: #less-escaping13254 +Node: Unicode characters13578 +Ref: #unicode-characters13743 +Node: Regular expressions15155 +Ref: #regular-expressions15295 +Node: Environment17039 +Ref: #environment17150 +Node: Input18719 +Ref: #input18819 +Node: Data formats19362 +Ref: #data-formats19475 +Node: Multiple files20861 +Ref: #multiple-files20998 +Node: Strict mode21467 +Ref: #strict-mode21577 +Node: Commands22301 +Ref: #commands22402 +Node: Add-on commands22874 +Ref: #add-on-commands22976 +Node: Output24061 +Ref: #output24164 +Node: Output destination24291 +Ref: #output-destination24422 +Node: Output format24847 +Ref: #output-format24993 +Node: CSV output26531 +Ref: #csv-output26647 +Node: HTML output26750 +Ref: #html-output26888 +Node: JSON output26982 +Ref: #json-output27120 +Node: SQL output28042 +Ref: #sql-output28158 +Node: Commodity styles28893 +Ref: #commodity-styles29033 +Node: Colour29632 +Ref: #colour29750 +Node: Box-drawing30154 +Ref: #box-drawing30272 +Node: Paging30562 +Ref: #paging30676 +Node: Debug output31629 +Ref: #debug-output31735 +Node: Limitations32398 +Ref: #limitations32518 +Node: Troubleshooting33287 +Ref: #troubleshooting33428 +Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS35910 +Ref: #part-2-data-formats36057 +Node: Journal36057 +Ref: #journal36168 +Node: Journal cheatsheet36807 +Ref: #journal-cheatsheet36948 +Node: About journal format40936 +Ref: #about-journal-format41098 +Node: Comments42616 +Ref: #comments42748 +Node: Transactions43564 +Ref: #transactions43689 +Node: Dates44703 +Ref: #dates44812 +Node: Simple dates44857 +Ref: #simple-dates44975 +Node: Posting dates45475 +Ref: #posting-dates45595 +Node: Status46564 +Ref: #status46667 +Node: Code48375 +Ref: #code48480 +Node: Description48712 +Ref: #description48845 +Node: Payee and note49165 +Ref: #payee-and-note49273 +Node: Transaction comments49608 +Ref: #transaction-comments49763 +Node: Postings50126 +Ref: #postings50261 +Node: Account names51256 +Ref: #account-names51388 +Node: Amounts53062 +Ref: #amounts53179 +Node: Decimal marks digit group marks54164 +Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks54341 +Node: Commodity55355 +Ref: #commodity55544 +Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display56496 +Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display56757 +Node: Commodity display style57209 +Ref: #commodity-display-style57417 +Node: Rounding59586 +Ref: #rounding59706 +Node: Costs60005 +Ref: #costs60123 +Node: Other cost/lot notations62122 +Ref: #other-costlot-notations62256 +Node: Balance assertions64845 +Ref: #balance-assertions64998 +Node: Assertions and ordering66081 +Ref: #assertions-and-ordering66272 +Node: Assertions and multiple included files66972 +Ref: #assertions-and-multiple-included-files67234 +Node: Assertions and multiple -f files67734 +Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-files67987 +Node: Assertions and commodities68384 +Ref: #assertions-and-commodities68608 +Node: Assertions and prices69788 +Ref: #assertions-and-prices69996 +Node: Assertions and subaccounts70423 +Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts70646 +Node: Assertions and virtual postings70970 +Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings71210 +Node: Assertions and auto postings71342 +Ref: #assertions-and-auto-postings71574 +Node: Assertions and precision72219 +Ref: #assertions-and-precision72403 +Node: Posting comments72670 +Ref: #posting-comments72818 +Node: Tags73195 +Ref: #tags73311 +Node: Tag values74504 +Ref: #tag-values74595 +Node: Directives75354 +Ref: #directives75483 +Node: Directive effects77289 +Ref: #directive-effects77445 +Node: Directives and multiple files80410 +Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files80590 +Node: account directive81282 +Ref: #account-directive81440 +Node: Account comments82838 +Ref: #account-comments82990 +Node: Account subdirectives83498 +Ref: #account-subdirectives83691 +Node: Account error checking83833 +Ref: #account-error-checking84033 +Node: Account display order85222 +Ref: #account-display-order85412 +Node: Account types86513 +Ref: #account-types86656 +Node: alias directive90283 +Ref: #alias-directive90446 +Node: Basic aliases91496 +Ref: #basic-aliases91629 +Node: Regex aliases92373 +Ref: #regex-aliases92532 +Node: Combining aliases93422 +Ref: #combining-aliases93602 +Node: Aliases and multiple files94878 +Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files95084 +Node: end aliases directive95663 +Ref: #end-aliases-directive95884 +Node: Aliases can generate bad account names96033 +Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names96283 +Node: Aliases and account types96868 +Ref: #aliases-and-account-types97062 +Node: commodity directive97758 +Ref: #commodity-directive97934 +Node: Commodity error checking100508 +Ref: #commodity-error-checking100656 +Node: decimal-mark directive101171 +Ref: #decimal-mark-directive101355 +Node: include directive101752 +Ref: #include-directive101918 +Node: P directive102842 +Ref: #p-directive102989 +Node: payee directive103872 +Ref: #payee-directive104023 +Node: tag directive104339 +Ref: #tag-directive104496 +Node: Periodic transactions104964 +Ref: #periodic-transactions105130 +Node: Periodic rule syntax106836 +Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax107016 +Node: Periodic rules and relative dates107661 +Ref: #periodic-rules-and-relative-dates107929 +Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!108440 +Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description108719 +Node: Other syntax109403 +Ref: #other-syntax109529 +Node: Auto postings110174 +Ref: #auto-postings110310 +Node: Auto postings and multiple files112781 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files112983 +Node: Auto postings and dates113192 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates113464 +Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions113639 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions113978 +Node: Auto posting tags114481 +Ref: #auto-posting-tags114694 +Node: Balance assignments115330 +Ref: #balance-assignments115510 +Node: Balance assignments and prices116840 +Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices117010 +Node: Bracketed posting dates117221 +Ref: #bracketed-posting-dates117407 +Node: D directive117921 +Ref: #d-directive118091 +Node: apply account directive119691 +Ref: #apply-account-directive119873 +Node: Y directive120560 +Ref: #y-directive120722 +Node: Secondary dates121550 +Ref: #secondary-dates121706 +Node: Star comments122520 +Ref: #star-comments122682 +Node: Valuation expressions123214 +Ref: #valuation-expressions123393 +Node: Virtual postings123515 +Ref: #virtual-postings123696 +Node: Other Ledger directives125258 +Ref: #other-ledger-directives125423 +Node: CSV125989 +Ref: #csv126082 +Node: CSV rules cheatsheet128151 +Ref: #csv-rules-cheatsheet128283 +Node: separator129983 +Ref: #separator130110 +Node: skip130650 +Ref: #skip130758 +Node: date-format131329 +Ref: #date-format131450 +Node: timezone132174 +Ref: #timezone132297 +Node: newest-first133302 +Ref: #newest-first133440 +Node: intra-day-reversed134018 +Ref: #intra-day-reversed134172 +Node: decimal-mark134665 +Ref: #decimal-mark134806 +Node: fields list135145 +Ref: #fields-list135282 +Node: Field assignment136953 +Ref: #field-assignment137097 +Node: Field names138124 +Ref: #field-names138255 +Node: date field139458 +Ref: #date-field139576 +Node: date2 field139624 +Ref: #date2-field139765 +Node: status field139821 +Ref: #status-field139964 +Node: code field140013 +Ref: #code-field140158 +Node: description field140203 +Ref: #description-field140363 +Node: comment field140422 +Ref: #comment-field140577 +Node: account field140870 +Ref: #account-field141020 +Node: amount field141590 +Ref: #amount-field141739 +Node: currency field143758 +Ref: #currency-field143911 +Node: balance field144168 +Ref: #balance-field144300 +Node: if block144672 +Ref: #if-block144793 +Node: Matchers146201 +Ref: #matchers146315 +Node: if table147797 +Ref: #if-table147919 +Node: balance-type149341 +Ref: #balance-type149470 +Node: include150170 +Ref: #include150297 +Node: Working with CSV150741 +Ref: #working-with-csv150888 +Node: Rapid feedback151259 +Ref: #rapid-feedback151392 +Node: Valid CSV151844 +Ref: #valid-csv151990 +Node: File Extension152722 +Ref: #file-extension152895 +Node: Reading CSV from standard input153459 +Ref: #reading-csv-from-standard-input153683 +Node: Reading multiple CSV files153847 +Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files154065 +Node: Valid transactions154306 +Ref: #valid-transactions154500 +Node: Deduplicating importing155128 +Ref: #deduplicating-importing155323 +Node: Setting amounts156359 +Ref: #setting-amounts156530 +Node: Amount signs158995 +Ref: #amount-signs159163 +Node: Setting currency/commodity159850 +Ref: #setting-currencycommodity160054 +Node: Amount decimal places161228 +Ref: #amount-decimal-places161434 +Node: Referencing other fields161746 +Ref: #referencing-other-fields161959 +Node: How CSV rules are evaluated162856 +Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated163073 +Node: Well factored rules164526 +Ref: #well-factored-rules164694 +Node: CSV rules examples165018 +Ref: #csv-rules-examples165153 +Node: Bank of Ireland165218 +Ref: #bank-of-ireland165355 +Node: Coinbase166817 +Ref: #coinbase166955 +Node: Amazon168002 +Ref: #amazon168127 +Node: Paypal169846 +Ref: #paypal169954 +Node: Timeclock177598 +Ref: #timeclock177703 +Node: Timedot179835 +Ref: #timedot179958 +Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS184655 +Ref: #part-3-reporting-concepts184819 +Node: Time periods184819 +Ref: #time-periods184953 +Node: Report start & end date185071 +Ref: #report-start-end-date185223 +Node: Smart dates186882 +Ref: #smart-dates187035 +Node: Report intervals188903 +Ref: #report-intervals189058 +Node: Date adjustment189476 +Ref: #date-adjustment189636 +Node: Period expressions190487 +Ref: #period-expressions190628 +Node: Period expressions with a report interval192392 +Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval192626 +Node: More complex report intervals192840 +Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals193085 +Node: Multiple weekday intervals194886 +Ref: #multiple-weekday-intervals195075 +Node: Depth195897 +Ref: #depth195999 +Node: Queries196295 +Ref: #queries196397 +Node: Query types197306 +Ref: #query-types197427 +Node: Combining query terms200601 +Ref: #combining-query-terms200778 +Node: Queries and command options201852 +Ref: #queries-and-command-options202051 +Node: Queries and valuation202300 +Ref: #queries-and-valuation202495 +Node: Querying with account aliases202724 +Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases202935 +Node: Querying with cost or value203065 +Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value203242 +Node: Pivoting203543 +Ref: #pivoting203657 +Node: Generating data205115 +Ref: #generating-data205247 +Node: Forecasting205727 +Ref: #forecasting205852 +Node: Budgeting208623 +Ref: #budgeting208743 +Node: Cost reporting209006 +Ref: #cost-reporting209134 +Node: -B Convert to cost210241 +Ref: #b-convert-to-cost210397 +Node: Equity conversion postings211789 +Ref: #equity-conversion-postings212003 +Node: Inferring equity postings from cost212894 +Ref: #inferring-equity-postings-from-cost213143 +Node: Inferring cost from equity postings213954 +Ref: #inferring-cost-from-equity-postings214202 +Node: When to infer cost/equity215969 +Ref: #when-to-infer-costequity216187 +Node: How to record conversions216583 +Ref: #how-to-record-conversions216775 +Node: Conversion with implicit cost217066 +Ref: #conversion-with-implicit-cost217271 +Node: Conversion with explicit cost218148 +Ref: #conversion-with-explicit-cost218393 +Node: Conversion with equity postings218810 +Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings219079 +Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost219898 +Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings-and-explicit-cost220165 +Node: Cost tips220627 +Ref: #cost-tips220753 +Node: Valuation221459 +Ref: #valuation221583 +Node: -V Value222357 +Ref: #v-value222483 +Node: -X Value in specified commodity222678 +Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity222873 +Node: Valuation date223022 +Ref: #valuation-date223193 +Node: Finding market price223630 +Ref: #finding-market-price223835 +Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions225005 +Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions225281 +Node: Valuation commodity228037 +Ref: #valuation-commodity228250 +Node: Simple valuation examples229463 +Ref: #simple-valuation-examples229661 +Node: --value Flexible valuation230320 +Ref: #value-flexible-valuation230524 +Node: More valuation examples232168 +Ref: #more-valuation-examples232377 +Node: Interaction of valuation and queries234376 +Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries234617 +Node: Effect of valuation on reports235089 +Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports235286 +Node: PART 4 COMMANDS242983 +Ref: #part-4-commands243126 +Node: Commands overview243496 +Ref: #commands-overview243630 +Node: DATA ENTRY243809 +Ref: #data-entry243933 +Node: DATA CREATION244132 +Ref: #data-creation244286 +Node: DATA MANAGEMENT244404 +Ref: #data-management244569 +Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL244690 +Ref: #reports-financial244865 +Node: REPORTS VERSATILE245170 +Ref: #reports-versatile245343 +Node: REPORTS BASIC245596 +Ref: #reports-basic245748 +Node: HELP246257 +Ref: #help246379 +Node: ADD-ONS246436 +Ref: #add-ons246542 +Node: accounts247121 +Ref: #accounts247254 +Node: activity249141 +Ref: #activity249260 +Node: add249634 +Ref: #add249744 +Node: aregister252555 +Ref: #aregister252676 +Node: aregister and custom posting dates255564 +Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates255730 +Node: balance256282 +Ref: #balance256408 +Node: balance features257383 +Ref: #balance-features257523 +Node: Simple balance report259447 +Ref: #simple-balance-report259632 +Node: Balance report line format261257 +Ref: #balance-report-line-format261459 +Node: Filtered balance report263617 +Ref: #filtered-balance-report263809 +Node: List or tree mode264136 +Ref: #list-or-tree-mode264304 +Node: Depth limiting265649 +Ref: #depth-limiting265815 +Node: Dropping top-level accounts266416 +Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts266616 +Node: Showing declared accounts266926 +Ref: #showing-declared-accounts267125 +Node: Sorting by amount267656 +Ref: #sorting-by-amount267823 +Node: Percentages268493 +Ref: #percentages268652 +Node: Multi-period balance report269200 +Ref: #multi-period-balance-report269400 +Node: Balance change end balance271675 +Ref: #balance-change-end-balance271884 +Node: Balance report types273312 +Ref: #balance-report-types273493 +Node: Calculation type274003 +Ref: #calculation-type274158 +Node: Accumulation type274663 +Ref: #accumulation-type274843 +Node: Valuation type275745 +Ref: #valuation-type275933 +Node: Combining balance report types276928 +Ref: #combining-balance-report-types277122 +Node: Budget report278960 +Ref: #budget-report279112 +Node: Budget report start date284794 +Ref: #budget-report-start-date284972 +Node: Budgets and subaccounts286304 +Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts286511 +Node: Selecting budget goals289951 +Ref: #selecting-budget-goals290150 +Node: Budget vs forecast291185 +Ref: #budget-vs-forecast291344 +Node: Data layout292974 +Ref: #data-layout293124 +Node: Useful balance reports301019 +Ref: #useful-balance-reports301169 +Node: balancesheet302254 +Ref: #balancesheet302399 +Node: balancesheetequity303719 +Ref: #balancesheetequity303877 +Node: cashflow305266 +Ref: #cashflow305397 +Node: check306825 +Ref: #check306939 +Node: Basic checks307741 +Ref: #basic-checks307861 +Node: Strict checks308381 +Ref: #strict-checks308524 +Node: Other checks308947 +Ref: #other-checks309089 +Node: Custom checks309652 +Ref: #custom-checks309809 +Node: More about specific checks310226 +Ref: #more-about-specific-checks310388 +Node: close311116 +Ref: #close311227 +Node: close and balance assertions314637 +Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions314815 +Node: Example retain earnings315966 +Ref: #example-retain-earnings316183 +Node: Example migrate balances to a new file316615 +Ref: #example-migrate-balances-to-a-new-file316880 +Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions317456 +Ref: #example-excluding-closingopening-transactions317705 +Node: codes318923 +Ref: #codes319040 +Node: commodities319904 +Ref: #commodities320040 +Node: descriptions320110 +Ref: #descriptions320247 +Node: diff320538 +Ref: #diff320653 +Node: files321695 +Ref: #files321804 +Node: help321945 +Ref: #help-1322054 +Node: import323427 +Ref: #import323550 +Node: Deduplication324636 +Ref: #deduplication324761 +Node: Import testing326655 +Ref: #import-testing326820 +Node: Importing balance assignments327663 +Ref: #importing-balance-assignments327869 +Node: Commodity display styles328518 +Ref: #commodity-display-styles328691 +Node: incomestatement328820 +Ref: #incomestatement328962 +Node: notes330283 +Ref: #notes330405 +Node: payees330767 +Ref: #payees330882 +Node: prices331401 +Ref: #prices331516 +Node: print331814 +Ref: #print331929 +Node: register337267 +Ref: #register337389 +Node: Custom register output342420 +Ref: #custom-register-output342551 +Node: rewrite343888 +Ref: #rewrite344006 +Node: Re-write rules in a file345904 +Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file346067 +Node: Diff output format347216 +Ref: #diff-output-format347399 +Node: rewrite vs print --auto348491 +Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto348651 +Node: roi349207 +Ref: #roi349314 +Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl351035 +Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl351275 +Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl351763 +Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl352002 +Node: IRR and TWR explained353852 +Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained354012 +Node: stats357098 +Ref: #stats357206 +Node: tags358593 +Ref: #tags-1358700 +Node: test359709 +Ref: #test359802 +Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS360544 +Ref: #part-5-common-tasks360677 +Node: Getting help360951 +Ref: #getting-help361092 +Node: Constructing command lines361852 +Ref: #constructing-command-lines362053 +Node: Starting a journal file362710 +Ref: #starting-a-journal-file362917 +Node: Setting opening balances364105 +Ref: #setting-opening-balances364310 +Node: Recording transactions367451 +Ref: #recording-transactions367640 +Node: Reconciling368196 +Ref: #reconciling368348 +Node: Reporting370605 +Ref: #reporting370754 +Node: Migrating to a new file374739 +Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file374896  End Tag Table diff --git a/embeddedfiles/hledger.txt b/embeddedfiles/hledger.txt --- a/embeddedfiles/hledger.txt +++ b/embeddedfiles/hledger.txt @@ -18,8645 +18,8682 @@ and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with beancount(1). - This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.1. - It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by - all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeep- - ing/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in here to - use hledger productively, but when you have a question about function- - ality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip ahead or - skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an info manual - or man page on your system. You can also get it from hledger itself - with - hledger --man, hledger --info or hledger help [TOPIC]. - - The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files - describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a use- - ful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). - Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect - other hledger-* executables as extra subcommands. - - hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, time- - dot, or CSV format. The default file is .hledger.journal in your home - directory; this can be overridden with one or more -f FILE options, or - the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. hledger CLI can also read from - stdin with -f-; more on that below. - - Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one transac- - tion: - - 2015-10-16 bought food - expenses:food $10 - assets:cash - - Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more - accounts: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, peo- - ple, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using : to indi- - cate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account - name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (debit), - negatives are outflow from it (credit). (Some reports show revenue, - liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; - this is normal.) - - hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can install - other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more exten- - sive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM + - vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see - https://hledger.org/editors.html). - - To get started, run hledger add and follow the prompts, or save some - entries like the above in $HOME/.hledger.journal, then try commands - like: - hledger print -x - hledger aregister assets - hledger balance - hledger balancesheet - hledger incomestatement. - Run hledger to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal - file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. - -PART 1: USER INTERFACE -Options - General options - To see general usage help, including general options which are sup- - ported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h. - - General help options: - - -h --help - show general or COMMAND help - - --man show general or COMMAND user manual with man - - --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info - - --version - show general or ADDONCMD version - - --debug[=N] - show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) - - General input options: - - -f FILE --file=FILE - use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal) - - --rules-file=RULESFILE - Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: - FILE.rules) - - --separator=CHAR - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') - - --alias=OLD=NEW - rename accounts named OLD to NEW - - --anon anonymize accounts and payees - - --pivot FIELDNAME - use some other field or tag for the account name - - -I --ignore-assertions - disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance - assignments) - - -s --strict - do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are - declared) - - General reporting options: - - -b --begin=DATE - include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to - preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) - - -e --end=DATE - include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to fol- - lowing subperiod end when using a report interval) - - -D --daily - multiperiod/multicolumn report by day - - -W --weekly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by week - - -M --monthly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by month - - -Q --quarterly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter - - -Y --yearly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by year - - -p --period=PERIODEXP - set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once - using period expressions syntax - - --date2 - match the secondary date instead (see command help for other - effects) - - --today=DATE - override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for - tests/examples) - - -U --unmarked - include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) - - -P --pending - include only pending postings/txns - - -C --cleared - include only cleared postings/txns - - -R --real - include only non-virtual postings - - -NUM --depth=NUM - hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep - - -E --empty - show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in - hledger-ui/hledger-web) - - -B --cost - convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time - - -V --market - convert amounts to their market value in default valuation com- - modities - - -X --exchange=COMM - convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM - - --value - convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than - -B/-V/-X - - --infer-market-prices - use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional - market prices, as if they were P directives - - --auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. - - --forecast - generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, - for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, - also make ordinary future transactions visible. - - --commodity-style - Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. - - --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN) - Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color- - supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg when - piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A - NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. - - --pretty[=WHEN] - Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing charac- - ters. Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', - 'never' also work). If you provide an argument you must use - '=', e.g. '--pretty=yes'. - - When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the - last one takes precedence. - - Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. - - Command options - To see options for a particular command, including command-specific - options, run: hledger COMMAND -h. - - Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: - hledger print -x. - - Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its - options after a double-hyphen, eg: hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can - run the add-on executable directly: hledger-ui --watch. - - Command arguments - Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which - are often a query, filtering the data in some way. - - You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and - then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: - hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument - that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg: hledger bal -- - @ARG). - - Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or - argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see - a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or noth- - ing). Bad: - - assets depth:2 - -X USD - - Good: - - assets - depth:2 - -X=USD - - For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than - you would at the command prompt. Bad: - - -X"$" - - Good: - - -X$ - - See also: Save frequently used options. - - Special characters - Single escaping (shell metacharacters) - In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as - spaces, <, >, (, ), |, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you want - hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in single or dou- - ble quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to match an - account name containing a space: - - $ hledger register 'credit card' - - or: - - $ hledger register credit\ card - - Windows users should keep in mind that cmd treats single quote as a - regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. - PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. - - Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) - Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such - as ., ^, $, [, ], (, ), |, and \ - may need to be "regex-escaped" if - you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's regular expression - engine. This is done by writing backslashes before them, but since - backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping - and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal $ sign while - using the bash shell: - - $ hledger balance cur:'\$' - - or: - - $ hledger balance cur:\\$ - - Triple escaping (for add-on commands) - When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described - below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or argu- - ments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra level - of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using the bash - shell and running an add-on command (ui): - - $ hledger ui cur:'\\$' - - or: - - $ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ - - If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps: - - - unescaped: $ - escaped: \$ - double-escaped: \\$ - triple-escaped: \\\\$ - - Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable - directly: - - $ hledger-ui cur:\\$ - - Less escaping - Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell - command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should - use one less level of escaping. Those places include: - - o an @argumentfile - - o hledger-ui's filter field - - o hledger-web's search form - - o GHCI's prompt (used by developers). - - Unicode characters - hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: - - o they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command - line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit - forms, etc.) - - o they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on- - screen alignment should be preserved. - - This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: - - o A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can - decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like - this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Trou- - bleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit - on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled pro- - grams). - - o your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) - must support unicode - - o the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode - glyphs - - o the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as dou- - ble width (for report alignment) - - o on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind - of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the stan- - dard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) - might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, - and vice versa. (See eg #961). - - Regular expressions - hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: - - o query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form: - REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX - - o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ... - - o account alias directive and --alias option: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACE- - MENT, --alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT - - hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If - they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what - they support: - - 1. they are case insensitive - - 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing - being matched) - - 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) - - 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>) - - 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match - the digit 1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account - aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string - to reference capturing groups in the search regexp. - - 6. they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, - \d), or anything else not mentioned above. - - Some things to note: - - o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must - be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, - these are not required. - - o In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a - literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts - with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$. - - o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special mean- - ing to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. See Spe- - cial characters. - -Environment - LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. - - On unix computers, the default value is: ~/.hledger.journal. - - A more typical value is something like ~/finance/YYYY.journal, where - ~/finance is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is the - current year. Or, ~/finance/current.journal, where current.journal is - a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. - - The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of - your shell's startup files (eg ~/.profile): - - export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` - - On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment - variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, - Emacs started from a dock icon): In ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, add an - entry like: - - { - "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" - } - - For this to take effect you might need to killall Dock, or reboot. - - On Windows computers, the default value is probably C:\Users\YOUR- - NAME\.hledger.journal. You can change this by running a command like - this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Adminis- - trator, and if this persists across a reboot): - - > setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" - - Or, change it in settings: see https://www.java.com/en/down- - load/help/path.html. - - COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the - full terminal width. - - NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use - ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the - --color/--colour option. - -Input - hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default - data file is $HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like - C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal). - - You can override this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable: - - $ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal - $ hledger stats - - or with one or more -f/--file options: - - $ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats - - The file name - means standard input: - - $ cat some.journal | hledger -f- - - Data formats - Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in - any of the supported file formats, which currently are: - - - Reader: Reads: Used for file exten- - sions: - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - journal hledger journal files and some Ledger .journal .j .hledger - journals, for transactions .ledger - time- timeclock files, for precise time log- .timeclock - clock ging - timedot timedot files, for approximate time .timedot - logging - csv comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated .csv .ssv .tsv - values, for data import - - These formats are described in more detail below. - - hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions - shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes - journal format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a - recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show - relevant error messages. - - You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path - with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format: - - $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats - - Or to read stdin (-) as timeclock format: - - $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- - - Multiple files - You can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big - journal. There are some limitations with this: - - o most directives do not affect sibling files - - o balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous - files - - If you need either of those things, you can - - o use a single parent file which includes the others - - o or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal - b.journal | hledger -f- CMD. - - Strict mode - hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most impor- - tant errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files - without a lot of declarations: - - o Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? - - o Are all transactions balanced ? - - o Do all balance assertions pass ? - - With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed: - - o Are all accounts posted to, declared with an account directive ? - (Account error checking) - - o Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ? (Commodity - error checking) - - o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - - You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones - listed above and some more. - -Commands - hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). - Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. - A few assist with data entry and management. - - Run hledger with no arguments to list the commands available, and - hledger CMD to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or its - standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous - prefix of the name. Eg: hledger bal. - - Add-on commands - Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts - in your PATH - - o whose name starts with hledger- - - o whose name ends with a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe, - .hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh or none - - o and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. - - Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or programs - have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for command- - line options, parsing and reporting. - - Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. - See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. - - Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a double - dash (--) preceding them. Eg you must write: - - $ hledger web -- --serve - - and not: - - $ hledger web --serve - - (because the --serve flag belongs to hledger-web, not hledger). - - The -h/--help and --version flags don't require --. - - If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the add- - on program directly, eg: - - $ hledger-web --serve - -Output - Output destination - hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can - of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: - - $ hledger print > foo.txt - - Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also pro- - vide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same thing without - needing the shell. Eg: - - $ hledger print -o foo.txt - $ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) - - Output format - Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the termi- - nal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: - - - - txt csv html json sql - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - aregister Y Y Y Y - balance Y 1 Y 1 Y 1,2 Y - balancesheet Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - balancesheetequity Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - cashflow Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - incomestatement Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - print Y Y Y Y - register Y Y Y - - o 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option. - - o 2 balance does not support html output without a report interval or - with --budget. - - The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option: - - $ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout - - or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the - -o/--output-file=FILE.FMT option: - - $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv - - The -O option can be combined with -o to override the file extension, - if needed: - - $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt - - Some notes about the various output formats: - - CSV output - o In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are - disabled automatically. - - HTML output - o HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same - directory. - - JSON output - o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - o Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful repre- - sentation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the JSON, - read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger- - lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. - - o hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 - significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can - arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), - and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities - as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the - number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We - hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find - otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) - - SQL output - o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - o SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL - - o SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will - be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables cre- - ated via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either - clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements) - or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped. - - Commodity styles - When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for - each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. - - If needed, this can be overridden by a -c/--commodity-style option - (except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the print command, - which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the - following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: - - $ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' - - This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple commodi- - ties/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity direc- - tive. - - Colour - In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal - supports it: - - o if the --color/--colour option is given a value of yes or always (or - no or never), colour will (or will not) be used; - - o otherwise, if the NO_COLOR environment variable is set, colour will - not be used; - - o otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) sup- - ports it. - - Box-drawing - In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to - render prettier tables: - - o if the --pretty option is given a value of yes or always (or no or - never), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; - - o otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. - - Debug output - We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and - develop. You can add --debug[=N] to any hledger command line to see - additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) - to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase - until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not - affected by -o/--output-file (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: - 2>&1). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help - reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output - in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: - - hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log - -Limitations - The need to precede add-on command options with -- when invoked from - hledger is awkward. - - When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale - must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, - set LANG to something other than C. - - In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are - not supported. - - On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running - a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. - - In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger - add. - - Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger and - Ledger > Differences > journal format. - - On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than - Ledger. - -Troubleshooting - Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and - remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug - tracker): - - Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found" - stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should - be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, - that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. - - I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file - LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell - variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may - need to use export. Here's an explanation. - - Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete - multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argu- - ment (invalid character)" - Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need - to have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise - they will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii - characters. - - To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which sup- - ports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. - - Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: - - $ file my.journal - my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded - $ echo $LANG - C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 - $ locale -a # which locales are installed ? - C - en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use - POSIX - $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command - - If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred locale isn't - listed by locale -a, you might need to install it. Eg on - Ubuntu/Debian: - - $ apt-get install language-pack-fr - $ locale -a - C - en_US.utf8 - fr_BE.utf8 - fr_CA.utf8 - fr_CH.utf8 - fr_FR.utf8 - fr_LU.utf8 - POSIX - $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print - - Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: - - $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile - $ bash --login - - Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the differ- - ence on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) allow - variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: - - $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf - en_US.UTF-8 - $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print - -PART 2: DATA FORMATS -Journal - hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's - a cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal for- - mat. - - Journal cheatsheet - # Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format - # (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). - # hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: - - ############################################################################### - # 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. - # They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". - - # hash comment line - ; semicolon comment line - comment - These lines - are commented. - end comment - - # Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, - # from ; (semicolon) to end of line. - - ############################################################################### - # 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. - # They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). - - account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. - account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) - alias chkg = assets:checking - commodity $0.00 - decimal-mark . - include /dev/null - payee Whole Foods - P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 - ~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description - expenses:food $400 - expenses:home $1000 - budgeted - - ############################################################################### - # 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, - # usually describing movements of money. - # They begin with a date. - - # DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. - # ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. - # ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. - # ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. - # ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). - - 2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way - assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. - assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. - assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. - liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. - equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. - - 2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes - ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". - ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. - ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: - assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) - expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) - ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" - - Kv - 2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. - ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. - assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 - expenses:clothing GBP 10 - assets:gringotts -10 gold - assets:pouch 10 gold - revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols - assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. - - 2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ - assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost - assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost - assets:checking $-7.00 - - 2022-01-02 assert balances - ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. - assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA - assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold - assets:savings $0 = $1000 - - 1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. - ; Postings are not required. - - 2022.01.01 These date - 2022/1/1 formats are - 12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). - - About journal format - hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal - entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard - accounting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but - that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction - entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between - two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger - and humans. - - hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's - journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal - files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and - ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get- - ting. - - You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use - the add or web or import commands to create and update it. - - Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track - changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons such - as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and - hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, - formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor configura- - tion at hledger.org for the full list. - - Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's - data model). - - A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file comments, - transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction rules - and auto posting rules as directives). - - Comments - Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (#) or a - semicolon (;). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore - regions beginning with a comment line and ending with an end comment - line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: - - o # for top-level notes - - o ; for commenting out things temporarily - - o comment for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's there, or - you might get confused) - - Eg: - - # a comment line - ; another commentline - comment - A multi-line comment block, - continuing until "end comment" directive - or the end of the current file. - end comment - - Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, from - ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting com- - ments, and Account comments below. - - Transactions - Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They - represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities - between two or more named accounts. - - Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a sim- - ple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following - optional fields, separated by spaces: - - o a status character (empty, !, or *) - - o a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) - - o a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) - - o a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of - line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) - - o 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and - the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but - not blank lines or non-indented lines). - - Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: - - 2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - Dates - Simple dates - Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or - YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, with leading zeros optional. The year may be - omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the cur- - rent transaction, the default year set with a Y directive, or the cur- - rent date when the command is run. Some examples: 2010-01-31, - 2010/01/31, 2010.1.31, 1/31. - - (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart - dates documented in the hledger manual.) - - Posting dates - You can give individual postings a different date from their parent - transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) - like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates - precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May - reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for - easy bank reconciliation: - - 2015/5/30 - expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 - assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 - - $ hledger -f t.j register food - 2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 - - $ hledger -f t.j register checking - 2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 - - DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use - the year of the transaction's date. - The date: tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg - a date: tag with no value is not allowed. - - Status - Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a - status mark, which is a single character before the transaction - description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, - indicating one of three statuses: - - - mark status - ------------------ - unmarked - ! pending - * cleared - - When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, - -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and - status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. - - Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state - is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to - unmarked for clarity. - - To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend- - ing, combine -U and -P. - - Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with - real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short- - cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle - transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. - - What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. - Here's one suggestion: - - - status meaning - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review - pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil- - iation) - cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor- - rect - - With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your - bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like - uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your - finances. - - Code - After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally - write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good - place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id - or reference number. - - Description - A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date - and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the - "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you - wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike - comments. - - Payee and note - You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub- - divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the - left (up to the first |) and an additional note field on the right - (after the first |). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more - precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. - - Transaction comments - Text following ;, after a transaction description, and/or on indented - lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They - are reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain - tags, which are not ignored. - - 2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment - ; a second line of transaction comment - expenses 1 - assets - - Postings - A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount - from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or - tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: - - o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space - - o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single - spaces, until end of line or a double space) - - o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount. - - Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are - being removed. - - The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con- - venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to - balance the transaction. - - Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name - and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa- - ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the - amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. - - Account names - Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in - Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such - as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed - from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". - - You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the - traditional accounting categories, which in english are assets, liabil- - ities, equity, revenues, expenses. (You might see these referred to as - A, L, E, R, X for short.) - - For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts - into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account - name parts. For example, from the account names assets:bank:checking - and expenses:food, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: - - assets - assets:bank - assets:bank:checking - expenses - expenses:food - - Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: - - assets - bank - checking - expenses - food - - hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you can - go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account - names relatively simple may be best when starting out. - - Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, num- - bers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an - amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by two or - more spaces (or tabs). - - Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate vir- - tual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to - the account name have no special meaning. - - Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account - aliases. - - Amounts - After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: - between account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.) - - hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international - formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quan- - tity"): - - 1 - - ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below), - to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a separating - space: - - $1 - 4000 AAPL - 3 "green apples" - - Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is - the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side com- - modity symbol: - - -$1 - $-1 - - One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when - parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): - - + $1 - $- 1 - - Scientific E notation is allowed: - - 1E-6 - EUR 1E3 - - Decimal marks, digit group marks - A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma: - - 1.23 - 1,23456780000009 - - In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups - of digits can optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a space, - comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): - - $1,000,000.00 - EUR 2.000.000,00 - INR 9,99,99,999.00 - 1 000 000.9455 - - Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark - is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? - - 1,000 - 1.000 - - If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above - are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. - - To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially - if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators), we - recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark character in each jour- - nal file, using a directive at the top of the file. The decimal-mark - directive is best, otherwise commodity directives will also work. - These are described below. - - Commodity - Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal - number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or - any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. - - If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctu- - ation), you must always write it inside double quotes ("green apples", - "ABC123"). - - If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with - name ""; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". - - Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more - powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of - the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 - TSLA. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in - hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. - - (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these - are the Amount and MixedAmount types.) - - Directives influencing number parsing and display - You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to the journal, to - declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These - are described below, but here's a quick example: - - # the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) - decimal-mark . - - # display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: - commodity $1,000.00 - commodity EUR 1.000,00 - commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 - commodity 1 000 000.9455 - - - Commodity display style - For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display - style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all - amounts displayed by the print command, are displayed with all of their - decimal digits visible.) - - A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. - - First, if a default commodity is declared with D, this commodity and - its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. - - Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in - order of preference: - - o The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol - commodity), if any. - - o The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. - (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored, - currently.) - - o The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00. (Sym- - bol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) - - A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: - - o Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first - amount - - o Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group - sizes), if any - - o Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. - - Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but - occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is - inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a com- - modity directive to fix the display style. - - To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the - style declared by a commodity directive, or (b) the style of the first - posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style - and the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are - showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal - places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: - - # declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their - # input number formats and output display styles: - commodity EUR 1.000, - commodity $1000.00 - commodity 1000.00000000 BTC - commodity 1 000. - - The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command - line option. - - Rounding - Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal - places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by - the commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it - rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal - places is "0"). - - - Costs - After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling - price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either @ UNIT- - PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE after it. This indicates a conversion transac- - tion, where one commodity is exchanged for another. - - (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, - discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded - that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it - "cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase - or a sale.) - - Costs are usually written explicitly with @ or @@, but can also be - inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. Note, - if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the first - posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. - - As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign - currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or - implicitly: - - 1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 - - 2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot - assets:dollars - - 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and - let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. Note the - effect of posting order: the price is added to first posting, making - it EUR100 @@ $135, as in example 2: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 ; one hundred euros purchased - assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 - - Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the -B/--cost - flag; this is discussed more in the COST REPORTING section. - - Other cost/lot notations - A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a num- - ber of cost/lot-related notations: - - o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST - - o expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger - - o when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at selling - time - - o (@) UNITCOST and (@@) TOTALCOST (virtual cost) - - o like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, don't - use it when inferring market prices". - - Currently, hledger treats the above like @ and @@; the parentheses are - ignored. - - o {=FIXEDUNITCOST} and {{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}} (fixed price) - - o when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't let it - fluctuate in value reports" - - o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} (lot price) - - o can be used identically to @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST, also cre- - ates a lot - - o when selling, combined with @ ..., specifies an investment lot by - its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present - - o and related: [YYYY/MM/DD] (lot date) - - o when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot - - o when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date - - o (SOME TEXT) (lot note) - - o when buying, attaches this note to the lot - - o when selling, selects a lot by its note - - Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after - the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction bal- - ancing.) - - For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: - - o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST - - o expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger - - o when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined with - {...}: documents the cost/selling price (not used for transaction - balancing) - - o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} - - o when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction bal- - ancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis attached - - o when selling (reducing), - - o selects a lot by its cost basis - - o raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be selected - unambiguously (depending on booking method configured) - - o expresses the selling price for transaction balancing - - Currently, hledger accepts the {UNITCOST}/{{TOTALCOST}} notation but - ignores it. - - o variations: {}, {YYYY-MM-DD}, {"LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, "LABEL"}, {UNIT- - COST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"} etc. - - Currently, hledger rejects these. - - Balance assertions - hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. - These look like, for example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's - amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a - and b after each posting: - - 2013/1/1 - a $1 =$1 - b =$-1 - - 2013/1/2 - a $1 =$2 - b $-1 =$-2 - - After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions - and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro- - tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while - cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the - -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or - for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently does not disable - balance assignments, described below). - - Assertions and ordering - hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and - then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif- - ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also, - Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post- - ings to the same account within a transaction.) - - So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently- - dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated - transactions or postings, assertions might break and require updating. - This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the - order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra- - day balances. - - Assertions and multiple included files - Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as if - concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting - order within each file. It means that balance assertions in later - files will see balance from earlier files. - - And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split - across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's balance on - that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file - the last - one in the sequence, probably. - - Assertions and multiple -f files - Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the command line - with multiple -f/--file options, balance assertions will not see bal- - ance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want prob- - lems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. - - If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use - include, or concatenate the files temporarily. - - Assertions and commodities - The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in - fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the - (possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions - work in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. - - To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can - write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. - - You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double - equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other - commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that - their balance is 0). - - 2013/1/1 - a $1 - a 1EUR - b $-1 - c -1EUR - - 2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed - a 0 = $1 - a 0 = 1EUR - b 0 == $-1 - c 0 == -1EUR - - 2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR - a 0 == $1 - - It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that - has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity - into its own subaccount: - - 2013/1/1 - a:usd $1 - a:euro 1EUR - b - - 2013/1/2 - a 0 == 0 - a:usd 0 == $1 - a:euro 0 == 1EUR - - Assertions and prices - Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without - one: - - 2019/1/1 - (a) $1 @ EUR1 = $1 - - We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them, - even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails. - This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used to - generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance assign- - ments do use them (see below). - - Assertions and subaccounts - The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from - subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You can - assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg: - - 2019/1/1 - equity:opening balances - checking:a 5 - checking:b 5 - checking 1 ==* 11 - - Assertions and virtual postings - Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they - are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query. - - Assertions and auto postings - Balance assertions are affected by the --auto flag, which generates - auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings - are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two - balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of - these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: - - o assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with - that file - - o or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto - with that file - - o or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or - avoid auto postings entirely). - - Assertions and precision - Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are - not always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may - limit the display precision, but this will not affect balance asser- - tions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts. - - Posting comments - Text following ;, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented - lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are - reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain - tags, which are not ignored. - - 2012-01-01 - expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 - assets - ; a comment for posting 2 - ; a second comment line for posting 2 - - Tags - Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, - postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. - - They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately followed - by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account directive's - comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that things in com- - ments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are recorded: one on - the checking account, two on the transaction, and one on the expenses - posting: - - account assets:checking ; accounttag: - - 2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: - ; transactiontag-2: - assets:checking $-1 - expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: - - Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. - And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' - accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively - has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the - transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses - posting). - - You can list tag names with hledger tags [NAMEREGEX], or match by tag - name with a tag:NAMEREGEX query. - - Tag values - Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a - comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this - means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the fol- - lowing posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and "" - (empty) respectively: - - expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz - - Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than overrid- - ing: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the new - name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to override - a tag's value or remove a tag.) - - You can list a tag's values with hledger tags TAGNAME --values, or - match by tag value with a tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX query. - - Directives - A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, - that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, - and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, - but there are many differences, and also some differences between - hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: - - o subdirective - Some directives support subdirectives, written - indented below the parent directive. - - o decimal mark - The character to interpret as a decimal mark (period - or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. - - o display style - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: sym- - bol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of deci- - mal places. - - Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you - will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key - directives for particular needs: - - - purpose directives - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - READING DATA: - Declare file's decimal mark to help parse decimal-mark - amounts accurately - Rewrite account names alias - Comment out sections of the data comment - Include extra data files include - GENERATING DATA: - Generate recurring transactions or budget ~ - goals - Generate extra postings on transactions = - CHECKING FOR ERRORS: - Define valid entities to provide more error account, commodity, payee - checking - REPORTING: - Declare accounts' type and display order account - Declare commodity display styles commodity - Declare market prices P - - Directive effects - And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal - entries (transactions) it affects: - - - - - direc- what it does ends - tive at - file - end? - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - account Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; and N - its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. - alias Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of cur- Y - rent file or end aliases. Command line equivalent: --alias - comment Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file or Y - end comment. - commod- Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checking N,Y,N,N - ity all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing - amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of - current file (if there is no decimal-mark directive) 3. and the - display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is also - the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in this - commodity. Takes precedence over D. Subdirectives: format - (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: -c/--com- - modity-style - deci- Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all commodi- Y - mal- ties in following entries until next decimal-mark or end of cur- - mark rent file. Included files can override. Takes precedence over - commodity and D. - include Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they N - were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple - -f/--file - payee Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N - P Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N - reports. - ~ Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N - (tilde) transactions with --forecast and budget goals with balance - --budget. - Other - syntax: - apply Prepends a common parent account to all account names, in fol- Y - account lowing entries until end of current file or end apply account. - D Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N - there is no commodity directive for this commodity: its decimal - mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. - Y Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y - entries until end of current file. - = Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly - (equals) matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and child - files (but not sibling files, see #1212). - Other Other directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but - Ledger ignored. - direc- - tives - - Directives and multiple files - If you use multiple -f/--file options, or the include directive, - hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect - input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which - they occur (and on any included files in that region). - - This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports sta- - ble and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise - you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in - a different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up - your files. - - It can be surprising though; for example, it means that alias direc- - tives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). - - account directive - account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that - amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these dec- - larations can provide several benefits: - - o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer- - ence. - - o In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by - transactions, which helps detect typos. - - o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha- - betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - - o They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, - hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) - - o They can store additional account information as comments, or as tags - which can be used to filter or pivot reports. - - o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, - equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement. - - They are written as the word account followed by a hledger-style - account name, eg: - - account assets:bank:checking - - Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not - allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts - used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: - - account (assets:bank:checking) - - Account comments - Text following two or more spaces and ; at the end of an account direc- - tive line, and/or following ; on indented lines immediately below it, - form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may con- - tain tags, which are not ignored. - - The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because ; - is allowed in account names. - - account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon - ; next-line comment - ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 - - Account subdirectives - Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently - ignored: - - account assets:bank:checking - format subdirective is ignored - - Account error checking - By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence - when a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means - hledger can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the jour- - nal. Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in bal- - ance reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. - - In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report - an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not been - declared by an account directive. Some notes: - - o The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the correct - account name capitalisation. - - o The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see direc- - tives). This means it affects all of the current file, and any files - it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The position of - account directives within the file does not matter, though it's usual - to put them at the top. - - o Accounts can only be declared in journal files, but will affect - included files of all types. - - o It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" - with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. - - Account display order - The order in which account directives are written influences the order - in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By - default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these - account directives to the journal file: - - account assets - account liabilities - account equity - account revenues - account expenses - - those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: - - $ hledger accounts -1 - assets - liabilities - equity - revenues - expenses - - Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. - - Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group of - sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this directive: - - account other:zoo - - would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not - the position of other among the top-level accounts. This means: - - o you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) - that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their display - order - - o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between - a:b and a:c). - - Account types - hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, - expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the type: query. - - As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically - if you are using common english-language top-level account names - (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types - explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account directives. - Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The tag's value - should be one of the five main account types: - - o A or Asset (things you own) - - o L or Liability (things you owe) - - o E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & - liabilities) - - o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically - part of Equity) - - o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity) - - or, it can be (these are used less often): - - o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash- - flow report) - - o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST - REPORTING).) - - Here is a typical set of account type declarations: - - account assets ; type: A - account liabilities ; type: L - account equity ; type: E - account revenues ; type: R - account expenses ; type: X - - account assets:bank ; type: C - account assets:cash ; type: C - - account equity:conversion ; type: V - - Here are some tips for working with account types. - - o The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. - These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get going; - if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare your account - types. See also Regular expressions. - - If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: - --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash - ^assets?(:|$) | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense - - o If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an - account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared - and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. - - o Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See - Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. - - o As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent - account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by the first - of these that exists: - - 1. A type: declaration for this account. - - 2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts above it, preferring - the nearest. - - 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. - - 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring - the nearest parent. - - 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. - - o For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: - - $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] - - alias directive - You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or - parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: - - o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier - data entry and a less verbose journal - - o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts - - o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy - - o combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on - one line - - o customising reports - - Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They - do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger- - web. - - Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use cor- - rectly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; more - on this below. - - See also Rewrite account names. - - Basic aliases - To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file. - This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its - included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces - around the = are optional: - - alias OLD = NEW - - Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This - affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively. - - OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will - replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. Sub- - accounts are also affected. Eg: - - alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking - ; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" - - Regex aliases - There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, - indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the - only place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular - expression.) - - Eg: - - alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT - - or: - - $ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... - - Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by - REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. - - If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg - /\/=:. - - If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced - by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: - - alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 - ; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" - - REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end of - option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. - - Combining aliases - You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives - and/or command line options. - - Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, - then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the - effect of previously applied aliases. - - In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be - applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal - entry, we apply: - - 1. alias directives preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed - first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top) - - 2. --alias options, in the order they appeared on the command line - (left to right). - - In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: - - o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first - - o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on - - o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. - - This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps pro- - vide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde- - pendent of which files are being read and in which order. - - In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to the command line will show - which aliases are being applied when. - - Aliases and multiple files - As explained at Directives and multiple files, alias directives do not - affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, - - hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal - - account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. - Including the aliases doesn't work either: - - include a.aliases - - 2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases - foo 1 - bar - - This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the start - of your top-most file, like this: - - alias foo=Foo - alias bar=Bar - - 2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above - foo 1 - bar - - include c.journal ; also affected - - end aliases directive - You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the jour- - nal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: - - end aliases - - Aliases can generate bad account names - Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, - which could cause confusing reports or invalid print output. For exam- - ple, you could erase all account names: - - 2021-01-01 - a:aa 1 - b - - $ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' - 2021-01-01 - 1 - - The above print output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert an - illegal double space, causing print output that would give a different - journal when reparsed: - - 2021-01-01 - old 1 - other - - $ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print - 2021-01-01 - new USD 1 - other - - Aliases and account types - If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account - types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in - effect. - - However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg renaming - parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could prevent - child accounts from inheriting the account type of their parents. - - Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, renam- - ing it by an alias could prevent or alter that. - - If you are using account aliases and the type: query is not matching - accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts command, - eg something like: - - $ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a - - commodity directive - You can use commodity directives to declare your commodities. In fact - the commodity directive performs several functions at once: - - 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can - optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf Com- - modity error checking) - - 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to - expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international - number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both - 1,000 and 1.000 as 1. (Cf Amounts) - - 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying - output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of dec- - imal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display - style) - - You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives - sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable - parsing and display. - - Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since - for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). - - A commodity directive is just the word commodity followed by a sample - amount, like this: - - ;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT - - commodity $1000.00 - commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment - - It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the format subdirec- - tive, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol appears - twice; it must be the same in both places: - - ;commodity SYMBOL - ; format SAMPLEAMOUNT - - ; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, - ; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, - ; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. - commodity INR - format INR 1,00,00,000.00 - - Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or - punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). - - The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant. - It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma - followed - by 0 or more decimal digits. - - A few more examples: - - # number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: - commodity $1,000.00 - commodity EUR 1.000,00 - commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 - commodity 1 000 000. - - Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with - zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) - - Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display - style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. - - Commodity error checking - In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report - an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared by a - commodity directive. This works similarly to account error checking, - see the notes there for more details. - - Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because cur- - rently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity with - a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts are - always allowed to have no commodity symbol. - - decimal-mark directive - You can use a decimal-mark directive - usually one per file, at the top - of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark when - parsing amounts in this file. It can look like - - decimal-mark . - - or - - decimal-mark , - - This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we - recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg - thousands separators). - - include directive - You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include - directive, like this: - - include FILEPATH - - Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or timedot - files can be included (not CSV files, currently). - - If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the - current file's folder. - - A tilde means home directory, eg: include ~/main.journal. - - The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: include - *.journal. - - There is limited support for recursive wildcards: **/ (the slash is - required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient - since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but - this can be done, eg: include */**/*.journal. - - The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, overrid- - ing the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input files): - include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md. - - P directive - The P directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate - between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports - to convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or - after that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock - exchange, cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. - - The format is: - - P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT - - DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the commodity - being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and quantity) - of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this date. - Examples: - - # one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: - P 2009-01-01 EUR $1.35 - - # and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: - P 2010-01-01 EUR $1.40 - - The -V, -X and --value flags use these market prices to show amount - values in another commodity. See Valuation. - - - payee directive - payee PAYEE NAME - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which may - appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report an - error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been declared. - Eg: - - payee Whole Foods - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - tag directive - tag TAGNAME - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names - allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: - - tag item-id - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is - used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use - of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can - declare and check your tags . - - Periodic transactions - The ~ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives allow - hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in reports, - not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. - - Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, - read this whole section, or at least these tips: - - 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - - read about this below. - - 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with hledger - print --forecast tag:generated or hledger register --forecast - tag:generated. - - 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last non-fore- - casted transaction's date. - - 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. - See below for the exact start/end rules. - - 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs - improvement, but is worth studying. - - 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a - natural boundary of that interval. Eg in weekly from DATE, DATE - must be a monday. ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an - error. - - 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded - to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done to improve - reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. Yes, it's a bit - inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from - 2020/01, which is equivalent to ~ every 10th day of month from - 2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10. - - Periodic rule syntax - A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the - date replaced by a tilde (~) followed by a period expression (mnemonic: - ~ looks like a recurring sine wave.): - - # every first of month - ~ monthly - expenses:rent $2000 - assets:bank:checking - - # every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: - ~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 - expenses:utilities $400 - assets:bank:checking - - The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying multi- - period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies - report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start - dates). - - Periodic rules and relative dates - Partial or relative dates (like 12/31, 25, tomorrow, last week, next - quarter) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the - results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted - relative to, in order of preference: - - 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent Y directive - - 2. or the date specified with --today - - 3. or the date on which you are running the report. - - They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period - dates. - - Two spaces between period expression and description! - If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, - these must be separated by two or more spaces. This helps hledger know - where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden- - tally alter their meaning, as in this example: - - ; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" - ; || - ; vv - ~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review - assets:bank:checking $1500 - income:acme inc - - So, - - o Do write two spaces between your period expression and your transac- - tion description, if any. - - o Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period - expression. - - Other syntax - hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to - make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some - of the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, - but in general, features in this section are considered less important - or even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to - help you decide if you want to use them. - - Auto postings - The = directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary - extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all - transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the --auto flag. - - Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your - financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy - in an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features - like balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. - - An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: - - = QUERY - ACCOUNT AMOUNT - ... - ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] - - except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: = suggests match- - ing), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and each - "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting - amounts can be: - - o a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg $2. This will be used - as-is. - - o a number, eg 2. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post- - ing will be added to this. - - o a numeric multiplier, eg *2 (a star followed by a number N). The - matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied - by N. - - o a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and - symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and - its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. - - Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double - quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second - query term below: - - = expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' - (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 - - Some examples: - - ; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation - = expenses:food - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - - ; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount - = expenses:gifts - assets:checking:gifts *-1 - assets:checking *1 - - 2017/12/1 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - - 2017/12/14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - - $ hledger print --auto - 2017-12-01 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - - 2017-12-14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - assets:checking:gifts -$20 - assets:checking $20 - - Auto postings and multiple files - An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or - in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect - sibling files (when multiple -f/--file are used - see #1212). - - Auto postings and dates - A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking - precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also - be used in the generated posting. - - Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser- - tions - Currently, auto postings are added: - - o after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for - balancedness, - - o but before balance assertions are checked. - - Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and - after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 - for background. - - This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with a - missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to - infer amounts. - - Auto posting tags - Automated postings will have some extra tags: - - o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post- - ing rule, and the query - - o _generated-posting:= QUERY - a hidden tag, which does not appear in - hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated "just - now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal. - - Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules will - have these tags added: - - o modified: - this transaction was modified - - o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac- - tion was modified "just now". - - Balance assignments - Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like - balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the - equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy - the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when - setting opening balances: - - ; starting a new journal, set asset account balances - 2016/1/1 opening balances - assets:checking = $409.32 - assets:savings = $735.24 - assets:cash = $42 - equity:opening balances - - or when adjusting a balance to reality: - - ; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense - 2016/1/15 - assets:cash = $0 - expenses:misc - - The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity - at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the - commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign- - ment). - - Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less explicit; - to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do the cal- - culations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance assign- - ments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make your - financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy - in an audit. - - Balance assignments and prices - A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have - that price attached: - - 2019/1/1 - (a) = $1 @ EUR2 - - $ hledger print --explicit - 2019-01-01 - (a) $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2 - - Bracketed posting dates - For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's brack- - eted date syntax is also supported: [DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2] in - posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any square-bracketed - sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way. With this syn- - tax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2 infers its - year from DATE. - - Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's - date:/date2: tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date syntax. - - D directive - D AMOUNT - - This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any subsequent - commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing the jour- - nal. This effect lasts until the next D directive, or the end of the - journal. - - For compatibility/historical reasons, D also acts like a commodity - directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing and display - style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity symbol, but - a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must include a deci- - mal mark (either period or comma). Eg: - - ; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars - ; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) - D $1,000.00 - - 1/1 - a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 - b - - Interactions with other directives: - - For setting a commodity's display style, a commodity directive has - highest priority, then a D directive. - - For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, decimal-mark - has highest priority, then commodity, then D. - - For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a commodity - directive is required (hledger check commodities ignores D directives). - - Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less - explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is usu- - ally an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to track - multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant with - commodity and decimal-mark. And it works differently from Ledger's D. - - apply account directive - This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended - to all accounts in following entries, until an end apply account direc- - tive or end of current file. Eg: - - apply account home - - 2010/1/1 - food $10 - cash - - end apply account - - is equivalent to: - - 2010/01/01 - home:food $10 - home:cash $-10 - - account directives are also affected, and so is any included content. - - Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not affected. - - Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is - prepended. - - Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less porta- - ble, and less trustworthy in an audit. - - Y directive - Y YEAR - - or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): - - year YEAR apply year YEAR - - The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for subse- - quent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: - - Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 - - 12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 - expenses 1 - assets - - year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 - - 2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected - expenses 1 - assets - - 1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 - expenses 1 - assets - - Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at least) - makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less trust- - worthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their corre- - sponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in - your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's - date. - - Secondary dates - A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals - sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. - When running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but - with the --date2 flag (or --aux-date or --effective), the secondary - (right) date will be used instead. - - The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a - consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = - date the transaction was initiated, if different". - - Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, - and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates - consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which report- - ing mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler - and better. - - Star comments - Lines beginning with * (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This - feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, - allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed - with org mode. - - Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. Decreases - your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode just for - folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; nowadays - you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without losing - ledger mode's features. - - Valuation expressions - Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double - parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. - - Virtual postings - A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a virtual - posting or unbalanced posting, which means it is exempt from the usual - rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. - - This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to - avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special - cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances - without using a balancing equity account: - - 2022-01-01 opening balances - (assets:checking) $1000 - (assets:savings) $2000 - - A posting with brackets around the account name is called a balanced - virtual posting. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must - add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: - - 2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else - assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other - expenses:food $7 ; <- - expenses:food $3 ; <- - [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other - [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- - (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance - - Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed - are called real postings. You can exclude virtual postings from - reports with the -R/--real flag or a real:1 query. - - Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid fig- - uring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable and - less trustworthy in an audit. - - Other Ledger directives - These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This - allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's - reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. - - apply fixed COMM AMT - apply tag TAG - assert EXPR - bucket / A ACCT - capture ACCT REGEX - check EXPR - define VAR=EXPR - end apply fixed - end apply tag - end apply year - end tag - eval / expr EXPR - python - PYTHONCODE - tag NAME - value EXPR - --command-line-flags - - See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed hledger/Ledger - syntax comparison. - - -CSV - hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, - semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting - each record into a transaction. - - (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.) - - For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure they - have a corresponding .csv, .tsv or .ssv file extension or use a hledger - file prefix (see File Extension below). - - Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding rules file. - This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields lay- - out, date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, - and how to categorise transactions based on description or other - attributes. - - By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file with - an extra .rules extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked to - read foo/FILE.csv, hledger looks for foo/FILE.csv.rules. You can spec- - ify a different rules file with the --rules-file option. If no rules - file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which you'll - need to adjust. - - At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, - and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines - there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: - - Date, Description, Id, Amount - 12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 - - # basic.csv.rules - skip 1 - fields date, description, , amount - date-format %d/%m/%Y - - $ hledger print -f basic.csv - 2019-11-12 Foo - expenses:unknown 10.23 - income:unknown -10.23 - - There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, and - more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. - - CSV rules cheatsheet - The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. - (Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; or * are ignored.) - - - separator declare the field separator, instead of rely- - ing on file extension - skip skip one or more header lines at start of file - date-format declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times - timezone declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV date- - times - newest-first improve txn order when: there are multiple - records, newest first, all with the same date - intra-day-reversed improve txn order when: same-day txns are in - opposite order to the overall file - decimal-mark declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, - when ambiguous - fields list name CSV fields for easy reference, and - optionally assign their values to hledger - fields - Field assignment assign a CSV value or interpolated text value - to a hledger field - - if block conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - or skip a record or end (skip rest of file) - if table conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - using compact syntax - balance-type select which type of balance asser- - tions/assignments to generate - include inline another CSV rules file - - Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are - evaluated. - - separator - You can use the separator rule to read other kinds of character-sepa- - rated data. The argument is any single separator character, or the - words tab or space (case insensitive). Eg, for comma-separated values - (CSV): - - separator , - - or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): - - separator ; - - or for tab-separated values (TSV): - - separator TAB - - If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or a csv:, - ssv:, tsv: prefix), the appropriate separator will be inferred automat- - ically, and you won't need this rule. - - skip - skip N - - The word skip followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells - hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input - data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need - to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains - header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not - parsed as CSV. - - skip can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip indi- - vidual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still - required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. - - date-format - date-format DATEFMT - - This is a helper for the date (and date2) fields. If your CSV dates - are not formatted like YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, you'll - need to add a date-format rule describing them with a strptime-style - date parsing pattern - see https://hackage.haskell.org/pack- - age/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. The pattern must - parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: - - # MM/DD/YY - date-format %m/%d/%y - - # D/M/YYYY - # The - makes leading zeros optional. - date-format %-d/%-m/%Y - - # YYYY-Mmm-DD - date-format %Y-%h-%d - - # M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk - # Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. - date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk - - timezone - timezone TIMEZONE - - When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone - other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you - can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps - prevent off-by-one dates. - - When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't - need this rule; instead, use %Z in date-format (or %z, %EZ, %Ez; see - the formatTime link above). - - In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware conversion, - localising the CSV date-times to your current system time zone. If you - prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for reproducibility, you - can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with the TZ environment - variable, eg: - - $ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv - - timezone currently does not understand timezone names, except "UTC", - "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". For - others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. - - newest-first - hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered - chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can - auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV - where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are - oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, - like: - - 2022-10-01, txn 3... - 2022-10-01, txn 2... - 2022-10-01, txn 1... - - you can add the newest-first rule to help hledger generate the transac- - tions in correct order. - - # same-day CSV records are newest first - newest-first - - intra-day-reversed - CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to - the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the - transactions on each date are oldest first: - - 2022-10-02, txn 3... - 2022-10-02, txn 4... - 2022-10-01, txn 1... - 2022-10-01, txn 2... - - In this situation, add the intra-day-reversed rule, and hledger will - compensate, improving the order of transactions. - - # transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order - intra-day-reversed - - decimal-mark - decimal-mark . - - or: - - decimal-mark , - - hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal mark - when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the CSV - contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you - should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid - misparsed numbers. - - fields list - fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... - - A fields list (the word fields followed by comma-separated field names) - is optional, but convenient. It does two things: - - 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if - you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say %SomeField - instead of remembering %13. - - 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described - below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger - field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and - build a transaction. - - Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the - transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields - for later reference; and ignore the others": - - fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield - - In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to the - CSV file's separator. Also: - - o There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). - - o Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field names - are optional. - - o Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen). - - o Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty - name. - - If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for - your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces - replaced by underscores). - - Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning to - a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's "bal- - ance" field balance_ to avoid directly setting hledger's balance field - (and generating a balance assertion). - - Field assignment - HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE - - Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to - hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields - list (see above). - - To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of the - standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, - followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may inter- - polate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV - record (%N), or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSV- - FIELD). - - Some examples: - - # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended - amount %4 USD - - # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags - comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 - - Tips: - - o Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like " 1 " - becomes 1 when interpolated) (#1051). - - o Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate a - hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). - - Field names - Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in - hledger CSV rules files: - - 1. CSV field names (CSVFIELD in these docs): you can optionally name - the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet auto- - matically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing arbi- - trary names in a fields list, eg: - - fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar - - 2. Special hledger field names (HLEDGERFIELD in these docs): you must - set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction from - a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field - assignment, eg: - - date %When - code %Some_Id - description %What - comment %Foo %Bar - amount1 $ %Total - - or directly in a fields list: - - fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar - currency $ - comment %Foo %Bar - - Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what hap- - pens when you assign values to them: - - date field - Assigning to date sets the transaction date. - - date2 field - date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. - - status field - status sets the transaction's status, if any. - - code field - code sets the transaction's code, if any. - - description field - description sets the transaction's description, if any. - - comment field - comment sets the transaction's comment, if any. - - commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. - - You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code. - A comment starting with \n will begin on a new line. - - Comments can contain tags, as usual. - - account field - Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the - Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. - - Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set account1 and - account2. Typically account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is - set once with a top-level assignment, while account2 is set based on - each transaction's description, in conditional rules. - - If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see - below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" - or "income:unknown"). - - amount field - There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different - situations: - - o amountN sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that posting - to be generated. By assigning to amount1, amount2, ... etc. you - can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't have to be - consecutive; in certain situations using a high number might be help- - ful to influence the layout of postings. - - o amountN-in and amountN-out should be used instead, as a pair, when - and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. Eg - when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a single - Amount field. Note: - - o Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the sec- - ond posting" - that's not correct. Think: "amountN-in and amountN- - out together detect the amount for posting N, by inspecting two CSV - fields at once." - - o hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will automati- - cally negate the -out value. - - o It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or zero, - so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case you'll - need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). - - o amount, with no posting number (and similarly, amount-in and amount- - out with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for backwards - compatibility, and because they have special behaviour that is some- - times convenient: - - o They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of post- - ing 2. - - o Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost - price. - - o Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like amount1, or - amount2-in and amount2-out) will take precedence. This allows - incrementally migrating old rules files to the new syntax. - - There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; please - see also "Setting amounts" below. - - currency field - currency sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' - amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency - symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. - - currencyN prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount. - - balance field - balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is - left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. - - balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent - to balance1. - - You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the balance-type - rule (see below). - - See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. - - if block - Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV - data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can cate- - gorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on - their description (for example). There are two ways to write condi- - tional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", described - below. - - An if block is the word if and one or more "matcher" expressions (can - be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or next - line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, - - if MATCHER - RULE - - or - - if - MATCHER - MATCHER - MATCHER - RULE - RULE - - If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be - applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special - rules may also be used within an if block: - - o skip - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction from - it) - - o end - skips the rest of the current CSV file. - - Some examples: - - # if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" - if groceries - account2 expenses:groceries - - # if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown - if - monthly service fee - atm transaction fee - banking thru software - account2 expenses:business:banking - comment XXX deductible ? check it - - # if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file - if ,,,, - end - - Matchers - There are two kinds: - - 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular - expression (REGEX), which hledger will try to match case-insensi- - tively anywhere within the CSV record. - Eg: whole foods - - 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name - (%CSVFIELD REGEX). hledger will try to match these just within the - named CSV field. - Eg: %date 2023 - - The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended regu- - lar expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, - \>), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular expressions" - in the hledger manual (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expres- - sions). - - With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched is - not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be - converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing - whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if - the original record was: - - 2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 - - the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: - - 2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 - - When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: - - o By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) - - o When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (&) it will be AND'ed with - the previous matcher (both of them must match). - - There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. - - if table - "if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many - matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like - this: - - if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... - MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - - - The first character after if is taken to be the separator for the rest - of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like , or | - that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is unre- - lated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the - matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The - table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line - must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. - - The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher succeeds, - assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding hledger - fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is equivalent to - this sequence of if blocks: - - if MATCHERA - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - if MATCHERB - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - if MATCHERC - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - Example: - - if,account2,comment - atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it - %description groceries,expenses:groceries, - 2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out - - balance-type - Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple - = type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding - assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, - eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help - with budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the - balance-type rule: - - # balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts - balance-type ==* - - Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: - - = single commodity, exclude subaccounts - =* single commodity, include subaccounts - == multi commodity, exclude subaccounts - ==* multi commodity, include subaccounts - - include - include RULESFILE - - This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. - RULESFILE is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current - file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between - several rules files, eg: - - # someaccount.csv.rules - - ## someaccount-specific rules - fields date,description,amount - account1 assets:someaccount - account2 expenses:misc - - ## common rules - include categorisation.rules - - Working with CSV - Some tips: - - Rapid feedback - It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting - CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: - - $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' - - A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions - of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can - echo a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to - read the output. - - Valid CSV - Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, - and equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or - tab as separators). This means, eg: - - o Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in single - quotes is not allowed. (Eg 'A','B' is rejected.) - - o When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the quotes - are not allowed. (Eg "A", "B" is rejected.) - - o When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double - quotes. (Eg A"A, B is rejected.) - - If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to trans- - form it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more permis- - sive CSV parser like python's csv lib. - - File Extension - To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error - messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), - it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv - filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) - - When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV - reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path - with csv:, ssv: or tsv:: Eg: - - $ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print - - You can also override the default field separator with a separator rule - if needed. - - Reading CSV from standard input - You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, - since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: - - $ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print - - Reading multiple CSV files - If you use multiple -f options to read multiple CSV files at once, - hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV - file. But if you use the --rules-file option, that rules file will be - used for all the CSV files. - - Valid transactions - After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the gen- - erated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them, - applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. Any - errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying the - problem entry. - - There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated them, - will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the CSV - data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance - assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: - - $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print - - Deduplicating, importing - When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank - transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing - some of the same records. - - The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) append - just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, so you - don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which version - of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden .latest.FILE.csv file.) This - is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: - - # download the latest CSV files, then run this command. - # Note, no -f flags needed here. - $ hledger import *.csv [--dry] - - This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable - chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) - - A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and otherwise, - exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data. - See: - - o https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows - - o https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion - - Setting amounts - Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling var- - ious amount-setting situations: - - 1. If the amount is in a single CSV field: - - a. If its sign indicates direction of flow: - Assign it to amountN, to set the Nth posting's amount. N is usu- - ally 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. - - b. If another field indicates direction of flow: - Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate amount - sign. Eg: - - # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": - amount1 -%Amount - if %Type deposit - amount1 %Amount - - 2. If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit): - - a. If both fields are unsigned: - Assign the fields to amountN-in and amountN-out. This sets posting - N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero value. If it's the - -out value, the amount will be negated. - - b. If either field is signed: - Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg below, the - -out value already has a minus sign so we undo hledger's automatic - negating by negating once more (but only if the field is non-empty, - so that we don't leave a minus sign by itself): - - fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out - if %amount1-out [1-9] - amount1-out -%amount1-out - - c. If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be - empty): - The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is non-zero/non- - empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such as 1 and none. For - such cases, use conditional rules to help select the amount. Eg, - to handle the above you could select the value containing non-zero - digits: - - fields date, description, in, out - if %in [1-9] - amount1 %in - if %out [1-9] - amount1 %out - - 3. If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost: - Use the unnumbered amount (or amount-in and amount-out) syntax. - - 4. If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts: - Assign to balanceN, to set a balance assignment on the Nth posting, - causing the posting's amount to be calculated automatically. balance - with no number is equivalent to balance1. In this situation hledger is - more likely to guess the wrong default account name, so you may need to - set that explicitly. - - Amount signs - There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing - and sign-flipping: - - o If an amount value begins with a plus sign: - that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT - - o If an amount value is parenthesised: - it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT - - o If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of parentheses, - or a minus sign and parentheses): - they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT - - o If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parenthe- - ses): - that is removed, making it an empty value. "+" or "-" or "()" becomes - "". - - Setting currency/commodity - If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount - field(s): - - 2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 - - you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will - be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: - - fields date,description,amount - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown $123.00 - income:unknown $-123.00 - - If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: - - 2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 - - You can assign that to the currency pseudo-field, which has the special - effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction (on the - left, with no separating space): - - fields date,description,currency,amount - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown USD123.00 - income:unknown USD-123.00 - - Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, - with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by - a space: - - fields date,description,cur,amt - amount %amt %cur - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown 123.00 USD - income:unknown -123.00 USD - - Note we used a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that - would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. - - Amount decimal places - Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like - amount1 influence commodity display styles, such as the number of deci- - mal places displayed in reports. - - The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display - style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). - - Referencing other fields - In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger - fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger - field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the - hledger field: - - # Name the third CSV field "amount1" - fields date,description,amount1 - - # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD - amount1 %amount1 USD - - # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) - comment %amount1 - - Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a lit- - eral "amount1": - - fields date,description,csvamount - amount1 %csvamount USD - # Can't interpolate amount1 here - comment %amount1 - - When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, - only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or - C if "something" is matched, but never A: - - comment A - comment B - if something - comment C - - How CSV rules are evaluated - Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need - to). First, - - o include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth first. - (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for further - includes, recursively, before proceeding.) - - Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is - repeated, the last one wins: - - o skip (at top level) - - o date-format - - o newest-first - - o fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments - to hledger fields - - Then for each CSV record in turn: - - o test all if blocks. If any of them contain a end rule, skip all - remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule, - skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple matched skip - rules, the first one wins. - - o collect all field assignments at top level and in matched if blocks. - When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only the last - one. - - o compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was - assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a - default - - o generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. - - This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger can - use to parse input files. When all files have been read successfully, - the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger command the - user specified. - - - Well factored rules - Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules - files: - - o Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a com- - mon.rules, and adding include common.rules to each CSV's rules file. - - o Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the frequently - used parts. - - CSV rules examples - Bank of Ireland - Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance - field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not neces- - sary but provides extra error checking: - - Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance - 07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 - 07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 - - # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules - - # skip the header line - skip - - # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields - fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance - - # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" - # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: - # - # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, - # by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience - # - # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, - # eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day - - # date is in UK/Ireland format - date-format %d/%m/%Y - - # set the currency - currency EUR - - # set the base account for all txns - account1 assets:bank:boi:checking - - $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print - 2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 - income:unknown EUR-10.0 - - 2012-12-07 PAYMENT - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 - expenses:unknown EUR5.0 - - The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're read- - ing directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are - imported into a journal file. - - Coinbase - A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is - recorded using cost notation. The legacy amount field name conve- - niently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. - - # Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes - # 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" - - # coinbase.csv.rules - skip 1 - fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes - date %Timestamp - date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z - description %Notes - account1 assets:coinbase:cc - amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency - - $ hledger print -f coinbase.csv - 2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account - assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP - income:unknown -74.000000 GBP - - Amazon - Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to gener- - ate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably get - this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) - - "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" - "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - - # amazon-orders.csv.rules - - # skip one header line - skip 1 - - # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. - # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. - fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code - - # how to parse the date - date-format %b %-d, %Y - - # combine two fields to make the description - description %toorfrom %name - - # save the status as a tag - comment status:%amzstatus - - # set the base account for all transactions - account1 assets:amazon - # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). - # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember - - # set a generic account2 - account2 expenses:misc - amount2 %amzamount - # and maybe refine it further: - #include categorisation.rules - - # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. - if %fees [1-9] - account3 expenses:fees - amount3 %fees - - $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print - 2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $20.00 - - 2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $25.00 - expenses:fees $1.00 - - Paypal - Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some - Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: - - "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" - "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" - "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" - "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" - "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" - "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" - "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" - - # paypal-custom.csv.rules - - # Tips: - # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download - # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" - # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: - # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" - # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": - # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - - fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note - - skip 1 - - date-format %-m/%-d/%Y - - # ignore some paypal events - if - In Progress - Temporary Hold - Update to - skip - - # add more fields to the description - description %description_ %itemtitle - - # save some other fields as tags - comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ - - # convert to short currency symbols - if %currency USD - currency $ - if %currency EUR - currency E - if %currency GBP - currency P - - # generate postings - - # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account - # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) - account1 assets:online:paypal - amount1 %netamount - - # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party - # (account2 is set below) - amount2 -%grossamount - - # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. - if %feeamount [1-9] - account3 expenses:banking:paypal - amount3 -%feeamount - comment3 business: - - # choose an account for the second posting - - # override the default account names: - # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) - if %grossamount ^[^-] - account2 income:unknown - # if negative, it's an expense (a credit) - if %grossamount ^- - account2 expenses:unknown - - # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks - include common.rules - - # apply some overrides specific to this csv - - # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, - # which can be disregarded in this case. - if - Bank Account - Bank Deposit to PP Account - description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle - account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking - account1 assets:online:paypal - - # Currency conversions - if Currency Conversion - account2 equity:currency conversion - - # common.rules - - if - darcs - noble benefactor - account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub - comment2 business: - - if - Calm Radio - account2 expenses:online:apps - - if - electronic frontier foundation - Patreon - wikimedia - Advent of Code - account2 expenses:dues - - if Google - account2 expenses:online:apps - description google | music - - $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print - 2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 - expenses:online:apps $6.99 - - 2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 - - 2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 - expenses:dues $7.00 - - 2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 - - 2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 - expenses:dues $2.00 - expenses:banking:paypal ; business: - - 2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 - - 2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 - revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: - expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: - -Timeclock - The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. - - hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, these - are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock- - out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. The - time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are optional. - The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored (currently - the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines beginning with - # or ; or *, and blank lines, are ignored. - - i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces - o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 - i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account - o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 - - hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting - some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than - one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For - the above time log, hledger print generates these journal entries: - - $ hledger -f t.timeclock print - 2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces - (some:account name) 0.33h - - 2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 - (another account) 1.64h - - 2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 - (another account) 2.01h - - Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: - - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week - - To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: - - o use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended timeclock- - x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el - - o at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell alias ti="echo - i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o - `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG" - - o or use the old ti and to scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. These - rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 - executable renamed. - - -Timedot - timedot format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. Com- - pared to timeclock format, it is - - o convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging - - o readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. - - A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look like - this: - - 2021-08-04 - hom:errands .... .... - fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs - per:admin:finance - - hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each - dot representing a quarter-hour spent: - - $ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader - 2021-08-04 * - (hom:errands) 2.00 - - 2021-08-04 * - (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 - - 2021-08-04 * - (per:admin:finance) 0 - - A day entry begins with a date line: - - o a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). - - Optionally this can be followed on the same line by - - o a common transaction description for this day - - o a common transaction comment for this day, after a semicolon (;). - - After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time transac- - tion lines, consisting of: - - o an account name - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style account - name. - - o two or more spaces - a field separator, required if there is an - amount (as in journal format). - - o a timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number rep- - resenting hours. - - o an optional comment beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. - - In more detail, timedot amounts can be: - - o dots: zero or more period characters, each representing one quarter- - hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. Eg: .... .. - - o a number, representing hours. Eg: 1.5 - - o a number immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo, or - y, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years. - Eg 1.5h or 90m. The following equivalencies are assumed: - 60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo, 365d = 1y. (This - unit will not be visible in the generated transaction amount, which is - always in hours.) - - There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in - the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: - - o Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored. - - o Before the first date line, lines beginning with * are ignored. From - the first date line onward, a sequence of *'s followed by a space at - beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs Org mode) - is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an Org head- - line, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org headlines. - - o Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as trans- - actions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by - default; add -E to see them.) - - More examples: - - # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. - 2016/2/1 - inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... - fos:haskell .... .. - biz:research . - - 2016/2/2 - inc:client1 .... .... - biz:research . - - 2016/2/3 - inc:client1 4 - fos:hledger 3 - biz:research 1 - - * Time log - ** 2020-01-01 - *** adm:time . - *** adm:finance . - - * 2020 Work Diary - ** Q1 - *** 2020-02-29 - **** DONE - 0700 yoga - **** UNPLANNED - **** BEGUN - hom:chores - cleaning ... - water plants - outdoor - one full watering can - indoor - light watering - **** TODO - adm:planning: trip - *** LATER - - Reporting: - - $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 - 2016-02-02 * - (inc:client1) 2.00 - - 2016-02-02 * - (biz:research) 0.25 - - $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree - Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: - - || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d - ============++======================================== - biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - fos || 1.50 0 3.00 - haskell || 1.50 0 0 - hledger || 0 0 3.00 - inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - ------------++---------------------------------------- - || 7.75 2.25 8.00 - - Using period instead of colon as account name separator: - - 2016/2/4 - fos.hledger.timedot 4 - fos.ledger .. - - $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree - 4.50 fos - 4.00 hledger:timedot - 0.50 ledger - -------------------- - 4.50 - - A sample.timedot file. - -PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS -Time periods - Report start & end date - By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time repre- - sented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest - transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest - transaction, posting, or market price date. - - Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current - month. You can specify a start and/or end date using -b/--begin, - -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query (described below). All of these - accept the smart date syntax (below). - - Some notes: - - o End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date - after the last day you want to see in the report. - - o As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with - options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. - - o The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the - start/end dates from options and that from date: queries. That is, - date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030' yields January 2019, the - smallest common time span. - - o In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall - on interval boundaries (see below). - - Examples: - - - -b 2016/3/17 begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 - -e 12/1 end at the start of december 1st of the current year - (11/30 will be the last date included) - -b thismonth all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month - -p thismonth all transactions in the current month - date:2016/3/17.. the above written as queries instead (.. can also be - replaced with -) - date:..12/1 - date:thismonth.. - date:thismonth - - Smart dates - hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added conve- - nience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be - written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted - (missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: - - - 2004/10/1, 2004-01-01, exact date, several separators allowed. Year - 2004.9.1 is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 - 2004 start of year - 2004/10 start of month - 10/1 month and day in current year - 21 day in current month - october, oct start of month in current year - yesterday, today, tomor- -1, 0, 1 days from today - row - last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period - day/week/month/quar- - ter/year - in n n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years - n n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years ahead - n -n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years ago - 20181201 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day - 201812 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month - - Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising - results: - - - 201813 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 6-digit year - 20181301 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 8-digit year - 20181232 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error - 201801012 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error - - "Today's date" can be overridden with the --today option, in case it's - needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for periodic - transaction rules, which are not affected by --today.) - - Report intervals - A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, bal- - ance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a sepa- - rate row or column. - - The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line - flags: - - o -D/--daily - - o -W/--weekly - - o -M/--monthly - - o -Q/--quarterly - - o -Y/--yearly - - More complex intervals can be specified using -p/--period, described - below. - - Date adjustment - With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates - which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not -b - 2023-01-01, but -b 2023-01 or -b 2023 or unspecified) are considered - flexible: - - o A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if - needed to fall on a natural interval boundary. - - o Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to - make the last period a whole interval (the same length as the oth- - ers). - - This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is tradi- - tional hledger behaviour). By contrast, fully-specified exact dates - will not be adjusted (this is new in hledger 1.29). - - An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last date - is 2023-03-20: - - o hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10 - The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, starting - from 2023-01-15, and the last period's last day will be 2023-03-09. - (Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) - - o hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04 or hledger bal -M - The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting from - 2023-01-01, and the last period's last day will be 2023-03-31. (Flexi- - ble start and end dates, both are adjusted.) - - Period expressions - The -p/--period option specifies a period expression, which is a com- - pact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report interval. - - Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the - first quarter of 2009): - - - -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" - - Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; - these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The spa- - ces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. So - the following are equivalent to the above: - - - -p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1" - -p2009/1/1to2009/4/1 - -p2009/1/1..2009/4/1 - - Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also - equivalent to the above: - - - -p "1/1 4/1" - -p "jan-apr" - -p "this year to 4/1" - - If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the - earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: - - - - - -p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january - 1, 2009 - -p "since 2009/1" the same, since is a syn- - onym - -p "from 2009" the same - -p "to 2009" everything before january - 1, 2009 - - You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full date: - - - -p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1" - -p "2009/1" the month of january 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/2/1" - -p "2009/1/1" the first day of 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/1/2" - - or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): - - - -p "2009Q1" first quarter of 2009, equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/4/1" - -p "q4" fourth quarter of the current year - - Period expressions with a report interval - A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated - from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word in: - - - -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" - -p "monthly in 2008" - -p "quarterly" - - More complex report intervals - Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, - such as: - - o biweekly (every two weeks) - - o fortnightly - - o bimonthly (every two months) - - o every day|week|month|quarter|year - - o every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years - - Weekly on a custom day: - - o every Nth day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the - number) - - o every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english weekday name, case - insensitive) - - Monthly on a custom day: - - o every Nth day [of month] - - o every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month] - - Yearly on a custom day: - - o every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number) - - o every MONTHNAME DDth [of year] (full or three-letter english month - name, case insensitive, and day of month number) - - o every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above) - - Examples: - - - -p "bimonthly from 2008" - - -p "every 2 weeks" - -p "every 5 months from - 2009/03" - -p "every 2nd day of week" periods will go from Tue to Tue - -p "every Tue" same - -p "every 15th day" period boundaries will be on 15th of each - month - -p "every 2nd Monday" period boundaries will be on second Monday - of each month - -p "every 11/05" yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of - November - -p "every 5th November" same - -p "every Nov 5th" same - - Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is an - end date, exclusive as always): - - $ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" - - Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following - tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): - - $ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" - - Multiple weekday intervals - This special form is also supported: - - o every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,... (full or three-letter english week- - day names, case insensitive) - - Also, weekday and weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri and - sat,sun. - - This is mainly intended for use with --forecast, to generate periodic - transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less useful with - -p, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal length, which - is unusual. (Related: #1632) - - Examples: - - - -p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be Mon- - mon,wed,fri" Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun - -p "every weekday" dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will - be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun - -p "every weekend- dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri - day" - -Depth - With the --depth NUM option (short form: -NUM), reports will show - accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use - this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same - effect as a depth: query argument: depth:2, --depth=2 or -2 are equiva- - lent. - -Queries - One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise - subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query argu- - ments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: - - o Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often - account name substrings: - - utilities food:groceries - - o Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in - quotes: - - "personal care" - - o Regular expressions are also supported: - - "^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)" - - o Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: - - date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status: - - o Add a not: prefix to negate a term: - - not:cur:USD - - Query types - Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be - prefixed with not: to convert them into a negative match. - - acct:REGEX, REGEX - Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular expres- - sion. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and reg- - ular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just - write an account name substring, like expenses or food. - - amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N - Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or - greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested - and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded - by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. Oth- - erwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. - - code:REGEX - Match by transaction code (eg check number). - - cur:REGEX - Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose cur- - rency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial - match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match special characters which are - regex-significant, you need to escape them with \. And for characters - which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of - escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: - hledger print cur:\\$. - - desc:REGEX - Match transaction descriptions. - - date:PERIODEXPR - Match dates (or with the --date2 flag, secondary dates) within the - specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report - interval. Examples: - date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter. - - date2:PERIODEXPR - Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the - --date2 flag). - - depth:N - Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this - depth. - - note:REGEX - Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the - whole description if there's no |). - - payee:REGEX - Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left - of |, or the whole description if there's no |). - - real:, real:0 - Match real or virtual postings respectively. - - status:, status:!, status:* - Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. - - type:TYPECODES - Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). TYPE- - CODES is one or more of the single-letter account type codes ALERXCV, - case insensitive. Note type:A and type:E will also match their respec- - tive subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion). Certain kinds of account - alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and - account types. - - tag:REGEX[=REGEX] - Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by - value, use tag:.=REGEX.) - - When querying by tag, note that: - - o Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts - - o Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction - - o Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. - - (inacct:ACCTNAME - A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells - hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) - - Combining query terms - When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which - match: - - o any of the description terms AND - - o any of the account terms AND - - o any of the status terms AND - - o all the other terms. - - The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: - - o match any of the description terms AND - - o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND - - o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND - - o match all the other terms. - - Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not support - full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND or OR in - your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but here - are some tricks that can help: - - 1. Use a doubled not: prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses paid - with cash: - - $ hledger print food not:not:cash - - 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with print, piping the result into a - second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): - - $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food - - Queries and command options - Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2 is - equivalent to --depth 2, date:2020 is equivalent to -p 2020, etc. When - you mix command options and query arguments, generally the resulting - query is their intersection. - - Queries and valuation - When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value - reports, cur: and amt: match the old commodity symbol and the old - amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's - reversed, see #1625). - - Querying with account aliases - When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct: - will match either the old or the new account name. - - Querying with cost or value - When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value - reports, note that cur: matches the new commodity symbol, and not the - old one, and amt: matches the new quantity, and not the old one. Note: - this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see the - discussion at #1625. - -Pivoting - Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The - --pivot FIELD option substitutes some other transaction field for - account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's - value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields status, - code, description, payee, note, or a tag name. When pivoting on a tag - and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first value is - displayed. Values containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed - hierarchically, like account names. - - Some examples: - - 2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment - assets:bank account 2 EUR - income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe - - Normal balance report showing account names: - - $ hledger balance - 2 EUR assets:bank account - -2 EUR income:dues - -------------------- - 0 - - Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: - - $ hledger balance --pivot member - 2 EUR - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - 0 - - One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): - - $ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - -2 EUR - - Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account - name"): - - $ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - -2 EUR - -Generating data - Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report - time) are built in to hledger's journal format: - - o Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain transac- - tions. They are activated by the --auto flag. - - o Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, usu- - ally dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. - They are activated by the --forecast or balance --budget options, - described next. - -Forecasting - The --forecast flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the - journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usu- - ally recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. - hledger print --forecast is a good way to see them. - - This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps - experimenting with different scenarios. - - It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe - recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of print - --forecast into the journal. - - The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like generated- - transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR, indicating which periodic rule generated - them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named _generated-transac- - tion:, which you can use to reliably match transactions generated "just - now" (rather than printed in the past). - - The forecast transactions are generated within a forecast period, which - is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the bounds - for generated transactions, report period controls which transactions - are reported.) The forecast period begins on: - - o the start date provided within --forecast's argument, if any - - o otherwise, the later of - - o the report start date, if specified (with -b/-p/date:) - - o the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, if - any - - o otherwise today. - - It ends on: - - o the end date provided within --forecast's argument, if any - - o otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with -e/-p/date:) - - o otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. - - Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic - transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start - until after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, - but you can get around it in two ways: - - o If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them - periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ~ YYYY-MM-DD) - rather than ordinary transactions. That way they won't suppress - other periodic transactions. - - o Or give --forecast a period expression argument. A forecast period - specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and need not be - in the future. Some things to note: - - o You must use = between flag and argument; a space won't work. - - o The period expression can specify the forecast period's start date, - end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. - - o The period expression should not specify a report interval. (Each - periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) - - Some examples: --forecast=202001-202004, --forecast=jan-, --fore- - cast=2021. - -Budgeting - With the balance command's --budget report, each periodic transaction - rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals - and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc - below. - - See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. - -Cost reporting - This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions - where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of cur- - rency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: - - o Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. - Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or - cryptocurrency. - - o Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more conver- - sions. - - o Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, ie - the exchange rate. - - o Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. And - more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the "sec- - ondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a purchase - or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. Also, the - "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. - - -B: Convert to cost - As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can - also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding @ UNIT- - PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE. - - Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding the - -B/--cost flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). Eg: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - - $ hledger bal -N - $-135 assets:dollars - EUR100 assets:euros - $ hledger bal -N -B - $-135 assets:dollars - $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost - - Notes: - - -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the - inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if - example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, - -B shows something different: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold - assets:euros EUR100 ; for 100 euros - - $ hledger bal -N -B - EUR-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price - EUR100 assets:euros - - The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does - not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting equa- - tion and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. - - Equity conversion postings - By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a differ- - ent notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance conversion - transactions. In this style, the above entry might be written: - - 2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost - reporting more difficult for PTA tools. - - Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to - the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. - - You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at - the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But - be sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a - not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. - - Inferring equity postings from cost - With --infer-equity, hledger detects transactions written with PTA cost - notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars -$135 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 - - $ hledger print --infer-equity - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 - equity:conversion:$-EUR:EUR EUR-100 ; generated-posting: - equity:conversion:$-EUR:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: - - The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion account - type declaration. - - --infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded - using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and bal- - ance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal - entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. - - Inferring cost from equity postings - The reverse operation is possible using --infer-costs, which detects - transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost - notation to them: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - $ hledger print --infer-costs - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 @@ EUR100 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - --infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/--cost, allowing cost - reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity post- - ings: - - $ hledger print --infer-costs -B - 2009-01-01 - assets:dollars EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - Notes: - - For --infer-costs to work, an exchange must consist of four postings: - - 1. two non-equity postings - - 2. two equity postings, next to one another - - 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type V/Conversion - (or if they are not declared, they must be named equity:conversion, - equity:trade, equity:trading or subaccounts of these) - - 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity post- - ings' amounts. - - Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. - - When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added - to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in - the commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. - If you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can - use explicit cost notation instead. - - --infer-equity and --infer-costs can be used together, if you have a - mixture of both notations in your journal. - - When to infer cost/equity - Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled - by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two - suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: - - 1. When you use -B, always use --infer-costs as well. Eg: hledger bal - -B --infer-costs - - 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: alias hl="hledger - --infer-equity --infer-costs" - - How to record conversions - Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in - hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. - - Conversion with implicit cost - Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the - outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset - account: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - assets:cash 120 USD - - hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the - conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred - rate by using hledger print -x. - - Pro: - - o Concise, easy - - Con: - - o Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not - be detected - - o Conversion rate is not clear - - o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity - flag - - You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped com- - modity symbol, by using hledger check commodities. - - You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using hledger check - balancednoautoconversion, or -s/--strict. - - Conversion with explicit cost - You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error - otherwise. - - Pro: - - o Still concise - - o Makes the conversion rate clear - - o Provides more error checking - - Con: - - o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity - flag - - Conversion with equity postings - In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not bal- - anced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD - appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents - reports like balancesheetequity from showing a zero total. - - The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for - each commodity, using an equity account: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - o Preserves the accounting equation - - o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - - o Standard, works in any double entry accounting system - - Con: - - o More verbose - - o Conversion rate is not obvious - - o Cost reporting requires adding the --infer-costs flag - - Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost - Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - o Preserves the accounting equation - - o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - - o Makes the conversion rate clear - - o Provides more error checking - - Con: - - o Most verbose - - o Not compatible with ledger - - Cost tips - o Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it - makes that clear and helps detect errors. - - o Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping - and preserves the accounting equation. - - o Combining these is possible. - - o When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use -B - (short form of --cost). - - o If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add --infer- - costs also. - - o If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want to - see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, use - --infer-equity. - - o Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). - -Valuation - Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can - convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in - the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a - certain date). This is controlled by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] - option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler -V - and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need: - - -V: Value - The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default - valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation - date(s), if any. More on these in a minute. - - -X: Value in specified commodity - The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which cur- - rency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to - that. - - Valuation date - Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports - have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market - prices will be used. - - For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, - that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date - is the journal's end date. - - For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day - of the period, by default. - - Finding market price - To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, - hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, - in this order of preference : - - 1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market - price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P direc- - tive, or (with the --infer-market-prices flag) inferred from costs. - - 2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market - price from B to A. - - 3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by com- - bining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices, - leading from A to B. - - 4. Any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices, including - both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to - B. - - There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger - reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all - possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in - --debug=2 output). That limit is currently 1000. - - Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not con- - verted. - - --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions - Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, - P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a - chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market - value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as - Ledger does) ? Adding the --infer-market-prices flag to -V, -X or - --value enables this. - - So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices will get market - prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on - the same day, the P directive takes precedence. - - There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confus- - ing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to you, - read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or - --debug=2 to troubleshoot. - - --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from: - - o multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@) - - o multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodi- - ties, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters. - hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.) - - o multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is inferred - with --infer-costs. - - There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is - not specified, prices inferred with --infer-market-prices do not help - select a default valuation commodity, as P prices would. So conversion - might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected (--debug=2 - will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation commmodity, eg: - - o -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices - - o --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-mar- - ket-prices - - Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here - is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should - work differently, see #1870.) - - 2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @ A 1 - - 2022-01-01 Positive Total prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @@ A 1 - - - 2022-01-02 Negative unit prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @ A -1 - - 2022-01-02 Negative total prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @@ A -1 - - - 2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @ A -1 - - 2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @@ A -1 - - All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each day, - the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the market - prices inferred for B: - - $ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices - P 2022-01-01 B A 1 - P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 - P 2022-01-02 B A -1 - P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 - P 2022-01-03 B A -1 - P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 - - Valuation commodity - When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM): - hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a suit- - able market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). - - When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value - TYPE): - For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as - follows, in this order of preference: - - 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on - or before valuation date. - - 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on - any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred - prices before the valuation date.) - - 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the - --infer-market-prices flag is used: the price commodity from the - latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date. - - This means: - - o If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will - convert, and to what. - - o If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices flag, - costs determine it. - - Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not con- - verted. - - Simple valuation examples - Here are some quick examples of -V: - - ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 - P 2016/11/01 EUR $1.10 - - ; purchase some euros on nov 3 - 2016/11/3 - assets:euros EUR100 - assets:checking - - ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 - P 2016/12/21 EUR $1.03 - - How many euros do I have ? - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros - EUR100 assets:euros - - What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 - $110.00 assets:euros - - What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date specified, - defaults to today) - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V - $103.00 assets:euros - - --value: Flexible valuation - -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option: - - --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. - COMM is an optional commodity symbol. - Shows amounts converted to: - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date - - The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: - - --value=then - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity, using market prices on each posting's date. - - --value=end - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity, using market prices on the last day of the report period - (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod - reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod. - - --value=now - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity using current market prices (as of when report is gener- - ated). - - --value=YYYY-MM-DD - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity using market prices on this date. - - To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: - a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: --value=now,EUR. - hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing - market prices as described above. - - More valuation examples - Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with - print: - - P 2000-01-01 A 1 B - P 2000-02-01 A 2 B - P 2000-03-01 A 3 B - P 2000-04-01 A 4 B - - 2000-01-01 - (a) 1 A @ 5 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 1 A @ 6 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 1 A @ 7 B - - Show the cost of each posting: - - $ hledger -f- print --cost - 2000-01-01 - (a) 5 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 6 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 7 B - - Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 - 2000-01-01 - (a) 2 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 2 B - - With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last - day of the journal (2000-03-01): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=end - 2000-01-01 - (a) 3 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 3 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 3 B - - Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=now - 2000-01-01 - (a) 4 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 4 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 4 B - - Show the value on 2000/01/15: - - $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 - 2000-01-01 - (a) 1 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 1 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 1 B - - You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when - reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: - - P 2000-01-01 A 2B - - 2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - - $ hledger print -x -X A - 2000-01-01 - a 0 - b 0 - - Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive specify- - ing a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no - decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the com- - modity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a com- - modity directive sets a more useful display style for A: - - P 2000-01-01 A 2B - commodity 0.00A - - 2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - - $ hledger print -X A - 2000-01-01 - a 0.50A - b -0.50A - - Interaction of valuation and queries - When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, - the following happens. - - 1. The query is separated into two parts: - - 1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:). - - 2. all other parts. - - 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based on - pre-valued amounts. - - 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. - - 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on - post-valued amounts. - - See: 1625 - - Effect of valuation on reports - Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part - of hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to - scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find - problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. - Related: #329, #1083. - - - Report -B, --cost -V, -X --value=then --value=end --value=DATE, - type --value=now - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - print - posting cost value at value at posting value at value at - amounts report end date report or DATE/today - or today journal end - balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged - asser- - tions/assign- - ments - - register - starting bal- cost value at valued at day value at value at - ance (-H) report or each historical report or DATE/today - journal end posting was made journal end - starting bal- cost value at day valued at day value at day value at - ance (-H) before each historical before DATE/today - with report report or posting was made report or - interval journal journal - start start - posting cost value at value at posting value at value at - amounts report or date report or DATE/today - journal end journal end - summary post- summarised value at sum of postings value at value at - ing amounts cost period ends in interval, val- period ends DATE/today - with report ued at interval - interval start - running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average - total/average of displayed of displayed displayed values of displayed of displayed - values values values values - - balance (bs, - bse, cf, is) - balance sums of value at value at posting value at value at - changes costs report end date report or DATE/today of - or today of journal end sums of post- - sums of of sums of ings - postings postings - budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance - amounts changes changes changes ances changes - (--budget) - grand total sum of dis- sum of dis- sum of displayed sum of dis- sum of dis- - played val- played val- valued played val- played values - ues ues ues - - balance (bs, - bse, cf, is) - with report - interval - starting bal- sums of value at sums of values of value at sums of post- - ances (-H) costs of report start postings before report start ings before - postings of sums of report start at of sums of report start - before all postings respective post- all postings - report start before ing dates before - report start report start - balance sums of same as sums of values of balance value at - changes (bal, costs of --value=end postings in change in DATE/today of - is, bs postings in period at respec- each period, sums of post- - --change, cf period tive posting valued at ings - --change) dates period ends - - - - - end balances sums of same as sums of values of period end value at - (bal -H, is costs of --value=end postings from balances, DATE/today of - --H, bs, cf) postings before period valued at sums of post- - from before start to period period ends ings - report start end at respective - to period posting dates - end - budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance - amounts changes/end changes/end changes/end bal- ances changes/end - (--budget) balances balances ances balances - row totals, sums, aver- sums, aver- sums, averages of sums, aver- sums, aver- - row averages ages of dis- ages of dis- displayed values ages of dis- ages of dis- - (-T, -A) played val- played val- played val- played values - ues ues ues - column totals sums of dis- sums of dis- sums of displayed sums of dis- sums of dis- - played val- played val- values played val- played values - ues ues ues - grand total, sum, average sum, average sum, average of sum, average sum, average - grand average of column of column column totals of column of column - totals totals totals totals - - - --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero - starting balance. - - Glossary: - - cost calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). - - value market value using available market price declarations, or the - unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. - - report start - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise today. - - report or journal start - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. - - report end - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or - date:, otherwise today. - - report or journal end - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or - date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. - - report interval - a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the - report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperi- - ods). - -PART 4: COMMANDS - Commands overview - Here are the built-in commands: - - DATA ENTRY - These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your jour- - nal file. - - o add - add transactions using terminal prompts - - o import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files - - DATA CREATION - o close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions - - o rewrite - generate auto postings, like print --auto - - DATA MANAGEMENT - o check - check for various kinds of error in the data - - o diff - compare account transactions in two journal files - - REPORTS, FINANCIAL - o aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account - - o balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth - - o balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity - - o cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets - - o incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses - - REPORTS, VERSATILE - o balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, gains.. - - o print - show transactions or export journal data - - o register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running - total - - o roi - show return on investments - - REPORTS, BASIC - o accounts - show account names - - o activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period - - o codes - show transaction codes - - o commodities - show commodity/currency symbols - - o descriptions - show transaction descriptions - - o files - show input file paths - - o notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions - - o payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions - - o prices - show market prices - - o stats - show journal statistics - - o tags - show tag names - - o test - run self tests - - HELP - o help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager - - - ADD-ONS - And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed - by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in - hledger's commands list: - - o ui - run hledger's terminal UI - - o web - run hledger's web UI - - o iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) - - o interest - generate interest transactions - - o stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage - - o Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, - pijul, plot, and more.. - - Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. - - accounts - Show account names. - - This command lists account names. By default it shows all known - accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account direc- - tives. - - With query arguments, only matched account names and account names ref- - erenced by matched postings are shown. - - Or it can show just the used accounts (--used/-u), the declared - accounts (--declared/-d), the accounts declared but not used - (--unused), the accounts used but not declared (--undeclared), or the - first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (--find). - - It shows a flat list by default. With --tree, it uses indentation to - show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add --drop N to omit - the first few account name components. Account names can be depth- - clipped with depth:N or --depth N or -N. - - With --types, it also shows each account's type, if it's known. (See - Declaring accounts > Account types.) - - With --positions, it also shows the file and line number of each - account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration - order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. - - With --directives, it adds the account keyword, showing valid account - directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is useful - together with --undeclared when updating your account declarations to - satisfy hledger check accounts. - - The --find flag can be used to look up a single account name, in the - same way that the aregister command does. It returns the alphanumeri- - cally-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it fails - with a non-zero exit code. - - Examples: - - $ hledger accounts - assets:bank:checking - assets:bank:saving - assets:cash - expenses:food - expenses:supplies - income:gifts - income:salary - liabilities:debts - - $ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE - $ hledger check accounts - - activity - Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. - - The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction - counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the - default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. - - Examples: - - $ hledger activity --quarterly - 2008-01-01 ** - 2008-04-01 ******* - 2008-07-01 - 2008-10-01 ** - - add - Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments - will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. - - Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, or - generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the - add command, which prompts interactively on the console for new trans- - actions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be in - journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one - of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also - import). - - To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts. You can add as - many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press - control-d or control-c to exit. - - Features: - - o add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by - description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a - template. - - o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. - - o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. - - o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, pay- - ees/descriptions, dates (yesterday, today, tomorrow). If the input - area is empty, it will insert the default value. - - o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any - bare numbers entered. - - o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. - - o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. - - o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - - o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal - supports it. - - Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2015/05/22]: - Description: supermarket - Account 1: expenses:food - Amount 1: $10 - Account 2: assets:checking - Amount 2 [$-10.0]: - Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2015/05/22 supermarket - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking $-10.0 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2015/05/22]: $ - - On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the - file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). - - aregister - (areg) - - Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single - account, with each transaction displayed as one line. - - aregister shows the overall transactions affecting a particular account - (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one transaction in - this account. Transactions before the report start date are always - included in the running balance (--historical mode is always on). - - This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the register command - (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not - necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of thumb: - use areg- - ister for reviewing and reconciling real-world asset/liability accounts - - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses. - - aregister requires one argument: the account to report on. You can - write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular - expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. - - When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can be - surprising; eg if you have assets:per:checking 1 and assets:biz:check- - ing 2 accounts, hledger areg checking would select assets:biz:checking - 2. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if in doubt, write the - full account name, or a distinctive substring that matches uniquely. - - Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be shown. - aregister ignores depth limits, so its final total will always match a - balance report with similar arguments. - - Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transac- - tions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, caus- - ing it to be different from the account's real-world running balance. - - An example: this shows the transactions and historical running balance - during july, in the first account whose name contains "checking": - - $ hledger areg checking date:jul - - Each aregister line item shows: - - o the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different, - see below) - - o the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction - (probably abbreviated) - - o the total change to this account's balance from this transaction - - o the account's historical running balance after this transaction. - - Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add - the -E/--empty flag to show them. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first - 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause - visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to - ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the - --align-all flag. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options. The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json. - - aregister and custom posting dates - Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be - shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report - period. (And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This - ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance, - matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments. - - To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates - flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom - dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. - - balance - (bal) - - Show accounts and their balances. - - balance is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for - listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and - more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with - rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. - - Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance command with - convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: balancesheet, bal- - ancesheetequity, cashflow and incomestatement. When you need more con- - trol, then use balance. - - balance features - Here's a quick overview of the balance command's features, followed by - more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the - higher-level commands as well. - - balance can show.. - - o accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t) - - o optionally depth-limited (-[1-9]) - - o sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount - - ..and their.. - - o balance changes (the default) - - o or actual and planned balance changes (--budget) - - o or value of balance changes (-V) - - o or change of balance values (--valuechange) - - o or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain) - - ..in.. - - o one time period (the whole journal period by default) - - o or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL) - - ..either.. - - o per period (the default) - - o or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative) - - o or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H) - - ..possibly converted to.. - - o cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B) - - o or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM]) - - o or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM]) - - o or now (--value=now) - - o or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD) - - ..with.. - - o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign - (--invert) - - o rows and columns swapped (--transpose) - - o another field used as account name (--pivot) - - o custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format) - - o commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout) - - This command supports the output destination and output format options, - with output formats txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:) - html. In txt output in a colour-supporting terminal, negative amounts - are shown in red. - - The --related/-r flag shows the balance of the other postings in the - transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - Simple balance report - With no arguments, balance shows a list of all accounts and their - change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and - outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here - means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can - also have multi-period reports, described later.) - - For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end bal- - ance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. - - Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then alphabeti- - cally by account name. For instance (using examples/sample.journal): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode - - see below) are hidden by default. Use -E/--empty to show them - (revealing assets:bank:checking here): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E - 0 assets:bank:checking - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless - -N/--no-total is used. - - Balance report line format - For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you - can use --format FMT to customise the format and content of each line. - Eg: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" - assets $-1 - bank:saving $1 - cash $-2 - expenses $2 - food $1 - supplies $1 - income $-2 - gifts $-1 - salary $-1 - liabilities:debts $1 - --------------------------------- - 0 - - The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each - account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data - fields interpolated like so: - - %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME) - - o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) - - o MAX truncates at this width (optional) - - o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: - - o depth_spacer - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or - if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. - - o account - the account's name - - o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified - - Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-com- - modity amounts are rendered: - - o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) - - o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned - - o %, - render on one line, comma-separated - - There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no - effect, instead %(account) has indentation built in. Experimentation - may be needed to get pleasing results. - - Some example formats: - - o %(total) - the account's total - - o %-20.20(account) - the account's name, left justified, padded to 20 - characters and clipped at 20 characters - - o %,%-50(account) %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters, - total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on - one line - - o %20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for the - single-column balance report - - Filtered balance report - You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from - cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to - limit the postings being matched. Eg: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 - $-2 assets:cash - -------------------- - $-2 - - List or tree mode - By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with - their full names visible, as in the examples above. - - With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' - "leaf" names indented below their parent: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - Notes: - - o "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more compact - output, unless --no-elide is used. Boring accounts have no balance - of their own and just one subaccount (eg assets:bank and liabilities - above). - - o All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from - all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, - which requires explanation when sharing reports with non-plaintextac- - counting-users. A tree mode report's final total is the sum of the - top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown. - - o Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted - separately. - - Depth limiting - With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just -NUM (eg: -3) - balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, hiding - the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an overview - without too much detail. - - Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from - any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 - $-1 assets - $2 expenses - $-2 income - $1 liabilities - -------------------- - 0 - - Dropping top-level accounts - You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using - --drop NUM. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level account - names: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 - $1 food - $1 supplies - -------------------- - $2 - - - Showing declared accounts - With --declared, accounts which have been declared with an account - directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no - transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need - -E/--empty to see them.) - - More precisely, leaf declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will be - included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. - - The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance - report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared - accounts yet. - - Sorting by amount - With -S/--sort-amount, accounts with the largest (most positive) bal- - ances are shown first. Eg: hledger bal expenses -MAS shows your big- - gest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity is - present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity - first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a - commodity, it is treated as 0). - - Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -S - shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add - --invert to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, - which flip the sign automatically. Eg: hledger incomestatement -MAS). - - - Percentages - With -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed - as a percentage of the (column) total. - - Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a col- - umn have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each - sign, eg: - - $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` - $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` - - Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert - them to one commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or make a separate - report for each commodity: - - $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ - $ hledger bal -% cur:EUR - - Multi-period balance report - With a report interval (set by the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, - -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, -Y/--yearly, or -p/--period flag), bal- - ance shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive time - periods (and a title): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E - Balance changes in 2008: - - || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 - ===================++================================= - expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 - expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 - income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 - income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 - -------------------++--------------------------------- - || $-1 $1 0 0 - - Notes: - - o The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to fully - encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and last subpe- - riods have the same duration as the others). - - o Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are not - shown, unless -E/--empty is used. - - o Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless - -E/--empty is used. - - o Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless - --no-elide is used. (experimental) - - o Average and/or total columns can be added with the -A/--average and - -T/--row-total flags. - - o The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. - - o The --pivot FIELD option causes a different transaction field to be - used as "account name". See PIVOTING. - - Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing - in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: - - o Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total - - o Convert to a single currency with -V - - o Maximize the terminal window - - o Reduce the terminal's font size - - o View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less - -RS - - o Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal -D -O - csv | vd -f csv), Emacs' csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a - spreadsheet (hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv) - - o Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o a.html && - open a.html - - Balance change, end balance - It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in bal- - ance reports. Here is some terminology we use: - - A balance change is the net amount added to, or removed from, an - account during some period. - - An end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date - (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day in - your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. - - We call it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes - since the account was created. For a real world account, this means it - will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in your - bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) - - In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing - revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to - see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. - - balance shows balance changes by default. To see accurate historical - end balances: - - 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" - transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the - journal covers the account's full lifetime. - - 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by not - specifying a report start date, or by using the -H/--historical - flag. (-H causes report start date to be ignored when summing post- - ings.) - - Balance report types - The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how - to control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't - worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some - time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. - - There are three important option groups: - - hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] - ... - - Calculation type - The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: - - o --sum : sum the posting amounts (default) - - o --budget : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount (for - each account/period) - - o --valuechange : show the change in period-end historical balance val- - ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctua- - tions) - - o --gain : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued - balance minus each amount's original cost) - - Accumulation type - How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to - say it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's - calculation. It is one of: - - o --change : calculate with postings from column start to column end, - ie "just this column". Typically used to see revenues/expenses. - (default for balance, incomestatement) - - o --cumulative : calculate with postings from report start to column - end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used to show - changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not often used. - - o --historical/-H : calculate with postings from journal start to col- - umn end, ie "all postings from before report start date until this - column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances of - assets/liabilities/equity. (default for balancesheet, balancesheete- - quity, cashflow) - - Valuation type - Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, - before displaying the report. It is one of: - - o no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (default) - - o --value=cost[,COMM] : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to - some other commodity) - - o --value=then[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on transaction - dates - - o --value=end[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on period end - date(s) - (default with --valuechange, --gain) - - o --value=now[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on today's date - - o --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on - another date - - or one of the equivalent simpler flags: - - o -B/--cost : like --value=cost (though, note --cost and --value are - independent options which can both be used at once) - - o -V/--market : like --value=end - - o -X COMM/--exchange COMM : like --value=end,COMM - - See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. - - Combining balance report types - Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, - but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The - following restrictions are applied: - - o --valuechange implies --value=end - - o --valuechange makes --change the default when used with the bal- - ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands - - o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T - - For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valua- - tion show: - - - Valua- no valuation --value= then --value= end --value= YYYY- - tion:> MM-DD /now - Accumu- - lation:v - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - --change change in period sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - date market val- value of change change in - ues in period in period period - --cumu- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - lative report start to date market val- value of change change from - period end ues from report from report report start - start to period start to period to period end - end end - --his- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - torical journal start to date market val- value of change change from - /-H period end (his- ues from journal from journal journal start - torical end bal- start to period start to period to period end - ance) end end - - Budget report - The --budget report type activates extra columns showing any budget - goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by - periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual - income, expenses, time usage, etc. - - For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common - expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: - - ;; Budget - ~ monthly - income $2000 - expenses:food $400 - expenses:bus $50 - expenses:movies $30 - assets:bank:checking - - ;; Two months worth of expenses - 2017-11-01 - income $1950 - expenses:food $396 - expenses:bus $49 - expenses:movies $30 - expenses:supplies $20 - assets:bank:checking - - 2017-12-01 - income $2100 - expenses:food $412 - expenses:bus $53 - expenses:gifts $100 - assets:bank:checking - - You can now see a monthly budget report: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: - - o Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, - by default. - - o In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget - goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: bud- - get goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) - - o All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg assets, - assets:bank, and expenses above. - - o Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even - in list mode. - - This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg - above, the expenses actual amount includes the gifts and supplies - transactions, but the expenses:gifts and expenses:supplies accounts are - not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. - - This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the - -E/--empty flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted - ones, giving the full picture. Eg: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:gifts || 0 $100 - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - expenses:supplies || $20 0 - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with --cumulative: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses - - hledger bal -M --budget expenses - - or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): - - hledger bal -M --budget type:rx - - It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency - (cur:COMM or -X COMM [--infer-market-prices]). If showing multiple - currencies, --layout bare or --layout tall can help. - - For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. - - Budget report start date - This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a - good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of - a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ~ monthly generates - its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no - regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could - exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here - the default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: - - ~ monthly in 2020 - (expenses:food) $500 - - 2020-01-15 - expenses:food $400 - assets:checking - - $ hledger bal expenses --budget - Budget performance in 2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-15 - ==============++============ - || $400 - --------------++------------ - || $400 - - To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the - start date, with -b/-e/-p/date:, to ensure it includes the budget goal - transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, adding -b - 2020/1/1 to the above: - - $ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 - Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 - ===============++======================== - expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] - ---------------++------------------------ - || $400 [80% of $500] - - Budgets and subaccounts - You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you - have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then bud- - get(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their - parent, much like account balances behave. - - In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any - account, all its parents would have budget as well. - - To illustrate this, consider the following budget: - - ~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and - budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly - means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100. - - Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both - towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal , and transac- - tions in any other subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted - towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal. - - For example, let's consider these transactions: - - ~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/01 Google home hub - expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 - liabilities $-90.00 - - 2019/01/02 Phone screen protector - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket - expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/03 Flowers - expenses:personal $30.00 - liabilities - - As you can see, we have transactions in expenses:personal:electron- - ics:upgrades and expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of - these accounts are without explicitly defined budget, these transac- - tions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics - and expenses:personal accordingly: - - $ hledger balance --budget -M - Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan - ===============================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] - -------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and - consumption: - - $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty - Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan - ========================================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 - expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] - ----------------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - Selecting budget goals - The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate spe- - cial "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each - account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use - print --forecast to show these as forecasted transactions: - - $ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated - - By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction - rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report - interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly - periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly - budget report. - - You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to - the --budget flag. --budget=DESCPAT will match all periodic rules - whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a - regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic - rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then - select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. - - Budget vs forecast - hledger --forecast ... and hledger balance --budget ... are separate - features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules - defined in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transac- - tions for reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal - transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same - time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of - hledger 1.29: - - CLI: - - o --forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command - - o --budget is a balance command option, usable only with that command. - - Visibility of generated transactions: - - o forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary trans- - actions - - o budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts - they produce in --budget reports. - - Periodic transaction rules: - - o --forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules - - o --budget uses all periodic rules (--budget) or a selected subset - (--budget=DESCPAT) - - Period of generated transactions: - - o --forecast generates forecast transactions - - o from after the last regular transaction to the end of the report - period (--forecast) - - o or, during a specified period (--forecast=PERIODEXPR) - - o possibly further restricted by a period specified in the periodic - transaction rule - - o and always restricted within the bounds of the report period - - o --budget generates budget goal transactions - - o throughout the report period - - o possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic transac- - tion rule. - - Data layout - The --layout option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity - amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can - also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has - four possible values: - - o --layout=wide[,WIDTH]: commodities are shown on a single line, - optionally elided to WIDTH - - o --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line - - o --layout=bare: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts are - bare numbers - - o --layout=tidy: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, - with one row per data value - - Here are the --layout modes supported by each output format; note only - CSV output supports all of them: - - - - txt csv html json sql - ------------------------------------- - wide Y Y Y - tall Y Y Y - bare Y Y Y - tidy Y - - Examples: - - o Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - - o Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some com- - modities will be hidden: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++=========================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - - o Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in - each column), and account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - - o Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each commod- - ity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++============================================= - Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - ------------------++--------------------------------------------- - || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - - o Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing - data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare - "account","commodity","balance" - "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" - "total","GLD","70.00" - "total","ITOT","17.00" - "total","USD","5120.50" - "total","VEA","36.00" - "total","VHT","294.00" - - o Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable has - its own column and each row represents a single data point. See - https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy- - data.html for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other soft- - ware to consume. Here's how it looks: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy - "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" - - Useful balance reports - Some frequently used balance options/reports are: - - o bal -M revenues expenses - Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the incomes- - tatement command. - - o bal -M -H assets liabilities - Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also - available as the balancesheet command. - - o bal -M -H assets liabilities equity - Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. - Also available as the balancesheetequity command. - - o bal -M assets not:receivable - Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the - cashflow command. - - Also: - - o bal -M expenses -2 -SA - Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average - amount. - - o bal -M --budget expenses - Show monthly expenses and budget goals. - - o bal -M --valuechange investments - Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. - - o bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA - [--invert] - Show top gainers [or losers] last week - - balancesheet - (bs) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- - ances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use the - balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive - sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash or Liability - type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it - shows top-level accounts named asset or liability (case insensitive, - plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger balancesheet - Balance Sheet - - Assets: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - -------------------- - $-1 - - Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - $1 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities, but with - smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign - flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - balancesheetequity - (bse) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- - ances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown with - normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or - Equity type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, - it shows top-level accounts named asset, liability or equity (case - insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger balancesheetequity - Balance Sheet With Equity - - Assets: - $-2 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-3 cash - -------------------- - $-2 - - Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - $1 - - Equity: - $1 equity:owner - -------------------- - $1 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity, but with - smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with their - sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - cashflow - (cf) - - This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and - outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. - Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional finan- - cial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Cash type (see account - types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts - - o under a top-level account named asset (case insensitive, plural - allowed) - - o whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving. - - More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular - expression: - - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$) - - and their subaccounts. - - An example cashflow report: - - $ hledger cashflow - Cashflow Statement - - Cash flows: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - -------------------- - $-1 - - Total: - -------------------- - $-1 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment - not:receivable, but with smarter account detection. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - check - Check for various kinds of errors in your data. - - hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent - problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you - can use this check command to run them on demand, with no output and a - zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as - argument(s). - - Some examples: - - hledger check # basic checks - hledger check -s # basic + strict checks - hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks - - If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to - run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. - - Here are the checks currently available: - - Basic checks - These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger com- - mands, including check: - - o parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed - - o balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced, inferring - missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting commodities - using costs or automatically-inferred costs - - o assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. - (This check can be disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.) - - Strict checks - These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag - is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to - check: - - o accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared - - o commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared - - o balancednoautoconversion - transactions are balanced, possibly using - explicit costs but not inferred ones - - Other checks - These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to - check. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, - therefore optional: - - o ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file - - o payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared - - o recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions have a bal- - ance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting - - o tags - all tags used by transactions have been declared - - o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique - - Custom checks - A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: - - o hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward - slash) exist as file paths - - o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are - passing - - You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. See: - Cookbook -> Scripting. - - More about specific checks - hledger check recentassertions will complain if any balance-asserted - account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its lat- - est posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are regu- - larly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances - against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of - data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion - requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be - true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that - case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the man- - ual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest - assertions against real-world balances. - - close - close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY] - - By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all - accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query - arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other - modes are supported: - - --retain: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense balances. - This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting - period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting, - but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. - - --migrate: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most - equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be - useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection). - Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files - to be combined. - - --open: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This can be - useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. Simi- - lar to Ledger's equity command. - - You can change the equity account name with --close-acct ACCT. It - defaults to equity:retained earnings with --retain, or equity:open- - ing/closing balances otherwise. - - You can change the transaction description(s) with --close-desc 'DESC' - and --open-desc 'DESC'. It defaults to retain earnings with --retain, - or closing balances and opening balances otherwise. - - Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an - implicit amount. - - With --x/--explicit the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it - involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for - each commodity. - - With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the corre- - sponding source/destination posting. - - The default closing date is yesterday or the journal's end date, which- - ever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end date; - the last day of the report period will be the closing date. Eg -e 2022 - means "close on 2022-12-31". - - The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, - whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end - date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the - report period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on - 2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing - date. - - close and costs - With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings - for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets, - showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or - investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. - - close and balance assertions - Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have - been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if - there is an opening transaction). - - These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them temporar- - ily with -I, or remove them if you prefer. - - You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness - (-C, -R, status:), or generating postings (--auto), with this command, - since the balance assertions would depend on these. - - Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the - balance assertions: - - 2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 - - To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary - account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two single- - day transactions: - - ; in 2022.journal: - 2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - equity:pending -5 - - ; in 2023.journal: - 2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared - equity:pending 5 = 0 - assets:bank:checking -5 - - Example: retain earnings - Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, - appending the generated transaction to the journal: - - $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal - - Now 2022's income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again, - exclude the retain transaction. Eg: - - $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' - - Example: migrate balances to a new file - Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on - 2023-01-01: - - $ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 - # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal - # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal - - Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced - accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that - case, try adding --infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing - transaction. Eg: - - $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' - - Example: excluding closing/opening transactions - When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening - transactions cause some noise in reports like print and register. You - can exclude them as shown above, but not:desc:... could be fragile, and - also you will need to avoid excluding the very first opening transac- - tion, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, using tags: add - clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the - first, like this: - - ; 2021.journal - 2021-06-01 first opening balances - ... - 2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 - ... - - ; 2022.journal - 2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 - ... - 2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 - ... - - ; 2023.journal - 2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 - ... - - Now, assuming a combined journal like: - - ; all.journal - include 2021.journal - include 2022.journal - include 2023.journal - - The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. To - show a clean multi-year checking register: - - $ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen - - And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end bal- - ance sheet: - - $ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 - - codes - List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. - - This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the - order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional - value written in parentheses between the date and description, often - used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. - - Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes - will not be shown by default. With the -E/--empty flag, they will be - printed as blank lines. - - You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. - - Examples: - - 2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket - Food $5.00 - Checking - - 2022/1/2 (124) Post Office - Postage $8.32 - Checking - - 2022/1/3 Supermarket - Food $11.23 - Checking - - 2022/1/4 (126) Post Office - Postage $3.21 - Checking - - $ hledger codes - 123 - 124 - 126 - - $ hledger codes -E - 123 - 124 - - 126 - - commodities - List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. - - descriptions - List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions, - in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of trans- - actions. - - Example: - - $ hledger descriptions - Store Name - Gas Station | Petrol - Person A - - diff - Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It - shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in - the other. - - More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file, - it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the - same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) - Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when mul- - tiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry. - - This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from - your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree about - the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to - find out the cause. - - Examples: - - $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro - These transactions are in the first file only: - - 2014/01/01 Opening Balances - assets:bank:giro EUR ... - ... - equity:opening balances EUR -... - - These transactions are in the second file only: - - files - List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only - file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. - - help - Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with info, man, or a - pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. - TOPIC can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case - insensitive. Eg: commands, print, forecast, journal, amount, "auto - postings". - - This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger version. - It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal to a web - browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are - not installed on your system. - - By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info - since the hledger manual is large). You can select a particular viewer - with the -i, -m, or -p flags. - - Examples - - $ hledger help --help # show how the help command works - $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER - $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - - import - Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them - to the journal. Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that - would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' trans- - actions as imported, without actually importing any. - - This command may append new transactions to the main journal file - (which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not - changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the - journal file (see also add). - - Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an out- - put file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing data - will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, so - to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run - hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv. - - Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the most - common import source, and these docs focus on that case. - - Deduplication - As a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions. - This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather - "ignore transactions that have been seen before". This is intended for - when you are periodically importing foreign data which may contain - already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day you download bank - CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely run hledger import - bank.csv and only new transactions will be imported. (import is idem- - potent.) - - Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with - unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming - that: - - 1. new items always have the newest dates - - 2. item dates do not change across reads - - 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order - across reads. - - These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true - enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but - violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if - you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to - be the ones affected). - - hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by sav- - ing a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when read- - ing finance/bank.csv, it will look for and update the finance/.lat- - est.bank.csv state file. The format is simple: one or more lines con- - taining the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have pro- - cessed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on that - date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files yourself. - But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making all - transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a cer- - tain date. - - Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by - print --new, but this is less often used. - - Import testing - With --dry-run, the transactions that will be imported are printed to - the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output - is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse - it. Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not - categorised: - - $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown - - or (live updating): - - $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' - - Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently possi- - ble for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the actual - import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving them out - of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To prevent this, - do a --dry-run first and fix any problems before the real import. - - Importing balance assignments - Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit - (like hledger print -x). This means that any balance assignments in - imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see - the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with - balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances - and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting - amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: - - $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE - - (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, - please test it and send a pull request.) - - Commodity display styles - Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity - styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. - - incomestatement - (is) - - This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and - expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal - positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type - (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows - top-level accounts named revenue or income or expense (case insensi- - tive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger incomestatement - Income Statement - - Revenues: - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - -------------------- - $-2 - - Expenses: - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - -------------------- - $2 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses, but with - smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their - sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - notes - List the unique notes that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in - alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transac- - tions. The note is the part of the transaction description after a | - character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - Example: - - $ hledger notes - Petrol - Snacks - - payees - List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. - - This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared - with payee directives (--declared), used in transaction descriptions - (--used), or both (the default). - - The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | - character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This - implies --used. - - Example: - - $ hledger payees - Store Name - Gas Station - Person A - - prices - Print market price directives from the journal. With --infer-market- - prices, generate additional market prices from costs. With --infer- - reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting known prices. - Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are displayed with - their full precision. - - print - Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. - - The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the - journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date). - - Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg the - placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their deci- - mal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one alter- - ation: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) - - Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across - all transactions). - - Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. - This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it - to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the - directives and file-level comments. - - Eg: - - $ hledger print - 2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - 2008/06/01 gift - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts $-1 - - 2008/06/02 save - assets:bank:saving $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - 2008/06/03 * eat & shop - expenses:food $1 - expenses:supplies $1 - assets:cash $-2 - - 2008/12/31 * pay off - liabilities:debts $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can process - it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for certain - kinds of search, eg: - - # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. - # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. - $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food - - There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable: - - o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or bal- - ance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. - - o Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. - - o Account aliases can generate bad account names. - - Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is pre- - served. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will - not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but not - written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the - -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can be - useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and - robust against data entry errors. -x is also implied by using any of - -B,-V,-X,--value. - - Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount - (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit - amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, keeping - the output parseable. - - With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are converted to cost using that - price. This can be used for troubleshooting. - - With -m DESC/--match=DESC, print does a fuzzy search for one recent - transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should - contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, - no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be non- - zero. - - With --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a pre- - vious run. This uses the same deduplication system as the import com- - mand. (See import's docs for details.) - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) - json and sql. - - Here's an example of print's CSV output: - - $ hledger print -Ocsv - "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" - "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" - "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" - "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" - "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" - "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" - "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" - "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" - "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - - o There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's - fields repeated. - - o The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to - the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions are - reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a different - order, etc.) - - o The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" - (numeric quantity) fields. - - o The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" col- - umn, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the account- - ing sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and zero or - greater amounts under debit.) - - register - (reg) - - Show postings and their running total. - - The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in - date order, with their running total or running historical balance. - (See also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a - specific account.) - - register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity - amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity). - - It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to - see that account's activity: - - $ hledger register checking - 2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 - 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 - 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 - 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first - 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause - visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to - ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the - --align-all flag. - - The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior - postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see - only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: - - $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical - 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 - 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 - 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed. - - The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead - of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for - the whole report period). This flag implies --empty (see below). It - is affected by --historical. It works best when showing just one - account and one commodity. - - The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the transactions of - the postings which would normally be shown. - - The --invert flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used on - an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative num- - bers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account - together with the related account: - - $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking - - With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per - interval, aggregating the postings to each account: - - $ hledger register --monthly income - 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 - 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - - Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are - not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them: - - $ hledger register --monthly income -E - 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 - 2008/02 0 $-1 - 2008/03 0 $-1 - 2008/04 0 $-1 - 2008/05 0 $-1 - 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - 2008/07 0 $-2 - 2008/08 0 $-2 - 2008/09 0 $-2 - 2008/10 0 $-2 - 2008/11 0 $-2 - 2008/12 0 $-2 - - Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth - option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: - - $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h - 2008/01 assets $1 $1 - 2008/06 assets $-1 0 - 2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 - - Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these - will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of - intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full - length and comparable to the others in the report. - - With -m DESC/--match=DESC, register does a fuzzy search for one recent - posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should contain - at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, no post- - ing will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. - - Custom register output - register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. - You can override this by setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not - a bash shell variable) or by using the --width/-w option. - - The description and account columns normally share the space equally - (about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a - description width as part of --width's argument, comma-separated: - --width W,D . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in --help): - - <--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> - date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) - DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA - - and some examples: - - $ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) - $ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 - $ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable - $ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) - $ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 - $ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) - json. - - rewrite - Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. - For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print - --auto. - - This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It reads - the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds - one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. The - posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transac- - tion's first posting amount. - - Examples: - - $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' - $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' - $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger - - rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: - - = ^income amt:<0 date:2017 - (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income - (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - - Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the - two spaces between account and amount. - - More: - - $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... - $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' - $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' - - Argument for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction - with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can - use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a - factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount - includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new - commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's com- - modity. - - Re-write rules in a file - During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transac- - tions" found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this - operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. - - $ rewrite-rules.journal - - Make contents look like this: - - = ^income - (liabilities:tax) *.33 - - = expenses:gifts - budget:gifts *-1 - assets:budget *1 - - Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in trans- - actions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you want to - match the posting to add new ones. - - $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - This is something similar to the commands pipeline: - - $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ - | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ - --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ - > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in - journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added post- - ings. - - Diff output format - To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may - find useful output in form of unified diff. - - $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - - Output might look like: - - --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal - +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal - @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ - 2008/01/01 income - - assets:bank:checking $1 - + assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary - + (liabilities:tax) 0 - @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ - 2008/06/01 gift - - assets:bank:checking $1 - + assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts - + (liabilities:tax) 0 - - If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions contain- - ing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that multiple - files might be update according to list of input files specified via - --file options and include directives inside of these files. - - Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output - from hledger print. - - See also: - - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 - - rewrite vs. print --auto - This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same - thing, but with these differences: - - o with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all other - files. print --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect - only child files. - - o rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are - printed. print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed. - - o rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. - print --auto applies rules specified in the journal. - - roi - Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return - on your investments. - - At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an - account name) to select your investment(s) with --inv, and another - query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl. - - If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, - or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl - could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match - any of your accounts). - - This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return - (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for - the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before - display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. - - Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate - --cost or --value flags (see VALUATION). - - Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: - - o Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR). - Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of investment - becomes negative at some point in time. - - o Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of - Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or con- - verges too slowly. - - Examples: - - o Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest- - ing/roi-unrealised.ledger - - o Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html - - Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl - Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries could have - several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). - - To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, - you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): - - $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' - - If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra - level of nested quoting, eg: - - $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" - - Semantics of --inv and --pnl - Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are related - to your investment. Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored. - - In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match --inv to be - "investment postings" and other postings (not matching --inv) will be - sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI - needs to know which part of the investment value is your contributions - and which is due to the return on investment. - - o "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling - assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and - any other commodity. Example: - - 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil - assets:cash -$100 - investment:snake oil - - 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil - assets:cash $10 - investment:snake oil = 0 - - o "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: - - 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value - investment:snake oil = $57 - equity:unrealized profit or loss - - All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they - match --pnl query. Changes in value of your investment due to "profit - and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment - return. - - Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized, then postings - in the example below would be classifed as: - - 2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 - assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - investment:snake oil ; investment posting - - 2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 - equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting - snake oil ; investment posting - - 2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 - equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting - cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - snake oil $50 ; investment posting - - IRR and TWR explained - "ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was com- - puted as a difference between current value of investment and its ini- - tial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. - - However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where invest- - ments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate of - growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need differ- - ent ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements two of - them: IRR and TWR. - - Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of - return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. - Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains - would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percent- - age of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your invest- - ment, you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same - rate of return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each - period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a - way that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment is - expected to generate. - - As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that you - personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the - postings that match the query in the--inv argument and NOT match the - query in the--pnl argument. - - If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as - transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unreal- - ized gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to - compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate - of return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or - close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. - - In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net - present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present - value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This - could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done - discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger - should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel. - - Second way to compute rate of return that roi command implements is - called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also - break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, - out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period - and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR - are quite different. - - TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where in- - flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment - and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change - in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of - your investment. - - References: - - o Explanation of rate of return - - o Explanation of IRR - - o Explanation of TWR - - o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations - of both metrics - - stats - Show journal and performance statistics. - - The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, - or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report - for each report period. - - At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and number - of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate and - will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger version, - haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of interest. The - stats command's run time is similar to that of a single-column balance - report. - - Example: - - $ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal - Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal - Included files : - Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) - Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) - Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) - Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) - Payees/descriptions : 1000 - Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) - Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) - Market prices : 1000 (A) - - Run time : 0.12 s - Throughput : 8342 txns/s - - This command supports the -o/--output-file option (but not -O/--output- - format selection). - - tags - List the tags used in the journal, or their values. - - This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on trans- - actions, postings, or account declarations. - - With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular expres- - sion (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. - - With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this - query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, - desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions - and their accounts. - - With the --values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed - instead. With -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown. - - With --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, - with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are - always shown first.) - - Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings - also acquire tags from their account and transaction, transactions also - acquire tags from their postings. - - test - Run built-in unit tests. - - This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, - printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will - be non-zero. - - This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to - sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All - tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report - as a bug! - - This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- - (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with - ANSI colour codes disabled: - - $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never - - For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- - --help currently doesn't show them). - - -PART 5: COMMON TASKS - Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with - hledger. - - Getting help - Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: - - $ hledger # show available commands - $ hledger --help # show common options - $ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation - - You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by - using the help command. Eg: - - $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) - $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - $ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command - - To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit - https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion ar- - chives can be found at https://hledger.org/support. - - Constructing command lines - hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it - simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges - described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: - - o command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to put - common options there too: hledger CMD OPTS ARGS) - - o running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing - (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS) - - o enclose "problematic" args in single quotes - - o if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metachar- - acters from the shell - - o to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add --debug=2. - - Starting a journal file - hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, - $HOME/.hledger.journal by default: - - $ hledger stats - The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. - Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. - Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. - - You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. - It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control, - and to start a new file each year. So you could do something like - this: - - $ mkdir ~/finance - $ cd ~/finance - $ git init - Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ - $ touch 2020.journal - $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc - $ source ~/.bashrc - $ hledger stats - Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Included files : - Transactions span : to (0 days) - Last transaction : none - Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) - Payees/descriptions : 0 - Accounts : 0 (depth 0) - Commodities : 0 () - Market prices : 0 () - - Setting opening balances - Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some - real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit - cards..). - - To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or - two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a - recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can - always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg - going back to january 1st. - - Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the bal- - ances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: - - o The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry - like this: - - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 - assets:cash $100 = $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances - - These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at - the end of the previous day. - - The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means - "cleared & confirmed". - - The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll - be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. - - The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error - checking. - - o The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a - similar transaction: - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 - Description: * opening balances - Account 1: assets:bank:checking - Amount 1: $1000 - Account 2: assets:bank:savings - Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 - Account 3: assets:cash - Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 - Account 4: liabilities:creditcard - Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 - Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances - Amount 5 [$-3050]: - Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2020-01-01]: . - - If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit - the journal. Eg: - - $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal - - Recording transactions - As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using - one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the - hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to - convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. - - Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual - and hledger.org for more ideas: - - 2020/1/10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - - 2020.1.12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - - 2020-01-15 paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - Reconciling - Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported bal- - ances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your - bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the - real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not - made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) - frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let - it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and dis- - crepancies. - - A typical workflow: - - 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what - hledger reports (hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to - remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the - already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful - (hledger reg cash). If you can't find the error, add an adjustment - transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain - the missing $2, it could be: - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare today's - (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal check- - ing -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the - missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to - the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the trans- - action history and running balance from your bank with the one - reported by hledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you - generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank's - clearing dates. - - 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. - - Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live- - updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --reg- - ister checking -C - - After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled - transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track - that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, - insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck - - If you're using version control, this can be another good time to com- - mit: - - $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal - - Reporting - Here are some basic reports. - - Show all transactions: - - $ hledger print - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - 2020-01-10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - - 2020-01-12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - - 2020-01-15 * paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - Show account names, and their hierarchy: - - $ hledger accounts --tree - assets - bank - checking - savings - cash - equity - opening/closing balances - expenses - food - misc - income - gifts - salary - liabilities - creditcard - - Show all account totals: - - $ hledger balance - $4105 assets - $4000 bank - $2000 checking - $2000 savings - $105 cash - $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances - $15 expenses - $13 food - $2 misc - $-1020 income - $-20 gifts - $-1000 salary - $-50 liabilities:creditcard - -------------------- - 0 - - Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to - depth 2: - - $ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 - $4000 assets:bank - $105 assets:cash - $-50 liabilities:creditcard - -------------------- - $4055 - - Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple - balance sheet: - - $ hledger bs -2 - Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-16 - ========================++============ - Assets || - ------------------------++------------ - assets:bank || $4000 - assets:cash || $105 - ------------------------++------------ - || $4105 - ========================++============ - Liabilities || - ------------------------++------------ - liabilities:creditcard || $50 - ------------------------++------------ - || $50 - ========================++============ - Net: || $4055 - - The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use bse for a - full balance sheet with equity.) - - Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: - - hledger is - Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - ===============++======================= - Revenues || - ---------------++----------------------- - income:gifts || $20 - income:salary || $1000 - ---------------++----------------------- - || $1020 - ===============++======================= - Expenses || - ---------------++----------------------- - expenses:food || $13 - expenses:misc || $2 - ---------------++----------------------- - || $15 - ===============++======================= - Net: || $1005 - - The final total is your net income during this period. - - Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: - - $ hledger register cash - 2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 - 2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 - 2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 - 2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 - - Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: - - $ hledger activity -W - 2019-12-30 ***** - 2020-01-06 **** - 2020-01-13 **** - - Migrating to a new file - At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new - file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, - and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the - close command. - - If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file. - - - -REPORTING BUGS - Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger chat or - hledger mail list) - - -AUTHORS - Simon Michael and contributors. - See http://hledger.org/CREDITS.html - - -COPYRIGHT - Copyright 2007-2023 Simon Michael and contributors. - - -LICENSE - Released under GNU GPL v3 or later. - - -SEE ALSO - hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), ledger(1) - - - -hledger-1.29.1 March 2023 HLEDGER(1) + This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.2. + It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by + all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeep- + ing/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in here to + use hledger productively, but when you have a question about function- + ality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip ahead or + skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an info manual + or man page on your system. You can also get it from hledger itself + with + hledger --man, hledger --info or hledger help [TOPIC]. + + The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files + describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a use- + ful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). + Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect + other hledger-* executables as extra subcommands. + + hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, time- + dot, or CSV format. The default file is .hledger.journal in your home + directory; this can be overridden with one or more -f FILE options, or + the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. hledger CLI can also read from + stdin with -f-; more on that below. + + Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one transac- + tion: + + 2015-10-16 bought food + expenses:food $10 + assets:cash + + Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more + accounts: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, peo- + ple, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using : to indi- + cate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account + name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (debit), + negatives are outflow from it (credit). (Some reports show revenue, + liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; + this is normal.) + + hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can install + other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more exten- + sive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM + + vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see + https://hledger.org/editors.html). + + To get started, run hledger add and follow the prompts, or save some + entries like the above in $HOME/.hledger.journal, then try commands + like: + hledger print -x + hledger aregister assets + hledger balance + hledger balancesheet + hledger incomestatement. + Run hledger to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal + file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. + +PART 1: USER INTERFACE +Options + General options + To see general usage help, including general options which are sup- + ported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h. + + General help options: + + -h --help + show general or COMMAND help + + --man show general or COMMAND user manual with man + + --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info + + --version + show general or ADDONCMD version + + --debug[=N] + show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) + + General input options: + + -f FILE --file=FILE + use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: + $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal) + + --rules-file=RULESFILE + Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: + FILE.rules) + + --separator=CHAR + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') + + --alias=OLD=NEW + rename accounts named OLD to NEW + + --anon anonymize accounts and payees + + --pivot FIELDNAME + use some other field or tag for the account name + + -I --ignore-assertions + disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance + assignments) + + -s --strict + do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are + declared) + + General reporting options: + + -b --begin=DATE + include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to + preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) + + -e --end=DATE + include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to fol- + lowing subperiod end when using a report interval) + + -D --daily + multiperiod/multicolumn report by day + + -W --weekly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by week + + -M --monthly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by month + + -Q --quarterly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter + + -Y --yearly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by year + + -p --period=PERIODEXP + set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once + using period expressions syntax + + --date2 + match the secondary date instead (see command help for other + effects) + + --today=DATE + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for + tests/examples) + + -U --unmarked + include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) + + -P --pending + include only pending postings/txns + + -C --cleared + include only cleared postings/txns + + -R --real + include only non-virtual postings + + -NUM --depth=NUM + hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep + + -E --empty + show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in + hledger-ui/hledger-web) + + -B --cost + convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time + + -V --market + convert amounts to their market value in default valuation com- + modities + + -X --exchange=COMM + convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM + + --value + convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than + -B/-V/-X + + --infer-market-prices + use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional + market prices, as if they were P directives + + --auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. + + --forecast + generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, + for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, + also make ordinary future transactions visible. + + --commodity-style + Override the commodity style in the output for the specified + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. + + --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN) + Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color- + supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg when + piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A + NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. + + --pretty[=WHEN] + Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing charac- + ters. Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', + 'never' also work). If you provide an argument you must use + '=', e.g. '--pretty=yes'. + + When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the + last one takes precedence. + + Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. + + Command options + To see options for a particular command, including command-specific + options, run: hledger COMMAND -h. + + Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: + hledger print -x. + + Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its + options after a double-hyphen, eg: hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can + run the add-on executable directly: hledger-ui --watch. + + Command arguments + Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which + are often a query, filtering the data in some way. + + You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and + then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: + hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument + that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg: hledger bal -- + @ARG). + + Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or + argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see + a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or noth- + ing). Bad: + + assets depth:2 + -X USD + + Good: + + assets + depth:2 + -X=USD + + For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than + you would at the command prompt. Bad: + + -X"$" + + Good: + + -X$ + + See also: Save frequently used options. + + Special characters + Single escaping (shell metacharacters) + In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as + spaces, <, >, (, ), |, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you want + hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in single or dou- + ble quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to match an + account name containing a space: + + $ hledger register 'credit card' + + or: + + $ hledger register credit\ card + + Windows users should keep in mind that cmd treats single quote as a + regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. + PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. + + Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) + Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such + as ., ^, $, [, ], (, ), |, and \ - may need to be "regex-escaped" if + you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's regular expression + engine. This is done by writing backslashes before them, but since + backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping + and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal $ sign while + using the bash shell: + + $ hledger balance cur:'\$' + + or: + + $ hledger balance cur:\\$ + + Triple escaping (for add-on commands) + When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described + below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or argu- + ments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra level + of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using the bash + shell and running an add-on command (ui): + + $ hledger ui cur:'\\$' + + or: + + $ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ + + If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps: + + + unescaped: $ + escaped: \$ + double-escaped: \\$ + triple-escaped: \\\\$ + + Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable + directly: + + $ hledger-ui cur:\\$ + + Less escaping + Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell + command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should + use one less level of escaping. Those places include: + + o an @argumentfile + + o hledger-ui's filter field + + o hledger-web's search form + + o GHCI's prompt (used by developers). + + Unicode characters + hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: + + o they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command + line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit + forms, etc.) + + o they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on- + screen alignment should be preserved. + + This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: + + o A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can + decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like + this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Trou- + bleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit + on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled pro- + grams). + + o your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) + must support unicode + + o the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode + glyphs + + o the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as dou- + ble width (for report alignment) + + o on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind + of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the stan- + dard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) + might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, + and vice versa. (See eg #961). + + Regular expressions + hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: + + o query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form: + REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX + + o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ... + + o account alias directive and --alias option: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACE- + MENT, --alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT + + hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If + they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what + they support: + + 1. they are case insensitive + + 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing + being matched) + + 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) + + 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>) + + 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match + the digit 1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account + aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string + to reference capturing groups in the search regexp. + + 6. they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, + \d), or anything else not mentioned above. + + Some things to note: + + o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must + be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, + these are not required. + + o In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a + literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts + with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$. + + o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special mean- + ing to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. See Spe- + cial characters. + +Environment + LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. + + On unix computers, the default value is: ~/.hledger.journal. + + A more typical value is something like ~/finance/YYYY.journal, where + ~/finance is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is the + current year. Or, ~/finance/current.journal, where current.journal is + a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. + + The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of + your shell's startup files (eg ~/.profile): + + export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` + + On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment + variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, + Emacs started from a dock icon): In ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, add an + entry like: + + { + "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" + } + + For this to take effect you might need to killall Dock, or reboot. + + On Windows computers, the default value is probably C:\Users\YOUR- + NAME\.hledger.journal. You can change this by running a command like + this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Adminis- + trator, and if this persists across a reboot): + + > setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" + + Or, change it in settings: see https://www.java.com/en/down- + load/help/path.html. + + COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the + full terminal width. + + NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use + ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the + --color/--colour option. + +Input + hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default + data file is $HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like + C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal). + + You can override this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable: + + $ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal + $ hledger stats + + or with one or more -f/--file options: + + $ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats + + The file name - means standard input: + + $ cat some.journal | hledger -f- + + Data formats + Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in + any of the supported file formats, which currently are: + + + Reader: Reads: Used for file exten- + sions: + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- + journal hledger journal files and some Ledger .journal .j .hledger + journals, for transactions .ledger + time- timeclock files, for precise time log- .timeclock + clock ging + timedot timedot files, for approximate time .timedot + logging + csv comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated .csv .ssv .tsv + values, for data import + + These formats are described in more detail below. + + hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions + shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes + journal format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a + recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show + relevant error messages. + + You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path + with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format: + + $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats + + Or to read stdin (-) as timeclock format: + + $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- + + Multiple files + You can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big + journal. There are some limitations with this: + + o most directives do not affect sibling files + + o balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous + files + + If you need either of those things, you can + + o use a single parent file which includes the others + + o or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal + b.journal | hledger -f- CMD. + + Strict mode + hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most impor- + tant errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files + without a lot of declarations: + + o Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? + + o Are all transactions balanced ? + + o Do all balance assertions pass ? + + With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed: + + o Are all accounts posted to, declared with an account directive ? + (Account error checking) + + o Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ? (Commodity + error checking) + + o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? + + You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones + listed above and some more. + +Commands + hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). + Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. + A few assist with data entry and management. + + Run hledger with no arguments to list the commands available, and + hledger CMD to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or its + standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous + prefix of the name. Eg: hledger bal. + + Add-on commands + Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts + in your PATH + + o whose name starts with hledger- + + o whose name ends with a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe, + .hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh or none + + o and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. + + Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or programs + have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for command- + line options, parsing and reporting. + + Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. + See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. + + Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a double + dash (--) preceding them. Eg you must write: + + $ hledger web -- --serve + + and not: + + $ hledger web --serve + + (because the --serve flag belongs to hledger-web, not hledger). + + The -h/--help and --version flags don't require --. + + If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the add- + on program directly, eg: + + $ hledger-web --serve + +Output + Output destination + hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can + of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: + + $ hledger print > foo.txt + + Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also pro- + vide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same thing without + needing the shell. Eg: + + $ hledger print -o foo.txt + $ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) + + Output format + Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the termi- + nal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: + + + - txt csv html json sql + -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + aregister Y Y Y Y + balance Y 1 Y 1 Y 1,2 Y + balancesheet Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + balancesheetequity Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + cashflow Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + incomestatement Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + print Y Y Y Y + register Y Y Y + + o 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option. + + o 2 balance does not support html output without a report interval or + with --budget. + + The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option: + + $ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout + + or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the + -o/--output-file=FILE.FMT option: + + $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv + + The -O option can be combined with -o to override the file extension, + if needed: + + $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt + + Some notes about the various output formats: + + CSV output + o In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are + disabled automatically. + + HTML output + o HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same + directory. + + JSON output + o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + o Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful repre- + sentation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the JSON, + read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger- + lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. + + o hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 + significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can + arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), + and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities + as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the + number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We + hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find + otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) + + SQL output + o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + o SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and Post- + gres. + + o For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated id + field to be a PRIMARY KEY. Eg: + + $ hledger print -O sql | sed 's/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g' | ... + + o SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will + be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables cre- + ated via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either + clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements) + or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped. + + Commodity styles + When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for + each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. + + If needed, this can be overridden by a -c/--commodity-style option + (except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the print command, + which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the + following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: + + $ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' + + This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple commodi- + ties/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity direc- + tive. + + Colour + In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal + supports it: + + o if the --color/--colour option is given a value of yes or always (or + no or never), colour will (or will not) be used; + + o otherwise, if the NO_COLOR environment variable is set, colour will + not be used; + + o otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) sup- + ports it. + + Box-drawing + In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to + render prettier tables: + + o if the --pretty option is given a value of yes or always (or no or + never), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; + + o otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. + + Paging + When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the + pager specified by the PAGER environment variable, or less, or more. + (A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time rather than + scrolling everything off screen). Currently it does this only for help + output, not for reports; specifically, + + o when listing commands, with hledger + + o when showing help with hledger [CMD] --help, + + o when viewing manuals with hledger help or hledger --man. + + Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses eg + for bold emphasis. For the common pager less (and its more compatibil- + ity mode), we add R to the LESS and MORE environment variables to make + this work. If you use a different pager, you might need to configure + it similarly, to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us know). Otherwise, + you can set the NO_COLOR environment variable to 1 to disable all ANSI + output (see Colour). + + Debug output + We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and + develop. You can add --debug[=N] to any hledger command line to see + additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) + to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase + until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not + affected by -o/--output-file (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: + 2>&1). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help + reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output + in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: + + hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log + +Limitations + The need to precede add-on command options with -- when invoked from + hledger is awkward. + + When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale + must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, + set LANG to something other than C. + + In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are + not supported. + + On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running + a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. + + In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger + add. + + Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger and + Ledger > Differences > journal format. + + On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than + Ledger. + +Troubleshooting + Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and + remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug + tracker): + + Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found" + stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should + be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, + that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. + + I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file + LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell + variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may + need to use export. Here's an explanation. + + Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete + multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argu- + ment (invalid character)" + Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need + to have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise + they will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii + characters. + + To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which sup- + ports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. + + Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: + + $ file my.journal + my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded + $ echo $LANG + C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 + $ locale -a # which locales are installed ? + C + en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use + POSIX + $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command + + If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred locale isn't + listed by locale -a, you might need to install it. Eg on + Ubuntu/Debian: + + $ apt-get install language-pack-fr + $ locale -a + C + en_US.utf8 + fr_BE.utf8 + fr_CA.utf8 + fr_CH.utf8 + fr_FR.utf8 + fr_LU.utf8 + POSIX + $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print + + Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: + + $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile + $ bash --login + + Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the differ- + ence on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) allow + variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: + + $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf + en_US.UTF-8 + $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print + +PART 2: DATA FORMATS +Journal + hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's + a cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal for- + mat. + + Journal cheatsheet + # Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format + # (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). + # hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: + + ############################################################################### + # 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. + # They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". + + # hash comment line + ; semicolon comment line + comment + These lines + are commented. + end comment + + # Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, + # from ; (semicolon) to end of line. + + ############################################################################### + # 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. + # They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). + + account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. + account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) + alias chkg = assets:checking + commodity $0.00 + decimal-mark . + include /dev/null + payee Whole Foods + P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 + ~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description + expenses:food $400 + expenses:home $1000 + budgeted + + ############################################################################### + # 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, + # usually describing movements of money. + # They begin with a date. + + # DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. + # ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. + # ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. + # ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. + # ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). + + 2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way + assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. + assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. + assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. + liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. + equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. + + 2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes + ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". + ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. + ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: + assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) + expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) + ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" + + Kv + 2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. + ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. + assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 + expenses:clothing GBP 10 + assets:gringotts -10 gold + assets:pouch 10 gold + revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols + assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. + + 2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ + assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost + assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost + assets:checking $-7.00 + + 2022-01-02 assert balances + ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. + assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA + assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold + assets:savings $0 = $1000 + + 1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. + ; Postings are not required. + + 2022.01.01 These date + 2022/1/1 formats are + 12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). + + About journal format + hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal + entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard + accounting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but + that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction + entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between + two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger + and humans. + + hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's + journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal + files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and + ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get- + ting. + + You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use + the add or web or import commands to create and update it. + + Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track + changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons such + as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and + hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, + formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor configura- + tion at hledger.org for the full list. + + Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's + data model). + + A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file comments, + transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction rules + and auto posting rules as directives). + + Comments + Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (#) or a + semicolon (;). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore + regions beginning with a comment line and ending with an end comment + line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: + + o # for top-level notes + + o ; for commenting out things temporarily + + o comment for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's there, or + you might get confused) + + Eg: + + # a comment line + ; another commentline + comment + A multi-line comment block, + continuing until "end comment" directive + or the end of the current file. + end comment + + Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, from + ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting com- + ments, and Account comments below. + + Transactions + Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They + represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities + between two or more named accounts. + + Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a sim- + ple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following + optional fields, separated by spaces: + + o a status character (empty, !, or *) + + o a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) + + o a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) + + o a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of + line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) + + o 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and + the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but + not blank lines or non-indented lines). + + Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: + + 2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + Dates + Simple dates + Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or + YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, with leading zeros optional. The year may be + omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the cur- + rent transaction, the default year set with a Y directive, or the cur- + rent date when the command is run. Some examples: 2010-01-31, + 2010/01/31, 2010.1.31, 1/31. + + (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart + dates documented in the hledger manual.) + + Posting dates + You can give individual postings a different date from their parent + transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) + like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates + precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May + reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for + easy bank reconciliation: + + 2015/5/30 + expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 + assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 + + $ hledger -f t.j register food + 2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 + + $ hledger -f t.j register checking + 2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 + + DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use + the year of the transaction's date. + The date: tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg + a date: tag with no value is not allowed. + + Status + Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a + status mark, which is a single character before the transaction + description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, + indicating one of three statuses: + + + mark status + ------------------ + unmarked + ! pending + * cleared + + When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, + -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and + status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. + + Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state + is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to + unmarked for clarity. + + To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend- + ing, combine -U and -P. + + Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with + real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short- + cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle + transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. + + What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. + Here's one suggestion: + + + status meaning + -------------------------------------------------------------------------- + uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review + pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil- + iation) + cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor- + rect + + With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your + bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like + uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your + finances. + + Code + After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally + write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good + place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id + or reference number. + + Description + A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date + and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the + "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you + wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike + comments. + + Payee and note + You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub- + divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the + left (up to the first |) and an additional note field on the right + (after the first |). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more + precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. + + Transaction comments + Text following ;, after a transaction description, and/or on indented + lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They + are reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain + tags, which are not ignored. + + 2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment + ; a second line of transaction comment + expenses 1 + assets + + Postings + A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount + from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or + tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: + + o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space + + o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single + spaces, until end of line or a double space) + + o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount. + + Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are + being removed. + + The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con- + venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to + balance the transaction. + + Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name + and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa- + ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the + amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. + + Account names + Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in + Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such + as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed + from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". + + You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the + traditional accounting categories, which in english are assets, liabil- + ities, equity, revenues, expenses. (You might see these referred to as + A, L, E, R, X for short.) + + For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts + into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account + name parts. For example, from the account names assets:bank:checking + and expenses:food, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: + + assets + assets:bank + assets:bank:checking + expenses + expenses:food + + Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: + + assets + bank + checking + expenses + food + + hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you can + go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account + names relatively simple may be best when starting out. + + Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, num- + bers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an + amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by two or + more spaces (or tabs). + + Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate vir- + tual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to + the account name have no special meaning. + + Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account + aliases. + + Amounts + After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: + between account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.) + + hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international + formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quan- + tity"): + + 1 + + ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below), + to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a separating + space: + + $1 + 4000 AAPL + 3 "green apples" + + Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is + the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side com- + modity symbol: + + -$1 + $-1 + + One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when + parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): + + + $1 + $- 1 + + Scientific E notation is allowed: + + 1E-6 + EUR 1E3 + + Decimal marks, digit group marks + A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma: + + 1.23 + 1,23456780000009 + + In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups + of digits can optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a space, + comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): + + $1,000,000.00 + EUR 2.000.000,00 + INR 9,99,99,999.00 + 1 000 000.9455 + + Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark + is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? + + 1,000 + 1.000 + + If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above + are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. + + To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially + if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators), we + recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark character in each jour- + nal file, using a directive at the top of the file. The decimal-mark + directive is best, otherwise commodity directives will also work. + These are described below. + + Commodity + Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal + number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or + any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. + + If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctu- + ation), you must always write it inside double quotes ("green apples", + "ABC123"). + + If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with + name ""; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". + + Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more + powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of + the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 + TSLA. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in + hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. + + (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these + are the Amount and MixedAmount types.) + + Directives influencing number parsing and display + You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to the journal, to + declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These + are described below, but here's a quick example: + + # the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) + decimal-mark . + + # display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: + commodity $1,000.00 + commodity EUR 1.000,00 + commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 + commodity 1 000 000.9455 + + + Commodity display style + For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display + style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all + amounts displayed by the print command, are displayed with all of their + decimal digits visible.) + + A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. + + First, if a default commodity is declared with D, this commodity and + its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. + + Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in + order of preference: + + o The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol + commodity), if any. + + o The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. + (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored, + currently.) + + o The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00. (Sym- + bol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) + + A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: + + o Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first + amount + + o Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group + sizes), if any + + o Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. + + Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but + occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is + inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a com- + modity directive to fix the display style. + + To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the + style declared by a commodity directive, or (b) the style of the first + posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style + and the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are + showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal + places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: + + # declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their + # input number formats and output display styles: + commodity EUR 1.000, + commodity $1000.00 + commodity 1000.00000000 BTC + commodity 1 000. + + The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command + line option. + + Rounding + Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal + places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by + the commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it + rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal + places is "0"). + + + Costs + After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling + price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either @ UNIT- + PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE after it. This indicates a conversion transac- + tion, where one commodity is exchanged for another. + + (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, + discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded + that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it + "cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase + or a sale.) + + Costs are usually written explicitly with @ or @@, but can also be + inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. Note, + if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the first + posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. + + As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign + currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or + implicitly: + + 1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 + + 2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot + assets:dollars + + 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and + let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. Note the + effect of posting order: the price is added to first posting, making + it EUR100 @@ $135, as in example 2: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 ; one hundred euros purchased + assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 + + Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the -B/--cost + flag; this is discussed more in the COST REPORTING section. + + Other cost/lot notations + A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a num- + ber of cost/lot-related notations: + + o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST + + o expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger + + o when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at selling + time + + o (@) UNITCOST and (@@) TOTALCOST (virtual cost) + + o like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, don't + use it when inferring market prices". + + Currently, hledger treats the above like @ and @@; the parentheses are + ignored. + + o {=FIXEDUNITCOST} and {{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}} (fixed price) + + o when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't let it + fluctuate in value reports" + + o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} (lot price) + + o can be used identically to @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST, also cre- + ates a lot + + o when selling, combined with @ ..., specifies an investment lot by + its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present + + o and related: [YYYY/MM/DD] (lot date) + + o when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot + + o when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date + + o (SOME TEXT) (lot note) + + o when buying, attaches this note to the lot + + o when selling, selects a lot by its note + + Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after + the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction bal- + ancing.) + + For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: + + o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST + + o expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger + + o when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined with + {...}: documents the cost/selling price (not used for transaction + balancing) + + o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} + + o when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction bal- + ancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis attached + + o when selling (reducing), + + o selects a lot by its cost basis + + o raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be selected + unambiguously (depending on booking method configured) + + o expresses the selling price for transaction balancing + + Currently, hledger accepts the {UNITCOST}/{{TOTALCOST}} notation but + ignores it. + + o variations: {}, {YYYY-MM-DD}, {"LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, "LABEL"}, {UNIT- + COST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"} etc. + + Currently, hledger rejects these. + + Balance assertions + hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. + These look like, for example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's + amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a + and b after each posting: + + 2013/1/1 + a $1 =$1 + b =$-1 + + 2013/1/2 + a $1 =$2 + b $-1 =$-2 + + After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions + and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro- + tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while + cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the + -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or + for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently does not disable + balance assignments, described below). + + Assertions and ordering + hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and + then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif- + ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also, + Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post- + ings to the same account within a transaction.) + + So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently- + dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated + transactions or postings, assertions might break and require updating. + This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the + order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra- + day balances. + + Assertions and multiple included files + Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as if + concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting + order within each file. It means that balance assertions in later + files will see balance from earlier files. + + And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split + across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's balance on + that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file - the last + one in the sequence, probably. + + Assertions and multiple -f files + Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the command line + with multiple -f/--file options, balance assertions will not see bal- + ance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want prob- + lems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. + + If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use + include, or concatenate the files temporarily. + + Assertions and commodities + The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in + fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the + (possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions + work in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. + + To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can + write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. + + You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double + equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other + commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that + their balance is 0). + + 2013/1/1 + a $1 + a 1EUR + b $-1 + c -1EUR + + 2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed + a 0 = $1 + a 0 = 1EUR + b 0 == $-1 + c 0 == -1EUR + + 2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR + a 0 == $1 + + It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that + has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity + into its own subaccount: + + 2013/1/1 + a:usd $1 + a:euro 1EUR + b + + 2013/1/2 + a 0 == 0 + a:usd 0 == $1 + a:euro 0 == 1EUR + + Assertions and prices + Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without + one: + + 2019/1/1 + (a) $1 @ EUR1 = $1 + + We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them, + even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails. + This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used to + generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance assign- + ments do use them (see below). + + Assertions and subaccounts + The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from + subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You can + assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg: + + 2019/1/1 + equity:opening balances + checking:a 5 + checking:b 5 + checking 1 ==* 11 + + Assertions and virtual postings + Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they + are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query. + + Assertions and auto postings + Balance assertions are affected by the --auto flag, which generates + auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings + are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two + balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of + these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: + + o assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with + that file + + o or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto + with that file + + o or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or + avoid auto postings entirely). + + Assertions and precision + Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are + not always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may + limit the display precision, but this will not affect balance asser- + tions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts. + + Posting comments + Text following ;, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented + lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are + reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain + tags, which are not ignored. + + 2012-01-01 + expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 + assets + ; a comment for posting 2 + ; a second comment line for posting 2 + + Tags + Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, + postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. + + They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately followed + by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account directive's + comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that things in com- + ments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are recorded: one on + the checking account, two on the transaction, and one on the expenses + posting: + + account assets:checking ; accounttag: + + 2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: + ; transactiontag-2: + assets:checking $-1 + expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: + + Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. + And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' + accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively + has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the + transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses + posting). + + You can list tag names with hledger tags [NAMEREGEX], or match by tag + name with a tag:NAMEREGEX query. + + Tag values + Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a + comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this + means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the fol- + lowing posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and "" + (empty) respectively: + + expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz + + Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than overrid- + ing: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the new + name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to override + a tag's value or remove a tag.) + + You can list a tag's values with hledger tags TAGNAME --values, or + match by tag value with a tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX query. + + Directives + A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, + that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, + and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, + but there are many differences, and also some differences between + hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: + + o subdirective - Some directives support subdirectives, written + indented below the parent directive. + + o decimal mark - The character to interpret as a decimal mark (period + or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. + + o display style - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: sym- + bol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of deci- + mal places. + + Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you + will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key + directives for particular needs: + + + purpose directives + -------------------------------------------------------------------------- + READING DATA: + Declare file's decimal mark to help parse decimal-mark + amounts accurately + Rewrite account names alias + Comment out sections of the data comment + Include extra data files include + GENERATING DATA: + Generate recurring transactions or budget ~ + goals + Generate extra postings on transactions = + CHECKING FOR ERRORS: + Define valid entities to provide more error account, commodity, payee + checking + REPORTING: + Declare accounts' type and display order account + Declare commodity display styles commodity + Declare market prices P + + Directive effects + And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal + entries (transactions) it affects: + + + direc- what it does ends + tive at + file + end? + -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + account Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; and N + its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. + alias Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of cur- Y + rent file or end aliases. Command line equivalent: --alias + comment Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file or Y + end comment. + commod- Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checking N,Y,N,N + ity all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing + amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of + current file (if there is no decimal-mark directive) 3. and the + display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is also + the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in this + commodity. Takes precedence over D. Subdirectives: format + (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: -c/--com- + modity-style + deci- Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all commodi- Y + mal- ties in following entries until next decimal-mark or end of cur- + mark rent file. Included files can override. Takes precedence over + commodity and D. + include Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they N + were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple + -f/--file + payee Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N + P Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N + reports. + ~ Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N + (tilde) transactions with --forecast and budget goals with balance + --budget. + Other + syntax: + apply Prepends a common parent account to all account names, in fol- Y + account lowing entries until end of current file or end apply account. + D Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N + there is no commodity directive for this commodity: its decimal + mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. + Y Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y + entries until end of current file. + + + + = Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly + (equals) matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and child + files (but not sibling files, see #1212). + Other Other directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but + Ledger ignored. + direc- + tives + + Directives and multiple files + If you use multiple -f/--file options, or the include directive, + hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect + input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which + they occur (and on any included files in that region). + + This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports sta- + ble and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise + you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in + a different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up + your files. + + It can be surprising though; for example, it means that alias direc- + tives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). + + account directive + account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that + amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these dec- + larations can provide several benefits: + + o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer- + ence. + + o In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by + transactions, which helps detect typos. + + o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha- + betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). + + o They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, + hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) + + o They can store additional account information as comments, or as tags + which can be used to filter or pivot reports. + + o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, + equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement. + + They are written as the word account followed by a hledger-style + account name, eg: + + account assets:bank:checking + + Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not + allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts + used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: + + account (assets:bank:checking) + + Account comments + Text following two or more spaces and ; at the end of an account direc- + tive line, and/or following ; on indented lines immediately below it, + form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may con- + tain tags, which are not ignored. + + The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because ; + is allowed in account names. + + account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon + ; next-line comment + ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 + + Account subdirectives + Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently + ignored: + + account assets:bank:checking + format subdirective is ignored + + Account error checking + By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence + when a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means + hledger can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the jour- + nal. Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in bal- + ance reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. + + In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report + an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not been + declared by an account directive. Some notes: + + o The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the correct + account name capitalisation. + + o The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see direc- + tives). This means it affects all of the current file, and any files + it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The position of + account directives within the file does not matter, though it's usual + to put them at the top. + + o Accounts can only be declared in journal files, but will affect + included files of all types. + + o It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" + with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. + + Account display order + The order in which account directives are written influences the order + in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By + default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these + account directives to the journal file: + + account assets + account liabilities + account equity + account revenues + account expenses + + those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: + + $ hledger accounts -1 + assets + liabilities + equity + revenues + expenses + + Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. + + Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group of + sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this directive: + + account other:zoo + + would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not + the position of other among the top-level accounts. This means: + + o you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) + that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their display + order + + o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between + a:b and a:c). + + Account types + hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, + expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the type: query. + + As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically + if you are using common english-language top-level account names + (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types + explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account directives. + Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The tag's value + should be one of the five main account types: + + o A or Asset (things you own) + + o L or Liability (things you owe) + + o E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & + liabilities) + + o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically + part of Equity) + + o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity) + + or, it can be (these are used less often): + + o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash- + flow report) + + o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST + REPORTING).) + + Here is a typical set of account type declarations: + + account assets ; type: A + account liabilities ; type: L + account equity ; type: E + account revenues ; type: R + account expenses ; type: X + + account assets:bank ; type: C + account assets:cash ; type: C + + account equity:conversion ; type: V + + Here are some tips for working with account types. + + o The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. + These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get going; + if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare your account + types. See also Regular expressions. + + If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: + --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash + ^assets?(:|$) | Asset + ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability + ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion + ^equity(:|$) | Equity + ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue + ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + + o If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an + account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared + and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. + + o Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See + Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. + + o As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent + account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by the first + of these that exists: + + 1. A type: declaration for this account. + + 2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts above it, preferring + the nearest. + + 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. + + 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring + the nearest parent. + + 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. + + o For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: + + $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] + + alias directive + You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or + parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: + + o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier + data entry and a less verbose journal + + o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts + + o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy + + o combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on + one line + + o customising reports + + Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They + do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger- + web. + + Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use cor- + rectly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; more + on this below. + + See also Rewrite account names. + + Basic aliases + To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file. + This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its + included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces + around the = are optional: + + alias OLD = NEW + + Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This + affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively. + + OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will + replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. Sub- + accounts are also affected. Eg: + + alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking + ; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" + + Regex aliases + There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, + indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the + only place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular + expression.) + + Eg: + + alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT + + or: + + $ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... + + Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by + REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. + + If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg + /\/=:. + + If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced + by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: + + alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 + ; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" + + REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end of + option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. + + Combining aliases + You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives + and/or command line options. + + Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, + then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the + effect of previously applied aliases. + + In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be + applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal + entry, we apply: + + 1. alias directives preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed + first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top) + + 2. --alias options, in the order they appeared on the command line + (left to right). + + In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: + + o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first + + o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on + + o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. + + This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps pro- + vide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde- + pendent of which files are being read and in which order. + + In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to the command line will show + which aliases are being applied when. + + Aliases and multiple files + As explained at Directives and multiple files, alias directives do not + affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, + + hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal + + account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. + Including the aliases doesn't work either: + + include a.aliases + + 2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases + foo 1 + bar + + This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the start + of your top-most file, like this: + + alias foo=Foo + alias bar=Bar + + 2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above + foo 1 + bar + + include c.journal ; also affected + + end aliases directive + You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the jour- + nal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: + + end aliases + + Aliases can generate bad account names + Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, + which could cause confusing reports or invalid print output. For exam- + ple, you could erase all account names: + + 2021-01-01 + a:aa 1 + b + + $ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' + 2021-01-01 + 1 + + The above print output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert an + illegal double space, causing print output that would give a different + journal when reparsed: + + 2021-01-01 + old 1 + other + + $ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print + 2021-01-01 + new USD 1 + other + + Aliases and account types + If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account + types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in + effect. + + However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg renaming + parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could prevent + child accounts from inheriting the account type of their parents. + + Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, renam- + ing it by an alias could prevent or alter that. + + If you are using account aliases and the type: query is not matching + accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts command, + eg something like: + + $ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a + + commodity directive + You can use commodity directives to declare your commodities. In fact + the commodity directive performs several functions at once: + + 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can + optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf Com- + modity error checking) + + 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to + expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international + number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both + 1,000 and 1.000 as 1. (Cf Amounts) + + 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying + output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of dec- + imal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display + style) + + You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives + sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable + parsing and display. + + Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since + for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). + + A commodity directive is just the word commodity followed by a sample + amount, like this: + + ;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT + + commodity $1000.00 + commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment + + It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the format subdirec- + tive, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol appears + twice; it must be the same in both places: + + ;commodity SYMBOL + ; format SAMPLEAMOUNT + + ; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, + ; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, + ; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. + commodity INR + format INR 1,00,00,000.00 + + Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or + punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). + + The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant. + It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma - followed + by 0 or more decimal digits. + + A few more examples: + + # number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: + commodity $1,000.00 + commodity EUR 1.000,00 + commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 + commodity 1 000 000. + + Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with + zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) + + Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display + style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. + + Commodity error checking + In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report + an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared by a + commodity directive. This works similarly to account error checking, + see the notes there for more details. + + Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because cur- + rently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity with + a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts are + always allowed to have no commodity symbol. + + decimal-mark directive + You can use a decimal-mark directive - usually one per file, at the top + of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark when + parsing amounts in this file. It can look like + + decimal-mark . + + or + + decimal-mark , + + This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we + recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg + thousands separators). + + include directive + You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include + directive, like this: + + include FILEPATH + + Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or timedot + files can be included (not CSV files, currently). + + If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the + current file's folder. + + A tilde means home directory, eg: include ~/main.journal. + + The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: include + *.journal. + + There is limited support for recursive wildcards: **/ (the slash is + required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient + since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but + this can be done, eg: include */**/*.journal. + + The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, overrid- + ing the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input files): + include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md. + + P directive + The P directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate + between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports + to convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or + after that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock + exchange, cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. + + The format is: + + P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT + + DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the commodity + being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and quantity) + of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this date. + Examples: + + # one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: + P 2009-01-01 EUR $1.35 + + # and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: + P 2010-01-01 EUR $1.40 + + The -V, -X and --value flags use these market prices to show amount + values in another commodity. See Valuation. + + + payee directive + payee PAYEE NAME + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which may + appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report an + error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been declared. + Eg: + + payee Whole Foods + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + tag directive + tag TAGNAME + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names + allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: + + tag item-id + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is + used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use + of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can + declare and check your tags . + + Periodic transactions + The ~ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives allow + hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in reports, + not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. + + Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, + read this whole section, or at least these tips: + + 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - + read about this below. + + 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with hledger + print --forecast tag:generated or hledger register --forecast + tag:generated. + + 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last non-fore- + casted transaction's date. + + 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. + See below for the exact start/end rules. + + 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs + improvement, but is worth studying. + + 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a + natural boundary of that interval. Eg in weekly from DATE, DATE + must be a monday. ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an + error. + + 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded + to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done to improve + reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. Yes, it's a bit + inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from + 2020/01, which is equivalent to ~ every 10th day of month from + 2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10. + + Periodic rule syntax + A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the + date replaced by a tilde (~) followed by a period expression (mnemonic: + ~ looks like a recurring sine wave.): + + # every first of month + ~ monthly + expenses:rent $2000 + assets:bank:checking + + # every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: + ~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 + expenses:utilities $400 + assets:bank:checking + + The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying multi- + period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies + report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start + dates). + + Periodic rules and relative dates + Partial or relative dates (like 12/31, 25, tomorrow, last week, next + quarter) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the + results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted + relative to, in order of preference: + + 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent Y directive + + 2. or the date specified with --today + + 3. or the date on which you are running the report. + + They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period + dates. + + Two spaces between period expression and description! + If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, + these must be separated by two or more spaces. This helps hledger know + where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden- + tally alter their meaning, as in this example: + + ; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" + ; || + ; vv + ~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review + assets:bank:checking $1500 + income:acme inc + + So, + + o Do write two spaces between your period expression and your transac- + tion description, if any. + + o Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period + expression. + + Other syntax + hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to + make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some + of the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, + but in general, features in this section are considered less important + or even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to + help you decide if you want to use them. + + Auto postings + The = directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary + extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all + transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the --auto flag. + + Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your + financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy + in an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features + like balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. + + An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: + + = QUERY + ACCOUNT AMOUNT + ... + ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] + + except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: = suggests match- + ing), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and each + "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting + amounts can be: + + o a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg $2. This will be used + as-is. + + o a number, eg 2. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post- + ing will be added to this. + + o a numeric multiplier, eg *2 (a star followed by a number N). The + matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied + by N. + + o a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and + symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and + its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. + + Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double + quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second + query term below: + + = expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' + (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 + + Some examples: + + ; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation + = expenses:food + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + + ; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount + = expenses:gifts + assets:checking:gifts *-1 + assets:checking *1 + + 2017/12/1 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + + 2017/12/14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + + $ hledger print --auto + 2017-12-01 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + + 2017-12-14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + assets:checking:gifts -$20 + assets:checking $20 + + Auto postings and multiple files + An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or + in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect + sibling files (when multiple -f/--file are used - see #1212). + + Auto postings and dates + A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking + precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also + be used in the generated posting. + + Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser- + tions + Currently, auto postings are added: + + o after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for + balancedness, + + o but before balance assertions are checked. + + Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and + after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 + for background. + + This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with a + missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to + infer amounts. + + Auto posting tags + Automated postings will have some extra tags: + + o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post- + ing rule, and the query + + o _generated-posting:= QUERY - a hidden tag, which does not appear in + hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated "just + now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal. + + Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules will + have these tags added: + + o modified: - this transaction was modified + + o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac- + tion was modified "just now". + + Balance assignments + Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like + balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the + equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy + the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when + setting opening balances: + + ; starting a new journal, set asset account balances + 2016/1/1 opening balances + assets:checking = $409.32 + assets:savings = $735.24 + assets:cash = $42 + equity:opening balances + + or when adjusting a balance to reality: + + ; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense + 2016/1/15 + assets:cash = $0 + expenses:misc + + The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity + at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the + commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign- + ment). + + Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less explicit; + to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do the cal- + culations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance assign- + ments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make your + financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy + in an audit. + + Balance assignments and prices + A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have + that price attached: + + 2019/1/1 + (a) = $1 @ EUR2 + + $ hledger print --explicit + 2019-01-01 + (a) $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2 + + Bracketed posting dates + For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's brack- + eted date syntax is also supported: [DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2] in + posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any square-bracketed + sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way. With this syn- + tax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2 infers its + year from DATE. + + Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's + date:/date2: tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date syntax. + + D directive + D AMOUNT + + This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any subsequent + commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing the jour- + nal. This effect lasts until the next D directive, or the end of the + journal. + + For compatibility/historical reasons, D also acts like a commodity + directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing and display + style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity symbol, but + a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must include a deci- + mal mark (either period or comma). Eg: + + ; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars + ; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) + D $1,000.00 + + 1/1 + a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 + b + + Interactions with other directives: + + For setting a commodity's display style, a commodity directive has + highest priority, then a D directive. + + For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, decimal-mark + has highest priority, then commodity, then D. + + For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a commodity + directive is required (hledger check commodities ignores D directives). + + Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less + explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is usu- + ally an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to track + multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant with + commodity and decimal-mark. And it works differently from Ledger's D. + + apply account directive + This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended + to all accounts in following entries, until an end apply account direc- + tive or end of current file. Eg: + + apply account home + + 2010/1/1 + food $10 + cash + + end apply account + + is equivalent to: + + 2010/01/01 + home:food $10 + home:cash $-10 + + account directives are also affected, and so is any included content. + + Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not affected. + + Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is + prepended. + + Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less porta- + ble, and less trustworthy in an audit. + + Y directive + Y YEAR + + or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): + + year YEAR apply year YEAR + + The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for subse- + quent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: + + Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 + + 12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 + expenses 1 + assets + + year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 + + 2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected + expenses 1 + assets + + 1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 + expenses 1 + assets + + Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at least) + makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less trust- + worthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their corre- + sponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in + your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's + date. + + Secondary dates + A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals + sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. + When running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but + with the --date2 flag (or --aux-date or --effective), the secondary + (right) date will be used instead. + + The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a + consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = + date the transaction was initiated, if different". + + Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, + and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates + consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which report- + ing mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler + and better. + + Star comments + Lines beginning with * (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This + feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, + allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed + with org mode. + + Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. Decreases + your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode just for + folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; nowadays + you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without losing + ledger mode's features. + + Valuation expressions + Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double + parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. + + Virtual postings + A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a virtual + posting or unbalanced posting, which means it is exempt from the usual + rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. + + This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to + avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special + cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances + without using a balancing equity account: + + 2022-01-01 opening balances + (assets:checking) $1000 + (assets:savings) $2000 + + A posting with brackets around the account name is called a balanced + virtual posting. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must + add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: + + 2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else + assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other + expenses:food $7 ; <- + expenses:food $3 ; <- + [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other + [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- + (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance + + Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed + are called real postings. You can exclude virtual postings from + reports with the -R/--real flag or a real:1 query. + + Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid fig- + uring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable and + less trustworthy in an audit. + + Other Ledger directives + These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This + allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's + reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. + + apply fixed COMM AMT + apply tag TAG + assert EXPR + bucket / A ACCT + capture ACCT REGEX + check EXPR + define VAR=EXPR + end apply fixed + end apply tag + end apply year + end tag + eval / expr EXPR + python + PYTHONCODE + tag NAME + value EXPR + --command-line-flags + + See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed hledger/Ledger + syntax comparison. + + +CSV + hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, + semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting + each record into a transaction. + + (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.) + + For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure they + have a corresponding .csv, .tsv or .ssv file extension or use a hledger + file prefix (see File Extension below). + + Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding rules file. + This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields lay- + out, date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, + and how to categorise transactions based on description or other + attributes. + + By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file with + an extra .rules extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked to + read foo/FILE.csv, hledger looks for foo/FILE.csv.rules. You can spec- + ify a different rules file with the --rules-file option. If no rules + file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which you'll + need to adjust. + + At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, + and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines + there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: + + Date, Description, Id, Amount + 12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 + + # basic.csv.rules + skip 1 + fields date, description, , amount + date-format %d/%m/%Y + + $ hledger print -f basic.csv + 2019-11-12 Foo + expenses:unknown 10.23 + income:unknown -10.23 + + There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, and + more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. + + CSV rules cheatsheet + The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. + (Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; or * are ignored.) + + + separator declare the field separator, instead of rely- + ing on file extension + skip skip one or more header lines at start of file + date-format declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times + timezone declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV date- + times + newest-first improve txn order when: there are multiple + records, newest first, all with the same date + + + intra-day-reversed improve txn order when: same-day txns are in + opposite order to the overall file + decimal-mark declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, + when ambiguous + fields list name CSV fields for easy reference, and + optionally assign their values to hledger + fields + Field assignment assign a CSV value or interpolated text value + to a hledger field + if block conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + or skip a record or end (skip rest of file) + if table conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + using compact syntax + balance-type select which type of balance asser- + tions/assignments to generate + include inline another CSV rules file + + Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are + evaluated. + + separator + You can use the separator rule to read other kinds of character-sepa- + rated data. The argument is any single separator character, or the + words tab or space (case insensitive). Eg, for comma-separated values + (CSV): + + separator , + + or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): + + separator ; + + or for tab-separated values (TSV): + + separator TAB + + If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or a csv:, + ssv:, tsv: prefix), the appropriate separator will be inferred automat- + ically, and you won't need this rule. + + skip + skip N + + The word skip followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells + hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input + data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need + to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains + header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not + parsed as CSV. + + skip can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip indi- + vidual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still + required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. + + date-format + date-format DATEFMT + + This is a helper for the date (and date2) fields. If your CSV dates + are not formatted like YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, you'll + need to add a date-format rule describing them with a strptime-style + date parsing pattern - see https://hackage.haskell.org/pack- + age/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. The pattern must + parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: + + # MM/DD/YY + date-format %m/%d/%y + + # D/M/YYYY + # The - makes leading zeros optional. + date-format %-d/%-m/%Y + + # YYYY-Mmm-DD + date-format %Y-%h-%d + + # M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk + # Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. + date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk + + timezone + timezone TIMEZONE + + When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone + other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you + can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps + prevent off-by-one dates. + + When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't + need this rule; instead, use %Z in date-format (or %z, %EZ, %Ez; see + the formatTime link above). + + In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware conversion, + localising the CSV date-times to your current system time zone. If you + prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for reproducibility, you + can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with the TZ environment + variable, eg: + + $ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv + + timezone currently does not understand timezone names, except "UTC", + "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". For + others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. + + newest-first + hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered + chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can + auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV + where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are + oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, + like: + + 2022-10-01, txn 3... + 2022-10-01, txn 2... + 2022-10-01, txn 1... + + you can add the newest-first rule to help hledger generate the transac- + tions in correct order. + + # same-day CSV records are newest first + newest-first + + intra-day-reversed + CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to + the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the + transactions on each date are oldest first: + + 2022-10-02, txn 3... + 2022-10-02, txn 4... + 2022-10-01, txn 1... + 2022-10-01, txn 2... + + In this situation, add the intra-day-reversed rule, and hledger will + compensate, improving the order of transactions. + + # transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order + intra-day-reversed + + decimal-mark + decimal-mark . + + or: + + decimal-mark , + + hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal mark + when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the CSV + contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you + should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid + misparsed numbers. + + fields list + fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... + + A fields list (the word fields followed by comma-separated field names) + is optional, but convenient. It does two things: + + 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if + you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say %SomeField + instead of remembering %13. + + 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described + below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger + field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and + build a transaction. + + Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the + transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields + for later reference; and ignore the others": + + fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield + + In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to the + CSV file's separator. Also: + + o There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). + + o Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field names + are optional. + + o Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen). + + o Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty + name. + + If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for + your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces + replaced by underscores). + + Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning to + a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's "bal- + ance" field balance_ to avoid directly setting hledger's balance field + (and generating a balance assertion). + + Field assignment + HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE + + Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to + hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields + list (see above). + + To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of the + standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, + followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may inter- + polate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV + record (%N), or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSV- + FIELD). + + Some examples: + + # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended + amount %4 USD + + # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags + comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 + + Tips: + + o Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like " 1 " + becomes 1 when interpolated) (#1051). + + o Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate a + hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). + + Field names + Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in + hledger CSV rules files: + + 1. CSV field names (CSVFIELD in these docs): you can optionally name + the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet auto- + matically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing arbi- + trary names in a fields list, eg: + + fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar + + 2. Special hledger field names (HLEDGERFIELD in these docs): you must + set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction from + a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field + assignment, eg: + + date %When + code %Some_Id + description %What + comment %Foo %Bar + amount1 $ %Total + + or directly in a fields list: + + fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar + currency $ + comment %Foo %Bar + + Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what hap- + pens when you assign values to them: + + date field + Assigning to date sets the transaction date. + + date2 field + date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. + + status field + status sets the transaction's status, if any. + + code field + code sets the transaction's code, if any. + + description field + description sets the transaction's description, if any. + + comment field + comment sets the transaction's comment, if any. + + commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. + + You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code. + A comment starting with \n will begin on a new line. + + Comments can contain tags, as usual. + + account field + Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the + Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. + + Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set account1 and + account2. Typically account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is + set once with a top-level assignment, while account2 is set based on + each transaction's description, in conditional rules. + + If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see + below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" + or "income:unknown"). + + amount field + There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different + situations: + + o amountN sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that posting + to be generated. By assigning to amount1, amount2, ... etc. you + can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't have to be + consecutive; in certain situations using a high number might be help- + ful to influence the layout of postings. + + o amountN-in and amountN-out should be used instead, as a pair, when + and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. Eg + when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a single + Amount field. Note: + + o Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the sec- + ond posting" - that's not correct. Think: "amountN-in and amountN- + out together detect the amount for posting N, by inspecting two CSV + fields at once." + + o hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will automati- + cally negate the -out value. + + o It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or zero, + so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case you'll + need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). + + o amount, with no posting number (and similarly, amount-in and amount- + out with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for backwards + compatibility, and because they have special behaviour that is some- + times convenient: + + o They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of post- + ing 2. + + o Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost + price. + + o Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like amount1, or + amount2-in and amount2-out) will take precedence. This allows + incrementally migrating old rules files to the new syntax. + + There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; please + see also "Setting amounts" below. + + currency field + currency sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' + amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency + symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. + + currencyN prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount. + + balance field + balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is + left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. + + balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent + to balance1. + + You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the balance-type + rule (see below). + + See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. + + if block + Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV + data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can cate- + gorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on + their description (for example). There are two ways to write condi- + tional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", described + below. + + An if block is the word if and one or more "matcher" expressions (can + be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or next + line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, + + if MATCHER + RULE + + or + + if + MATCHER + MATCHER + MATCHER + RULE + RULE + + If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be + applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special + rules may also be used within an if block: + + o skip - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction from + it) + + o end - skips the rest of the current CSV file. + + Some examples: + + # if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" + if groceries + account2 expenses:groceries + + # if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown + if + monthly service fee + atm transaction fee + banking thru software + account2 expenses:business:banking + comment XXX deductible ? check it + + # if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file + if ,,,, + end + + Matchers + There are two kinds: + + 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular + expression (REGEX), which hledger will try to match case-insensi- + tively anywhere within the CSV record. + Eg: whole foods + + 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name + (%CSVFIELD REGEX). hledger will try to match these just within the + named CSV field. + Eg: %date 2023 + + The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended regu- + lar expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, + \>), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular expressions" + in the hledger manual (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expres- + sions). + + With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched is + not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be + converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing + whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if + the original record was: + + 2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 + + the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: + + 2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 + + When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: + + o By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) + + o When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (&) it will be AND'ed with + the previous matcher (both of them must match). + + There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. + + if table + "if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many + matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like + this: + + if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... + MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + + + The first character after if is taken to be the separator for the rest + of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like , or | + that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is unre- + lated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the + matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The + table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line + must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. + + The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher succeeds, + assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding hledger + fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is equivalent to + this sequence of if blocks: + + if MATCHERA + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + if MATCHERB + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + if MATCHERC + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + Example: + + if,account2,comment + atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it + %description groceries,expenses:groceries, + 2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out + + balance-type + Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple + = type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding + assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, + eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help + with budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the + balance-type rule: + + # balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts + balance-type ==* + + Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: + + = single commodity, exclude subaccounts + =* single commodity, include subaccounts + == multi commodity, exclude subaccounts + ==* multi commodity, include subaccounts + + include + include RULESFILE + + This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. + RULESFILE is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current + file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between + several rules files, eg: + + # someaccount.csv.rules + + ## someaccount-specific rules + fields date,description,amount + account1 assets:someaccount + account2 expenses:misc + + ## common rules + include categorisation.rules + + Working with CSV + Some tips: + + Rapid feedback + It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting + CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: + + $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' + + A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions + of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can + echo a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to + read the output. + + Valid CSV + Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, + and equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or + tab as separators). This means, eg: + + o Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in single + quotes is not allowed. (Eg 'A','B' is rejected.) + + o When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the quotes + are not allowed. (Eg "A", "B" is rejected.) + + o When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double + quotes. (Eg A"A, B is rejected.) + + If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to trans- + form it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more permis- + sive CSV parser like python's csv lib. + + File Extension + To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error + messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), + it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv + filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) + + When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV + reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path + with csv:, ssv: or tsv:: Eg: + + $ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print + + You can also override the default field separator with a separator rule + if needed. + + Reading CSV from standard input + You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, + since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: + + $ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print + + Reading multiple CSV files + If you use multiple -f options to read multiple CSV files at once, + hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV + file. But if you use the --rules-file option, that rules file will be + used for all the CSV files. + + Valid transactions + After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the gen- + erated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them, + applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. Any + errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying the + problem entry. + + There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated them, + will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the CSV + data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance + assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: + + $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print + + Deduplicating, importing + When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank + transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing + some of the same records. + + The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) append + just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, so you + don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which version + of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden .latest.FILE.csv file.) This + is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: + + # download the latest CSV files, then run this command. + # Note, no -f flags needed here. + $ hledger import *.csv [--dry] + + This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable + chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) + + A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and otherwise, + exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data. + See: + + o https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows + + o https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion + + Setting amounts + Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling var- + ious amount-setting situations: + + 1. If the amount is in a single CSV field: + + a. If its sign indicates direction of flow: + Assign it to amountN, to set the Nth posting's amount. N is usu- + ally 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. + + b. If another field indicates direction of flow: + Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate amount + sign. Eg: + + # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": + amount1 -%Amount + if %Type deposit + amount1 %Amount + + 2. If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit): + + a. If both fields are unsigned: + Assign the fields to amountN-in and amountN-out. This sets posting + N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero value. If it's the + -out value, the amount will be negated. + + b. If either field is signed: + Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg below, the + -out value already has a minus sign so we undo hledger's automatic + negating by negating once more (but only if the field is non-empty, + so that we don't leave a minus sign by itself): + + fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out + if %amount1-out [1-9] + amount1-out -%amount1-out + + c. If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be + empty): + The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is non-zero/non- + empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such as 1 and none. For + such cases, use conditional rules to help select the amount. Eg, + to handle the above you could select the value containing non-zero + digits: + + fields date, description, in, out + if %in [1-9] + amount1 %in + if %out [1-9] + amount1 %out + + 3. If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost: + Use the unnumbered amount (or amount-in and amount-out) syntax. + + 4. If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts: + Assign to balanceN, to set a balance assignment on the Nth posting, + causing the posting's amount to be calculated automatically. balance + with no number is equivalent to balance1. In this situation hledger is + more likely to guess the wrong default account name, so you may need to + set that explicitly. + + Amount signs + There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing + and sign-flipping: + + o If an amount value begins with a plus sign: + that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT + + o If an amount value is parenthesised: + it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT + + o If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of parentheses, + or a minus sign and parentheses): + they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT + + o If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parenthe- + ses): + that is removed, making it an empty value. "+" or "-" or "()" becomes + "". + + Setting currency/commodity + If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount + field(s): + + 2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 + + you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will + be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: + + fields date,description,amount + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown $123.00 + income:unknown $-123.00 + + If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: + + 2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 + + You can assign that to the currency pseudo-field, which has the special + effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction (on the + left, with no separating space): + + fields date,description,currency,amount + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown USD123.00 + income:unknown USD-123.00 + + Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, + with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by + a space: + + fields date,description,cur,amt + amount %amt %cur + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown 123.00 USD + income:unknown -123.00 USD + + Note we used a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that + would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. + + Amount decimal places + Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like + amount1 influence commodity display styles, such as the number of deci- + mal places displayed in reports. + + The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display + style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). + + Referencing other fields + In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger + fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger + field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the + hledger field: + + # Name the third CSV field "amount1" + fields date,description,amount1 + + # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD + amount1 %amount1 USD + + # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) + comment %amount1 + + Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a lit- + eral "amount1": + + fields date,description,csvamount + amount1 %csvamount USD + # Can't interpolate amount1 here + comment %amount1 + + When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, + only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or + C if "something" is matched, but never A: + + comment A + comment B + if something + comment C + + How CSV rules are evaluated + Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need + to). First, + + o include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth first. + (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for further + includes, recursively, before proceeding.) + + Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is + repeated, the last one wins: + + o skip (at top level) + + o date-format + + o newest-first + + o fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments + to hledger fields + + Then for each CSV record in turn: + + o test all if blocks. If any of them contain a end rule, skip all + remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule, + skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple matched skip + rules, the first one wins. + + o collect all field assignments at top level and in matched if blocks. + When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only the last + one. + + o compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was + assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a + default + + o generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. + + This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger can + use to parse input files. When all files have been read successfully, + the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger command the + user specified. + + + Well factored rules + Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules + files: + + o Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a com- + mon.rules, and adding include common.rules to each CSV's rules file. + + o Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the frequently + used parts. + + CSV rules examples + Bank of Ireland + Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance + field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not neces- + sary but provides extra error checking: + + Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance + 07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 + 07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 + + # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules + + # skip the header line + skip + + # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields + fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance + + # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" + # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: + # + # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, + # by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience + # + # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, + # eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day + + # date is in UK/Ireland format + date-format %d/%m/%Y + + # set the currency + currency EUR + + # set the base account for all txns + account1 assets:bank:boi:checking + + $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print + 2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 + income:unknown EUR-10.0 + + 2012-12-07 PAYMENT + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 + expenses:unknown EUR5.0 + + The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're read- + ing directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are + imported into a journal file. + + Coinbase + A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is + recorded using cost notation. The legacy amount field name conve- + niently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. + + # Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes + # 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" + + # coinbase.csv.rules + skip 1 + fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes + date %Timestamp + date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z + description %Notes + account1 assets:coinbase:cc + amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency + + $ hledger print -f coinbase.csv + 2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account + assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP + income:unknown -74.000000 GBP + + Amazon + Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to gener- + ate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably get + this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) + + "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" + "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + + # amazon-orders.csv.rules + + # skip one header line + skip 1 + + # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. + # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. + fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code + + # how to parse the date + date-format %b %-d, %Y + + # combine two fields to make the description + description %toorfrom %name + + # save the status as a tag + comment status:%amzstatus + + # set the base account for all transactions + account1 assets:amazon + # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). + # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember + + # set a generic account2 + account2 expenses:misc + amount2 %amzamount + # and maybe refine it further: + #include categorisation.rules + + # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. + if %fees [1-9] + account3 expenses:fees + amount3 %fees + + $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print + 2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $20.00 + + 2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $25.00 + expenses:fees $1.00 + + Paypal + Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some + Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: + + "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" + "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" + "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" + "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" + "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" + "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" + "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" + + # paypal-custom.csv.rules + + # Tips: + # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download + # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" + # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: + # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" + # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": + # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + + fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note + + skip 1 + + date-format %-m/%-d/%Y + + # ignore some paypal events + if + In Progress + Temporary Hold + Update to + skip + + # add more fields to the description + description %description_ %itemtitle + + # save some other fields as tags + comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ + + # convert to short currency symbols + if %currency USD + currency $ + if %currency EUR + currency E + if %currency GBP + currency P + + # generate postings + + # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account + # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) + account1 assets:online:paypal + amount1 %netamount + + # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party + # (account2 is set below) + amount2 -%grossamount + + # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. + if %feeamount [1-9] + account3 expenses:banking:paypal + amount3 -%feeamount + comment3 business: + + # choose an account for the second posting + + # override the default account names: + # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) + if %grossamount ^[^-] + account2 income:unknown + # if negative, it's an expense (a credit) + if %grossamount ^- + account2 expenses:unknown + + # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks + include common.rules + + # apply some overrides specific to this csv + + # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, + # which can be disregarded in this case. + if + Bank Account + Bank Deposit to PP Account + description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle + account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking + account1 assets:online:paypal + + # Currency conversions + if Currency Conversion + account2 equity:currency conversion + + # common.rules + + if + darcs + noble benefactor + account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub + comment2 business: + + if + Calm Radio + account2 expenses:online:apps + + if + electronic frontier foundation + Patreon + wikimedia + Advent of Code + account2 expenses:dues + + if Google + account2 expenses:online:apps + description google | music + + $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print + 2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 + expenses:online:apps $6.99 + + 2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 + + 2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 + expenses:dues $7.00 + + 2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 + + 2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 + expenses:dues $2.00 + expenses:banking:paypal ; business: + + 2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 + + 2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 + revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: + expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: + +Timeclock + The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. + + hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, these + are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock- + out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. The + time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are optional. + The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored (currently + the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines beginning with + # or ; or *, and blank lines, are ignored. + + i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces + o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 + i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account + o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 + + hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting + some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than + one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For + the above time log, hledger print generates these journal entries: + + $ hledger -f t.timeclock print + 2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces + (some:account name) 0.33h + + 2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 + (another account) 1.64h + + 2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 + (another account) 2.01h + + Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: + + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week + + To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: + + o use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended timeclock- + x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el + + o at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell alias ti="echo + i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o + `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG" + + o or use the old ti and to scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. These + rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 + executable renamed. + + +Timedot + timedot format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. Com- + pared to timeclock format, it is + + o convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging + + o readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. + + A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look like + this: + + 2021-08-04 + hom:errands .... .... + fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs + per:admin:finance + + hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each + dot representing a quarter-hour spent: + + $ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader + 2021-08-04 * + (hom:errands) 2.00 + + 2021-08-04 * + (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 + + 2021-08-04 * + (per:admin:finance) 0 + + A day entry begins with a date line: + + o a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). + + Optionally this can be followed on the same line by + + o a common transaction description for this day + + o a common transaction comment for this day, after a semicolon (;). + + After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time transac- + tion lines, consisting of: + + o an account name - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style account + name. + + o two or more spaces - a field separator, required if there is an + amount (as in journal format). + + o a timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number rep- + resenting hours. + + o an optional comment beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. + + In more detail, timedot amounts can be: + + o dots: zero or more period characters, each representing one quarter- + hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. Eg: .... .. + + o a number, representing hours. Eg: 1.5 + + o a number immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo, or + y, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years. + Eg 1.5h or 90m. The following equivalencies are assumed: + 60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo, 365d = 1y. (This + unit will not be visible in the generated transaction amount, which is + always in hours.) + + There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in + the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: + + o Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored. + + o Before the first date line, lines beginning with * are ignored. From + the first date line onward, a sequence of *'s followed by a space at + beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs Org mode) + is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an Org head- + line, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org headlines. + + o Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as trans- + actions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by + default; add -E to see them.) + + More examples: + + # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. + 2016/2/1 + inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... + fos:haskell .... .. + biz:research . + + 2016/2/2 + inc:client1 .... .... + biz:research . + + 2016/2/3 + inc:client1 4 + fos:hledger 3 + biz:research 1 + + * Time log + ** 2020-01-01 + *** adm:time . + *** adm:finance . + + * 2020 Work Diary + ** Q1 + *** 2020-02-29 + **** DONE + 0700 yoga + **** UNPLANNED + **** BEGUN + hom:chores + cleaning ... + water plants + outdoor - one full watering can + indoor - light watering + **** TODO + adm:planning: trip + *** LATER + + Reporting: + + $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 + 2016-02-02 * + (inc:client1) 2.00 + + 2016-02-02 * + (biz:research) 0.25 + + $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree + Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: + + || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d + ============++======================================== + biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + fos || 1.50 0 3.00 + haskell || 1.50 0 0 + hledger || 0 0 3.00 + inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + ------------++---------------------------------------- + || 7.75 2.25 8.00 + + Using period instead of colon as account name separator: + + 2016/2/4 + fos.hledger.timedot 4 + fos.ledger .. + + $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree + 4.50 fos + 4.00 hledger:timedot + 0.50 ledger + -------------------- + 4.50 + + A sample.timedot file. + +PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS +Time periods + Report start & end date + By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time repre- + sented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest + transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest + transaction, posting, or market price date. + + Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current + month. You can specify a start and/or end date using -b/--begin, + -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query (described below). All of these + accept the smart date syntax (below). + + Some notes: + + o End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date + after the last day you want to see in the report. + + o As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with + options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. + + o The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the + start/end dates from options and that from date: queries. That is, + date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030' yields January 2019, the + smallest common time span. + + o In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall + on interval boundaries (see below). + + Examples: + + + -b 2016/3/17 begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 + -e 12/1 end at the start of december 1st of the current year + (11/30 will be the last date included) + -b thismonth all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month + -p thismonth all transactions in the current month + date:2016/3/17.. the above written as queries instead (.. can also be + replaced with -) + date:..12/1 + date:thismonth.. + date:thismonth + + Smart dates + hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added conve- + nience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be + written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted + (missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: + + + 2004/10/1, 2004-01-01, exact date, several separators allowed. Year + 2004.9.1 is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 + 2004 start of year + 2004/10 start of month + 10/1 month and day in current year + 21 day in current month + october, oct start of month in current year + yesterday, today, tomor- -1, 0, 1 days from today + row + last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period + day/week/month/quar- + ter/year + in n n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years + n n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years ahead + n -n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years ago + 20181201 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day + + 201812 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month + + Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising + results: + + + 201813 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 6-digit year + 20181301 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 8-digit year + 20181232 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error + 201801012 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error + + "Today's date" can be overridden with the --today option, in case it's + needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for periodic + transaction rules, which are not affected by --today.) + + Report intervals + A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, bal- + ance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a sepa- + rate row or column. + + The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line + flags: + + o -D/--daily + + o -W/--weekly + + o -M/--monthly + + o -Q/--quarterly + + o -Y/--yearly + + More complex intervals can be specified using -p/--period, described + below. + + Date adjustment + When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end + dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically + adjusted to natural period boundaries. This is convenient for produc- + ing simple periodic reports. More precisely: + + o an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall on + a natural period boundary + + o an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the + last period the same length as the others. + + By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, with + -b, -e, -p or date:, will not be adjusted (since hledger 1.29). This + makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, but it also + means that if you are specifying a start date, you should pick one + that's on a period boundary if you want to see simple report period + headings. + + Period expressions + The -p/--period option specifies a period expression, which is a com- + pact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report interval. + + Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the + first quarter of 2009): + + + -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" + + Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; + these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The spa- + ces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. So + the following are equivalent to the above: + + + -p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1" + -p2009/1/1to2009/4/1 + -p2009/1/1..2009/4/1 + + Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also + equivalent to the above: + + + -p "1/1 4/1" + -p "jan-apr" + -p "this year to 4/1" + + If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the + earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: + + + -p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january + 1, 2009 + -p "since 2009/1" the same, since is a syn- + onym + -p "from 2009" the same + -p "to 2009" everything before january + 1, 2009 + + You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full date: + + + -p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1" + -p "2009/1" the month of january 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/2/1" + -p "2009/1/1" the first day of 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/1/2" + + or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): + + + -p "2009Q1" first quarter of 2009, equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/4/1" + -p "q4" fourth quarter of the current year + + Period expressions with a report interval + A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated + from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word in: + + + -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" + -p "monthly in 2008" + -p "quarterly" + + More complex report intervals + Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, + such as: + + o biweekly (every two weeks) + + o fortnightly + + o bimonthly (every two months) + + o every day|week|month|quarter|year + + o every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years + + Weekly on a custom day: + + o every Nth day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the + number) + + o every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english weekday name, case + insensitive) + + Monthly on a custom day: + + o every Nth day [of month] + + o every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month] + + Yearly on a custom day: + + o every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number) + + o every MONTHNAME DDth [of year] (full or three-letter english month + name, case insensitive, and day of month number) + + o every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above) + + Examples: + + + -p "bimonthly from 2008" + -p "every 2 weeks" + -p "every 5 months from + 2009/03" + -p "every 2nd day of week" periods will go from Tue to Tue + -p "every Tue" same + -p "every 15th day" period boundaries will be on 15th of each + month + -p "every 2nd Monday" period boundaries will be on second Monday + of each month + -p "every 11/05" yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of + November + -p "every 5th November" same + -p "every Nov 5th" same + + Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is an + end date, exclusive as always): + + $ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" + + Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following + tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): + + $ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" + + Multiple weekday intervals + This special form is also supported: + + o every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,... (full or three-letter english week- + day names, case insensitive) + + Also, weekday and weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri and + sat,sun. + + This is mainly intended for use with --forecast, to generate periodic + transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less useful with + -p, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal length, which + is unusual. (Related: #1632) + + Examples: + + + -p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be Mon- + mon,wed,fri" Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun + -p "every weekday" dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will + be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun + -p "every weekend- dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri + day" + +Depth + With the --depth NUM option (short form: -NUM), reports will show + accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use + this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same + effect as a depth: query argument: depth:2, --depth=2 or -2 are equiva- + lent. + +Queries + One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise + subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query argu- + ments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: + + o Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often + account name substrings: + + utilities food:groceries + + o Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in + quotes: + + "personal care" + + o Regular expressions are also supported: + + "^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)" + + o Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: + + date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status: + + o Add a not: prefix to negate a term: + + not:cur:USD + + Query types + Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be + prefixed with not: to convert them into a negative match. + + acct:REGEX, REGEX + Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular expres- + sion. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and reg- + ular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just + write an account name substring, like expenses or food. + + amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N + Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or + greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested + and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded + by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. Oth- + erwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. + + code:REGEX + Match by transaction code (eg check number). + + cur:REGEX + Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose cur- + rency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial + match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match special characters which are + regex-significant, you need to escape them with \. And for characters + which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of + escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: + hledger print cur:\\$. + + desc:REGEX + Match transaction descriptions. + + date:PERIODEXPR + Match dates (or with the --date2 flag, secondary dates) within the + specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report + interval. Examples: + date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter. + + date2:PERIODEXPR + Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the + --date2 flag). + + depth:N + Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this + depth. + + note:REGEX + Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the + whole description if there's no |). + + payee:REGEX + Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left + of |, or the whole description if there's no |). + + real:, real:0 + Match real or virtual postings respectively. + + status:, status:!, status:* + Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. + + type:TYPECODES + Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). TYPE- + CODES is one or more of the single-letter account type codes ALERXCV, + case insensitive. Note type:A and type:E will also match their respec- + tive subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion). Certain kinds of account + alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and + account types. + + tag:REGEX[=REGEX] + Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by + value, use tag:.=REGEX.) + + When querying by tag, note that: + + o Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts + + o Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction + + o Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. + + (inacct:ACCTNAME + A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells + hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) + + Combining query terms + When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which + match: + + o any of the description terms AND + + o any of the account terms AND + + o any of the status terms AND + + o all the other terms. + + The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: + + o match any of the description terms AND + + o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND + + o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND + + o match all the other terms. + + Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not support + full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND or OR in + your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but here + are some tricks that can help: + + 1. Use a doubled not: prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses paid + with cash: + + $ hledger print food not:not:cash + + 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with print, piping the result into a + second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): + + $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food + + Queries and command options + Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2 is + equivalent to --depth 2, date:2020 is equivalent to -p 2020, etc. When + you mix command options and query arguments, generally the resulting + query is their intersection. + + Queries and valuation + When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value + reports, cur: and amt: match the old commodity symbol and the old + amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's + reversed, see #1625). + + Querying with account aliases + When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct: + will match either the old or the new account name. + + Querying with cost or value + When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value + reports, note that cur: matches the new commodity symbol, and not the + old one, and amt: matches the new quantity, and not the old one. Note: + this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see the + discussion at #1625. + +Pivoting + Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The + --pivot FIELD option substitutes some other transaction field for + account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's + value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields status, + code, description, payee, note, or a tag name. When pivoting on a tag + and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first value is + displayed. Values containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed + hierarchically, like account names. + + Some examples: + + 2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment + assets:bank account 2 EUR + income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe + + Normal balance report showing account names: + + $ hledger balance + 2 EUR assets:bank account + -2 EUR income:dues + -------------------- + 0 + + Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: + + $ hledger balance --pivot member + 2 EUR + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + 0 + + One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): + + $ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + -2 EUR + + Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account + name"): + + $ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + -2 EUR + +Generating data + Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report + time) are built in to hledger's journal format: + + o Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain transac- + tions. They are activated by the --auto flag. + + o Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, usu- + ally dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. + They are activated by the --forecast or balance --budget options, + described next. + +Forecasting + The --forecast flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the + journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usu- + ally recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. + hledger print --forecast is a good way to see them. + + This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps + experimenting with different scenarios. + + It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe + recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of print + --forecast into the journal. + + The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like generated- + transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR, indicating which periodic rule generated + them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named _generated-transac- + tion:, which you can use to reliably match transactions generated "just + now" (rather than printed in the past). + + The forecast transactions are generated within a forecast period, which + is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the bounds + for generated transactions, report period controls which transactions + are reported.) The forecast period begins on: + + o the start date provided within --forecast's argument, if any + + o otherwise, the later of + + o the report start date, if specified (with -b/-p/date:) + + o the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, if + any + + o otherwise today. + + It ends on: + + o the end date provided within --forecast's argument, if any + + o otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with -e/-p/date:) + + o otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. + + Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic + transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start + until after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, + but you can get around it in two ways: + + o If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them + periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ~ YYYY-MM-DD) + rather than ordinary transactions. That way they won't suppress + other periodic transactions. + + o Or give --forecast a period expression argument. A forecast period + specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and need not be + in the future. Some things to note: + + o You must use = between flag and argument; a space won't work. + + o The period expression can specify the forecast period's start date, + end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. + + o The period expression should not specify a report interval. (Each + periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) + + Some examples: --forecast=202001-202004, --forecast=jan-, --fore- + cast=2021. + +Budgeting + With the balance command's --budget report, each periodic transaction + rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals + and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc + below. + + See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. + +Cost reporting + This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions + where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of cur- + rency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: + + o Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. + Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or + cryptocurrency. + + o Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more conver- + sions. + + o Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, ie + the exchange rate. + + o Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. And + more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the "sec- + ondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a purchase + or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. Also, the + "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. + + -B: Convert to cost + As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can + also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding @ UNIT- + PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE. + + Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding the + -B/--cost flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). Eg: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + + $ hledger bal -N + $-135 assets:dollars + EUR100 assets:euros + $ hledger bal -N -B + $-135 assets:dollars + $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost + + Notes: + + -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the + inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if + example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, + -B shows something different: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold + assets:euros EUR100 ; for 100 euros + + $ hledger bal -N -B + EUR-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price + EUR100 assets:euros + + The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does + not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting equa- + tion and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. + + Equity conversion postings + By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a differ- + ent notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance conversion + transactions. In this style, the above entry might be written: + + 2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost + reporting more difficult for PTA tools. + + Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to + the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. + + You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at + the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But + be sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a + not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. + + Inferring equity postings from cost + With --infer-equity, hledger detects transactions written with PTA cost + notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars -$135 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 + + $ hledger print --infer-equity + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 + equity:conversion:$-EUR:EUR EUR-100 ; generated-posting: + equity:conversion:$-EUR:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: + + The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion account + type declaration. + + --infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded + using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and bal- + ance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal + entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. + + Inferring cost from equity postings + The reverse operation is possible using --infer-costs, which detects + transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost + notation to them: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + $ hledger print --infer-costs + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 @@ EUR100 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + --infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/--cost, allowing cost + reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity post- + ings: + + $ hledger print --infer-costs -B + 2009-01-01 + assets:dollars EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + Notes: + + For --infer-costs to work, an exchange must consist of four postings: + + 1. two non-equity postings + + 2. two equity postings, next to one another + + 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type V/Conversion + (or if they are not declared, they must be named equity:conversion, + equity:trade, equity:trading or subaccounts of these) + + 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity post- + ings' amounts. + + Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. + + When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added + to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in + the commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. + If you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can + use explicit cost notation instead. + + --infer-equity and --infer-costs can be used together, if you have a + mixture of both notations in your journal. + + When to infer cost/equity + Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled + by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two + suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: + + 1. When you use -B, always use --infer-costs as well. Eg: hledger bal + -B --infer-costs + + 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: alias hl="hledger + --infer-equity --infer-costs" + + How to record conversions + Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in + hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. + + Conversion with implicit cost + Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the + outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset + account: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + assets:cash 120 USD + + hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the + conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred + rate by using hledger print -x. + + Pro: + + o Concise, easy + + Con: + + o Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not + be detected + + o Conversion rate is not clear + + o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity + flag + + You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped com- + modity symbol, by using hledger check commodities. + + You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using hledger check + balancednoautoconversion, or -s/--strict. + + Conversion with explicit cost + You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error + otherwise. + + Pro: + + o Still concise + + o Makes the conversion rate clear + + o Provides more error checking + + Con: + + o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity + flag + + Conversion with equity postings + In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not bal- + anced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD + appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents + reports like balancesheetequity from showing a zero total. + + The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for + each commodity, using an equity account: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + o Preserves the accounting equation + + o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + + o Standard, works in any double entry accounting system + + Con: + + o More verbose + + o Conversion rate is not obvious + + o Cost reporting requires adding the --infer-costs flag + + Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost + Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + o Preserves the accounting equation + + o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + + o Makes the conversion rate clear + + o Provides more error checking + + Con: + + o Most verbose + + o Not compatible with ledger + + Cost tips + o Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it + makes that clear and helps detect errors. + + o Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping + and preserves the accounting equation. + + o Combining these is possible. + + o When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use -B + (short form of --cost). + + o If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add --infer- + costs also. + + o If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want to + see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, use + --infer-equity. + + o Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). + +Valuation + Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can + convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in + the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a + certain date). This is controlled by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] + option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler -V + and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need: + + -V: Value + The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default + valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation + date(s), if any. More on these in a minute. + + -X: Value in specified commodity + The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which cur- + rency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to + that. + + Valuation date + Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports + have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market + prices will be used. + + For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, + that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date + is the journal's end date. + + For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day + of the period, by default. + + Finding market price + To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, + hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, + in this order of preference : + + 1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market + price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P direc- + tive, or (with the --infer-market-prices flag) inferred from costs. + + 2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market + price from B to A. + + 3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by com- + bining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices, + leading from A to B. + + 4. Any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices, including + both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to + B. + + There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger + reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all + possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in + --debug=2 output). That limit is currently 1000. + + Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not con- + verted. + + --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions + Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, + P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a + chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market + value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as + Ledger does) ? Adding the --infer-market-prices flag to -V, -X or + --value enables this. + + So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices will get market + prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on + the same day, the P directive takes precedence. + + There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confus- + ing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to you, + read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or + --debug=2 to troubleshoot. + + --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from: + + o multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@) + + o multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodi- + ties, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters. + hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.) + + o multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is inferred + with --infer-costs. + + There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is + not specified, prices inferred with --infer-market-prices do not help + select a default valuation commodity, as P prices would. So conversion + might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected (--debug=2 + will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation commmodity, eg: + + o -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices + + o --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-mar- + ket-prices + + Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here + is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should + work differently, see #1870.) + + 2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @ A 1 + + 2022-01-01 Positive Total prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @@ A 1 + + + 2022-01-02 Negative unit prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @ A -1 + + 2022-01-02 Negative total prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @@ A -1 + + + 2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @ A -1 + + 2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @@ A -1 + + All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each day, + the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the market + prices inferred for B: + + $ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices + P 2022-01-01 B A 1 + P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 + P 2022-01-02 B A -1 + P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 + P 2022-01-03 B A -1 + P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 + + Valuation commodity + When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM): + hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a suit- + able market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). + + When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value + TYPE): + For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as + follows, in this order of preference: + + 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on + or before valuation date. + + 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on + any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred + prices before the valuation date.) + + 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the + --infer-market-prices flag is used: the price commodity from the + latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date. + + This means: + + o If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will + convert, and to what. + + o If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices flag, + costs determine it. + + Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not con- + verted. + + Simple valuation examples + Here are some quick examples of -V: + + ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 + P 2016/11/01 EUR $1.10 + + ; purchase some euros on nov 3 + 2016/11/3 + assets:euros EUR100 + assets:checking + + ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 + P 2016/12/21 EUR $1.03 + + How many euros do I have ? + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros + EUR100 assets:euros + + What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 + $110.00 assets:euros + + What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date specified, + defaults to today) + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V + $103.00 assets:euros + + --value: Flexible valuation + -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option: + + --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. + COMM is an optional commodity symbol. + Shows amounts converted to: + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date + + The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: + + --value=then + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity, using market prices on each posting's date. + + --value=end + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity, using market prices on the last day of the report period + (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod + reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod. + + --value=now + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity using current market prices (as of when report is gener- + ated). + + --value=YYYY-MM-DD + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity using market prices on this date. + + To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: + a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: --value=now,EUR. + hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing + market prices as described above. + + More valuation examples + Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with + print: + + P 2000-01-01 A 1 B + P 2000-02-01 A 2 B + P 2000-03-01 A 3 B + P 2000-04-01 A 4 B + + 2000-01-01 + (a) 1 A @ 5 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 1 A @ 6 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 1 A @ 7 B + + Show the cost of each posting: + + $ hledger -f- print --cost + 2000-01-01 + (a) 5 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 6 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 7 B + + Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 + 2000-01-01 + (a) 2 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 2 B + + With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last + day of the journal (2000-03-01): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=end + 2000-01-01 + (a) 3 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 3 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 3 B + + Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=now + 2000-01-01 + (a) 4 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 4 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 4 B + + Show the value on 2000/01/15: + + $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 + 2000-01-01 + (a) 1 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 1 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 1 B + + You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when + reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: + + P 2000-01-01 A 2B + + 2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + + $ hledger print -x -X A + 2000-01-01 + a 0 + b 0 + + Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive specify- + ing a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no + decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the com- + modity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a com- + modity directive sets a more useful display style for A: + + P 2000-01-01 A 2B + commodity 0.00A + + 2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + + $ hledger print -X A + 2000-01-01 + a 0.50A + b -0.50A + + Interaction of valuation and queries + When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, + the following happens. + + 1. The query is separated into two parts: + + 1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:). + + 2. all other parts. + + 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based on + pre-valued amounts. + + 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. + + 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on + post-valued amounts. + + See: 1625 + + Effect of valuation on reports + Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part + of hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to + scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find + problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. + Related: #329, #1083. + + + Report -B, --cost -V, -X --value=then --value=end --value=DATE, + type --value=now + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + print + posting cost value at value at posting value at value at + amounts report end date report or DATE/today + or today journal end + balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged + asser- + tions/assign- + ments + + register + starting bal- cost value at valued at day value at value at + ance (-H) report or each historical report or DATE/today + journal end posting was made journal end + starting bal- cost value at day valued at day value at day value at + ance (-H) before each historical before DATE/today + with report report or posting was made report or + interval journal journal + start start + posting cost value at value at posting value at value at + amounts report or date report or DATE/today + journal end journal end + summary post- summarised value at sum of postings value at value at + ing amounts cost period ends in interval, val- period ends DATE/today + with report ued at interval + interval start + + running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average + total/average of displayed of displayed displayed values of displayed of displayed + values values values values + + balance (bs, + bse, cf, is) + balance sums of value at value at posting value at value at + changes costs report end date report or DATE/today of + or today of journal end sums of post- + sums of of sums of ings + postings postings + budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance + amounts changes changes changes ances changes + (--budget) + grand total sum of dis- sum of dis- sum of displayed sum of dis- sum of dis- + played val- played val- valued played val- played values + ues ues ues + + balance (bs, + bse, cf, is) + with report + interval + starting bal- sums of value at sums of values of value at sums of post- + ances (-H) costs of report start postings before report start ings before + postings of sums of report start at of sums of report start + before all postings respective post- all postings + report start before ing dates before + report start report start + balance sums of same as sums of values of balance value at + changes (bal, costs of --value=end postings in change in DATE/today of + is, bs postings in period at respec- each period, sums of post- + --change, cf period tive posting valued at ings + --change) dates period ends + end balances sums of same as sums of values of period end value at + (bal -H, is costs of --value=end postings from balances, DATE/today of + --H, bs, cf) postings before period valued at sums of post- + from before start to period period ends ings + report start end at respective + to period posting dates + end + budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance + amounts changes/end changes/end changes/end bal- ances changes/end + (--budget) balances balances ances balances + row totals, sums, aver- sums, aver- sums, averages of sums, aver- sums, aver- + row averages ages of dis- ages of dis- displayed values ages of dis- ages of dis- + (-T, -A) played val- played val- played val- played values + ues ues ues + column totals sums of dis- sums of dis- sums of displayed sums of dis- sums of dis- + played val- played val- values played val- played values + ues ues ues + grand total, sum, average sum, average sum, average of sum, average sum, average + grand average of column of column column totals of column of column + totals totals totals totals + + + --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero + starting balance. + + Glossary: + + cost calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). + + value market value using available market price declarations, or the + unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. + + report start + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise today. + + report or journal start + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. + + report end + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or + date:, otherwise today. + + report or journal end + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or + date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. + + report interval + a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the + report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperi- + ods). + +PART 4: COMMANDS + Commands overview + Here are the built-in commands: + + DATA ENTRY + These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your jour- + nal file. + + o add - add transactions using terminal prompts + + o import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files + + DATA CREATION + o close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions + + o rewrite - generate auto postings, like print --auto + + DATA MANAGEMENT + o check - check for various kinds of error in the data + + o diff - compare account transactions in two journal files + + REPORTS, FINANCIAL + o aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account + + o balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth + + o balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity + + o cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets + + o incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses + + REPORTS, VERSATILE + o balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, gains.. + + o print - show transactions or export journal data + + o register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running + total + + o roi - show return on investments + + REPORTS, BASIC + o accounts - show account names + + o activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period + + o codes - show transaction codes + + o commodities - show commodity/currency symbols + + o descriptions - show transaction descriptions + + o files - show input file paths + + o notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions + + o payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions + + o prices - show market prices + + o stats - show journal statistics + + o tags - show tag names + + o test - run self tests + + HELP + o help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager + + + ADD-ONS + And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed + by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in + hledger's commands list: + + o ui - run hledger's terminal UI + + o web - run hledger's web UI + + o iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) + + o interest - generate interest transactions + + o stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage + + o Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, + pijul, plot, and more.. + + Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. + + accounts + Show account names. + + This command lists account names. By default it shows all known + accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account direc- + tives. + + With query arguments, only matched account names and account names ref- + erenced by matched postings are shown. + + Or it can show just the used accounts (--used/-u), the declared + accounts (--declared/-d), the accounts declared but not used + (--unused), the accounts used but not declared (--undeclared), or the + first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (--find). + + It shows a flat list by default. With --tree, it uses indentation to + show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add --drop N to omit + the first few account name components. Account names can be depth- + clipped with depth:N or --depth N or -N. + + With --types, it also shows each account's type, if it's known. (See + Declaring accounts > Account types.) + + With --positions, it also shows the file and line number of each + account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration + order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. + + With --directives, it adds the account keyword, showing valid account + directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is useful + together with --undeclared when updating your account declarations to + satisfy hledger check accounts. + + The --find flag can be used to look up a single account name, in the + same way that the aregister command does. It returns the alphanumeri- + cally-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it fails + with a non-zero exit code. + + Examples: + + $ hledger accounts + assets:bank:checking + assets:bank:saving + assets:cash + expenses:food + expenses:supplies + income:gifts + income:salary + liabilities:debts + + $ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE + $ hledger check accounts + + activity + Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. + + The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction + counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the + default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. + + Examples: + + $ hledger activity --quarterly + 2008-01-01 ** + 2008-04-01 ******* + 2008-07-01 + 2008-10-01 ** + + add + Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments + will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. + + Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, or + generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the + add command, which prompts interactively on the console for new trans- + actions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be in + journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one + of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also + import). + + To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts. You can add as + many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press + control-d or control-c to exit. + + Features: + + o add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by + description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a + template. + + o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. + + o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. + + o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, pay- + ees/descriptions, dates (yesterday, today, tomorrow). If the input + area is empty, it will insert the default value. + + o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any + bare numbers entered. + + o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. + + o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. + + o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + + o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal + supports it. + + Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2015/05/22]: + Description: supermarket + Account 1: expenses:food + Amount 1: $10 + Account 2: assets:checking + Amount 2 [$-10.0]: + Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2015/05/22 supermarket + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking $-10.0 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2015/05/22]: $ + + On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the + file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). + + aregister + (areg) + + Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single + account, with each transaction displayed as one line. + + aregister shows the overall transactions affecting a particular account + (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one transaction in + this account. Transactions before the report start date are always + included in the running balance (--historical mode is always on). + + This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the register command + (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not + necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of thumb: - use areg- + ister for reviewing and reconciling real-world asset/liability accounts + - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses. + + aregister requires one argument: the account to report on. You can + write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular + expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. + + When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can be + surprising; eg if you have assets:per:checking 1 and assets:biz:check- + ing 2 accounts, hledger areg checking would select assets:biz:checking + 2. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if in doubt, write the + full account name, or a distinctive substring that matches uniquely. + + Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be shown. + aregister ignores depth limits, so its final total will always match a + balance report with similar arguments. + + Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transac- + tions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, caus- + ing it to be different from the account's real-world running balance. + + An example: this shows the transactions and historical running balance + during july, in the first account whose name contains "checking": + + $ hledger areg checking date:jul + + Each aregister line item shows: + + o the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different, + see below) + + o the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction + (probably abbreviated) + + o the total change to this account's balance from this transaction + + o the account's historical running balance after this transaction. + + Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add + the -E/--empty flag to show them. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first + 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause + visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to + ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the + --align-all flag. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options. The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json. + + aregister and custom posting dates + Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be + shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report + period. (And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This + ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance, + matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments. + + To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates + flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom + dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. + + balance + (bal) + + Show accounts and their balances. + + balance is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for + listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and + more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with + rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. + + Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance command with + convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: balancesheet, bal- + ancesheetequity, cashflow and incomestatement. When you need more con- + trol, then use balance. + + balance features + Here's a quick overview of the balance command's features, followed by + more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the + higher-level commands as well. + + balance can show.. + + o accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t) + + o optionally depth-limited (-[1-9]) + + o sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount + + ..and their.. + + o balance changes (the default) + + o or actual and planned balance changes (--budget) + + o or value of balance changes (-V) + + o or change of balance values (--valuechange) + + o or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain) + + ..in.. + + o one time period (the whole journal period by default) + + o or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL) + + ..either.. + + o per period (the default) + + o or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative) + + o or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H) + + ..possibly converted to.. + + o cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B) + + o or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM]) + + o or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM]) + + o or now (--value=now) + + o or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD) + + ..with.. + + o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign + (--invert) + + o rows and columns swapped (--transpose) + + o another field used as account name (--pivot) + + o custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format) + + o commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout) + + This command supports the output destination and output format options, + with output formats txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:) + html. In txt output in a colour-supporting terminal, negative amounts + are shown in red. + + The --related/-r flag shows the balance of the other postings in the + transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + Simple balance report + With no arguments, balance shows a list of all accounts and their + change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and + outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here + means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can + also have multi-period reports, described later.) + + For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end bal- + ance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. + + Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then alphabeti- + cally by account name. For instance (using examples/sample.journal): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode + - see below) are hidden by default. Use -E/--empty to show them + (revealing assets:bank:checking here): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E + 0 assets:bank:checking + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless + -N/--no-total is used. + + Balance report line format + For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you + can use --format FMT to customise the format and content of each line. + Eg: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" + assets $-1 + bank:saving $1 + cash $-2 + expenses $2 + food $1 + supplies $1 + income $-2 + gifts $-1 + salary $-1 + liabilities:debts $1 + --------------------------------- + 0 + + The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each + account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data + fields interpolated like so: + + %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME) + + o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) + + o MAX truncates at this width (optional) + + o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: + + o depth_spacer - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or + if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. + + o account - the account's name + + o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified + + Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-com- + modity amounts are rendered: + + o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) + + o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned + + o %, - render on one line, comma-separated + + There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no + effect, instead %(account) has indentation built in. Experimentation + may be needed to get pleasing results. + + Some example formats: + + o %(total) - the account's total + + o %-20.20(account) - the account's name, left justified, padded to 20 + characters and clipped at 20 characters + + o %,%-50(account) %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters, + total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on + one line + + o %20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for the + single-column balance report + + Filtered balance report + You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from + cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to + limit the postings being matched. Eg: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 + $-2 assets:cash + -------------------- + $-2 + + List or tree mode + By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with + their full names visible, as in the examples above. + + With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' + "leaf" names indented below their parent: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + Notes: + + o "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more compact + output, unless --no-elide is used. Boring accounts have no balance + of their own and just one subaccount (eg assets:bank and liabilities + above). + + o All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from + all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, + which requires explanation when sharing reports with non-plaintextac- + counting-users. A tree mode report's final total is the sum of the + top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown. + + o Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted + separately. + + Depth limiting + With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just -NUM (eg: -3) + balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, hiding + the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an overview + without too much detail. + + Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from + any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 + $-1 assets + $2 expenses + $-2 income + $1 liabilities + -------------------- + 0 + + Dropping top-level accounts + You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using + --drop NUM. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level account + names: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 + $1 food + $1 supplies + -------------------- + $2 + + + Showing declared accounts + With --declared, accounts which have been declared with an account + directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no + transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need + -E/--empty to see them.) + + More precisely, leaf declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will be + included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. + + The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance + report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared + accounts yet. + + Sorting by amount + With -S/--sort-amount, accounts with the largest (most positive) bal- + ances are shown first. Eg: hledger bal expenses -MAS shows your big- + gest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity is + present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity + first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a + commodity, it is treated as 0). + + Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -S + shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add + --invert to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, + which flip the sign automatically. Eg: hledger incomestatement -MAS). + + + Percentages + With -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed + as a percentage of the (column) total. + + Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a col- + umn have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each + sign, eg: + + $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` + $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` + + Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert + them to one commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or make a separate + report for each commodity: + + $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ + $ hledger bal -% cur:EUR + + Multi-period balance report + With a report interval (set by the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, + -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, -Y/--yearly, or -p/--period flag), bal- + ance shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive time + periods (and a title): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E + Balance changes in 2008: + + || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 + ===================++================================= + expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 + expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 + income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 + income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 + -------------------++--------------------------------- + || $-1 $1 0 0 + + Notes: + + o The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to fully + encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and last subpe- + riods have the same duration as the others). + + o Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are not + shown, unless -E/--empty is used. + + o Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless + -E/--empty is used. + + o Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless + --no-elide is used. (experimental) + + o Average and/or total columns can be added with the -A/--average and + -T/--row-total flags. + + o The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. + + o The --pivot FIELD option causes a different transaction field to be + used as "account name". See PIVOTING. + + Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing + in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: + + o Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total + + o Convert to a single currency with -V + + o Maximize the terminal window + + o Reduce the terminal's font size + + o View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less + -RS + + o Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal -D -O + csv | vd -f csv), Emacs' csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a + spreadsheet (hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv) + + o Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o a.html && + open a.html + + Balance change, end balance + It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in bal- + ance reports. Here is some terminology we use: + + A balance change is the net amount added to, or removed from, an + account during some period. + + An end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date + (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day in + your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. + + We call it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes + since the account was created. For a real world account, this means it + will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in your + bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) + + In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing + revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to + see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. + + balance shows balance changes by default. To see accurate historical + end balances: + + 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" + transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the + journal covers the account's full lifetime. + + 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by not + specifying a report start date, or by using the -H/--historical + flag. (-H causes report start date to be ignored when summing post- + ings.) + + Balance report types + The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how + to control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't + worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some + time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. + + There are three important option groups: + + hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] + ... + + Calculation type + The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: + + o --sum : sum the posting amounts (default) + + o --budget : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount (for + each account/period) + + o --valuechange : show the change in period-end historical balance val- + ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctua- + tions) + + o --gain : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued + balance minus each amount's original cost) + + Accumulation type + How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to + say it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's + calculation. It is one of: + + o --change : calculate with postings from column start to column end, + ie "just this column". Typically used to see revenues/expenses. + (default for balance, incomestatement) + + o --cumulative : calculate with postings from report start to column + end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used to show + changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not often used. + + o --historical/-H : calculate with postings from journal start to col- + umn end, ie "all postings from before report start date until this + column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances of + assets/liabilities/equity. (default for balancesheet, balancesheete- + quity, cashflow) + + Valuation type + Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, + before displaying the report. It is one of: + + o no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (default) + + o --value=cost[,COMM] : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to + some other commodity) + + o --value=then[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on transaction + dates + + o --value=end[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on period end + date(s) + (default with --valuechange, --gain) + + o --value=now[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on today's date + + o --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on + another date + + or one of the equivalent simpler flags: + + o -B/--cost : like --value=cost (though, note --cost and --value are + independent options which can both be used at once) + + o -V/--market : like --value=end + + o -X COMM/--exchange COMM : like --value=end,COMM + + See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. + + Combining balance report types + Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, + but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The + following restrictions are applied: + + o --valuechange implies --value=end + + o --valuechange makes --change the default when used with the bal- + ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands + + o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T + + For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valua- + tion show: + + + Valua- no valuation --value= then --value= end --value= YYYY- + tion:> MM-DD /now + Accumu- + lation:v + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + --change change in period sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + date market val- value of change change in + ues in period in period period + --cumu- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + lative report start to date market val- value of change change from + period end ues from report from report report start + start to period start to period to period end + end end + --his- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + torical journal start to date market val- value of change change from + /-H period end (his- ues from journal from journal journal start + torical end bal- start to period start to period to period end + ance) end end + + Budget report + The --budget report type activates extra columns showing any budget + goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by + periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual + income, expenses, time usage, etc. + + For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common + expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: + + ;; Budget + ~ monthly + income $2000 + expenses:food $400 + expenses:bus $50 + expenses:movies $30 + assets:bank:checking + + ;; Two months worth of expenses + 2017-11-01 + income $1950 + expenses:food $396 + expenses:bus $49 + expenses:movies $30 + expenses:supplies $20 + assets:bank:checking + + 2017-12-01 + income $2100 + expenses:food $412 + expenses:bus $53 + expenses:gifts $100 + assets:bank:checking + + You can now see a monthly budget report: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: + + o Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, + by default. + + o In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget + goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: bud- + get goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) + + o All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg assets, + assets:bank, and expenses above. + + o Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even + in list mode. + + This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg + above, the expenses actual amount includes the gifts and supplies + transactions, but the expenses:gifts and expenses:supplies accounts are + not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. + + This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the + -E/--empty flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted + ones, giving the full picture. Eg: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:gifts || 0 $100 + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + expenses:supplies || $20 0 + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with --cumulative: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses + + hledger bal -M --budget expenses + + or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): + + hledger bal -M --budget type:rx + + It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency + (cur:COMM or -X COMM [--infer-market-prices]). If showing multiple + currencies, --layout bare or --layout tall can help. + + For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. + + Budget report start date + This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a + good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of + a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ~ monthly generates + its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no + regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could + exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here + the default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: + + ~ monthly in 2020 + (expenses:food) $500 + + 2020-01-15 + expenses:food $400 + assets:checking + + $ hledger bal expenses --budget + Budget performance in 2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-15 + ==============++============ + || $400 + --------------++------------ + || $400 + + To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the + start date, with -b/-e/-p/date:, to ensure it includes the budget goal + transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, adding -b + 2020/1/1 to the above: + + $ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 + Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 + ===============++======================== + expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] + ---------------++------------------------ + || $400 [80% of $500] + + Budgets and subaccounts + You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you + have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then bud- + get(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their + parent, much like account balances behave. + + In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any + account, all its parents would have budget as well. + + To illustrate this, consider the following budget: + + ~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and + budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly + means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100. + + Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both + towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal , and transac- + tions in any other subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted + towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal. + + For example, let's consider these transactions: + + ~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/01 Google home hub + expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 + liabilities $-90.00 + + 2019/01/02 Phone screen protector + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket + expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/03 Flowers + expenses:personal $30.00 + liabilities + + As you can see, we have transactions in expenses:personal:electron- + ics:upgrades and expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of + these accounts are without explicitly defined budget, these transac- + tions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics + and expenses:personal accordingly: + + $ hledger balance --budget -M + Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan + ===============================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] + -------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and + consumption: + + $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty + Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan + ========================================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 + expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] + ----------------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + Selecting budget goals + The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate spe- + cial "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each + account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use + print --forecast to show these as forecasted transactions: + + $ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated + + By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction + rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report + interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly + periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly + budget report. + + You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to + the --budget flag. --budget=DESCPAT will match all periodic rules + whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a + regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic + rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then + select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. + + Budget vs forecast + hledger --forecast ... and hledger balance --budget ... are separate + features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules + defined in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transac- + tions for reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal + transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same + time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of + hledger 1.29: + + CLI: + + o --forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command + + o --budget is a balance command option, usable only with that command. + + Visibility of generated transactions: + + o forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary trans- + actions + + o budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts + they produce in --budget reports. + + Periodic transaction rules: + + o --forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules + + o --budget uses all periodic rules (--budget) or a selected subset + (--budget=DESCPAT) + + Period of generated transactions: + + o --forecast generates forecast transactions + + o from after the last regular transaction to the end of the report + period (--forecast) + + o or, during a specified period (--forecast=PERIODEXPR) + + o possibly further restricted by a period specified in the periodic + transaction rule + + o and always restricted within the bounds of the report period + + o --budget generates budget goal transactions + + o throughout the report period + + o possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic transac- + tion rule. + + Data layout + The --layout option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity + amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can + also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has + four possible values: + + o --layout=wide[,WIDTH]: commodities are shown on a single line, + optionally elided to WIDTH + + o --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line + + o --layout=bare: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts are + bare numbers + + o --layout=tidy: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, + with one row per data value + + Here are the --layout modes supported by each output format; note only + CSV output supports all of them: + + + - txt csv html json sql + ------------------------------------- + wide Y Y Y + tall Y Y Y + bare Y Y Y + tidy Y + + Examples: + + o Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + + o Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some com- + modities will be hidden: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++=========================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + + o Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in + each column), and account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + + o Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each commod- + ity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++============================================= + Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + ------------------++--------------------------------------------- + || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + + o Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing + data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare + "account","commodity","balance" + "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" + "total","GLD","70.00" + "total","ITOT","17.00" + "total","USD","5120.50" + "total","VEA","36.00" + "total","VHT","294.00" + + o Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable has + its own column and each row represents a single data point. See + https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy- + data.html for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other soft- + ware to consume. Here's how it looks: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy + "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" + + Useful balance reports + Some frequently used balance options/reports are: + + o bal -M revenues expenses + Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the incomes- + tatement command. + + o bal -M -H assets liabilities + Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also + available as the balancesheet command. + + o bal -M -H assets liabilities equity + Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. + Also available as the balancesheetequity command. + + o bal -M assets not:receivable + Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the + cashflow command. + + Also: + + o bal -M expenses -2 -SA + Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average + amount. + + o bal -M --budget expenses + Show monthly expenses and budget goals. + + o bal -M --valuechange investments + Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. + + o bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA + [--invert] + Show top gainers [or losers] last week + + balancesheet + (bs) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- + ances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use the + balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive + sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash or Liability + type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it + shows top-level accounts named asset or liability (case insensitive, + plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger balancesheet + Balance Sheet + + Assets: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + -------------------- + $-1 + + Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + $1 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities, but with + smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign + flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + balancesheetequity + (bse) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- + ances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown with + normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or + Equity type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, + it shows top-level accounts named asset, liability or equity (case + insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger balancesheetequity + Balance Sheet With Equity + + Assets: + $-2 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-3 cash + -------------------- + $-2 + + Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + $1 + + Equity: + $1 equity:owner + -------------------- + $1 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity, but with + smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with their + sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + cashflow + (cf) + + This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and + outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. + Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional finan- + cial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Cash type (see account + types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts + + o under a top-level account named asset (case insensitive, plural + allowed) + + o whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving. + + More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular + expression: + + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$) + + and their subaccounts. + + An example cashflow report: + + $ hledger cashflow + Cashflow Statement + + Cash flows: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + -------------------- + $-1 + + Total: + -------------------- + $-1 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment + not:receivable, but with smarter account detection. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + check + Check for various kinds of errors in your data. + + hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent + problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you + can use this check command to run them on demand, with no output and a + zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as + argument(s). + + Some examples: + + hledger check # basic checks + hledger check -s # basic + strict checks + hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks + + If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to + run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. + + Here are the checks currently available: + + Basic checks + These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger com- + mands, including check: + + o parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed + + o balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced, inferring + missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting commodities + using costs or automatically-inferred costs + + o assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. + (This check can be disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.) + + Strict checks + These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag + is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to + check: + + o accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared + + o commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared + + o balancednoautoconversion - transactions are balanced, possibly using + explicit costs but not inferred ones + + Other checks + These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to + check. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, + therefore optional: + + o ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file + + o payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared + + o recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions have a bal- + ance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting + + o tags - all tags used by transactions have been declared + + o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique + + Custom checks + A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: + + o hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward + slash) exist as file paths + + o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are + passing + + You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. See: + Cookbook -> Scripting. + + More about specific checks + hledger check recentassertions will complain if any balance-asserted + account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its lat- + est posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are regu- + larly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances + against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of + data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion + requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be + true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that + case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the man- + ual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest + assertions against real-world balances. + + close + (equity) + + Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from + another account (typically equity). This can be useful for migrating + balances to a new journal file, or for merging earnings into equity at + end of accounting period. + + By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts + (asset, liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be + configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. + + (experimental) + + This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use + cases: + + 1. With --close (default), it prints a "closing balances" transaction + that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts by default + (this requires account types to be inferred or declared); or, the + accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments. + + 2. With --open, it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction + that restores those balances from zero. This is similar to Ledger's + equity command. + + 3. With --migrate, it prints both the closing and opening transactions. + This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run + hledger close --migrate, add the closing transaction at the end of + the old file, and add the opening transaction at the start of the + new file. The matching closing/opening transactions cancel each + other out, preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting. + + 4. With --retain, it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that trans- + fers RX (revenue and expense) balances to equity:retained earnings. + Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each accounting + period; it is less necessary with computer-based accounting, but it + could still be useful if you want to see the accounting equation + (A=L+E) satisfied. + + In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: + + o the transaction descriptions can be changed with --close-desc=DESC + and --open-desc=DESC + + o the account to transfer to/from can be changed with --close-acct=ACCT + and --open-acct=ACCT + + o the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with ACCTQUERY + (account query arguments). + + By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its + amount left implicit. With --x/--explicit, the amount will be shown + explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting + will be generated for each of them (similar to print -x). + + With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings + for each cost. This is currently the best way to view investment lots. + If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can + generate very large journal entries. + + With --interleaved, each individual transfer is shown with source and + destination postings next to each other. This could be useful for + troubleshooting. + + The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, + whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end + date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the + report period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on + 2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing + date. + + close and balance assertions + Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have + been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if + there is an opening transaction). + + These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them temporar- + ily with -I, or remove them if you prefer. + + You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness + (-C, -R, status:), or generating postings (--auto), with this command, + since the balance assertions would depend on these. + + Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the + balance assertions: + + 2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 + + To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary + account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two single- + day transactions: + + ; in 2022.journal: + 2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + equity:pending -5 + + ; in 2023.journal: + 2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared + equity:pending 5 = 0 + assets:bank:checking -5 + + Example: retain earnings + Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, + appending the generated transaction to the journal: + + $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal + + Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because rev- + enues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. To see them + again, you could exclude the retain transaction: + + $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' + + Example: migrate balances to a new file + Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on + 2023-01-01: + + $ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 + # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal + # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal + + Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced + accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that + case, try adding --infer-equity.) To see the end-of-year balances + again, you could exclude the closing transaction: + + $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' + + Example: excluding closing/opening transactions + When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening + transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like + print and register. You can exclude them as shown above, but + not:desc:... is not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; + also you will want to avoid excluding the very first opening transac- + tion, which could be awkward. Here is one alternative, using tags: + + Add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except + the first, like this: + + ; 2021.journal + 2021-06-01 first opening balances + ... + 2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 + ... + + ; 2022.journal + 2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 + ... + 2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 + ... + + ; 2023.journal + 2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 + ... + + Now, assuming a combined journal like: + + ; all.journal + include 2021.journal + include 2022.journal + include 2023.journal + + The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. To + show a clean multi-year checking register: + + $ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen + + And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end bal- + ance sheet: + + $ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 + + codes + List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. + + This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the + order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional + value written in parentheses between the date and description, often + used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. + + Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes + will not be shown by default. With the -E/--empty flag, they will be + printed as blank lines. + + You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. + + Examples: + + 2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket + Food $5.00 + Checking + + 2022/1/2 (124) Post Office + Postage $8.32 + Checking + + 2022/1/3 Supermarket + Food $11.23 + Checking + + 2022/1/4 (126) Post Office + Postage $3.21 + Checking + + $ hledger codes + 123 + 124 + 126 + + $ hledger codes -E + 123 + 124 + + 126 + + commodities + List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. + + descriptions + List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions, + in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of trans- + actions. + + Example: + + $ hledger descriptions + Store Name + Gas Station | Petrol + Person A + + diff + Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It + shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in + the other. + + More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file, + it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the + same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) + Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when mul- + tiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry. + + This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from + your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree about + the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to + find out the cause. + + Examples: + + $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro + These transactions are in the first file only: + + 2014/01/01 Opening Balances + assets:bank:giro EUR ... + ... + equity:opening balances EUR -... + + These transactions are in the second file only: + + files + List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only + file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. + + help + Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with info, man, or a + pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. + TOPIC can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case + insensitive. Eg: commands, print, forecast, journal, amount, "auto + postings". + + This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger version. + It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal to a web + browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are + not installed on your system. + + By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this + order): info, man, $PAGER, less, more. You can force the use of info, + man, or a pager with the -i, -m, or -p flags, If no viewer can be + found, or the command is run non-interactively, it just prints the man- + ual to stdout. + + If using info, note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC + lookup. If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should + consider installing a newer version, eg with brew install texinfo + (#1770). + + Examples + + $ hledger help --help # show how the help command works + $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER + $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual + $ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed + + import + Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them + to the journal. Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that + would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' trans- + actions as imported, without actually importing any. + + This command may append new transactions to the main journal file + (which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not + changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the + journal file (see also add). + + Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an out- + put file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing data + will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, so + to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run + hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv. + + Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the most + common import source, and these docs focus on that case. + + Deduplication + As a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions. + This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather + "ignore transactions that have been seen before". This is intended for + when you are periodically importing foreign data which may contain + already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day you download bank + CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely run hledger import + bank.csv and only new transactions will be imported. (import is idem- + potent.) + + Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with + unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming + that: + + 1. new items always have the newest dates + + 2. item dates do not change across reads + + 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order + across reads. + + These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true + enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but + violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if + you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to + be the ones affected). + + hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by sav- + ing a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when read- + ing finance/bank.csv, it will look for and update the finance/.lat- + est.bank.csv state file. The format is simple: one or more lines con- + taining the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have pro- + cessed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on that + date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files yourself. + But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making all + transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a cer- + tain date. + + Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by + print --new, but this is less often used. + + Import testing + With --dry-run, the transactions that will be imported are printed to + the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output + is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse + it. Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not + categorised: + + $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown + + or (live updating): + + $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' + + Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently possi- + ble for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the actual + import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving them out + of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To prevent this, + do a --dry-run first and fix any problems before the real import. + + Importing balance assignments + Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit + (like hledger print -x). This means that any balance assignments in + imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see + the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with + balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances + and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting + amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: + + $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE + + (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, + please test it and send a pull request.) + + Commodity display styles + Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity + styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. + + incomestatement + (is) + + This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and + expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal + positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type + (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows + top-level accounts named revenue or income or expense (case insensi- + tive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger incomestatement + Income Statement + + Revenues: + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + -------------------- + $-2 + + Expenses: + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + -------------------- + $2 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses, but with + smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their + sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + notes + List the unique notes that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in + alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transac- + tions. The note is the part of the transaction description after a | + character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + Example: + + $ hledger notes + Petrol + Snacks + + payees + List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. + + This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared + with payee directives (--declared), used in transaction descriptions + (--used), or both (the default). + + The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | + character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This + implies --used. + + Example: + + $ hledger payees + Store Name + Gas Station + Person A + + prices + Print market price directives from the journal. With --infer-market- + prices, generate additional market prices from costs. With --infer- + reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting known prices. + Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are displayed with + their full precision. + + print + Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. + + The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the + journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date). + + Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg the + placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their deci- + mal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one alter- + ation: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) + + Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across + all transactions). + + Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. + This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it + to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the + directives and file-level comments. + + Eg: + + $ hledger print + 2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + 2008/06/01 gift + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts $-1 + + 2008/06/02 save + assets:bank:saving $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + 2008/06/03 * eat & shop + expenses:food $1 + expenses:supplies $1 + assets:cash $-2 + + 2008/12/31 * pay off + liabilities:debts $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can process + it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for certain + kinds of search, eg: + + # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. + # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. + $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food + + There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable: + + o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or bal- + ance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. + + o Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. + + o Account aliases can generate bad account names. + + Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is pre- + served. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will + not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but not + written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the + -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can be + useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and + robust against data entry errors. -x is also implied by using any of + -B,-V,-X,--value. + + Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount + (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit + amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, keeping + the output parseable. + + With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are converted to cost using that + price. This can be used for troubleshooting. + + With -m DESC/--match=DESC, print does a fuzzy search for one recent + transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should + contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, + no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be non- + zero. + + With --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a pre- + vious run. This uses the same deduplication system as the import com- + mand. (See import's docs for details.) + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) + json and sql. + + Here's an example of print's CSV output: + + $ hledger print -Ocsv + "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" + "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" + "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" + "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" + "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" + "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" + "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" + "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" + "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + + o There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's + fields repeated. + + o The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to + the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions are + reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a different + order, etc.) + + o The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" + (numeric quantity) fields. + + o The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" col- + umn, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the account- + ing sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and zero or + greater amounts under debit.) + + register + (reg) + + Show postings and their running total. + + The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in + date order, with their running total or running historical balance. + (See also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a + specific account.) + + register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity + amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity). + + It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to + see that account's activity: + + $ hledger register checking + 2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 + 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 + 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 + 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first + 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause + visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to + ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the + --align-all flag. + + The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior + postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see + only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: + + $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical + 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 + 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 + 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed. + + The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead + of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for + the whole report period). This flag implies --empty (see below). It + is affected by --historical. It works best when showing just one + account and one commodity. + + The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the transactions of + the postings which would normally be shown. + + The --invert flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used on + an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative num- + bers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account + together with the related account: + + $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking + + With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per + interval, aggregating the postings to each account: + + $ hledger register --monthly income + 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 + 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + + Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are + not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them: + + $ hledger register --monthly income -E + 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 + 2008/02 0 $-1 + 2008/03 0 $-1 + 2008/04 0 $-1 + 2008/05 0 $-1 + 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + 2008/07 0 $-2 + 2008/08 0 $-2 + 2008/09 0 $-2 + 2008/10 0 $-2 + 2008/11 0 $-2 + 2008/12 0 $-2 + + Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth + option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: + + $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h + 2008/01 assets $1 $1 + 2008/06 assets $-1 0 + 2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 + + Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these + will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of + intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full + length and comparable to the others in the report. + + With -m DESC/--match=DESC, register does a fuzzy search for one recent + posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should contain + at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, no post- + ing will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. + + Custom register output + register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. + You can override this by setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not + a bash shell variable) or by using the --width/-w option. + + The description and account columns normally share the space equally + (about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a + description width as part of --width's argument, comma-separated: + --width W,D . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in --help): + + <--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> + date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) + DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA + + and some examples: + + $ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) + $ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 + $ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable + $ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) + $ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 + $ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) + json. + + rewrite + Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. + For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print + --auto. + + This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It reads + the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds + one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. The + posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transac- + tion's first posting amount. + + Examples: + + $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' + $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' + $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger + + rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: + + = ^income amt:<0 date:2017 + (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income + (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + + Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the + two spaces between account and amount. + + More: + + $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... + $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' + $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' + + Argument for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction + with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can + use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a + factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount + includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new + commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's com- + modity. + + Re-write rules in a file + During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transac- + tions" found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this + operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. + + $ rewrite-rules.journal + + Make contents look like this: + + = ^income + (liabilities:tax) *.33 + + = expenses:gifts + budget:gifts *-1 + assets:budget *1 + + Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in trans- + actions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you want to + match the posting to add new ones. + + $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + This is something similar to the commands pipeline: + + $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ + | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ + --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ + > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in + journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added post- + ings. + + Diff output format + To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may + find useful output in form of unified diff. + + $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + + Output might look like: + + --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal + +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal + @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ + 2008/01/01 income + - assets:bank:checking $1 + + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary + + (liabilities:tax) 0 + @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ + 2008/06/01 gift + - assets:bank:checking $1 + + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts + + (liabilities:tax) 0 + + If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions contain- + ing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that multiple + files might be update according to list of input files specified via + --file options and include directives inside of these files. + + Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output + from hledger print. + + See also: + + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 + + rewrite vs. print --auto + This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same + thing, but with these differences: + + o with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all other + files. print --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect + only child files. + + o rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are + printed. print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed. + + o rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. + print --auto applies rules specified in the journal. + + roi + Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return + on your investments. + + At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an + account name) to select your investment(s) with --inv, and another + query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl. + + If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, + or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl + could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match + any of your accounts). + + This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return + (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for + the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before + display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. + + Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate + --cost or --value flags (see VALUATION). + + Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: + + o Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR). + Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of investment + becomes negative at some point in time. + + o Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of + Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or con- + verges too slowly. + + Examples: + + o Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest- + ing/roi-unrealised.ledger + + o Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html + + Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl + Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries could have + several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). + + To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, + you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): + + $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' + + If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra + level of nested quoting, eg: + + $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" + + Semantics of --inv and --pnl + Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are related + to your investment. Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored. + + In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match --inv to be + "investment postings" and other postings (not matching --inv) will be + sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI + needs to know which part of the investment value is your contributions + and which is due to the return on investment. + + o "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling + assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and + any other commodity. Example: + + 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil + assets:cash -$100 + investment:snake oil + + 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil + assets:cash $10 + investment:snake oil = 0 + + o "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: + + 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value + investment:snake oil = $57 + equity:unrealized profit or loss + + All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they + match --pnl query. Changes in value of your investment due to "profit + and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment + return. + + Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized, then postings + in the example below would be classifed as: + + 2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 + assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + investment:snake oil ; investment posting + + 2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 + equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting + snake oil ; investment posting + + 2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 + equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting + cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + snake oil $50 ; investment posting + + IRR and TWR explained + "ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was com- + puted as a difference between current value of investment and its ini- + tial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. + + However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where invest- + ments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate of + growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need differ- + ent ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements two of + them: IRR and TWR. + + Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of + return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. + Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains + would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percent- + age of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your invest- + ment, you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same + rate of return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each + period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a + way that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment is + expected to generate. + + As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that you + personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the + postings that match the query in the--inv argument and NOT match the + query in the--pnl argument. + + If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as + transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unreal- + ized gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to + compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate + of return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or + close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. + + In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net + present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present + value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This + could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done + discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger + should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel. + + Second way to compute rate of return that roi command implements is + called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also + break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, + out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period + and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR + are quite different. + + TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where in- + flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment + and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change + in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of + your investment. + + References: + + o Explanation of rate of return + + o Explanation of IRR + + o Explanation of TWR + + o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations + of both metrics + + stats + Show journal and performance statistics. + + The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, + or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report + for each report period. + + At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and number + of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate and + will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger version, + haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of interest. The + stats command's run time is similar to that of a single-column balance + report. + + Example: + + $ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal + Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal + Included files : + Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) + Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) + Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) + Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) + Payees/descriptions : 1000 + Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) + Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) + Market prices : 1000 (A) + + Run time : 0.12 s + Throughput : 8342 txns/s + + This command supports the -o/--output-file option (but not -O/--output- + format selection). + + tags + List the tags used in the journal, or their values. + + This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on trans- + actions, postings, or account declarations. + + With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular expres- + sion (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. + + With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this + query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, + desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions + and their accounts. + + With the --values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed + instead. With -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown. + + With --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, + with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are + always shown first.) + + Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings + also acquire tags from their account and transaction, transactions also + acquire tags from their postings. + + test + Run built-in unit tests. + + This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, + printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will + be non-zero. + + This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to + sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All + tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report + as a bug! + + This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- + (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with + ANSI colour codes disabled: + + $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never + + For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- + --help currently doesn't show them). + + +PART 5: COMMON TASKS + Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with + hledger. + + Getting help + Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: + + $ hledger # show available commands + $ hledger --help # show common options + $ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation + + You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by + using the help command. Eg: + + $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) + $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual + $ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command + + To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit + https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion ar- + chives can be found at https://hledger.org/support. + + Constructing command lines + hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it + simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges + described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: + + o command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to put + common options there too: hledger CMD OPTS ARGS) + + o running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing + (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS) + + o enclose "problematic" args in single quotes + + o if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metachar- + acters from the shell + + o to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add --debug=2. + + Starting a journal file + hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, + $HOME/.hledger.journal by default: + + $ hledger stats + The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. + Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. + Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. + + You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. + It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control, + and to start a new file each year. So you could do something like + this: + + $ mkdir ~/finance + $ cd ~/finance + $ git init + Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ + $ touch 2020.journal + $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc + $ source ~/.bashrc + $ hledger stats + Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Included files : + Transactions span : to (0 days) + Last transaction : none + Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) + Payees/descriptions : 0 + Accounts : 0 (depth 0) + Commodities : 0 () + Market prices : 0 () + + Setting opening balances + Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some + real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit + cards..). + + To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or + two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a + recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can + always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg + going back to january 1st. + + Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the bal- + ances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: + + o The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry + like this: + + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 + assets:cash $100 = $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances + + These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at + the end of the previous day. + + The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means + "cleared & confirmed". + + The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll + be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. + + The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error + checking. + + o The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a + similar transaction: + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 + Description: * opening balances + Account 1: assets:bank:checking + Amount 1: $1000 + Account 2: assets:bank:savings + Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 + Account 3: assets:cash + Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 + Account 4: liabilities:creditcard + Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 + Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances + Amount 5 [$-3050]: + Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2020-01-01]: . + + If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit + the journal. Eg: + + $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal + + Recording transactions + As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using + one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the + hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to + convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. + + Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual + and hledger.org for more ideas: + + 2020/1/10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + + 2020.1.12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + + 2020-01-15 paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + Reconciling + Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported bal- + ances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your + bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the + real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not + made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) + frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let + it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and dis- + crepancies. + + A typical workflow: + + 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what + hledger reports (hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to + remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the + already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful + (hledger reg cash). If you can't find the error, add an adjustment + transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain + the missing $2, it could be: + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare today's + (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal check- + ing -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the + missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to + the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the trans- + action history and running balance from your bank with the one + reported by hledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you + generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank's + clearing dates. + + 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. + + Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live- + updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --reg- + ister checking -C + + After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled + transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track + that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, + insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck + + If you're using version control, this can be another good time to com- + mit: + + $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal + + Reporting + Here are some basic reports. + + Show all transactions: + + $ hledger print + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + 2020-01-10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + + 2020-01-12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + + 2020-01-15 * paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + Show account names, and their hierarchy: + + $ hledger accounts --tree + assets + bank + checking + savings + cash + equity + opening/closing balances + expenses + food + misc + income + gifts + salary + liabilities + creditcard + + Show all account totals: + + $ hledger balance + $4105 assets + $4000 bank + $2000 checking + $2000 savings + $105 cash + $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances + $15 expenses + $13 food + $2 misc + $-1020 income + $-20 gifts + $-1000 salary + $-50 liabilities:creditcard + -------------------- + 0 + + Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to + depth 2: + + $ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 + $4000 assets:bank + $105 assets:cash + $-50 liabilities:creditcard + -------------------- + $4055 + + Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple + balance sheet: + + $ hledger bs -2 + Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-16 + ========================++============ + Assets || + ------------------------++------------ + assets:bank || $4000 + assets:cash || $105 + ------------------------++------------ + || $4105 + ========================++============ + Liabilities || + ------------------------++------------ + liabilities:creditcard || $50 + ------------------------++------------ + || $50 + ========================++============ + Net: || $4055 + + The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use bse for a + full balance sheet with equity.) + + Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: + + hledger is + Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + ===============++======================= + Revenues || + ---------------++----------------------- + income:gifts || $20 + income:salary || $1000 + ---------------++----------------------- + || $1020 + ===============++======================= + Expenses || + ---------------++----------------------- + expenses:food || $13 + expenses:misc || $2 + ---------------++----------------------- + || $15 + ===============++======================= + Net: || $1005 + + The final total is your net income during this period. + + Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: + + $ hledger register cash + 2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 + 2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 + 2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 + 2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 + + Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: + + $ hledger activity -W + 2019-12-30 ***** + 2020-01-06 **** + 2020-01-13 **** + + Migrating to a new file + At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new + file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, + and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the + close command. + + If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file. + + + +REPORTING BUGS + Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger chat or + hledger mail list) + + +AUTHORS + Simon Michael and contributors. + See http://hledger.org/CREDITS.html + + +COPYRIGHT + Copyright 2007-2023 Simon Michael and contributors. + + +LICENSE + Released under GNU GPL v3 or later. + + +SEE ALSO + hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), ledger(1) + + + +hledger-1.29.2 April 2023 HLEDGER(1) diff --git a/hledger.1 b/hledger.1 --- a/hledger.1 +++ b/hledger.1 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ .\"t -.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "March 2023" "hledger-1.29.1 " "hledger User Manuals" +.TH "HLEDGER" "1" "April 2023" "hledger-1.29.2 " "hledger User Manuals" @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ hledger is inspired by and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with beancount(1). .PP -This manual is for hledger\[aq]s command line interface, version 1.29.1. +This manual is for hledger\[aq]s command line interface, version 1.29.2. It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeeping/accounting as well! @@ -1037,8 +1037,20 @@ .IP \[bu] 2 This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. .IP \[bu] 2 -SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL +SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and Postgres. .IP \[bu] 2 +For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated +\f[V]id\f[R] field to be a PRIMARY KEY. +Eg: +.RS 2 +.IP +.nf +\f[C] +$ hledger print -O sql | sed \[aq]s/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g\[aq] | ... +\f[R] +.fi +.RE +.IP \[bu] 2 SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables created via SQL output of hledger, you would @@ -1090,6 +1102,32 @@ characters will (or will not) be used; .IP \[bu] 2 otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. +.SS Paging +.PP +When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the +pager specified by the \f[V]PAGER\f[R] environment variable, or +\f[V]less\f[R], or \f[V]more\f[R]. +(A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time rather than +scrolling everything off screen). +Currently it does this only for help output, not for reports; +specifically, +.IP \[bu] 2 +when listing commands, with \f[V]hledger\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +when showing help with \f[V]hledger [CMD] --help\f[R], +.IP \[bu] 2 +when viewing manuals with \f[V]hledger help\f[R] or +\f[V]hledger --man\f[R]. +.PP +Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses eg +for bold emphasis. +For the common pager \f[V]less\f[R] (and its \f[V]more\f[R] +compatibility mode), we add \f[V]R\f[R] to the \f[V]LESS\f[R] and +\f[V]MORE\f[R] environment variables to make this work. +If you use a different pager, you might need to configure it similarly, +to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us know). +Otherwise, you can set the \f[V]NO_COLOR\f[R] environment variable to 1 +to disable all ANSI output (see Colour). .SS Debug output .PP We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and @@ -6061,41 +6099,25 @@ described below. .SS Date adjustment .PP -With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates -which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not -\f[V]-b 2023-01-01\f[R], but \f[V]-b 2023-01\f[R] or \f[V]-b 2023\f[R] -or unspecified) are considered flexible: +When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end +dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically +adjusted to natural period boundaries. +This is convenient for producing simple periodic reports. +More precisely: .IP \[bu] 2 -A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if needed -to fall on a natural interval boundary. +an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall on a +natural period boundary .IP \[bu] 2 -Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to make -the last period a whole interval (the same length as the others). -.PP -This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is -traditional hledger behaviour). -By contrast, fully-specified exact dates will not be adjusted (this is -new in hledger 1.29). +an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the last +period the same length as the others. .PP -An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last date -is 2023-03-20: -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[V]hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, starting -from 2023-01-15, and the last period\[aq]s last day will be 2023-03-09. -(Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) -.IP \[bu] 2 -\f[V]hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04\f[R] or -\f[V]hledger bal -M\f[R] -.PD 0 -.P -.PD -The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting from -2023-01-01, and the last period\[aq]s last day will be 2023-03-31. -(Flexible start and end dates, both are adjusted.) +By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, with +\f[V]-b\f[R], \f[V]-e\f[R], \f[V]-p\f[R] or \f[V]date:\f[R], will not be +adjusted (since hledger 1.29). +This makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, but it +also means that if you are specifying a start date, you should pick one +that\[aq]s on a period boundary if you want to see simple report period +headings. .SS Period expressions .PP The \f[V]-p/--period\f[R] option specifies a period expression, which is @@ -9924,57 +9946,73 @@ latest assertions against real-world balances. .SS close .PP -\f[V]close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY]\f[R] -.PP -By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out (\[dq]closes\[dq]) all -accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. -Query arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. -Three other modes are supported: -.PP -\f[V]--retain\f[R]: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense -balances. -This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting -period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting, -but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. +(equity) .PP -\f[V]--migrate\f[R]: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and -most equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. -This can be useful when starting a new file (for performance or data -protection). -Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files -to be combined. +Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from +another account (typically equity). +This can be useful for migrating balances to a new journal file, or for +merging earnings into equity at end of accounting period. .PP -\f[V]--open\f[R]: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. -This can be useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file -unchanged. -Similar to Ledger\[aq]s equity command. +By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts (asset, +liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be +configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. .PP -You can change the equity account name with \f[V]--close-acct ACCT\f[R]. -It defaults to \f[V]equity:retained earnings\f[R] with -\f[V]--retain\f[R], or \f[V]equity:opening/closing balances\f[R] -otherwise. +\f[I](experimental)\f[R] .PP -You can change the transaction description(s) with -\f[V]--close-desc \[aq]DESC\[aq]\f[R] and -\f[V]--open-desc \[aq]DESC\[aq]\f[R]. -It defaults to \f[V]retain earnings\f[R] with \f[V]--retain\f[R], or -\f[V]closing balances\f[R] and \f[V]opening balances\f[R] otherwise. +This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use +cases: +.IP "1." 3 +With \f[V]--close\f[R] (default), it prints a \[dq]closing balances\[dq] +transaction that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts by +default (this requires account types to be inferred or declared); or, +the accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments. +.IP "2." 3 +With \f[V]--open\f[R], it prints an opposite \[dq]opening balances\[dq] +transaction that restores those balances from zero. +This is similar to Ledger\[aq]s equity command. +.IP "3." 3 +With \f[V]--migrate\f[R], it prints both the closing and opening +transactions. +This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run +\f[V]hledger close --migrate\f[R], add the closing transaction at the +end of the old file, and add the opening transaction at the start of the +new file. +The matching closing/opening transactions cancel each other out, +preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting. +.IP "4." 3 +With \f[V]--retain\f[R], it prints a \[dq]retain earnings\[dq] +transaction that transfers RX (revenue and expense) balances to +\f[V]equity:retained earnings\f[R]. +Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each accounting period; +it is less necessary with computer-based accounting, but it could still +be useful if you want to see the accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied. .PP -Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an -implicit amount. +In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: +.IP \[bu] 2 +the transaction descriptions can be changed with +\f[V]--close-desc=DESC\f[R] and \f[V]--open-desc=DESC\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +the account to transfer to/from can be changed with +\f[V]--close-acct=ACCT\f[R] and \f[V]--open-acct=ACCT\f[R] +.IP \[bu] 2 +the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with \f[V]ACCTQUERY\f[R] +(account query arguments). .PP -With \f[V]--x/--explicit\f[R] the amount will be shown explicitly, and +By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its +amount left implicit. +With \f[V]--x/--explicit\f[R], the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be -generated for each commodity. +generated for each of them (similar to \f[V]print -x\f[R]). .PP -With \f[V]--interleaved\f[R], each equity posting is shown next to the -corresponding source/destination posting. +With \f[V]--show-costs\f[R], any amount costs are shown, with separate +postings for each cost. +This is currently the best way to view investment lots. +If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can +generate very large journal entries. .PP -The default closing date is yesterday or the journal\[aq]s end date, -whichever is later. -You can change this by specifying a report end date; the last day of the -report period will be the closing date. -Eg \f[V]-e 2022\f[R] means \[dq]close on 2022-12-31\[dq]. +With \f[V]--interleaved\f[R], each individual transfer is shown with +source and destination postings next to each other. +This could be useful for troubleshooting. .PP The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal\[aq]s end date, whichever is later. @@ -9983,14 +10021,6 @@ The last day of the report period will be the closing date; eg \f[V]-e 2022\f[R] means \[dq]close on 2022-12-31\[dq]. The opening date is always the day after the closing date. -.SS close and costs -.PP -With \f[V]--show-costs\f[R], any amount costs are shown, with separate -postings for each cost. -(This currently the best way to view investment assets, showing lots and -cost bases.) -If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can -generate very large journal entries. .SS close and balance assertions .PP Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have @@ -10044,9 +10074,9 @@ \f[R] .fi .PP -Now 2022\[aq]s income statement will show only zeroes. -To see it again, exclude the retain transaction. -Eg: +Note 2022\[aq]s income statement will now show only zeroes, because +revenues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. +To see them again, you could exclude the retain transaction: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10070,8 +10100,8 @@ balanced accounting equation. (Unless you are using \[at]/\[at]\[at] notation - in that case, try adding --infer-equity.) -To see it again, exclude the closing transaction. -Eg: +To see the end-of-year balances again, you could exclude the closing +transaction: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10081,13 +10111,16 @@ .SS Example: excluding closing/opening transactions .PP When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening -transactions cause some noise in reports like \f[V]print\f[R] and -\f[V]register\f[R]. -You can exclude them as shown above, but \f[V]not:desc:...\f[R] could be -fragile, and also you will need to avoid excluding the very first -opening transaction, which can be awkward. -Here is a way to do it, using tags: add \f[V]clopen:\f[R] tags to all -opening/closing balances transactions except the first, like this: +transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like +\f[V]print\f[R] and \f[V]register\f[R]. +You can exclude them as shown above, but \f[V]not:desc:...\f[R] is not +ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; also you will want to +avoid excluding the very first opening transaction, which could be +awkward. +Here is one alternative, using tags: +.PP +Add \f[V]clopen:\f[R] tags to all opening/closing balances transactions +except the first, like this: .IP .nf \f[C] @@ -10277,18 +10310,27 @@ browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are not installed on your system. .PP -By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info -since the hledger manual is large). -You can select a particular viewer with the \f[V]-i\f[R], \f[V]-m\f[R], -or \f[V]-p\f[R] flags. +By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this +order): \f[V]info\f[R], \f[V]man\f[R], \f[V]$PAGER\f[R], \f[V]less\f[R], +\f[V]more\f[R]. +You can force the use of info, man, or a pager with the \f[V]-i\f[R], +\f[V]-m\f[R], or \f[V]-p\f[R] flags, If no viewer can be found, or the +command is run non-interactively, it just prints the manual to stdout. .PP +If using \f[V]info\f[R], note that version 6 or greater is needed for +TOPIC lookup. +If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should consider +installing a newer version, eg with \f[V]brew install texinfo\f[R] +(#1770). +.PP Examples .IP .nf \f[C] -$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed \f[R] .fi .SS import diff --git a/hledger.cabal b/hledger.cabal --- a/hledger.cabal +++ b/hledger.cabal @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ -- see: https://github.com/sol/hpack name: hledger -version: 1.29.1 +version: 1.29.2 synopsis: Command-line interface for the hledger accounting system description: The command-line interface for the hledger accounting system. Its basic function is to read a plain text file describing @@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ other-modules: Paths_hledger ghc-options: -Wall -Wno-incomplete-uni-patterns -Wno-missing-signatures -Wno-orphans -Wno-type-defaults -Wno-unused-do-bind -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path - cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.1" + cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.2" build-depends: Decimal >=0.5.1 , Diff >=0.2 @@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ , githash >=0.1.6.2 , hashable >=1.2.4 , haskeline >=0.6 - , hledger-lib >=1.29.1 && <1.30 + , hledger-lib >=1.29.2 && <1.30 , lucid , math-functions >=0.3.3.0 , megaparsec >=7.0.0 && <9.4 @@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ hs-source-dirs: app ghc-options: -Wall -Wno-incomplete-uni-patterns -Wno-missing-signatures -Wno-orphans -Wno-type-defaults -Wno-unused-do-bind -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path - cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.1" + cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.2" build-depends: Decimal >=0.5.1 , aeson >=1 @@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ , githash >=0.1.6.2 , haskeline >=0.6 , hledger - , hledger-lib >=1.29.1 && <1.30 + , hledger-lib >=1.29.2 && <1.30 , math-functions >=0.3.3.0 , megaparsec >=7.0.0 && <9.4 , microlens >=0.4 @@ -234,7 +234,7 @@ hs-source-dirs: test ghc-options: -Wall -Wno-incomplete-uni-patterns -Wno-missing-signatures -Wno-orphans -Wno-type-defaults -Wno-unused-do-bind -optP-Wno-nonportable-include-path - cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.1" + cpp-options: -DVERSION="1.29.2" build-depends: Decimal >=0.5.1 , aeson >=1 @@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ , githash >=0.1.6.2 , haskeline >=0.6 , hledger - , hledger-lib >=1.29.1 && <1.30 + , hledger-lib >=1.29.2 && <1.30 , math-functions >=0.3.3.0 , megaparsec >=7.0.0 && <9.4 , microlens >=0.4 @@ -299,7 +299,7 @@ , githash >=0.1.6.2 , haskeline >=0.6 , hledger - , hledger-lib >=1.29.1 && <1.30 + , hledger-lib >=1.29.2 && <1.30 , html , math-functions >=0.3.3.0 , megaparsec >=7.0.0 && <9.4 diff --git a/hledger.info b/hledger.info --- a/hledger.info +++ b/hledger.info @@ -1,10970 +1,11010 @@ -This is hledger.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.1 from stdin. - -INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications -START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY -* hledger: (hledger). Command-line plain text accounting tool. -END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Top, Next: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: (dir) - -hledger(1) -********** - -hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version) - - ‘hledger’ -‘hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTS] [ARGS]’ -‘hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTS] [ARGS]’ - - hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs -for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry -accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by -and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with -beancount(1). - - This manual is for hledger’s command line interface, version 1.29.1. -It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by -all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some -bookkeeping/accounting as well! You don’t need to know everything in -here to use hledger productively, but when you have a question about -functionality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip -ahead or skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an -info manual or man page on your system. You can also get it from -hledger itself with -‘hledger --man’, ‘hledger --info’ or ‘hledger help [TOPIC]’. - - The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files -describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a -useful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). -Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect -other ‘hledger-*’ executables as extra subcommands. - - hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, -timedot, or CSV format. The default file is ‘.hledger.journal’ in your -home directory; this can be overridden with one or more ‘-f FILE’ -options, or the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable. hledger CLI can -also read from stdin with ‘-f-’; more on that below. - - Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one -transaction: - -2015-10-16 bought food - expenses:food $10 - assets:cash - - Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more -_accounts_: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, -people, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using ‘:’ to -indicate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account -name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (_debit_), -negatives are outflow from it (_credit_). (Some reports show revenue, -liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; -this is normal.) - - hledger’s add command can help you add transactions, or you can -install other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more -extensive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM -+ vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see -https://hledger.org/editors.html). - - To get started, run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts, or save -some entries like the above in ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’, then try -commands like: -‘hledger print -x’ -‘hledger aregister assets’ -‘hledger balance’ -‘hledger balancesheet’ -‘hledger incomestatement’. -Run ‘hledger’ to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal -file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. - -* Menu: - -* PART 1 USER INTERFACE:: -* Options:: -* Environment:: -* Input:: -* Commands:: -* Output:: -* Limitations:: -* Troubleshooting:: -* PART 2 DATA FORMATS:: -* Journal:: -* CSV:: -* Timeclock:: -* Timedot:: -* PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS:: -* Time periods:: -* Depth:: -* Queries:: -* Pivoting:: -* Generating data:: -* Forecasting:: -* Budgeting:: -* Cost reporting:: -* Valuation:: -* PART 4 COMMANDS:: -* PART 5 COMMON TASKS:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Next: Options, Prev: Top, Up: Top - -1 PART 1: USER INTERFACE -************************ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Options, Next: Environment, Prev: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: Top - -2 Options -********* - -* Menu: - -* General options:: -* Command options:: -* Command arguments:: -* Special characters:: -* Unicode characters:: -* Regular expressions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: General options, Next: Command options, Up: Options - -2.1 General options -=================== - -To see general usage help, including general options which are supported -by most hledger commands, run ‘hledger -h’. - - General help options: - -‘-h --help’ - - show general or COMMAND help -‘--man’ - - show general or COMMAND user manual with man -‘--info’ - - show general or COMMAND user manual with info -‘--version’ - - show general or ADDONCMD version -‘--debug[=N]’ - - show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) - - General input options: - -‘-f FILE --file=FILE’ - - use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ or ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’) -‘--rules-file=RULESFILE’ - - Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) -‘--separator=CHAR’ - - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ’,’) -‘--alias=OLD=NEW’ - - rename accounts named OLD to NEW -‘--anon’ - - anonymize accounts and payees -‘--pivot FIELDNAME’ - - use some other field or tag for the account name -‘-I --ignore-assertions’ - - disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance - assignments) -‘-s --strict’ - - do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are - declared) - - General reporting options: - -‘-b --begin=DATE’ - - include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to - preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) -‘-e --end=DATE’ - - include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to - following subperiod end when using a report interval) -‘-D --daily’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by day -‘-W --weekly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by week -‘-M --monthly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by month -‘-Q --quarterly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter -‘-Y --yearly’ - - multiperiod/multicolumn report by year -‘-p --period=PERIODEXP’ - - set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once - using period expressions syntax -‘--date2’ - - match the secondary date instead (see command help for other - effects) -‘--today=DATE’ - - override today’s date (affects relative smart dates, for - tests/examples) -‘-U --unmarked’ - - include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) -‘-P --pending’ - - include only pending postings/txns -‘-C --cleared’ - - include only cleared postings/txns -‘-R --real’ - - include only non-virtual postings -‘-NUM --depth=NUM’ - - hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep -‘-E --empty’ - - show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in - hledger-ui/hledger-web) -‘-B --cost’ - - convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time -‘-V --market’ - - convert amounts to their market value in default valuation - commodities -‘-X --exchange=COMM’ - - convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM -‘--value’ - - convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than - -B/-V/-X -‘--infer-market-prices’ - - use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market - prices, as if they were P directives -‘--auto’ - - apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. -‘--forecast’ - - generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for - the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also - make ordinary future transactions visible. -‘--commodity-style’ - - Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example ’EUR1.000,00’. -‘--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)’ - - Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. ’auto’ (default): whenever stdout seems to be a - color-supporting terminal. ’always’ or ’yes’: always, useful eg - when piping output into ’less -R’. ’never’ or ’no’: never. A - NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. -‘--pretty[=WHEN]’ - - Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. - Accepts ’yes’ (the default) or ’no’ (’y’, ’n’, ’always’, ’never’ - also work). If you provide an argument you must use ’=’, e.g. - ’–pretty=yes’. - - When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, -the last one takes precedence. - - Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Command options, Next: Command arguments, Prev: General options, Up: Options - -2.2 Command options -=================== - -To see options for a particular command, including command-specific -options, run: ‘hledger COMMAND -h’. - - Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: -‘hledger print -x’. - - Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its -options after a double-hyphen, eg: ‘hledger ui -- --watch’. Or, you can -run the add-on executable directly: ‘hledger-ui --watch’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Command arguments, Next: Special characters, Prev: Command options, Up: Options - -2.3 Command arguments -===================== - -Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are -often a query, filtering the data in some way. - - You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and -then reuse them by writing ‘@FILENAME’ as a command line argument. Eg: -‘hledger bal @foo.args’. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument -that begins with a literal ‘@’, precede it with ‘--’, eg: ‘hledger bal --- @ARG’). - - Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or -argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you’ll see -a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or -nothing). Bad: - -assets depth:2 --X USD - - Good: - -assets -depth:2 --X=USD - - For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting -than you would at the command prompt. Bad: - --X"$" - - Good: - --X$ - - See also: Save frequently used options. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Special characters, Next: Unicode characters, Prev: Command arguments, Up: Options - -2.4 Special characters -====================== - -* Menu: - -* Single escaping shell metacharacters:: -* Double escaping regular expression metacharacters:: -* Triple escaping for add-on commands:: -* Less escaping:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Next: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.1 Single escaping (shell metacharacters) --------------------------------------------- - -In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as -spaces, ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘|’, ‘$’ and ‘\’ - should be "shell-escaped" -if you want hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in -single or double quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to -match an account name containing a space: - -$ hledger register 'credit card' - - or: - -$ hledger register credit\ card - - Windows users should keep in mind that ‘cmd’ treats single quote as a -regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. -PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Next: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Prev: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.2 Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) ---------------------------------------------------------- - -Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such -as ‘.’, ‘^’, ‘$’, ‘[’, ‘]’, ‘(’, ‘)’, ‘|’, and ‘\’ - may need to be -"regex-escaped" if you don’t want them to be interpreted by hledger’s -regular expression engine. This is done by writing backslashes before -them, but since backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both -shell-escaping and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal -‘$’ sign while using the bash shell: - -$ hledger balance cur:'\$' - - or: - -$ hledger balance cur:\\$ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Next: Less escaping, Prev: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters - -2.4.3 Triple escaping (for add-on commands) -------------------------------------------- - -When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described -below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or -arguments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra -level of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal ‘$’ sign while using the -bash shell and running an add-on command (‘ui’): - -$ hledger ui cur:'\\$' - - or: - -$ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ - - If you wondered why _four_ backslashes, perhaps this helps: - -unescaped: ‘$’ -escaped: ‘\$’ -double-escaped: ‘\\$’ -triple-escaped: ‘\\\\$’ - - Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable -directly: - -$ hledger-ui cur:\\$ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Less escaping, Prev: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Up: Special characters - -2.4.4 Less escaping -------------------- - -Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell -command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should -use one less level of escaping. Those places include: - - • an @argumentfile - • hledger-ui’s filter field - • hledger-web’s search form - • GHCI’s prompt (used by developers). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Unicode characters, Next: Regular expressions, Prev: Special characters, Up: Options - -2.5 Unicode characters -====================== - -hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: - - • they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command - line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web’s - search/add/edit forms, etc.) - - • they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and - on-screen alignment should be preserved. - - This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: - - • A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can - decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale - like this: ‘export LANG=en_US.UTF-8’. There are some more details - in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger - will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all - GHC-compiled programs). - - • your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) - must support unicode - - • the terminal must be using a font which includes the required - unicode glyphs - - • the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as - double width (for report alignment) - - • on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same - kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the - standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download - page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys - terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Regular expressions, Prev: Unicode characters, Up: Options - -2.6 Regular expressions -======================= - -hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: - - • query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search - form: ‘REGEX’, ‘desc:REGEX’, ‘cur:REGEX’, ‘tag:...=REGEX’ - • CSV rules conditional blocks: ‘if REGEX ...’ - • account alias directive and ‘--alias’ option: ‘alias /REGEX/ = - REPLACEMENT’, ‘--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT’ - - hledger’s regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If -they’re not doing what you expect, it’s important to know exactly what -they support: - - 1. they are case insensitive - 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing - being matched) - 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) - 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (‘\b’, ‘\B’, ‘\<’, ‘\>’) - 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write ‘\1’, it will - match the digit ‘1’. Except when doing text replacement, eg in - account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the - replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search - regexp. - 6. they do not support mode modifiers (‘(?s)’), character classes - (‘\w’, ‘\d’), or anything else not mentioned above. - - Some things to note: - - • In the ‘alias’ directive and ‘--alias’ option, regular expressions - must be enclosed in forward slashes (‘/REGEX/’). Elsewhere in - hledger, these are not required. - - • In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like ‘$’ as - a literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts - with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write ‘cur:\$’. - - • On the command line, some metacharacters like ‘$’ have a special - meaning to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. - See Special characters. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Environment, Next: Input, Prev: Options, Up: Top - -3 Environment -************* - -*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with ‘-f’. - - On unix computers, the default value is: ‘~/.hledger.journal’. - - A more typical value is something like ‘~/finance/YYYY.journal’, -where ‘~/finance’ is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is -the current year. Or, ‘~/finance/current.journal’, where -current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. - - The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of -your shell’s startup files (eg ‘~/.profile’): - -export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` - - On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set -environment variables, that will also affect applications started from -the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In -‘~/.MacOSX/environment.plist’, add an entry like: - -{ - "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" -} - - For this to take effect you might need to ‘killall Dock’, or reboot. - - On Windows computers, the default value is probably -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’. You can change this by running a -command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be -an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): - -> setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" - - Or, change it in settings: see -https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html. - - *COLUMNS* The screen width used by the register command. Default: -the full terminal width. - - *NO_COLOR* If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not -use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the -–color/–colour option. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Input, Next: Commands, Prev: Environment, Up: Top - -4 Input -******* - -hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default -data file is ‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’ (or on Windows, something like -‘C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal’). - - You can override this with the ‘$LEDGER_FILE’ environment variable: - -$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal -$ hledger stats - - or with one or more ‘-f/--file’ options: - -$ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats - - The file name ‘-’ means standard input: - -$ cat some.journal | hledger -f- - -* Menu: - -* Data formats:: -* Multiple files:: -* Strict mode:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Data formats, Next: Multiple files, Up: Input - -4.1 Data formats -================ - -Usually the data file is in hledger’s journal format, but it can be in -any of the supported file formats, which currently are: - -Reader: Reads: Used for file - extensions: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -‘journal’hledger journal files and some Ledger ‘.journal’ ‘.j’ - journals, for transactions ‘.hledger’ ‘.ledger’ -‘timeclock’timeclock files, for precise time ‘.timeclock’ - logging -‘timedot’timedot files, for approximate time ‘.timedot’ - logging -‘csv’ comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated ‘.csv’ ‘.ssv’ ‘.tsv’ - values, for data import - - These formats are described in more detail below. - - hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions -shown above. If it can’t recognise the file extension, it assumes -‘journal’ format. So for non-journal files, it’s important to use a -recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show -relevant error messages. - - You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file -path with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv -format: - -$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats - - Or to read stdin (‘-’) as timeclock format: - -$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple files, Next: Strict mode, Prev: Data formats, Up: Input - -4.2 Multiple files -================== - -You can specify multiple ‘-f’ options, to read multiple files as one big -journal. There are some limitations with this: - - • most directives do not affect sibling files - • balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous - files - - If you need either of those things, you can - - • use a single parent file which includes the others - • or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: ‘cat - a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Strict mode, Prev: Multiple files, Up: Input - -4.3 Strict mode -=============== - -hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most -important errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files -without a lot of declarations: - - • Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? - • Are all transactions balanced ? - • Do all balance assertions pass ? - - With the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, additional checks are performed: - - • Are all accounts posted to, declared with an ‘account’ directive ? - (Account error checking) - • Are all commodities declared with a ‘commodity’ directive ? - (Commodity error checking) - • Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - - You can use the check command to run individual checks – the ones -listed above and some more. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commands, Next: Output, Prev: Input, Up: Top - -5 Commands -********** - -hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). -Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. -A few assist with data entry and management. - - Run ‘hledger’ with no arguments to list the commands available, and -‘hledger CMD’ to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or -its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous -prefix of the name. Eg: ‘hledger bal’. - -* Menu: - -* Add-on commands:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Add-on commands, Up: Commands - -5.1 Add-on commands -=================== - -Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts in -your PATH - - • whose name starts with ‘hledger-’ - • whose name ends with a recognised file extension: - ‘.bat’,‘.com’,‘.exe’, ‘.hs’,‘.lhs’,‘.pl’,‘.py’,‘.rb’,‘.rkt’,‘.sh’ - or none - • and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. - - Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or -programs have a big advantage: they can use hledger’s library code, for -command-line options, parsing and reporting. - - Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. -See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. - - Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a -double dash (‘--’) preceding them. Eg you must write: - -$ hledger web -- --serve - - and not: - -$ hledger web --serve - - (because the ‘--serve’ flag belongs to ‘hledger-web’, not ‘hledger’). - - The ‘-h/--help’ and ‘--version’ flags don’t require ‘--’. - - If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the -add-on program directly, eg: - -$ hledger-web --serve - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output, Next: Limitations, Prev: Commands, Up: Top - -6 Output -******** - -* Menu: - -* Output destination:: -* Output format:: -* Commodity styles:: -* Colour:: -* Box-drawing:: -* Debug output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output destination, Next: Output format, Up: Output - -6.1 Output destination -====================== - -hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can -of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: - -$ hledger print > foo.txt - - Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also -provide the ‘-o/--output-file’ option, which does the same thing without -needing the shell. Eg: - -$ hledger print -o foo.txt -$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Output format, Next: Commodity styles, Prev: Output destination, Up: Output - -6.2 Output format -================= - -Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the -terminal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: - -- txt csv html json sql ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -aregister Y Y Y Y -balance Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1,2_ Y -balancesheet Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -balancesheetequity Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -cashflow Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -incomestatement Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y -print Y Y Y Y -register Y Y Y - - • _1 Also affected by the balance commands’ ‘--layout’ option._ - • _2 ‘balance’ does not support html output without a report interval - or with ‘--budget’._ - - The output format is selected by the ‘-O/--output-format=FMT’ option: - -$ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout - - or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the -‘-o/--output-file=FILE.FMT’ option: - -$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv - - The ‘-O’ option can be combined with ‘-o’ to override the file -extension, if needed: - -$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt - - Some notes about the various output formats: - -* Menu: - -* CSV output:: -* HTML output:: -* JSON output:: -* SQL output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV output, Next: HTML output, Up: Output format - -6.2.1 CSV output ----------------- - - • In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are - disabled automatically. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: HTML output, Next: JSON output, Prev: CSV output, Up: Output format - -6.2.2 HTML output ------------------ - - • HTML output can be styled by an optional ‘hledger.css’ file in the - same directory. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: JSON output, Next: SQL output, Prev: HTML output, Up: Output format - -6.2.3 JSON output ------------------ - - • This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - • Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful - representation of hledger’s internal data types. To understand the - JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. - - • hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 - significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can - arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction - prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show - quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We - don’t limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under - your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in - practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: SQL output, Prev: JSON output, Up: Output format - -6.2.4 SQL output ----------------- - - • This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - • SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL - - • SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will - be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables - created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to - either clear tables of existing data (via ‘delete’ or ‘truncate’ - SQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your - postings will be duped. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity styles, Next: Colour, Prev: Output format, Up: Output - -6.3 Commodity styles -==================== - -When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for -each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. - - If needed, this can be overridden by a ‘-c/--commodity-style’ option -(except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the ‘print’ command, -which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the -following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: - -$ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' - - This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple -commodities/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity -directive. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Colour, Next: Box-drawing, Prev: Commodity styles, Up: Output - -6.4 Colour -========== - -In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal -supports it: - - • if the ‘--color/--colour’ option is given a value of ‘yes’ or - ‘always’ (or ‘no’ or ‘never’), colour will (or will not) be used; - • otherwise, if the ‘NO_COLOR’ environment variable is set, colour - will not be used; - • otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) - supports it. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Box-drawing, Next: Debug output, Prev: Colour, Up: Output - -6.5 Box-drawing -=============== - -In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to -render prettier tables: - - • if the ‘--pretty’ option is given a value of ‘yes’ or ‘always’ (or - ‘no’ or ‘never’), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; - • otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Debug output, Prev: Box-drawing, Up: Output - -6.6 Debug output -================ - -We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and -develop. You can add ‘--debug[=N]’ to any hledger command line to see -additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to -9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase until -you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not affected -by ‘-o/--output-file’ (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: -‘2>&1’). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help -reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output in -a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: - -hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Limitations, Next: Troubleshooting, Prev: Output, Up: Top - -7 Limitations -************* - -The need to precede add-on command options with ‘--’ when invoked from -hledger is awkward. - - When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system -locale must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on -POSIX, set LANG to something other than C. - - In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours -are not supported. - - On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when -running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. - - In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in -hledger add. - - Not all of Ledger’s journal file syntax is supported. See hledger -and Ledger > Differences > journal format. - - On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than -Ledger. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Next: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Prev: Limitations, Up: Top - -8 Troubleshooting -***************** - -Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and -remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug -tracker): - - *Successfully installed, but "No command ’hledger’ found"* -stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should -be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, -that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. - - *I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default -file* -‘LEDGER_FILE’ should be a real environment variable, not just a shell -variable. The command ‘env | grep LEDGER_FILE’ should show it. You may -need to use ‘export’. Here’s an explanation. - - *Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or -incomplete multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: -invalid argument (invalid character)"* -Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to -have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they -will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii -characters. - - To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which -supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. - - Here’s an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: - -$ file my.journal -my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded -$ echo $LANG -C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 -$ locale -a # which locales are installed ? -C -en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use -POSIX -$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command - - If available, ‘C.UTF-8’ will also work. If your preferred locale -isn’t listed by ‘locale -a’, you might need to install it. Eg on -Ubuntu/Debian: - -$ apt-get install language-pack-fr -$ locale -a -C -en_US.utf8 -fr_BE.utf8 -fr_CA.utf8 -fr_CH.utf8 -fr_FR.utf8 -fr_LU.utf8 -POSIX -$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print - - Here’s how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: - -$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile -$ bash --login - - Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the -difference on MacOS (‘UTF-8’, not ‘utf8’). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) -allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: - -$ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf -en_US.UTF-8 -$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Next: Journal, Prev: Troubleshooting, Up: Top - -9 PART 2: DATA FORMATS -********************** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Journal, Next: CSV, Prev: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Up: Top - -10 Journal -********** - -hledger’s default file format, representing a General Journal. Here’s a -cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal format. - -* Menu: - -* Journal cheatsheet:: -* About journal format:: -* Comments:: -* Transactions:: -* Dates:: -* Status:: -* Code:: -* Description:: -* Transaction comments:: -* Postings:: -* Account names:: -* Amounts:: -* Costs:: -* Balance assertions:: -* Posting comments:: -* Tags:: -* Directives:: -* account directive:: -* alias directive:: -* commodity directive:: -* decimal-mark directive:: -* include directive:: -* P directive:: -* payee directive:: -* tag directive:: -* Periodic transactions:: -* Other syntax:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Journal cheatsheet, Next: About journal format, Up: Journal - -10.1 Journal cheatsheet -======================= - -# Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format -# (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). -# hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: - -############################################################################### -# 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. -# They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". - -# hash comment line -; semicolon comment line -comment -These lines -are commented. -end comment - -# Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, -# from ; (semicolon) to end of line. - -############################################################################### -# 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. -# They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). - -account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. -account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) -alias chkg = assets:checking -commodity $0.00 -decimal-mark . -include /dev/null -payee Whole Foods -P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 -~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description - expenses:food $400 - expenses:home $1000 - budgeted - -############################################################################### -# 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, -# usually describing movements of money. -# They begin with a date. - -# DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. -# ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. -# ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. -# ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. -# ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). - -2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way - assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. - assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. - assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. - liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. - equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. - -2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes - ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". - ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. - ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: - assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) - expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) - ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" - -Kv -2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. - ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. - assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 - expenses:clothing GBP 10 - assets:gringotts -10 gold - assets:pouch 10 gold - revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols - assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. - -2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ - assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost - assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost - assets:checking $-7.00 - -2022-01-02 assert balances - ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. - assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA - assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold - assets:savings $0 = $1000 - -1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. - ; Postings are not required. - -2022.01.01 These date -2022/1/1 formats are -12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: About journal format, Next: Comments, Prev: Journal cheatsheet, Up: Journal - -10.2 About journal format -========================= - -hledger’s usual data source is a plain text file containing journal -entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard -accounting general journal. I use file names ending in ‘.journal’, but -that’s not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction -entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between -two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger -and humans. - - hledger’s journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger’s -journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal files -as well. It’s safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and ledger on -the same journal file, eg to validate the results you’re getting. - - You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just -use the add or web or import commands to create and update it. - - Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and -track changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons -such as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and -hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, -formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor -configuration at hledger.org for the full list. - - Here’s a description of each part of the file format (and hledger’s -data model). - - A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file -comments, transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction -rules and auto posting rules as directives). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Comments, Next: Transactions, Prev: About journal format, Up: Journal - -10.3 Comments -============= - -Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (‘#’) or -a semicolon (‘;’). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore -regions beginning with a ‘comment’ line and ending with an ‘end comment’ -line (or file end). Here’s a suggestion for choosing between them: - - • ‘#’ for top-level notes - • ‘;’ for commenting out things temporarily - • ‘comment’ for quickly commenting large regions (remember it’s - there, or you might get confused) - - Eg: - -# a comment line -; another commentline -comment -A multi-line comment block, -continuing until "end comment" directive -or the end of the current file. -end comment - - Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, -from ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting -comments, and Account comments below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Transactions, Next: Dates, Prev: Comments, Up: Journal - -10.4 Transactions -================= - -Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They -represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities -between two or more named accounts. - - Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a -simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following -optional fields, separated by spaces: - - • a status character (empty, ‘!’, or ‘*’) - • a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) - • a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) - • a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of - line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) - • 0 or more indented _posting_ lines, describing what was transferred - and the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, - but not blank lines or non-indented lines). - - Here’s a simple journal file containing one transaction: - -2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Dates, Next: Status, Prev: Transactions, Up: Journal - -10.5 Dates -========== - -* Menu: - -* Simple dates:: -* Posting dates:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple dates, Next: Posting dates, Up: Dates - -10.5.1 Simple dates -------------------- - -Dates in the journal file use _simple dates_ format: ‘YYYY-MM-DD’ or -‘YYYY/MM/DD’ or ‘YYYY.MM.DD’, with leading zeros optional. The year may -be omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the -current transaction, the default year set with a ‘Y’ directive, or the -current date when the command is run. Some examples: ‘2010-01-31’, -‘2010/01/31’, ‘2010.1.31’, ‘1/31’. - - (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart -dates documented in the hledger manual.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Posting dates, Prev: Simple dates, Up: Dates - -10.5.2 Posting dates --------------------- - -You can give individual postings a different date from their parent -transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) -like ‘date:DATE’. This is probably the best way to control posting -dates precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May -reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for -easy bank reconciliation: - -2015/5/30 - expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 - assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 - -$ hledger -f t.j register food -2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 - -$ hledger -f t.j register checking -2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 - - DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will -use the year of the transaction’s date. -The ‘date:’ tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg -a ‘date:’ tag with no value is not allowed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Status, Next: Code, Prev: Dates, Up: Journal - -10.6 Status -=========== - -Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a -status mark, which is a single character before the transaction -description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, -indicating one of three statuses: - -mark status - ------------------ - unmarked -‘!’ pending -‘*’ cleared - - When reporting, you can filter by status with the ‘-U/--unmarked’, -‘-P/--pending’, and ‘-C/--cleared’ flags; or the ‘status:’, ‘status:!’, -and ‘status:*’ queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. - - Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" -state is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to -unmarked for clarity. - - To replicate Ledger and old hledger’s behaviour of also matching -pending, combine -U and -P. - - Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with -real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and -shortcuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can -toggle transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. - - What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to -you. Here’s one suggestion: - -status meaning --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review -pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big - reconciliation) -cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered - correct - - With this scheme, you would use ‘-PC’ to see the current balance at -your bank, ‘-U’ to see things which will probably hit your bank soon -(like uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of -your finances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Code, Next: Description, Prev: Status, Up: Journal - -10.7 Code -========= - -After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally -write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good -place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id -or reference number. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Description, Next: Transaction comments, Prev: Code, Up: Journal - -10.8 Description -================ - -A transaction’s description is the rest of the line following the date -and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the -"narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you -wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike -comments. - -* Menu: - -* Payee and note:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Payee and note, Up: Description - -10.8.1 Payee and note ---------------------- - -You can optionally include a ‘|’ (pipe) character in descriptions to -subdivide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on -the left (up to the first ‘|’) and an additional note field on the right -(after the first ‘|’). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more -precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Transaction comments, Next: Postings, Prev: Description, Up: Journal - -10.9 Transaction comments -========================= - -Text following ‘;’, after a transaction description, and/or on indented -lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They -are reproduced by ‘print’ but otherwise ignored, except they may contain -tags, which are not ignored. - -2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment - ; a second line of transaction comment - expenses 1 - assets - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Postings, Next: Account names, Prev: Transaction comments, Up: Journal - -10.10 Postings -============== - -A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount -from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or -tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: - - • (optional) a status character (empty, ‘!’, or ‘*’), followed by a - space - • (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing *single - spaces*, until end of line or a double space) - • (optional) *two or more spaces* or tabs followed by an amount. - - Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are -being removed. - - The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a -convenience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to -balance the transaction. - - Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name -and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing -spaces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before -the amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account names, Next: Amounts, Prev: Postings, Up: Journal - -10.11 Account names -=================== - -Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in -Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such -as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed -from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". - - You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the -traditional accounting categories, which in english are ‘assets’, -‘liabilities’, ‘equity’, ‘revenues’, ‘expenses’. (You might see these -referred to as A, L, E, R, X for short.) - - For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts -into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account -name parts. For example, from the account names ‘assets:bank:checking’ -and ‘expenses:food’, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: - -assets -assets:bank -assets:bank:checking -expenses -expenses:food - - Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: - -assets - bank - checking -expenses - food - - hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you -can go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account -names relatively simple may be best when starting out. - - Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, -numbers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an -amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by *two or -more spaces* (or tabs). - - Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate -virtual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to -the account name have no special meaning. - - Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account -aliases. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amounts, Next: Costs, Prev: Account names, Up: Journal - -10.12 Amounts -============= - -After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: between -account name and amount, there must be *two or more spaces*.) - - hledger’s amount format is flexible, supporting several international -formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the -"quantity"): - -1 - - ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this -below), to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a -separating space: - -$1 -4000 AAPL -3 "green apples" - - Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus -is the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side -commodity symbol: - --$1 -$-1 - - One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable -when parsing (but they won’t be displayed in output): - -+ $1 -$- 1 - - Scientific E notation is allowed: - -1E-6 -EUR 1E3 - -* Menu: - -* Decimal marks digit group marks:: -* Commodity:: -* Directives influencing number parsing and display:: -* Commodity display style:: -* Rounding:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Decimal marks digit group marks, Next: Commodity, Up: Amounts - -10.12.1 Decimal marks, digit group marks ----------------------------------------- - -A _decimal mark_ can be written as a period or a comma: - -1.23 -1,23456780000009 - - In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), -groups of digits can optionally be separated by a _digit group mark_ - a -space, comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): - - $1,000,000.00 - EUR 2.000.000,00 -INR 9,99,99,999.00 - 1 000 000.9455 - - Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal -mark is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? - -1,000 -1.000 - - If you don’t tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above -are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. - - To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, -especially if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands -separators), we recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark -character in each journal file, using a directive at the top of the -file. The ‘decimal-mark’ directive is best, otherwise ‘commodity’ -directives will also work. These are described below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity, Next: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Prev: Decimal marks digit group marks, Up: Amounts - -10.12.2 Commodity ------------------ - -Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal -number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or -any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. - - If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or -punctuation), you must always write it inside double quotes (‘"green -apples"’, ‘"ABC123"’). - - If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with -name ‘""’; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". - - Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more -powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of -the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: ‘1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 -TSLA’. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in -hledger’s output; you can’t write them directly in the journal file. - - (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger’s internals, -these are the ‘Amount’ and ‘MixedAmount’ types.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Next: Commodity display style, Prev: Commodity, Up: Amounts - -10.12.3 Directives influencing number parsing and display ---------------------------------------------------------- - -You can add ‘decimal-mark’ and ‘commodity’ directives to the journal, to -declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These -are described below, but here’s a quick example: - -# the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) -decimal-mark . - -# display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: -commodity $1,000.00 -commodity EUR 1.000,00 -commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 -commodity 1 000 000.9455 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display style, Next: Rounding, Prev: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Up: Amounts - -10.12.4 Commodity display style -------------------------------- - -For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display -style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all -amounts displayed by the ‘print’ command, are displayed with all of -their decimal digits visible.) - - A commodity’s display style is inferred as follows. - - First, if a default commodity is declared with ‘D’, this commodity -and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. - - Then each commodity’s style is inferred from one of the following, in -order of preference: - - • The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol - commodity), if any. - • The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal’s transactions. - (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are - ignored, currently.) - • The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: ‘$1000.00’. - (Symbol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) - - A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: - - • Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first - amount - • Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group - sizes), if any - • Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. - - Cost amounts don’t affect the commodity display style directly, but -occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting’s amount is -inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a -commodity directive to fix the display style. - - To summarise: each commodity’s amounts will be normalised to (a) the -style declared by a ‘commodity’ directive, or (b) the style of the first -posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style and -the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are -showing amounts in a way you don’t like, eg with too many decimal -places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: - -# declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their -# input number formats and output display styles: -commodity EUR 1.000, -commodity $1000.00 -commodity 1000.00000000 BTC -commodity 1 000. - - The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command -line option. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Rounding, Prev: Commodity display style, Up: Amounts - -10.12.5 Rounding ----------------- - -Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal -places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by the -commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker’s rounding: it -rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal -places is "0"). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Costs, Next: Balance assertions, Prev: Amounts, Up: Journal - -10.13 Costs -=========== - -After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling -price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either ‘@ -UNITPRICE’ or ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’ after it. This indicates a conversion -transaction, where one commodity is exchanged for another. - - (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, -discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded -that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it -"cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase -or a sale.) - - Costs are usually written explicitly with ‘@’ or ‘@@’, but can also -be inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. -Note, if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the -first posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. - - As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign -currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or -implicitly: - - 1. Write the price per unit, as ‘@ UNITPRICE’ after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 - - 2. Write the total price, as ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’ after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot - assets:dollars - - 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, - and let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. - Note the effect of posting order: the price is added to first - posting, making it ‘€100 @@ $135’, as in example 2: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros €100 ; one hundred euros purchased - assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 - - Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the ‘-B/--cost’ -flag; this is discussed more in the ˜COST REPORTING section. - -* Menu: - -* Other cost/lot notations:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other cost/lot notations, Up: Costs - -10.13.1 Other cost/lot notations --------------------------------- - -A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a number -of cost/lot-related notations: - - • ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’ - • expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger - • when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at - selling time - - • ‘(@) UNITCOST’ and ‘(@@) TOTALCOST’ (virtual cost) - • like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, - don’t use it when inferring market prices". - - Currently, hledger treats the above like ‘@’ and ‘@@’; the -parentheses are ignored. - - • ‘{=FIXEDUNITCOST}’ and ‘{{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}}’ (fixed price) - • when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don’t - let it fluctuate in value reports" - - • ‘{UNITCOST}’ and ‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ (lot price) - • can be used identically to ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’, - also creates a lot - • when selling, combined with ‘@ ...’, specifies an investment - lot by its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present - - • and related: ‘[YYYY/MM/DD]’ (lot date) - • when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot - • when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date - - • ‘(SOME TEXT)’ (lot note) - • when buying, attaches this note to the lot - • when selling, selects a lot by its note - - Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after -the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction -balancing.) - - For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: - - • ‘@ UNITCOST’ and ‘@@ TOTALCOST’ - • expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger - • when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined - with ‘{...}’: documents the cost/selling price (not used for - transaction balancing) - - • ‘{UNITCOST}’ and ‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ - • when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction - balancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis - attached - • when selling (reducing), - • selects a lot by its cost basis - • raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be - selected unambiguously (depending on booking method - configured) - • expresses the selling price for transaction balancing - - Currently, hledger accepts the ‘{UNITCOST}’/‘{{TOTALCOST}}’ notation -but ignores it. - - • variations: ‘{}’, ‘{YYYY-MM-DD}’, ‘{"LABEL"}’, ‘{UNITCOST, - "LABEL"}’, ‘{UNITCOST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"}’ etc. - - Currently, hledger rejects these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assertions, Next: Posting comments, Prev: Costs, Up: Journal - -10.14 Balance assertions -======================== - -hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. -These look like, for example, ‘= EXPECTEDBALANCE’ following a posting’s -amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and -b after each posting: - -2013/1/1 - a $1 =$1 - b =$-1 - -2013/1/2 - a $1 =$2 - b $-1 =$-2 - - After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance -assertions and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions -can protect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances -while cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with -the ‘-I/--ignore-assertions’ flag, which can be useful for -troubleshooting or for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently -does not disable balance assignments, described below). - -* Menu: - -* Assertions and ordering:: -* Assertions and multiple included files:: -* Assertions and multiple -f files:: -* Assertions and commodities:: -* Assertions and prices:: -* Assertions and subaccounts:: -* Assertions and virtual postings:: -* Assertions and auto postings:: -* Assertions and precision:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and ordering, Next: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.1 Assertions and ordering -------------------------------- - -hledger sorts an account’s postings and assertions first by date and -then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is -different from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. -(Also, Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated -postings to the same account within a transaction.) - - So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder -differently-dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder -same-dated transactions or postings, assertions might break and require -updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise -control over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you -can assert intra-day balances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple included files, Next: Assertions and multiple -f files, Prev: Assertions and ordering, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.2 Assertions and multiple included files ----------------------------------------------- - -Multiple files included with the ‘include’ directive are processed as if -concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting order -within each file. It means that balance assertions in later files will -see balance from earlier files. - - And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, -split across multiple files, and you want to assert the account’s -balance on that day, you’ll need to put the assertion in the right file -- the last one in the sequence, probably. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple -f files, Next: Assertions and commodities, Prev: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.3 Assertions and multiple -f files ----------------------------------------- - -Unlike ‘include’, when multiple files are specified on the command line -with multiple ‘-f/--file’ options, balance assertions will not see -balance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want -problems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. - - If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use -‘include’, or concatenate the files temporarily. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and commodities, Next: Assertions and prices, Prev: Assertions and multiple -f files, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.4 Assertions and commodities ----------------------------------- - -The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in -fact the assertion checks only this commodity’s balance within the -(possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions work -in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. - - To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you -can write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity’s balance. - - You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double -equals sign (‘== EXPECTEDBALANCE’). This asserts that there are no -other commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, -that their balance is 0). - -2013/1/1 - a $1 - a 1€ - b $-1 - c -1€ - -2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed - a 0 = $1 - a 0 = 1€ - b 0 == $-1 - c 0 == -1€ - -2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1€ - a 0 == $1 - - It’s not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance -that has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each -commodity into its own subaccount: - -2013/1/1 - a:usd $1 - a:euro 1€ - b - -2013/1/2 - a 0 == 0 - a:usd 0 == $1 - a:euro 0 == 1€ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and prices, Next: Assertions and subaccounts, Prev: Assertions and commodities, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.5 Assertions and prices ------------------------------ - -Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without -one: - -2019/1/1 - (a) $1 @ €1 = $1 - - We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows -them, even though they don’t affect whether the assertion passes or -fails. This is for backward compatibility (hledger’s close command used -to generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance -_assignments_ do use them (see below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and subaccounts, Next: Assertions and virtual postings, Prev: Assertions and prices, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.6 Assertions and subaccounts ----------------------------------- - -The balance assertions above (‘=’ and ‘==’) do not count the balance -from subaccounts; they check the account’s exclusive balance only. You -can assert the balance including subaccounts by writing ‘=*’ or ‘==*’, -eg: - -2019/1/1 - equity:opening balances - checking:a 5 - checking:b 5 - checking 1 ==* 11 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and virtual postings, Next: Assertions and auto postings, Prev: Assertions and subaccounts, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.7 Assertions and virtual postings ---------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they -are not affected by the ‘--real/-R’ flag or ‘real:’ query. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and auto postings, Next: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and virtual postings, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.8 Assertions and auto postings ------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions _are_ affected by the ‘--auto’ flag, which generates -auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings -are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two -balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of -these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: - - • assert the balance calculated with ‘--auto’, and always use - ‘--auto’ with that file - • or assert the balance calculated without ‘--auto’, and never use - ‘--auto’ with that file - • or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings - (or avoid auto postings entirely). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and auto postings, Up: Balance assertions - -10.14.9 Assertions and precision --------------------------------- - -Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are not -always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may limit the -display precision, but this will not affect balance assertions. Balance -assertion failure messages show exact amounts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Posting comments, Next: Tags, Prev: Balance assertions, Up: Journal - -10.15 Posting comments -====================== - -Text following ‘;’, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented -lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are -reproduced by ‘print’ but otherwise ignored, except they may contain -tags, which are not ignored. - -2012-01-01 - expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 - assets - ; a comment for posting 2 - ; a second comment line for posting 2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Tags, Next: Directives, Prev: Posting comments, Up: Journal - -10.16 Tags -========== - -Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, -postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. - - They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately -followed by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account -directive’s comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that -things in comments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are -recorded: one on the checking account, two on the transaction, and one -on the expenses posting: - -account assets:checking ; accounttag: - -2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: - ; transactiontag-2: - assets:checking $-1 - expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: - - Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. -And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings’ -accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively -has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the -transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses -posting). - - You can list tag names with ‘hledger tags [NAMEREGEX]’, or match by -tag name with a ‘tag:NAMEREGEX’ query. - -* Menu: - -* Tag values:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Tag values, Up: Tags - -10.16.1 Tag values ------------------- - -Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a -comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this -means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the -following posting, the three tags’ values are "value 1", "value 2", and -"" (empty) respectively: - - expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz - - Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than -overriding: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the -new name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to -override a tag’s value or remove a tag.) - - You can list a tag’s values with ‘hledger tags TAGNAME --values’, or -match by tag value with a ‘tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX’ query. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives, Next: account directive, Prev: Tags, Up: Journal - -10.17 Directives -================ - -A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, -that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, -and so on. hledger’s directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger’s, -but there are many differences, and also some differences between -hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: - - • _subdirective_ - Some directives support subdirectives, written - indented below the parent directive. - - • _decimal mark_ - The character to interpret as a decimal mark - (period or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. - - • _display style_ - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: - symbol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of - decimal places. - - Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you -will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key -directives for particular needs: - -purpose directives --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*READING DATA:* -Declare file’s decimal mark to help parse ‘decimal-mark’ -amounts accurately -Rewrite account names ‘alias’ -Comment out sections of the data ‘comment’ -Include extra data files ‘include’ -*GENERATING DATA:* -Generate recurring transactions or budget ‘~’ -goals -Generate extra postings on transactions ‘=’ -*CHECKING FOR ERRORS:* -Define valid entities to provide more ‘account’, ‘commodity’, -error checking ‘payee’ -*REPORTING:* -Declare accounts’ type and display order ‘account’ -Declare commodity display styles ‘commodity’ -Declare market prices ‘P’ - -* Menu: - -* Directive effects:: -* Directives and multiple files:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directive effects, Next: Directives and multiple files, Up: Directives - -10.17.1 Directive effects -------------------------- - -And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal -entries (transactions) it affects: - -directivewhat it does ends - at - file - end? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*‘account’*Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; andN - its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. -*‘alias’*Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of Y - current file or ‘end aliases’. Command line equivalent: - ‘--alias’ -*‘comment’*Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file orY - ‘end comment’. -*‘commodity’*Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checkingN,Y,N,N - all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing - amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of - current file (if there is no ‘decimal-mark’ directive) 3. and - the display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is - also the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in - this commodity. Takes precedence over ‘D’. Subdirectives: - ‘format’ (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: - ‘-c/--commodity-style’ -*‘decimal-mark’*Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all Y - commodities in following entries until next ‘decimal-mark’ or - end of current file. Included files can override. Takes - precedence over ‘commodity’ and ‘D’. -*‘include’*Includes entries and directives from another file, as if theyN - were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple - ‘-f/--file’ -*‘payee’*Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N -*‘P’*Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N - reports. -*‘~’*Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N -(tilde)transactions with ‘--forecast’ and budget goals with ‘balance - --budget’. -Other -syntax: -*‘applyPrepends a common parent account to all account names, in Y -account’*following entries until end of current file or ‘end apply - account’. -*‘D’*Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N - there is no ‘commodity’ directive for this commodity: its - decimal mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. -*‘Y’*Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y - entries until end of current file. -*‘=’*Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly -(equals)matched transactions with ‘--auto’, in current, parent, and - child files (but not sibling files, see #1212). -*OtherOther directives from Ledger’s file format are accepted but -Ledgerignored. -directives* - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Directives and multiple files, Prev: Directive effects, Up: Directives - -10.17.2 Directives and multiple files -------------------------------------- - -If you use multiple ‘-f’/‘--file’ options, or the ‘include’ directive, -hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect -input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which they -occur (and on any included files in that region). - - This may seem inconvenient, but it’s intentional; it makes reports -stable and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise -you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in a -different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up your -files. - - It can be surprising though; for example, it means that ‘alias’ -directives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: account directive, Next: alias directive, Prev: Directives, Up: Journal - -10.18 ‘account’ directive -========================= - -‘account’ directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places -that amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these -declarations can provide several benefits: - - • They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a - reference. - • In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by - transactions, which helps detect typos. - • They control account display order in reports, allowing - non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - • They help with account name completion (in hledger add, - hledger-web, hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) - • They can store additional account information as comments, or as - tags which can be used to filter or pivot reports. - • They can help hledger know your accounts’ types (asset, liability, - equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement. - - They are written as the word ‘account’ followed by a hledger-style -account name, eg: - -account assets:bank:checking - - Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not -allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts -used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: - -account (assets:bank:checking) - -* Menu: - -* Account comments:: -* Account subdirectives:: -* Account error checking:: -* Account display order:: -* Account types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account comments, Next: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive - -10.18.1 Account comments ------------------------- - -Text following *two or more spaces* and ‘;’ at the end of an account -directive line, and/or following ‘;’ on indented lines immediately below -it, form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may -contain tags, which are not ignored. - - The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because -‘;’ is allowed in account names. - -account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon - ; next-line comment - ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account subdirectives, Next: Account error checking, Prev: Account comments, Up: account directive - -10.18.2 Account subdirectives ------------------------------ - -Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently -ignored: - -account assets:bank:checking - format subdirective is ignored - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account error checking, Next: Account display order, Prev: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive - -10.18.3 Account error checking ------------------------------- - -By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence when -a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means hledger -can’t warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the journal. -Usually you’ll find that error later, as an extra account in balance -reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. - - In strict mode, enabled with the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, hledger will -report an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not -been declared by an account directive. Some notes: - - • The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the - correct account name capitalisation. - • The account directive’s scope is "whole file and below" (see - directives). This means it affects all of the current file, and - any files it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The - position of account directives within the file does not matter, - though it’s usual to put them at the top. - • Accounts can only be declared in ‘journal’ files, but will affect - included files of all types. - • It’s currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" - with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account display order, Next: Account types, Prev: Account error checking, Up: account directive - -10.18.4 Account display order ------------------------------ - -The order in which account directives are written influences the order -in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By -default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these -account directives to the journal file: - -account assets -account liabilities -account equity -account revenues -account expenses - - those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: - -$ hledger accounts -1 -assets -liabilities -equity -revenues -expenses - - Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. - - Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group -of sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this -directive: - -account other:zoo - - would influence the position of ‘zoo’ among ‘other’’s subaccounts, -but not the position of ‘other’ among the top-level accounts. This -means: - - • you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg ‘account other’ - above) that you don’t intend to post to, just to customize their - display order - • sibling accounts stay together (you couldn’t display ‘x:y’ in - between ‘a:b’ and ‘a:c’). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Account types, Prev: Account display order, Up: account directive - -10.18.5 Account types ---------------------- - -hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, -expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and -incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the ‘type:’ query. - - As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types -automatically if you are using common english-language top-level account -names (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types -explicitly, by adding a ‘type:’ tag to your top-level account -directives. Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The -tag’s value should be one of the five main account types: - - • ‘A’ or ‘Asset’ (things you own) - • ‘L’ or ‘Liability’ (things you owe) - • ‘E’ or ‘Equity’ (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of - assets & liabilities) - • ‘R’ or ‘Revenue’ (what you received money from, AKA income; - technically part of Equity) - • ‘X’ or ‘Expense’ (what you spend money on; technically part of - Equity) - - or, it can be (these are used less often): - - • ‘C’ or ‘Cash’ (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the - cashflow report) - • ‘V’ or ‘Conversion’ (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST - REPORTING).) - - Here is a typical set of account type declarations: - -account assets ; type: A -account liabilities ; type: L -account equity ; type: E -account revenues ; type: R -account expenses ; type: X - -account assets:bank ; type: C -account assets:cash ; type: C - -account equity:conversion ; type: V - - Here are some tips for working with account types. - - • The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. - These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get - going; if they don’t work for you, just ignore them and declare - your account types. See also Regular expressions. - - If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: - --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash - ^assets?(:|$) | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense - - • If you declare any account types, it’s a good idea to declare an - account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared - and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. - - • Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See - Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. - - • As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their - parent account. More precisely, an account’s type is decided by - the first of these that exists: - - 1. A ‘type:’ declaration for this account. - 2. A ‘type:’ declaration in the parent accounts above it, - preferring the nearest. - 3. An account type inferred from this account’s name. - 4. An account type inferred from a parent account’s name, - preferring the nearest parent. - 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. - - • For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: - - $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: alias directive, Next: commodity directive, Prev: account directive, Up: Journal - -10.19 ‘alias’ directive -======================= - -You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or -parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: - - • expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing - easier data entry and a less verbose journal - • adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts - • experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy - • combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference - on one line - • customising reports - - Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. -They do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or -hledger-web. - - Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use -correctly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; -more on this below. - - See also Rewrite account names. - -* Menu: - -* Basic aliases:: -* Regex aliases:: -* Combining aliases:: -* Aliases and multiple files:: -* end aliases directive:: -* Aliases can generate bad account names:: -* Aliases and account types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Basic aliases, Next: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.1 Basic aliases ---------------------- - -To set an account alias, use the ‘alias’ directive in your journal file. -This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its -included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces -around the = are optional: - -alias OLD = NEW - - Or, you can use the ‘--alias 'OLD=NEW'’ option on the command line. -This affects all entries. It’s useful for trying out aliases -interactively. - - OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will -replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. -Subaccounts are also affected. Eg: - -alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking -; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Regex aliases, Next: Combining aliases, Prev: Basic aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.2 Regex aliases ---------------------- - -There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, -indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the only -place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular -expression.) - - Eg: - -alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT - - or: - -$ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... - - Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by -REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. - - If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg -‘/\/=:’. - - If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced -by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: - -alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 -; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" - - REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end -of option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining aliases, Next: Aliases and multiple files, Prev: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.3 Combining aliases -------------------------- - -You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives -and/or command line options. - - Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, -then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the -effect of previously applied aliases. - - In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be -applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal -entry, we apply: - - 1. ‘alias’ directives preceding the journal entry, most recently - parsed first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to - top) - 2. ‘--alias’ options, in the order they appeared on the command line - (left to right). - - In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: - - • the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied - first - • the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on - • aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. - - This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps -provide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way -independent of which files are being read and in which order. - - In case of trouble, adding ‘--debug=6’ to the command line will show -which aliases are being applied when. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and multiple files, Next: end aliases directive, Prev: Combining aliases, Up: alias directive - -10.19.4 Aliases and multiple files ----------------------------------- - -As explained at Directives and multiple files, ‘alias’ directives do not -affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, - -hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal - - account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. -Including the aliases doesn’t work either: - -include a.aliases - -2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases - foo 1 - bar - - This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the -start of your top-most file, like this: - -alias foo=Foo -alias bar=Bar - -2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above - foo 1 - bar - -include c.journal ; also affected - - -File: hledger.info, Node: end aliases directive, Next: Aliases can generate bad account names, Prev: Aliases and multiple files, Up: alias directive - -10.19.5 ‘end aliases’ directive -------------------------------- - -You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the -journal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: - -end aliases - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Next: Aliases and account types, Prev: end aliases directive, Up: alias directive - -10.19.6 Aliases can generate bad account names ----------------------------------------------- - -Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, which -could cause confusing reports or invalid ‘print’ output. For example, -you could erase all account names: - -2021-01-01 - a:aa 1 - b - -$ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' -2021-01-01 - 1 - - The above ‘print’ output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert -an illegal double space, causing ‘print’ output that would give a -different journal when reparsed: - -2021-01-01 - old 1 - other - -$ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print -2021-01-01 - new USD 1 - other - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and account types, Prev: Aliases can generate bad account names, Up: alias directive - -10.19.7 Aliases and account types ---------------------------------- - -If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account -types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in -effect. - - However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg -renaming parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could -prevent child accounts from inheriting the account type of their -parents. - - Secondly, if an account’s type is being inferred from its name, -renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. - - If you are using account aliases and the ‘type:’ query is not -matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts -command, eg something like: - -$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a - - -File: hledger.info, Node: commodity directive, Next: decimal-mark directive, Prev: alias directive, Up: Journal - -10.20 ‘commodity’ directive -=========================== - -You can use ‘commodity’ directives to declare your commodities. In fact -the ‘commodity’ directive performs several functions at once: - - 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can - optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf - Commodity error checking) - - 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to - expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international - number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both - ‘1,000’ and ‘1.000’ as 1. (Cf Amounts) - - 3. It declares how to render the commodity’s amounts when displaying - output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of - decimal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display - style) - - You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives -sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable -parsing and display. - - Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since -for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). - - A commodity directive is just the word ‘commodity’ followed by a -sample amount, like this: - -;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT - -commodity $1000.00 -commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment - - It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the ‘format’ -subdirective, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol -appears twice; it must be the same in both places: - -;commodity SYMBOL -; format SAMPLEAMOUNT - -; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, -; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, -; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. -commodity INR - format INR 1,00,00,000.00 - - Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or -punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). - - The amount’s quantity does not matter; only the format is -significant. It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a -comma - followed by 0 or more decimal digits. - - A few more examples: - -# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: -commodity $1,000.00 -commodity EUR 1.000,00 -commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 -commodity 1 000 000. - - Note hledger normally uses banker’s rounding, so 0.5 displayed with -zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) - - Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display -style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. - -* Menu: - -* Commodity error checking:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity error checking, Up: commodity directive - -10.20.1 Commodity error checking --------------------------------- - -In strict mode, enabled with the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ flag, hledger will -report an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared -by a ‘commodity’ directive. This works similarly to account error -checking, see the notes there for more details. - - Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because -currently it’s not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity -with a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts -are always allowed to have no commodity symbol. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark directive, Next: include directive, Prev: commodity directive, Up: Journal - -10.21 ‘decimal-mark’ directive -============================== - -You can use a ‘decimal-mark’ directive - usually one per file, at the -top of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark -when parsing amounts in this file. It can look like - -decimal-mark . - - or - -decimal-mark , - - This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we -recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg -thousands separators). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: include directive, Next: P directive, Prev: decimal-mark directive, Up: Journal - -10.22 ‘include’ directive -========================= - -You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include -directive, like this: - -include FILEPATH - - Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or -timedot files can be included (not CSV files, currently). - - If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the -current file’s folder. - - A tilde means home directory, eg: ‘include ~/main.journal’. - - The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: -‘include *.journal’. - - There is limited support for recursive wildcards: ‘**/’ (the slash is -required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It’s not super convenient -since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but -this can be done, eg: ‘include */**/*.journal’. - - The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, -overriding the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input -files): ‘include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: P directive, Next: payee directive, Prev: include directive, Up: Journal - -10.23 ‘P’ directive -=================== - -The ‘P’ directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate -between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports to -convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or after -that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock exchange, -cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. - - The format is: - -P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT - - DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the -commodity being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and -quantity) of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this -date. Examples: - -# one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: -P 2009-01-01 € $1.35 - -# and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: -P 2010-01-01 € $1.40 - - The ‘-V’, ‘-X’ and ‘--value’ flags use these market prices to show -amount values in another commodity. See Valuation. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: payee directive, Next: tag directive, Prev: P directive, Up: Journal - -10.24 ‘payee’ directive -======================= - -‘payee PAYEE NAME’ - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which -may appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report -an error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been -declared. Eg: - -payee Whole Foods - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: tag directive, Next: Periodic transactions, Prev: payee directive, Up: Journal - -10.25 ‘tag’ directive -===================== - -‘tag TAGNAME’ - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names -allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: - -tag item-id - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is -used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use -of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can -declare and check your tags . - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic transactions, Next: Other syntax, Prev: tag directive, Up: Journal - -10.26 Periodic transactions -=========================== - -The ‘~’ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives -allow hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in -reports, not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. - - Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, -read this whole section, or at least these tips: - - 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - - read about this below. - 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with ‘hledger - print --forecast tag:generated’ or ‘hledger register --forecast - tag:generated’. - 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last - non-forecasted transaction’s date. - 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. - See below for the exact start/end rules. - 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs - improvement, but is worth studying. - 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a - natural boundary of that interval. Eg in ‘weekly from DATE’, DATE - must be a monday. ‘~ weekly from 2019/10/1’ (a tuesday) will give - an error. - 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically - expanded to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done - to improve reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. - Yes, it’s a bit inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ‘~ every 10th - day of month from 2020/01’, which is equivalent to ‘~ every 10th - day of month from 2020/01/01’, will be adjusted to start on - 2019/12/10. - -* Menu: - -* Periodic rule syntax:: -* Periodic rules and relative dates:: -* Two spaces between period expression and description!:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rule syntax, Next: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.1 Periodic rule syntax ----------------------------- - -A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the -date replaced by a tilde (‘~’) followed by a period expression -(mnemonic: ‘~’ looks like a recurring sine wave.): - -# every first of month -~ monthly - expenses:rent $2000 - assets:bank:checking - -# every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: -~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 - expenses:utilities $400 - assets:bank:checking - - The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying -multi-period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies -report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods’ start -dates). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rules and relative dates, Next: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rule syntax, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.2 Periodic rules and relative dates ------------------------------------------ - -Partial or relative dates (like ‘12/31’, ‘25’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘last week’, -‘next quarter’) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the -results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted -relative to, in order of preference: - - 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent ‘Y’ - directive - 2. or the date specified with ‘--today’ - 3. or the date on which you are running the report. - - They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period -dates. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions - -10.26.3 Two spaces between period expression and description! -------------------------------------------------------------- - -If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, these -must be separated by *two or more spaces*. This helps hledger know -where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not -accidentally alter their meaning, as in this example: - -; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" -; || -; vv -~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review - assets:bank:checking $1500 - income:acme inc - - So, - - • Do write two spaces between your period expression and your - transaction description, if any. - • Don’t accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period - expression. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other syntax, Prev: Periodic transactions, Up: Journal - -10.27 Other syntax -================== - -hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to -make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some of -the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, but -in general, features in this section are considered less important or -even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to help -you decide if you want to use them. - -* Menu: - -* Auto postings:: -* Balance assignments:: -* Bracketed posting dates:: -* D directive:: -* apply account directive:: -* Y directive:: -* Secondary dates:: -* Star comments:: -* Valuation expressions:: -* Virtual postings:: -* Other Ledger directives:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings, Next: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.1 Auto postings ---------------------- - -The ‘=’ directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary -extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all -transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the ‘--auto’ flag. - - Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your -financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy in -an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features like -balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. - - An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: - -= QUERY - ACCOUNT AMOUNT - ... - ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] - - except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: ‘=’ suggests -matching), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and -each "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting -amounts can be: - - • a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg ‘$2’. This will be - used as-is. - • a number, eg ‘2’. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched - posting will be added to this. - • a numeric multiplier, eg ‘*2’ (a star followed by a number N). The - matched posting’s amount (and total price, if any) will be - multiplied by N. - • a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg ‘*$2’ (a star, number N, - and symbol S). The matched posting’s amount will be multiplied by - N, and its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. - - Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double -quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second -query term below: - -= expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' - (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 - - Some examples: - -; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation -= expenses:food - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - -; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount -= expenses:gifts - assets:checking:gifts *-1 - assets:checking *1 - -2017/12/1 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - -2017/12/14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - -$ hledger print --auto -2017-12-01 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - -2017-12-14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - assets:checking:gifts -$20 - assets:checking $20 - -* Menu: - -* Auto postings and multiple files:: -* Auto postings and dates:: -* Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions:: -* Auto posting tags:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and multiple files, Next: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.1 Auto postings and multiple files -.......................................... - -An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or -in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect -sibling files (when multiple ‘-f’/‘--file’ are used - see #1212). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and dates, Next: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Prev: Auto postings and multiple files, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.2 Auto postings and dates -................................. - -A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking -precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also be -used in the generated posting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Next: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.3 Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred -............................................................ - -amounts / balance assertions Currently, auto postings are added: - - • after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked - for balancedness, - • but before balance assertions are checked. - - Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and -after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 -for background. - - This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with -a missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to -infer amounts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings - -10.27.1.4 Auto posting tags -........................... - -Automated postings will have some extra tags: - - • ‘generated-posting:= QUERY’ - shows this was generated by an auto - posting rule, and the query - • ‘_generated-posting:= QUERY’ - a hidden tag, which does not appear - in hledger’s output. This can be used to match postings generated - "just now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the - journal. - - Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules -will have these tags added: - - • ‘modified:’ - this transaction was modified - • ‘_modified:’ - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this - transaction was modified "just now". - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments, Next: Bracketed posting dates, Prev: Auto postings, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.2 Balance assignments ---------------------------- - -Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like -balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the -equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy the -assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when setting -opening balances: - -; starting a new journal, set asset account balances -2016/1/1 opening balances - assets:checking = $409.32 - assets:savings = $735.24 - assets:cash = $42 - equity:opening balances - - or when adjusting a balance to reality: - -; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense -2016/1/15 - assets:cash = $0 - expenses:misc - - The calculated amount depends on the account’s balance in the -commodity at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings -of the commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or -assignment). - - Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less -explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do -the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance -assignments’ forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make -your financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less -trustworthy in an audit. - -* Menu: - -* Balance assignments and prices:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments and prices, Up: Balance assignments - -10.27.2.1 Balance assignments and prices -........................................ - -A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have -that price attached: - -2019/1/1 - (a) = $1 @ €2 - -$ hledger print --explicit -2019-01-01 - (a) $1 @ €2 = $1 @ €2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Bracketed posting dates, Next: D directive, Prev: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.3 Bracketed posting dates -------------------------------- - -For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger’s -bracketed date syntax is also supported: ‘[DATE]’, ‘[DATE=DATE2]’ or -‘[=DATE2]’ in posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any -square-bracketed sequence of the ‘0123456789/-.=’ characters in this -way. With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and -DATE2 infers its year from DATE. - - Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger’s -‘date:’/‘date2:’ tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger’s lot date -syntax. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: D directive, Next: apply account directive, Prev: Bracketed posting dates, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.4 ‘D’ directive ---------------------- - -‘D AMOUNT’ - - This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any -subsequent commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing -the journal. This effect lasts until the next ‘D’ directive, or the end -of the journal. - - For compatibility/historical reasons, ‘D’ also acts like a -‘commodity’ directive (setting the commodity’s decimal mark for parsing -and display style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity -symbol, but a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must -include a decimal mark (either period or comma). Eg: - -; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars -; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) -D $1,000.00 - -1/1 - a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 - b - - Interactions with other directives: - - For setting a commodity’s display style, a ‘commodity’ directive has -highest priority, then a ‘D’ directive. - - For detecting a commodity’s decimal mark during parsing, -‘decimal-mark’ has highest priority, then ‘commodity’, then ‘D’. - - For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a ‘commodity’ -directive is required (‘hledger check commodities’ ignores ‘D’ -directives). - - Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less -explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is -usually an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to -track multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant -with ‘commodity’ and ‘decimal-mark’. And it works differently from -Ledger’s ‘D’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: apply account directive, Next: Y directive, Prev: D directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.5 ‘apply account’ directive ---------------------------------- - -This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended to -all accounts in following entries, until an ‘end apply account’ -directive or end of current file. Eg: - -apply account home - -2010/1/1 - food $10 - cash - -end apply account - - is equivalent to: - -2010/01/01 - home:food $10 - home:cash $-10 - - ‘account’ directives are also affected, and so is any ‘include’d -content. - - Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not -affected. - - Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is -prepended. - - Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less -portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Y directive, Next: Secondary dates, Prev: apply account directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.6 ‘Y’ directive ---------------------- - -‘Y YEAR’ - - or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): - - ‘year YEAR’ ‘apply year YEAR’ - - The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for -subsequent dates which don’t specify a year. Eg: - -Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 - -12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 - expenses 1 - assets - -year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 - -2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected - expenses 1 - assets - -1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 - expenses 1 - assets - - Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at -least) makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less -trustworthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their -corresponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in -your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today’s -date. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Secondary dates, Next: Star comments, Prev: Y directive, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.7 Secondary dates ------------------------ - -A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals -sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date’s year is assumed. When -running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but with -the ‘--date2’ flag (or ‘--aux-date’ or ‘--effective’), the secondary -(right) date will be used instead. - - The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it’s best to follow -a consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank’s clearing date, secondary = -date the transaction was initiated, if different". - - Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, -and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates -consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which reporting -mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler and -better. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Star comments, Next: Valuation expressions, Prev: Secondary dates, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.8 Star comments ---------------------- - -Lines beginning with ‘*’ (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This -feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, -allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed -with org mode. - - Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. -Decreases your journal’s portability. And switching to Emacs org mode -just for folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; -nowadays you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without -losing ledger mode’s features. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation expressions, Next: Virtual postings, Prev: Star comments, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.9 Valuation expressions ------------------------------ - -Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double -parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Virtual postings, Next: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Valuation expressions, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.10 Virtual postings -------------------------- - -A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a _virtual -posting_ or _unbalanced posting_, which means it is exempt from the -usual rule that a transaction’s postings must balance add up to zero. - - This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to -avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special -cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances -without using a balancing equity account: - -2022-01-01 opening balances - (assets:checking) $1000 - (assets:savings) $2000 - - A posting with brackets around the account name is called a _balanced -virtual posting_. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must -add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: - -2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else - assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other - expenses:food $7 ; <- - expenses:food $3 ; <- - [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other - [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- - (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance - - Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed -are called _real postings_. You can exclude virtual postings from -reports with the ‘-R/--real’ flag or a ‘real:1’ query. - - Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid -figuring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable -and less trustworthy in an audit. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Virtual postings, Up: Other syntax - -10.27.11 Other Ledger directives --------------------------------- - -These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This -allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger’s -reports may differ from Ledger’s if you use these. - -apply fixed COMM AMT -apply tag TAG -assert EXPR -bucket / A ACCT -capture ACCT REGEX -check EXPR -define VAR=EXPR -end apply fixed -end apply tag -end apply year -end tag -eval / expr EXPR -python - PYTHONCODE -tag NAME -value EXPR ---command-line-flags - - See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed -hledger/Ledger syntax comparison. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV, Next: Timeclock, Prev: Journal, Up: Top - -11 CSV -****** - -hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, -semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting -each record into a transaction. - - (To learn about _writing_ CSV, see CSV output.) - - For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure -they have a corresponding ‘.csv’, ‘.tsv’ or ‘.ssv’ file extension or use -a hledger file prefix (see File Extension below). - - Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding _rules file_. -This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields layout, -date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, and -how to categorise transactions based on description or other attributes. - - By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file -with an extra ‘.rules’ extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked -to read ‘foo/FILE.csv’, hledger looks for ‘foo/FILE.csv.rules’. You can -specify a different rules file with the ‘--rules-file’ option. If no -rules file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which -you’ll need to adjust. - - At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, -and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines -there are. Here’s a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: - -Date, Description, Id, Amount -12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 - -# basic.csv.rules -skip 1 -fields date, description, , amount -date-format %d/%m/%Y - -$ hledger print -f basic.csv -2019-11-12 Foo - expenses:unknown 10.23 - income:unknown -10.23 - - There’s an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, -and more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at -https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. - -* Menu: - -* CSV rules cheatsheet:: -* separator:: -* skip:: -* date-format:: -* timezone:: -* newest-first:: -* intra-day-reversed:: -* decimal-mark:: -* fields list:: -* Field assignment:: -* Field names:: -* if block:: -* Matchers:: -* if table:: -* balance-type:: -* include:: -* Working with CSV:: -* CSV rules examples:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules cheatsheet, Next: separator, Up: CSV - -11.1 CSV rules cheatsheet -========================= - -The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. -(Blank lines and lines beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ or ‘*’ are ignored.) - -*‘separator’* declare the field separator, instead of - relying on file extension -*‘skip’* skip one or more header lines at start of file -*‘date-format’* declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times -*‘timezone’* declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV - date-times -*‘newest-first’* improve txn order when: there are multiple - records, newest first, all with the same date -*‘intra-day-reversed’* improve txn order when: same-day txns are in - opposite order to the overall file -*‘decimal-mark’* declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, - when ambiguous -*‘fields’ list* name CSV fields for easy reference, and - optionally assign their values to hledger - fields -*Field assignment* assign a CSV value or interpolated text value - to a hledger field -*‘if’ block* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - or ‘skip’ a record or ‘end’ (skip rest of - file) -*‘if’ table* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - using compact syntax -*‘balance-type’* select which type of balance - assertions/assignments to generate -*‘include’* inline another CSV rules file - - Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are -evaluated. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: separator, Next: skip, Prev: CSV rules cheatsheet, Up: CSV - -11.2 ‘separator’ -================ - -You can use the ‘separator’ rule to read other kinds of -character-separated data. The argument is any single separator -character, or the words ‘tab’ or ‘space’ (case insensitive). Eg, for -comma-separated values (CSV): - -separator , - - or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): - -separator ; - - or for tab-separated values (TSV): - -separator TAB - - If the input file has a ‘.csv’, ‘.ssv’ or ‘.tsv’ file extension (or a -‘csv:’, ‘ssv:’, ‘tsv:’ prefix), the appropriate separator will be -inferred automatically, and you won’t need this rule. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: skip, Next: date-format, Prev: separator, Up: CSV - -11.3 ‘skip’ -=========== - -skip N - - The word ‘skip’ followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells -hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input -data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don’t need -to count those.) You’ll need this whenever your CSV data contains -header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not -parsed as CSV. - - ‘skip’ can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip -individual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still -required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date-format, Next: timezone, Prev: skip, Up: CSV - -11.4 ‘date-format’ -================== - -date-format DATEFMT - - This is a helper for the ‘date’ (and ‘date2’) fields. If your CSV -dates are not formatted like ‘YYYY-MM-DD’, ‘YYYY/MM/DD’ or ‘YYYY.MM.DD’, -you’ll need to add a date-format rule describing them with a -strptime-style date parsing pattern - see -https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. -The pattern must parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: - -# MM/DD/YY -date-format %m/%d/%y - -# D/M/YYYY -# The - makes leading zeros optional. -date-format %-d/%-m/%Y - -# YYYY-Mmm-DD -date-format %Y-%h-%d - -# M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk -# Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. -date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk - - -File: hledger.info, Node: timezone, Next: newest-first, Prev: date-format, Up: CSV - -11.5 ‘timezone’ -=============== - -timezone TIMEZONE - - When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone -other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you -can use this rule to declare the CSV’s native time zone, which helps -prevent off-by-one dates. - - When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don’t -need this rule; instead, use ‘%Z’ in ‘date-format’ (or ‘%z’, ‘%EZ’, -‘%Ez’; see the formatTime link above). - - In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware -conversion, localising the CSV date-times to your current system time -zone. If you prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for -reproducibility, you can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with -the TZ environment variable, eg: - -$ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv - - ‘timezone’ currently does not understand timezone names, except -"UTC", "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". -For others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: newest-first, Next: intra-day-reversed, Prev: timezone, Up: CSV - -11.6 ‘newest-first’ -=================== - -hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered -chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can -auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV -where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are -oldest first. If in fact the CSV’s records are normally newest first, -like: - -2022-10-01, txn 3... -2022-10-01, txn 2... -2022-10-01, txn 1... - - you can add the ‘newest-first’ rule to help hledger generate the -transactions in correct order. - -# same-day CSV records are newest first -newest-first - - -File: hledger.info, Node: intra-day-reversed, Next: decimal-mark, Prev: newest-first, Up: CSV - -11.7 ‘intra-day-reversed’ -========================= - -CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to -the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the -transactions on each date are oldest first: - -2022-10-02, txn 3... -2022-10-02, txn 4... -2022-10-01, txn 1... -2022-10-01, txn 2... - - In this situation, add the ‘intra-day-reversed’ rule, and hledger -will compensate, improving the order of transactions. - -# transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order -intra-day-reversed - - -File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark, Next: fields list, Prev: intra-day-reversed, Up: CSV - -11.8 ‘decimal-mark’ -=================== - -decimal-mark . - - or: - -decimal-mark , - - hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal -mark when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the -CSV contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you -should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid -misparsed numbers. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: fields list, Next: Field assignment, Prev: decimal-mark, Up: CSV - -11.9 ‘fields’ list -================== - -fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... - - A fields list (the word ‘fields’ followed by comma-separated field -names) is optional, but convenient. It does two things: - - 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if - you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say - ‘%SomeField’ instead of remembering ‘%13’. - - 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described - below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger - field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger’s fields and - build a transaction. - - Here’s an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the -transaction’s date, description and amount; name the last two fields for -later reference; and ignore the others": - -fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield - - In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to -the CSV file’s separator. Also: - - • There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). - • Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field - names are optional. - • Field names may contain ‘_’ (underscore) or ‘-’ (hyphen). - • Fields you don’t care about can be given a dummy name or an empty - name. - - If the CSV contains column headings, it’s convenient to use these for -your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces replaced -by underscores). - - Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning -to a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV’s -"balance" field ‘balance_’ to avoid directly setting hledger’s ‘balance’ -field (and generating a balance assertion). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Field assignment, Next: Field names, Prev: fields list, Up: CSV - -11.10 Field assignment -====================== - -HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE - - Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to -hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields -list (see above). - - To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of -the standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, -followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may -interpolate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV -record (‘%N’), or by the name they were given in the fields list -(‘%CSVFIELD’). - - Some examples: - -# set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended -amount %4 USD - -# combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags -comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 - - Tips: - - • Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like ‘" 1 "’ - becomes ‘1’ when interpolated) (#1051). - • Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can’t interpolate - a hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Field names, Next: if block, Prev: Field assignment, Up: CSV - -11.11 Field names -================= - -Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in -hledger CSV rules files: - - 1. *CSV field names* (‘CSVFIELD’ in these docs): you can optionally - name the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn’t yet - automatically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing - arbitrary names in a ‘fields’ list, eg: - - fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar - - 2. Special *hledger field names* (‘HLEDGERFIELD’ in these docs): you - must set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction - from a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field - assignment, eg: - - date %When - code %Some_Id - description %What - comment %Foo %Bar - amount1 $ %Total - - or directly in a ‘fields’ list: - - fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar - currency $ - comment %Foo %Bar - - Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what -happens when you assign values to them: - -* Menu: - -* date field:: -* date2 field:: -* status field:: -* code field:: -* description field:: -* comment field:: -* account field:: -* amount field:: -* currency field:: -* balance field:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date field, Next: date2 field, Up: Field names - -11.11.1 date field ------------------- - -Assigning to ‘date’ sets the transaction date. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: date2 field, Next: status field, Prev: date field, Up: Field names - -11.11.2 date2 field -------------------- - -‘date2’ sets the transaction’s secondary date, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: status field, Next: code field, Prev: date2 field, Up: Field names - -11.11.3 status field --------------------- - -‘status’ sets the transaction’s status, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: code field, Next: description field, Prev: status field, Up: Field names - -11.11.4 code field ------------------- - -‘code’ sets the transaction’s code, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: description field, Next: comment field, Prev: code field, Up: Field names - -11.11.5 description field -------------------------- - -‘description’ sets the transaction’s description, if any. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: comment field, Next: account field, Prev: description field, Up: Field names - -11.11.6 comment field ---------------------- - -‘comment’ sets the transaction’s comment, if any. - - ‘commentN’, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting’s comment. - - You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal ‘\n’ in the -code. A comment starting with ‘\n’ will begin on a new line. - - Comments can contain tags, as usual. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: account field, Next: amount field, Prev: comment field, Up: Field names - -11.11.7 account field ---------------------- - -Assigning to ‘accountN’, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of -the Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. - - Most often there are two postings, so you’ll want to set ‘account1’ -and ‘account2’. Typically ‘account1’ is associated with the CSV file, -and is set once with a top-level assignment, while ‘account2’ is set -based on each transaction’s description, in conditional rules. - - If a posting’s account name is left unset but its amount is set (see -below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" -or "income:unknown"). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: amount field, Next: currency field, Prev: account field, Up: Field names - -11.11.8 amount field --------------------- - -There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different -situations: - - • ‘amountN’ sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that - posting to be generated. By assigning to ‘amount1’, ‘amount2’, ... - etc. you can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don’t - have to be consecutive; in certain situations using a high number - might be helpful to influence the layout of postings. - - • ‘amountN-in’ and ‘amountN-out’ should be used instead, as a pair, - when and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. - Eg when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a - single Amount field. Note: - - • Don’t think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the - second posting" - that’s not correct. Think: "‘amountN-in’ - and ‘amountN-out’ together detect the amount for posting N, by - inspecting two CSV fields at once." - • hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will - automatically negate the -out value. - • It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or - zero, so it knows which one to ignore. If that’s not the case - you’ll need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). - - • ‘amount’, with no posting number (and similarly, ‘amount-in’ and - ‘amount-out’ with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for - backwards compatibility, and because they have special behaviour - that is sometimes convenient: - - • They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of - posting 2. - • Posting 2’s amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost - price. - • Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like ‘amount1’, or - ‘amount2-in’ and ‘amount2-out’) will take precedence. This - allows incrementally migrating old rules files to the new - syntax. - - There’s more to say about amount-setting that doesn’t fit here; -please see also "Setting amounts" below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: currency field, Next: balance field, Prev: amount field, Up: Field names - -11.11.9 currency field ----------------------- - -‘currency’ sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings’ -amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency -symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. - - ‘currencyN’ prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting’s -amount. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance field, Prev: currency field, Up: Field names - -11.11.10 balance field ----------------------- - -‘balanceN’ sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is -left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. - - ‘balance’ is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is -equivalent to ‘balance1’. - - You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the -‘balance-type’ rule (see below). - - See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: if block, Next: Matchers, Prev: Field names, Up: CSV - -11.12 ‘if’ block -================ - -Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV -data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can -categorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on -their description (for example). There are two ways to write -conditional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", -described below. - - An if block is the word ‘if’ and one or more "matcher" expressions -(can be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or -next line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, - -if MATCHER - RULE - - or - -if -MATCHER -MATCHER -MATCHER - RULE - RULE - - If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be -applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special -rules may also be used within an if block: - - • ‘skip’ - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction - from it) - • ‘end’ - skips the rest of the current CSV file. - - Some examples: - -# if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" -if groceries - account2 expenses:groceries - -# if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown -if -monthly service fee -atm transaction fee -banking thru software - account2 expenses:business:banking - comment XXX deductible ? check it - -# if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file -if ,,,, - end - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Matchers, Next: if table, Prev: if block, Up: CSV - -11.13 Matchers -============== - -There are two kinds: - - 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular - expression (‘REGEX’), which hledger will try to match - case-insensitively anywhere within the CSV record. - Eg: ‘whole foods’ - - 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name - (‘%CSVFIELD REGEX’). hledger will try to match these just within - the named CSV field. - Eg: ‘%date 2023’ - - The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended -regular expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (‘\b’, ‘\B’, -‘\<’, ‘\>’), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular -expressions" in the hledger manual -(https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions). - - With record matchers, it’s important to know that the record matched -is not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be -converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing -whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if -the original record was: - -2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 - - the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: - -2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 - - When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: - - • By default they are OR’d (any one of them can match) - • When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (‘&’) it will be AND’ed - with the previous matcher (both of them must match). - - There’s not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: if table, Next: balance-type, Prev: Matchers, Up: CSV - -11.14 ‘if’ table -================ - -"if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many -matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like -this: - -if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... -MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... -MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... -MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - - - The first character after ‘if’ is taken to be the separator for the -rest of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like ‘,’ -or ‘|’ that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is -unrelated to the CSV file’s separator.) Whitespace can be used in the -matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The -table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line -must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. - - The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher -succeeds, assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding -hledger fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is -equivalent to this sequence of if blocks: - -if MATCHERA - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - -if MATCHERB - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - -if MATCHERC - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - Example: - -if,account2,comment -atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it -%description groceries,expenses:groceries, -2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance-type, Next: include, Prev: if table, Up: CSV - -11.15 ‘balance-type’ -==================== - -Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple -‘=’ type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding -assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, -eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help with -budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the -‘balance-type’ rule: - -# balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts -balance-type ==* - - Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: - -= single commodity, exclude subaccounts -=* single commodity, include subaccounts -== multi commodity, exclude subaccounts -==* multi commodity, include subaccounts - - -File: hledger.info, Node: include, Next: Working with CSV, Prev: balance-type, Up: CSV - -11.16 ‘include’ -=============== - -include RULESFILE - - This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. -‘RULESFILE’ is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current -file’s directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between -several rules files, eg: - -# someaccount.csv.rules - -## someaccount-specific rules -fields date,description,amount -account1 assets:someaccount -account2 expenses:misc - -## common rules -include categorisation.rules - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Working with CSV, Next: CSV rules examples, Prev: include, Up: CSV - -11.17 Working with CSV -====================== - -Some tips: - -* Menu: - -* Rapid feedback:: -* Valid CSV:: -* File Extension:: -* Reading CSV from standard input:: -* Reading multiple CSV files:: -* Valid transactions:: -* Deduplicating importing:: -* Setting amounts:: -* Amount signs:: -* Setting currency/commodity:: -* Amount decimal places:: -* Referencing other fields:: -* How CSV rules are evaluated:: -* Well factored rules:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Rapid feedback, Next: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.1 Rapid feedback ----------------------- - -It’s a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting -CSV rules. Here’s a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: - -$ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' - - A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions -of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can echo -a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to read the -output. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valid CSV, Next: File Extension, Prev: Rapid feedback, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.2 Valid CSV ------------------ - -Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, and -equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or tab -as separators). This means, eg: - - • Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in - single quotes is not allowed. (Eg ‘'A','B'’ is rejected.) - • When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the - quotes are not allowed. (Eg ‘"A", "B"’ is rejected.) - • When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double - quotes. (Eg ‘A"A, B’ is rejected.) - - If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you’ll need to -transform it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more -permissive CSV parser like python’s csv lib. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: File Extension, Next: Reading CSV from standard input, Prev: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.3 File Extension ----------------------- - -To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error -messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), -it’s best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a ‘.csv’, ‘.ssv’ or ‘.tsv’ -filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) - - When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV -reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path with -‘csv:’, ‘ssv:’ or ‘tsv:’: Eg: - -$ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print - - You can also override the default field separator with a separator -rule if needed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reading CSV from standard input, Next: Reading multiple CSV files, Prev: File Extension, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.4 Reading CSV from standard input ---------------------------------------- - -You’ll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, -since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: - -$ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reading multiple CSV files, Next: Valid transactions, Prev: Reading CSV from standard input, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.5 Reading multiple CSV files ----------------------------------- - -If you use multiple ‘-f’ options to read multiple CSV files at once, -hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV -file. But if you use the ‘--rules-file’ option, that rules file will be -used for all the CSV files. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valid transactions, Next: Deduplicating importing, Prev: Reading multiple CSV files, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.6 Valid transactions --------------------------- - -After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the -generated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing -them, applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. -Any errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying -the problem entry. - - There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated -them, will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the -CSV data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance -assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: - -$ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplicating importing, Next: Setting amounts, Prev: Valid transactions, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.7 Deduplicating, importing --------------------------------- - -When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank -transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing some -of the same records. - - The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) -append just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, -so you don’t have to remember how many times you ran it or with which -version of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden ‘.latest.FILE.csv’ -file.) This is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: - -# download the latest CSV files, then run this command. -# Note, no -f flags needed here. -$ hledger import *.csv [--dry] - - This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable -chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) - - A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and -otherwise, exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing -CSV data. See: - - • https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows - • https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting amounts, Next: Amount signs, Prev: Deduplicating importing, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.8 Setting amounts ------------------------ - -Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling -various amount-setting situations: - - 1. *If the amount is in a single CSV field:* - - a. *If its sign indicates direction of flow:* - Assign it to ‘amountN’, to set the Nth posting’s amount. N is - usually 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. - - b. *If another field indicates direction of flow:* - Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate - amount sign. Eg: - - # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": - amount1 -%Amount - if %Type deposit - amount1 %Amount - - 2. *If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit):* - - a. *If both fields are unsigned:* - Assign the fields to ‘amountN-in’ and ‘amountN-out’. This - sets posting N’s amount to whichever of these has a non-zero - value. If it’s the -out value, the amount will be negated. - - b. *If either field is signed:* - Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg - below, the -out value already has a minus sign so we undo - hledger’s automatic negating by negating once more (but only - if the field is non-empty, so that we don’t leave a minus sign - by itself): - - fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out - if %amount1-out [1-9] - amount1-out -%amount1-out - - c. *If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be - empty):* - The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is - non-zero/non-empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such - as ‘1’ and ‘none’. For such cases, use conditional rules to - help select the amount. Eg, to handle the above you could - select the value containing non-zero digits: - - fields date, description, in, out - if %in [1-9] - amount1 %in - if %out [1-9] - amount1 %out - - 3. *If you want posting 2’s amount converted to cost:* - Use the unnumbered ‘amount’ (or ‘amount-in’ and ‘amount-out’) - syntax. - - 4. *If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts:* - Assign to ‘balanceN’, to set a balance assignment on the Nth - posting, causing the posting’s amount to be calculated - automatically. ‘balance’ with no number is equivalent to - ‘balance1’. In this situation hledger is more likely to guess the - wrong default account name, so you may need to set that explicitly. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amount signs, Next: Setting currency/commodity, Prev: Setting amounts, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.9 Amount signs --------------------- - -There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing and -sign-flipping: - - • *If an amount value begins with a plus sign:* - that will be removed: ‘+AMT’ becomes ‘AMT’ - - • *If an amount value is parenthesised:* - it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: ‘(AMT)’ becomes - ‘-AMT’ - - • *If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of - parentheses, or a minus sign and parentheses):* - they cancel out and will be removed: ‘--AMT’ or ‘-(AMT)’ becomes - ‘AMT’ - - • *If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of - parentheses):* - that is removed, making it an empty value. ‘"+"’ or ‘"-"’ or - ‘"()"’ becomes ‘""’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting currency/commodity, Next: Amount decimal places, Prev: Amount signs, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.10 Setting currency/commodity ------------------------------------ - -If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV’s amount -field(s): - -2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 - - you don’t have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it -will be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: - -fields date,description,amount - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown $123.00 - income:unknown $-123.00 - - If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: - -2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 - - You can assign that to the ‘currency’ pseudo-field, which has the -special effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction -(on the left, with no separating space): - -fields date,description,currency,amount - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown USD123.00 - income:unknown USD-123.00 - - Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, -with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by -a space: - -fields date,description,cur,amt -amount %amt %cur - -2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown 123.00 USD - income:unknown -123.00 USD - - Note we used a temporary field name (‘cur’) that is not ‘currency’ - -that would trigger the prepending effect, which we don’t want here. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amount decimal places, Next: Referencing other fields, Prev: Setting currency/commodity, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.11 Amount decimal places ------------------------------- - -Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like -‘amount1’ influence commodity display styles, such as the number of -decimal places displayed in reports. - - The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display -style (because we don’t yet reliably know their commodity). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Referencing other fields, Next: How CSV rules are evaluated, Prev: Amount decimal places, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.12 Referencing other fields ---------------------------------- - -In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger -fields. In the example below, there’s both a CSV field and a hledger -field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the -hledger field: - -# Name the third CSV field "amount1" -fields date,description,amount1 - -# Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD -amount1 %amount1 USD - -# Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) -comment %amount1 - - Here, since there’s no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a -literal "amount1": - -fields date,description,csvamount -amount1 %csvamount USD -# Can't interpolate amount1 here -comment %amount1 - - When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, -only the last one takes effect. Here, comment’s value will be be B, or -C if "something" is matched, but never A: - -comment A -comment B -if something - comment C - - -File: hledger.info, Node: How CSV rules are evaluated, Next: Well factored rules, Prev: Referencing other fields, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.13 How CSV rules are evaluated ------------------------------------- - -Here’s how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need -to). First, - - • ‘include’ - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth - first. (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for - further includes, recursively, before proceeding.) - - Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is -repeated, the last one wins: - - • ‘skip’ (at top level) - • ‘date-format’ - • ‘newest-first’ - • ‘fields’ - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial - assignments to hledger fields - - Then for each CSV record in turn: - - • test all ‘if’ blocks. If any of them contain a ‘end’ rule, skip - all remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a - ‘skip’ rule, skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple - matched ‘skip’ rules, the first one wins. - • collect all field assignments at top level and in matched ‘if’ - blocks. When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only - the last one. - • compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was - assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a - default - • generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. - - This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger -can use to parse input files. When all files have been read -successfully, the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger -command the user specified. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Well factored rules, Prev: How CSV rules are evaluated, Up: Working with CSV - -11.17.14 Well factored rules ----------------------------- - -Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules -files: - - • Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a - ‘common.rules’, and adding ‘include common.rules’ to each CSV’s - rules file. - - • Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the - frequently used parts. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules examples, Prev: Working with CSV, Up: CSV - -11.18 CSV rules examples -======================== - -* Menu: - -* Bank of Ireland:: -* Coinbase:: -* Amazon:: -* Paypal:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Bank of Ireland, Next: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.1 Bank of Ireland ------------------------ - -Here’s a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance -field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not -necessary but provides extra error checking: - -Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance -07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 -07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 - -# bankofireland-checking.csv.rules - -# skip the header line -skip - -# name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields -fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance - -# We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" -# above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: -# -# - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, -# by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience -# -# - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, -# eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day - -# date is in UK/Ireland format -date-format %d/%m/%Y - -# set the currency -currency EUR - -# set the base account for all txns -account1 assets:bank:boi:checking - -$ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print -2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 - income:unknown EUR-10.0 - -2012-12-07 PAYMENT - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 - expenses:unknown EUR5.0 - - The balance assertions don’t raise an error above, because we’re -reading directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are -imported into a journal file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Coinbase, Next: Amazon, Prev: Bank of Ireland, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.2 Coinbase ----------------- - -A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is -recorded using cost notation. The legacy ‘amount’ field name -conveniently sets amount 2 (posting 2’s amount) to the total cost. - -# Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes -# 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" - -# coinbase.csv.rules -skip 1 -fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes -date %Timestamp -date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z -description %Notes -account1 assets:coinbase:cc -amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency - -$ hledger print -f coinbase.csv -2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account - assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP - income:unknown -74.000000 GBP - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Amazon, Next: Paypal, Prev: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.3 Amazon --------------- - -Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to -generate a third posting if there’s a fee. (In practice you’d probably -get this data from your bank instead, but it’s an example.) - -"Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" -"Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" -"Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - -# amazon-orders.csv.rules - -# skip one header line -skip 1 - -# name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. -# Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. -fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code - -# how to parse the date -date-format %b %-d, %Y - -# combine two fields to make the description -description %toorfrom %name - -# save the status as a tag -comment status:%amzstatus - -# set the base account for all transactions -account1 assets:amazon -# leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). -# I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember - -# set a generic account2 -account2 expenses:misc -amount2 %amzamount -# and maybe refine it further: -#include categorisation.rules - -# add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. -if %fees [1-9] - account3 expenses:fees - amount3 %fees - -$ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print -2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $20.00 - -2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $25.00 - expenses:fees $1.00 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Paypal, Prev: Amazon, Up: CSV rules examples - -11.18.4 Paypal --------------- - -Here’s a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some -Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: - -"Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" -"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" -"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" -"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" -"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" -"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" -"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" -"10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" - -# paypal-custom.csv.rules - -# Tips: -# Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download -# Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" -# Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: -# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" -# This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": -# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - -fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note - -skip 1 - -date-format %-m/%-d/%Y - -# ignore some paypal events -if -In Progress -Temporary Hold -Update to - skip - -# add more fields to the description -description %description_ %itemtitle - -# save some other fields as tags -comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ - -# convert to short currency symbols -if %currency USD - currency $ -if %currency EUR - currency E -if %currency GBP - currency P - -# generate postings - -# the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account -# (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) -account1 assets:online:paypal -amount1 %netamount - -# the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party -# (account2 is set below) -amount2 -%grossamount - -# if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. -if %feeamount [1-9] - account3 expenses:banking:paypal - amount3 -%feeamount - comment3 business: - -# choose an account for the second posting - -# override the default account names: -# if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) -if %grossamount ^[^-] - account2 income:unknown -# if negative, it's an expense (a credit) -if %grossamount ^- - account2 expenses:unknown - -# apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks -include common.rules - -# apply some overrides specific to this csv - -# Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, -# which can be disregarded in this case. -if -Bank Account -Bank Deposit to PP Account - description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle - account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking - account1 assets:online:paypal - -# Currency conversions -if Currency Conversion - account2 equity:currency conversion - -# common.rules - -if -darcs -noble benefactor - account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub - comment2 business: - -if -Calm Radio - account2 expenses:online:apps - -if -electronic frontier foundation -Patreon -wikimedia -Advent of Code - account2 expenses:dues - -if Google - account2 expenses:online:apps - description google | music - -$ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print -2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 - expenses:online:apps $6.99 - -2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 - -2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 - expenses:dues $7.00 - -2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 - -2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 - expenses:dues $2.00 - expenses:banking:paypal ; business: - -2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 - -2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 - revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: - expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Timeclock, Next: Timedot, Prev: CSV, Up: Top - -12 Timeclock -************ - -The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. - - hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, -these are (a subset of) timeclock.el’s format, containing clock-in and -clock-out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. -The time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are -optional. The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored -(currently the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines -beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ or ‘*’, and blank lines, are ignored. - -i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces -o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 -i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account -o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 - - hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting -some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than -one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For -the above time log, ‘hledger print’ generates these journal entries: - -$ hledger -f t.timeclock print -2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces - (some:account name) 0.33h - -2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 - (another account) 1.64h - -2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 - (another account) 2.01h - - Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: - -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 -$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week - - To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: - - • use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended - timeclock-x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el - - • at the command line, use these bash aliases: ‘shell alias ti="echo - i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o - `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"’ - - • or use the old ‘ti’ and ‘to’ scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. - These rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the - ledger 2 executable renamed. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Timedot, Next: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Prev: Timeclock, Up: Top - -13 Timedot -********** - -‘timedot’ format is hledger’s human-friendly time logging format. -Compared to ‘timeclock’ format, it is - - • convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging - • readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. - - A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look -like this: - -2021-08-04 -hom:errands .... .... -fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs -per:admin:finance - - hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each -dot representing a quarter-hour spent: - -$ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader -2021-08-04 * - (hom:errands) 2.00 - -2021-08-04 * - (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 - -2021-08-04 * - (per:admin:finance) 0 - - A day entry begins with a date line: - - • a non-indented *simple date* (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). - - Optionally this can be followed on the same line by - - • a common *transaction description* for this day - • a common *transaction comment* for this day, after a semicolon - (‘;’). - - After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time -transaction lines, consisting of: - - • an *account name* - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style - account name. - • *two or more spaces* - a field separator, required if there is an - amount (as in journal format). - • a *timedot amount* - dots representing quarter hours, or a number - representing hours. - • an optional *comment* beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. - - In more detail, timedot amounts can be: - - • *dots*: zero or more period characters, each representing one - quarter-hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. - Eg: ‘.... ..’ - - • a *number*, representing hours. Eg: ‘1.5’ - - • a *number immediately followed by a unit symbol* ‘s’, ‘m’, ‘h’, - ‘d’, ‘w’, ‘mo’, or ‘y’, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days - weeks, months or years. Eg ‘1.5h’ or ‘90m’. The following - equivalencies are assumed: - ‘60s’ = ‘1m’, ‘60m’ = ‘1h’, ‘24h’ = ‘1d’, ‘7d’ = ‘1w’, ‘30d’ = - ‘1mo’, ‘365d’ = ‘1y’. (This unit will not be visible in the - generated transaction amount, which is always in hours.) - - There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in -the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: - - • Blank lines and lines beginning with ‘#’ or ‘;’ are ignored. - - • Before the first date line, lines beginning with ‘*’ are ignored. - From the first date line onward, a sequence of ‘*’’s followed by a - space at beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs - Org mode) is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an - Org headline, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org - headlines. - - • Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as - transactions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by - default; add -E to see them.) - - More examples: - -# on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. -2016/2/1 -inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... -fos:haskell .... .. -biz:research . - -2016/2/2 -inc:client1 .... .... -biz:research . - -2016/2/3 -inc:client1 4 -fos:hledger 3 -biz:research 1 - -* Time log -** 2020-01-01 -*** adm:time . -*** adm:finance . - -* 2020 Work Diary -** Q1 -*** 2020-02-29 -**** DONE -0700 yoga -**** UNPLANNED -**** BEGUN -hom:chores - cleaning ... - water plants - outdoor - one full watering can - indoor - light watering -**** TODO -adm:planning: trip -*** LATER - - Reporting: - -$ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 -2016-02-02 * - (inc:client1) 2.00 - -2016-02-02 * - (biz:research) 0.25 - -$ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree -Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: - - || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d -============++======================================== - biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - fos || 1.50 0 3.00 - haskell || 1.50 0 0 - hledger || 0 0 3.00 - inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 -------------++---------------------------------------- - || 7.75 2.25 8.00 - - Using period instead of colon as account name separator: - -2016/2/4 -fos.hledger.timedot 4 -fos.ledger .. - -$ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree - 4.50 fos - 4.00 hledger:timedot - 0.50 ledger --------------------- - 4.50 - - A sample.timedot file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Next: Time periods, Prev: Timedot, Up: Top - -14 PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS -***************************** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Time periods, Next: Depth, Prev: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Up: Top - -15 Time periods -*************** - -* Menu: - -* Report start & end date:: -* Smart dates:: -* Report intervals:: -* Date adjustment:: -* Period expressions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Report start & end date, Next: Smart dates, Up: Time periods - -15.1 Report start & end date -============================ - -By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time -represented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest -transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest -transaction, posting, or market price date. - - Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current -month. You can specify a start and/or end date using ‘-b/--begin’, -‘-e/--end’, ‘-p/--period’ or a ‘date:’ query (described below). All of -these accept the smart date syntax (below). - - Some notes: - - • End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date - _after_ the last day you want to see in the report. - • As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with - _options_, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. - • The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of - the start/end dates from options and that from ‘date:’ queries. - That is, ‘date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030'’ yields January - 2019, the smallest common time span. - • In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall - on interval boundaries (see below). - - Examples: - -‘-b begin on St. Patrick’s day 2016 -2016/3/17’ -‘-e 12/1’ end at the start of december 1st of the current year - (11/30 will be the last date included) -‘-b all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month -thismonth’ -‘-p all transactions in the current month -thismonth’ -‘date:2016/3/17..’the above written as queries instead (‘..’ can also be - replaced with ‘-’) -‘date:..12/1’ -‘date:thismonth..’ -‘date:thismonth’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Smart dates, Next: Report intervals, Prev: Report start & end date, Up: Time periods - -15.2 Smart dates -================ - -hledger’s user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added -convenience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today’s date, be -written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted -(missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: - -‘2004/10/1’, exact date, several separators allowed. Year -‘2004-01-01’, is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 -‘2004.9.1’ -‘2004’ start of year -‘2004/10’ start of month -‘10/1’ month and day in current year -‘21’ day in current month -‘october, oct’ start of month in current year -‘yesterday, today, -1, 0, 1 days from today -tomorrow’ -‘last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period -day/week/month/quarter/year’ -‘in n n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years’ -‘n n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years -ahead’ -‘n -n periods from the current period -days/weeks/months/quarters/years -ago’ -‘20181201’ 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and - day -‘201812’ 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month - - Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give -surprising results: - -‘201813’ 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 6-digit year -‘20181301’ 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 8-digit year -‘20181232’ 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error -‘201801012’ 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error - - "Today’s date" can be overridden with the ‘--today’ option, in case -it’s needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for -periodic transaction rules, which are not affected by ‘--today’.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Report intervals, Next: Date adjustment, Prev: Smart dates, Up: Time periods - -15.3 Report intervals -===================== - -A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, -balance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a -separate row or column. - - The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line -flags: - - • ‘-D/--daily’ - • ‘-W/--weekly’ - • ‘-M/--monthly’ - • ‘-Q/--quarterly’ - • ‘-Y/--yearly’ - - More complex intervals can be specified using ‘-p/--period’, -described below. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Date adjustment, Next: Period expressions, Prev: Report intervals, Up: Time periods - -15.4 Date adjustment -==================== - -With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates -which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not ‘-b -2023-01-01’, but ‘-b 2023-01’ or ‘-b 2023’ or unspecified) are -considered flexible: - - • A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if - needed to fall on a natural interval boundary. - • Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to - make the last period a whole interval (the same length as the - others). - - This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is -traditional hledger behaviour). By contrast, fully-specified exact -dates will not be adjusted (this is new in hledger 1.29). - - An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last -date is 2023-03-20: - - • ‘hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10’ - The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, - starting from 2023-01-15, and the last period’s last day will be - 2023-03-09. (Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) - - • ‘hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04’ or ‘hledger bal -M’ - The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting - from 2023-01-01, and the last period’s last day will be 2023-03-31. - (Flexible start and end dates, both are adjusted.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions, Prev: Date adjustment, Up: Time periods - -15.5 Period expressions -======================= - -The ‘-p/--period’ option specifies a period expression, which is a -compact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report -interval. - - Here’s a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the -first quarter of 2009): - -‘-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"’ - - Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; -these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The -spaces are also optional, as long as you don’t run two dates together. -So the following are equivalent to the above: - -‘-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"’ -‘-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1’ -‘-p2009/1/1..2009/4/1’ - - Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also -equivalent to the above: - -‘-p "1/1 4/1"’ -‘-p "jan-apr"’ -‘-p "this year to 4/1"’ - - If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be -the earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: - -‘-p "from 2009/1/1"’ everything after january 1, 2009 -‘-p "since 2009/1"’ the same, since is a synonym -‘-p "from 2009"’ the same -‘-p "to 2009"’ everything before january 1, 2009 - - You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full -date: - -‘-p "2009"’ the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1” -‘-p "2009/1"’ the month of january 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to - 2009/2/1” -‘-p the first day of 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to -"2009/1/1"’ 2009/1/2” - - or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): - -‘-p "2009Q1"’ first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to - 2009/4/1” -‘-p "q4"’ fourth quarter of the current year - -* Menu: - -* Period expressions with a report interval:: -* More complex report intervals:: -* Multiple weekday intervals:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions with a report interval, Next: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.1 Period expressions with a report interval ------------------------------------------------- - -A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated -from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word ‘in’: - -‘-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"’ -‘-p "monthly in 2008"’ -‘-p "quarterly"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More complex report intervals, Next: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: Period expressions with a report interval, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.2 More complex report intervals ------------------------------------- - -Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, -such as: - - • ‘biweekly’ (every two weeks) - • ‘fortnightly’ - • ‘bimonthly’ (every two months) - • ‘every day|week|month|quarter|year’ - • ‘every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years’ - - Weekly on a custom day: - - • ‘every Nth day of week’ (‘th’, ‘nd’, ‘rd’, or ‘st’ are all accepted - after the number) - • ‘every WEEKDAYNAME’ (full or three-letter english weekday name, - case insensitive) - - Monthly on a custom day: - - • ‘every Nth day [of month]’ - • ‘every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]’ - - Yearly on a custom day: - - • ‘every MM/DD [of year]’ (month number and day of month number) - • ‘every MONTHNAME DDth [of year]’ (full or three-letter english - month name, case insensitive, and day of month number) - • ‘every DDth MONTHNAME [of year]’ (equivalent to the above) - - Examples: - -‘-p "bimonthly from -2008"’ -‘-p "every 2 weeks"’ -‘-p "every 5 months from -2009/03"’ -‘-p "every 2nd day of periods will go from Tue to Tue -week"’ -‘-p "every Tue"’ same -‘-p "every 15th day"’ period boundaries will be on 15th of each - month -‘-p "every 2nd Monday"’ period boundaries will be on second Monday - of each month -‘-p "every 11/05"’ yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of - November -‘-p "every 5th November"’ same -‘-p "every Nov 5th"’ same - - Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is -an end date, exclusive as always): - -$ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" - - Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following -tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): - -$ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions - -15.5.3 Multiple weekday intervals ---------------------------------- - -This special form is also supported: - - • ‘every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,...’ (full or three-letter english - weekday names, case insensitive) - - Also, ‘weekday’ and ‘weekendday’ are shorthand for -‘mon,tue,wed,thu,fri’ and ‘sat,sun’. - - This is mainly intended for use with ‘--forecast’, to generate -periodic transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less -useful with ‘-p’, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal -length, which is unusual. (Related: #1632) - - Examples: - -‘-p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be -mon,wed,fri"’ Mon-Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun -‘-p "every dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will -weekday"’ be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun -‘-p "every dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri -weekendday"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Depth, Next: Queries, Prev: Time periods, Up: Top - -16 Depth -******** - -With the ‘--depth NUM’ option (short form: ‘-NUM’), reports will show -accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use -this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same -effect as a ‘depth:’ query argument: ‘depth:2’, ‘--depth=2’ or ‘-2’ are -equivalent. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries, Next: Pivoting, Prev: Depth, Up: Top - -17 Queries -********** - -One of hledger’s strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise -subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query -arguments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: - - • Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often - account name substrings: - - ‘utilities food:groceries’ - - • Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in - quotes: - - ‘"personal care"’ - - • Regular expressions are also supported: - - ‘"^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"’ - - • Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: - - ‘date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:’ - - • Add a ‘not:’ prefix to negate a term: - - ‘not:cur:USD’ - -* Menu: - -* Query types:: -* Combining query terms:: -* Queries and command options:: -* Queries and valuation:: -* Querying with account aliases:: -* Querying with cost or value:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Query types, Next: Combining query terms, Up: Queries - -17.1 Query types -================ - -Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be -prefixed with *‘not:’* to convert them into a negative match. - - *‘acct:REGEX’, ‘REGEX’* -Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular -expression. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and -regular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just -write an account name substring, like ‘expenses’ or ‘food’. - - *‘amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N’* -Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or -greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested -and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded -by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. -Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. - - *‘code:REGEX’* -Match by transaction code (eg check number). - - *‘cur:REGEX’* -Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose -currency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial -match, use ‘.*REGEX.*’). Note, to match special characters which are -regex-significant, you need to escape them with ‘\’. And for characters -which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of -escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: -‘hledger print cur:\\$’. - - *‘desc:REGEX’* -Match transaction descriptions. - - *‘date:PERIODEXPR’* -Match dates (or with the ‘--date2’ flag, secondary dates) within the -specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report -interval. Examples: -‘date:2016’, ‘date:thismonth’, ‘date:2/1-2/15’, -‘date:2021-07-27..nextquarter’. - - *‘date2:PERIODEXPR’* -Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the -‘--date2’ flag). - - *‘depth:N’* -Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this -depth. - - *‘note:REGEX’* -Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of ‘|’, or -the whole description if there’s no ‘|’). - - *‘payee:REGEX’* -Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left of -‘|’, or the whole description if there’s no ‘|’). - - *‘real:, real:0’* -Match real or virtual postings respectively. - - *‘status:, status:!, status:*’* -Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. - - *‘type:TYPECODES’* -Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). -‘TYPECODES’ is one or more of the single-letter account type codes -‘ALERXCV’, case insensitive. Note ‘type:A’ and ‘type:E’ will also match -their respective subtypes ‘C’ (Cash) and ‘V’ (Conversion). Certain -kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts -> Aliases and account types. - - *‘tag:REGEX[=REGEX]’* -Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by -value, use ‘tag:.=REGEX’.) - - When querying by tag, note that: - - • Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts - • Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their - transaction - • Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. - - (*‘inacct:ACCTNAME’* -A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells -hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining query terms, Next: Queries and command options, Prev: Query types, Up: Queries - -17.2 Combining query terms -========================== - -When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which -match: - - • any of the description terms AND - • any of the account terms AND - • any of the status terms AND - • all the other terms. - - The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: - - • match any of the description terms AND - • have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND - • have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND - • match all the other terms. - - Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not -support full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND -or OR in your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but -here are some tricks that can help: - - 1. Use a doubled ‘not:’ prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses - paid with cash: - - $ hledger print food not:not:cash - - 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with ‘print’, piping the result into - a second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): - - $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and command options, Next: Queries and valuation, Prev: Combining query terms, Up: Queries - -17.3 Queries and command options -================================ - -Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: ‘depth:2’ is -equivalent to ‘--depth 2’, ‘date:2020’ is equivalent to ‘-p 2020’, etc. -When you mix command options and query arguments, generally the -resulting query is their intersection. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and valuation, Next: Querying with account aliases, Prev: Queries and command options, Up: Queries - -17.4 Queries and valuation -========================== - -When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value -reports, ‘cur:’ and ‘amt:’ match the old commodity symbol and the old -amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it’s -reversed, see #1625). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with account aliases, Next: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Queries and valuation, Up: Queries - -17.5 Querying with account aliases -================================== - -When account names are rewritten with ‘--alias’ or ‘alias’, note that -‘acct:’ will match either the old or the new account name. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Querying with account aliases, Up: Queries - -17.6 Querying with cost or value -================================ - -When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value -reports, note that ‘cur:’ matches the new commodity symbol, and not the -old one, and ‘amt:’ matches the new quantity, and not the old one. -Note: this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see -the discussion at #1625. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Pivoting, Next: Generating data, Prev: Queries, Up: Top - -18 Pivoting -*********** - -Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The -‘--pivot FIELD’ option substitutes some other transaction field for -account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field’s -value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields ‘status’, -‘code’, ‘description’, ‘payee’, ‘note’, or a tag name. When pivoting on -a tag and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first -value is displayed. Values containing ‘colon:separated:parts’ will be -displayed hierarchically, like account names. - - Some examples: - -2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment - assets:bank account 2 EUR - income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe - - Normal balance report showing account names: - -$ hledger balance - 2 EUR assets:bank account - -2 EUR income:dues --------------------- - 0 - - Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: - -$ hledger balance --pivot member - 2 EUR - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - 0 - - One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): - -$ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - -2 EUR - - Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account -name"): - -$ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. - -2 EUR John Doe --------------------- - -2 EUR - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Generating data, Next: Forecasting, Prev: Pivoting, Up: Top - -19 Generating data -****************** - -Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report time) -are built in to hledger’s journal format: - - • Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain - transactions. They are activated by the ‘--auto’ flag. - - • Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, - usually dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. - They are activated by the ‘--forecast’ or ‘balance --budget’ - options, described next. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Forecasting, Next: Budgeting, Prev: Generating data, Up: Top - -20 Forecasting -************** - -The ‘--forecast’ flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the -journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usually -recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. ‘hledger -print --forecast’ is a good way to see them. - - This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps -experimenting with different scenarios. - - It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe -recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of ‘print ---forecast’ into the journal. - - The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like -‘generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR’, indicating which periodic rule -generated them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named -‘_generated-transaction:’, which you can use to reliably match -transactions generated "just now" (rather than ‘print’ed in the past). - - The forecast transactions are generated within a _forecast period_, -which is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the -bounds for generated transactions, report period controls which -transactions are reported.) The forecast period begins on: - - • the start date provided within ‘--forecast’’s argument, if any - • otherwise, the later of - • the report start date, if specified (with ‘-b’/‘-p’/‘date:’) - • the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, - if any - - • otherwise today. - - It ends on: - - • the end date provided within ‘--forecast’’s argument, if any - • otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with - ‘-e’/‘-p’/‘date:’) - • otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. - - Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic -transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start until -after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, but -you can get around it in two ways: - - • If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them - periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ‘~ - YYYY-MM-DD’) rather than ordinary transactions. That way they - won’t suppress other periodic transactions. - - • Or give ‘--forecast’ a period expression argument. A forecast - period specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and - need not be in the future. Some things to note: - - • You must use ‘=’ between flag and argument; a space won’t - work. - • The period expression can specify the forecast period’s start - date, end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. - • The period expression should not specify a report interval. - (Each periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) - - Some examples: ‘--forecast=202001-202004’, ‘--forecast=jan-’, -‘--forecast=2021’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budgeting, Next: Cost reporting, Prev: Forecasting, Up: Top - -21 Budgeting -************ - -With the balance command’s ‘--budget’ report, each periodic transaction -rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals -and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command’s doc -below. - - See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Cost reporting, Next: Valuation, Prev: Budgeting, Up: Top - -22 Cost reporting -***************** - -This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions -where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of -currency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: - - • Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. - Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or - cryptocurrency. - - • Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more - conversions. - - • Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, - ie the exchange rate. - - • Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. - And more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the - "secondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a - purchase or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. - Also, the "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. - -* Menu: - -* -B Convert to cost:: -* Equity conversion postings:: -* Inferring equity postings from cost:: -* Inferring cost from equity postings:: -* When to infer cost/equity:: -* How to record conversions:: -* Cost tips:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -B Convert to cost, Next: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.1 -B: Convert to cost -======================== - -As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can -also record the amount’s cost in another commodity, by adding ‘@ -UNITPRICE’ or ‘@@ TOTALPRICE’. - - Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding -the ‘-B/--cost’ flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). -Eg: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - -$ hledger bal -N - $-135 assets:dollars - €100 assets:euros -$ hledger bal -N -B - $-135 assets:dollars - $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost - - Notes: - - -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the -inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if -example 3’s postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, --B shows something different: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold - assets:euros €100 ; for 100 euros - -$ hledger bal -N -B - €-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price - €100 assets:euros - - The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does -not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting -equation and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Equity conversion postings, Next: Inferring equity postings from cost, Prev: -B Convert to cost, Up: Cost reporting - -22.2 Equity conversion postings -=============================== - -By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a -different notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance -conversion transactions. In this style, the above entry might be -written: - -2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - This style is more correct, but it’s also more verbose and makes cost -reporting more difficult for PTA tools. - - Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to -the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. - - You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at -the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But be -sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you’ll see a -not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring equity postings from cost, Next: Inferring cost from equity postings, Prev: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.3 Inferring equity postings from cost -======================================== - -With ‘--infer-equity’, hledger detects transactions written with PTA -cost notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars -$135 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 - -$ hledger print --infer-equity -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 - equity:conversion:$-€:€ €-100 ; generated-posting: - equity:conversion:$-€:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: - - The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion -account type declaration. - - –infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded -using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and -balance reports’ zero total, or to produce more conventional journal -entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring cost from equity postings, Next: When to infer cost/equity, Prev: Inferring equity postings from cost, Up: Cost reporting - -22.4 Inferring cost from equity postings -======================================== - -The reverse operation is possible using ‘--infer-costs’, which detects -transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost -notation to them: - -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - -$ hledger print --infer-costs -2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 @@ €100 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - –infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/–cost, allowing cost -reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity -postings: - -$ hledger print --infer-costs -B -2009-01-01 - assets:dollars €-100 - assets:euros €100 - - Notes: - - For ‘--infer-costs’ to work, an exchange must consist of four -postings: - - 1. two non-equity postings - 2. two equity postings, next to one another - 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type - ‘V’/‘Conversion’ (or if they are not declared, they must be named - ‘equity:conversion’, ‘equity:trade’, ‘equity:trading’ or - subaccounts of these) - 4. the equity postings’ amounts must exactly match the non-equity - postings’ amounts. - - Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. - - When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added -to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in the -commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. If -you don’t want to write your postings in the required order, you can use -explicit cost notation instead. - - –infer-equity and –infer-costs can be used together, if you have a -mixture of both notations in your journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: When to infer cost/equity, Next: How to record conversions, Prev: Inferring cost from equity postings, Up: Cost reporting - -22.5 When to infer cost/equity -============================== - -Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled -by default. We’re not sure yet if that should change. Here are two -suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: - - 1. When you use -B, always use –infer-costs as well. Eg: ‘hledger bal - -B --infer-costs’ - - 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: ‘alias hl="hledger - --infer-equity --infer-costs"’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: How to record conversions, Next: Cost tips, Prev: When to infer cost/equity, Up: Cost reporting - -22.6 How to record conversions -============================== - -Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in -hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. - -* Menu: - -* Conversion with implicit cost:: -* Conversion with explicit cost:: -* Conversion with equity postings:: -* Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with implicit cost, Next: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.1 Conversion with implicit cost ------------------------------------- - -Let’s assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the -outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset account: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - assets:cash 120 USD - - hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the -conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred rate -by using ‘hledger print -x’. - - Pro: - - • Concise, easy - - Con: - - • Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not - be detected - • Conversion rate is not clear - • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the –infer-equity - flag - - You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped -commodity symbol, by using ‘hledger check commodities’. - - You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using ‘hledger -check balancednoautoconversion’, or ‘-s/--strict’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with explicit cost, Next: Conversion with equity postings, Prev: Conversion with implicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.2 Conversion with explicit cost ------------------------------------- - -You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an -error otherwise. - - Pro: - - • Still concise - • Makes the conversion rate clear - • Provides more error checking - - Con: - - • Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the –infer-equity - flag - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings, Next: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.3 Conversion with equity postings --------------------------------------- - -In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not -balanced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD -appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents -reports like ‘balancesheetequity’ from showing a zero total. - - The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for -each commodity, using an equity account: - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - • Preserves the accounting equation - • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - • Standard, works in any double entry accounting system - - Con: - - • More verbose - • Conversion rate is not obvious - • Cost reporting requires adding the –infer-costs flag - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with equity postings, Up: How to record conversions - -22.6.4 Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost --------------------------------------------------------- - -Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. - -2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - • Preserves the accounting equation - • Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - • Makes the conversion rate clear - • Provides more error checking - - Con: - - • Most verbose - • Not compatible with ledger - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Cost tips, Prev: How to record conversions, Up: Cost reporting - -22.7 Cost tips -============== - - • Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it - makes that clear and helps detect errors. - • Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping - and preserves the accounting equation. - • Combining these is possible. - • When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use - ‘-B’ (short form of ‘--cost’). - • If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add - ‘--infer-costs’ also. - • If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want - to see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, - use ‘--infer-equity’. - • Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation, Next: PART 4 COMMANDS, Prev: Cost reporting, Up: Top - -23 Valuation -************ - -Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can -convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in -the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a -certain date). This is controlled by the ‘--value=TYPE[,COMMODITY]’ -option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler ‘-V’ -and ‘-X COMMODITY’ options, and often one of these is all you need: - -* Menu: - -* -V Value:: -* -X Value in specified commodity:: -* Valuation date:: -* Finding market price:: -* --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions:: -* Valuation commodity:: -* Simple valuation examples:: -* --value Flexible valuation:: -* More valuation examples:: -* Interaction of valuation and queries:: -* Effect of valuation on reports:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -V Value, Next: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.1 -V: Value -============== - -The ‘-V/--market’ flag converts amounts to market value in their default -_valuation commodity_, using the market prices in effect on the -_valuation date(s)_, if any. More on these in a minute. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: -X Value in specified commodity, Next: Valuation date, Prev: -V Value, Up: Valuation - -23.2 -X: Value in specified commodity -===================================== - -The ‘-X/--exchange=COMM’ option is like ‘-V’, except you tell it which -currency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to -that. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation date, Next: Finding market price, Prev: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.3 Valuation date -=================== - -Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports -have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market -prices will be used. - - For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is -specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the -valuation date is the journal’s end date. - - For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day -of the period, by default. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Finding market price, Next: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Prev: Valuation date, Up: Valuation - -23.4 Finding market price -========================= - -To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, -hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in -this order of preference : - - 1. A _declared market price_ or _inferred market price_: A’s latest - market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a - P directive, or (with the ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag) inferred - from costs. - - 2. A _reverse market price_: the inverse of a declared or inferred - market price from B to A. - - 3. A _forward chain of market prices_: a synthetic price formed by - combining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market - prices, leading from A to B. - - 4. _Any chain of market prices_: a chain of any market prices, - including both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading - from A to B. - - There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger -reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all -possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in -‘--debug=2’ output). That limit is currently 1000. - - Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not -converted. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Next: Valuation commodity, Prev: Finding market price, Up: Valuation - -23.5 –infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions -========================================================== - -Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, -P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a -chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market -value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as -Ledger does) ? Adding the ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag to ‘-V’, ‘-X’ or -‘--value’ enables this. - - So for example, ‘hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices’ will get market -prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on -the same day, the P directive takes precedence. - - There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in -confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to -you, read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding -‘--debug’ or ‘--debug=2’ to troubleshoot. - - ‘--infer-market-prices’ can infer market prices from: - - • multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (‘@’/‘@@’) - - • multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no ‘@’, two - commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings - matters. ‘hledger print -x’ can be useful for troubleshooting.) - - • multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is - inferred with ‘--infer-costs’. - - There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is -not specified, prices inferred with ‘--infer-market-prices’ do not help -select a default valuation commodity, as ‘P’ prices would. So -conversion might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected -(‘--debug=2’ will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation -commmodity, eg: - - • ‘-X EUR --infer-market-prices’, not ‘-V --infer-market-prices’ - • ‘--value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices’, not ‘--value=then - --infer-market-prices’ - - Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here -is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should -work differently, see #1870.) - -2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @ A 1 - -2022-01-01 Positive Total prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @@ A 1 - - -2022-01-02 Negative unit prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @ A -1 - -2022-01-02 Negative total prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @@ A -1 - - -2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @ A -1 - -2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @@ A -1 - - All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each -day, the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the -market prices inferred for B: - -$ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices -P 2022-01-01 B A 1 -P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 -P 2022-01-02 B A -1 -P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 -P 2022-01-03 B A -1 -P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation commodity, Next: Simple valuation examples, Prev: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Up: Valuation - -23.6 Valuation commodity -======================== - -*When you specify a valuation commodity (‘-X COMM’ or ‘--value -TYPE,COMM’):* -hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a -suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). - - *When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (‘-V’ or ‘--value -TYPE’):* -For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as -follows, in this order of preference: - - 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A - on or before valuation date. - - 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A - on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred - prices before the valuation date.) - - 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the - ‘--infer-market-prices’ flag is used: the price commodity from the - latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation - date. - - This means: - - • If you have P directives, they determine which commodities ‘-V’ - will convert, and to what. - - • If you have no P directives, and use the ‘--infer-market-prices’ - flag, costs determine it. - - Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not -converted. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple valuation examples, Next: --value Flexible valuation, Prev: Valuation commodity, Up: Valuation - -23.7 Simple valuation examples -============================== - -Here are some quick examples of ‘-V’: - -; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 -P 2016/11/01 € $1.10 - -; purchase some euros on nov 3 -2016/11/3 - assets:euros €100 - assets:checking - -; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 -P 2016/12/21 € $1.03 - - How many euros do I have ? - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros - €100 assets:euros - - What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 - $110.00 assets:euros - - What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date -specified, defaults to today) - -$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V - $103.00 assets:euros - - -File: hledger.info, Node: --value Flexible valuation, Next: More valuation examples, Prev: Simple valuation examples, Up: Valuation - -23.8 –value: Flexible valuation -=============================== - -‘-V’ and ‘-X’ are special cases of the more general ‘--value’ option: - - --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. - COMM is an optional commodity symbol. - Shows amounts converted to: - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date - - The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: - -‘--value=then’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, - using market prices on each posting’s date. -‘--value=end’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, - using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if - unspecified, the journal’s end date); or in multiperiod reports, - market prices on the last day of each subperiod. -‘--value=now’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity - using current market prices (as of when report is generated). -‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD’ - - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity - using market prices on this date. - - To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ‘,COMM’ -part: a comma, then the target commodity’s symbol. Eg: -*‘--value=now,EUR’*. hledger will do its best to convert amounts to -this commodity, deducing market prices as described above. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More valuation examples, Next: Interaction of valuation and queries, Prev: --value Flexible valuation, Up: Valuation - -23.9 More valuation examples -============================ - -Here are some examples showing the effect of ‘--value’, as seen with -‘print’: - -P 2000-01-01 A 1 B -P 2000-02-01 A 2 B -P 2000-03-01 A 3 B -P 2000-04-01 A 4 B - -2000-01-01 - (a) 1 A @ 5 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 1 A @ 6 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 1 A @ 7 B - - Show the cost of each posting: - -$ hledger -f- print --cost -2000-01-01 - (a) 5 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 6 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 7 B - - Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 -2000-01-01 - (a) 2 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 2 B - - With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last -day of the journal (2000-03-01): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=end -2000-01-01 - (a) 3 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 3 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 3 B - - Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect -today): - -$ hledger -f- print --value=now -2000-01-01 - (a) 4 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 4 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 4 B - - Show the value on 2000/01/15: - -$ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 -2000-01-01 - (a) 1 B - -2000-02-01 - (a) 1 B - -2000-03-01 - (a) 1 B - - You may need to explicitly set a commodity’s display style, when -reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: - -P 2000-01-01 A 2B - -2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - -$ hledger print -x -X A -2000-01-01 - a 0 - b 0 - - Explanation: because there’s no amount or commodity directive -specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which -shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, -the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a -commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A: - -P 2000-01-01 A 2B -commodity 0.00A - -2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - -$ hledger print -X A -2000-01-01 - a 0.50A - b -0.50A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Interaction of valuation and queries, Next: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: More valuation examples, Up: Valuation - -23.10 Interaction of valuation and queries -========================================== - -When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, -the following happens. - - 1. The query is separated into two parts: - 1. the currency (‘cur:’) or amount (‘amt:’). - 2. all other parts. - - 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based - on pre-valued amounts. - 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. - 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on - post-valued amounts. - - See: 1625 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: Interaction of valuation and queries, Up: Valuation - -23.11 Effect of valuation on reports -==================================== - -Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of -hledger’s reports (and a glossary). (It’s wide, you’ll have to scroll -sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find -problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. -Related: #329, #1083. - -Report ‘-B’, ‘-V’, ‘-X’ ‘--value=then’ ‘--value=end’‘--value=DATE’, -type ‘--cost’ ‘--value=now’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -*print* -posting cost value at value at posting value at value -amounts report end date report or at - or today journal DATE/today - end -balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged -assertions/assignments -*register* -starting cost value at valued at day value at value -balance report or each historical report or at -(-H) journal posting was made journal DATE/today - end end -starting cost value at valued at day value at value -balance day before each historical day before at -(-H) report or posting was made report or DATE/today -with journal journal -report start start -interval -posting cost value at value at posting value at value -amounts report or date report or at - journal journal DATE/today - end end -summary summarised value at sum of postings value at value -posting cost period in interval, period at -amounts ends valued at ends DATE/today -with interval start -report -interval -running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average -total/averageof of displayed values of of - displayed displayed displayed displayed - values values values values -*balance -(bs, -bse, cf, -is)* -balance sums of value at value at posting value at value -changes costs report end date report or at - or today journal DATE/today - of sums of end of of - postings sums of sums - postings of - postings -budget like like like balance like like -amounts balance balance changes balances balance -(–budget) changes changes changes -grand sum of sum of sum of displayed sum of sum of -total displayed displayed valued displayed displayed - values values values values -*balance -(bs, -bse, cf, -is) with -report -interval* -starting sums of value at sums of values value at sums -balances costs of report of postings report of -(-H) postings start of before report start of postings - before sums of start at sums of before - report all respective all report - start postings posting dates postings start - before before - report report - start start -balance sums of same as sums of values balance value -changes costs of –value=end of postings in change in at -(bal, postings period at each DATE/today -is, bs in period respective period, of -–change, posting dates valued at sums -cf period of -–change) ends postings -end sums of same as sums of values period end value -balances costs of –value=end of postings from balances, at -(bal -H, postings before period valued at DATE/today -is –H, from start to period period of -bs, cf) before end at ends sums - report respective of - start to posting dates postings - period end -budget like like like balance like like -amounts balance balance changes/end balances balance -(–budget) changes/end changes/end balances changes/end - balances balances balances -row sums, sums, sums, averages sums, sums, -totals, averages averages of displayed averages averages -row of of values of of -averages displayed displayed displayed displayed -(-T, -A) values values values values -column sums of sums of sums of sums of sums -totals displayed displayed displayed values displayed of - values values values displayed - values -grand sum, sum, sum, average of sum, sum, -total, average of average of column totals average of average -grand column column column of -average totals totals totals column - totals - - ‘--cumulative’ is omitted to save space, it works like ‘-H’ but with -a zero starting balance. - - *Glossary:* - -_cost_ - - calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). -_value_ - - market value using available market price declarations, or the - unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. -_report start_ - - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise today. -_report or journal start_ - - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. -_report end_ - - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, - otherwise today. -_report or journal end_ - - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, - otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise - today. -_report interval_ - - a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the - report’s multi-period mode (whether showing one or many - subperiods). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 4 COMMANDS, Next: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: Valuation, Up: Top - -24 PART 4: COMMANDS -******************* - -* Menu: - -* Commands overview:: -* accounts:: -* activity:: -* add:: -* aregister:: -* balance:: -* balancesheet:: -* balancesheetequity:: -* cashflow:: -* check:: -* close:: -* codes:: -* commodities:: -* descriptions:: -* diff:: -* files:: -* help:: -* import:: -* incomestatement:: -* notes:: -* payees:: -* prices:: -* print:: -* register:: -* rewrite:: -* roi:: -* stats:: -* tags:: -* test:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commands overview, Next: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.1 Commands overview -====================== - -Here are the built-in commands: - -* Menu: - -* DATA ENTRY:: -* DATA CREATION:: -* DATA MANAGEMENT:: -* REPORTS FINANCIAL:: -* REPORTS VERSATILE:: -* REPORTS BASIC:: -* HELP:: -* ADD-ONS:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA ENTRY, Next: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.1 DATA ENTRY ------------------ - -These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your -journal file. - - • add - add transactions using terminal prompts - • import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA CREATION, Next: DATA MANAGEMENT, Prev: DATA ENTRY, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.2 DATA CREATION --------------------- - - • close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions - • rewrite - generate auto postings, like print –auto - - -File: hledger.info, Node: DATA MANAGEMENT, Next: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Prev: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.3 DATA MANAGEMENT ----------------------- - - • check - check for various kinds of error in the data - • diff - compare account transactions in two journal files - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Next: REPORTS VERSATILE, Prev: DATA MANAGEMENT, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.4 REPORTS, FINANCIAL -------------------------- - - • aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account - • balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth - • balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity - • cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets - • incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS VERSATILE, Next: REPORTS BASIC, Prev: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.5 REPORTS, VERSATILE -------------------------- - - • balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, - gains.. - • print - show transactions or export journal data - • register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running - total - • roi - show return on investments - - -File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS BASIC, Next: HELP, Prev: REPORTS VERSATILE, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.6 REPORTS, BASIC ---------------------- - - • accounts - show account names - • activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period - • codes - show transaction codes - • commodities - show commodity/currency symbols - • descriptions - show transaction descriptions - • files - show input file paths - • notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions - • payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions - • prices - show market prices - • stats - show journal statistics - • tags - show tag names - • test - run self tests - - -File: hledger.info, Node: HELP, Next: ADD-ONS, Prev: REPORTS BASIC, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.7 HELP ------------ - - • help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager - - -File: hledger.info, Node: ADD-ONS, Prev: HELP, Up: Commands overview - -24.1.8 ADD-ONS --------------- - -And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed -by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in -hledger’s commands list: - - • ui - run hledger’s terminal UI - • web - run hledger’s web UI - • iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) - • interest - generate interest transactions - • stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage - • Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, - pijul, plot, and more.. - - Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: accounts, Next: activity, Prev: Commands overview, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.2 accounts -============= - -Show account names. - - This command lists account names. By default it shows all known -accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account -directives. - - With query arguments, only matched account names and account names -referenced by matched postings are shown. - - Or it can show just the used accounts (‘--used’/‘-u’), the declared -accounts (‘--declared’/‘-d’), the accounts declared but not used -(‘--unused’), the accounts used but not declared (‘--undeclared’), or -the first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (‘--find’). - - It shows a flat list by default. With ‘--tree’, it uses indentation -to show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add ‘--drop N’ to -omit the first few account name components. Account names can be -depth-clipped with ‘depth:N’ or ‘--depth N’ or ‘-N’. - - With ‘--types’, it also shows each account’s type, if it’s known. -(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) - - With ‘--positions’, it also shows the file and line number of each -account’s declaration, if any, and the account’s overall declaration -order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. - - With ‘--directives’, it adds the ‘account’ keyword, showing valid -account directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is -useful together with ‘--undeclared’ when updating your account -declarations to satisfy ‘hledger check accounts’. - - The ‘--find’ flag can be used to look up a single account name, in -the same way that the ‘aregister’ command does. It returns the -alphanumerically-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it -fails with a non-zero exit code. - - Examples: - -$ hledger accounts -assets:bank:checking -assets:bank:saving -assets:cash -expenses:food -expenses:supplies -income:gifts -income:salary -liabilities:debts - -$ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE -$ hledger check accounts - - -File: hledger.info, Node: activity, Next: add, Prev: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.3 activity -============= - -Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. - - The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction -counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the -default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. - - Examples: - -$ hledger activity --quarterly -2008-01-01 ** -2008-04-01 ******* -2008-07-01 -2008-10-01 ** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: add, Next: aregister, Prev: activity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.4 add -======== - -Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments will -be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. - - Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, -or generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the -‘add’ command, which prompts interactively on the console for new -transactions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be -in journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one -of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also -‘import’). - - To use it, just run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts. You can -add as many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter ‘.’ -or press control-d or control-c to exit. - - Features: - - • add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by - description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as - a template. - • You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. - • Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. - • The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, - payees/descriptions, dates (‘yesterday’, ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’). If - the input area is empty, it will insert the default value. - • If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any - bare numbers entered. - • A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. - • Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. - • If you make a mistake, enter ‘<’ at any prompt to go one step - backward. - • Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal - supports it. - - Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): - -$ hledger add -Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal -Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. -Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. -An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. -An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. -If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. -To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. -To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. -Date [2015/05/22]: -Description: supermarket -Account 1: expenses:food -Amount 1: $10 -Account 2: assets:checking -Amount 2 [$-10.0]: -Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . -2015/05/22 supermarket - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking $-10.0 - -Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: -Saved. -Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) -Date [2015/05/22]: $ - - On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the -file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: aregister, Next: balance, Prev: add, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.5 aregister -============== - -(areg) - - Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single -account, with each transaction displayed as one line. - - ‘aregister’ shows the overall transactions affecting a particular -account (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one -transaction in this account. Transactions before the report start date -are always included in the running balance (‘--historical’ mode is -always on). - - This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the ‘register’ -command (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple -accounts, not necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of -thumb: - use ‘aregister’ for reviewing and reconciling real-world -asset/liability accounts - use ‘register’ for reviewing detailed -revenues/expenses. - - ‘aregister’ requires one argument: the account to report on. You can -write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular -expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. - - When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can -be surprising; eg if you have ‘assets:per:checking 1’ and -‘assets:biz:checking 2’ accounts, ‘hledger areg checking’ would select -‘assets:biz:checking 2’. It’s just a convenience to save typing, so if -in doubt, write the full account name, or a distinctive substring that -matches uniquely. - - Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be -shown. ‘aregister’ ignores depth limits, so its final total will always -match a balance report with similar arguments. - - Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the -transactions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, -causing it to be different from the account’s real-world running -balance. - - An example: this shows the transactions and historical running -balance during july, in the first account whose name contains -"checking": - -$ hledger areg checking date:jul - - Each ‘aregister’ line item shows: - - • the transaction’s date (or the relevant posting’s date if - different, see below) - • the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction - (probably abbreviated) - • the total change to this account’s balance from this transaction - • the account’s historical running balance after this transaction. - - Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; -add the ‘-E/--empty’ flag to show them. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first -1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause -visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to -ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the -‘--align-all’ flag. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options. The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and ‘json’. - -* Menu: - -* aregister and custom posting dates:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: aregister and custom posting dates, Up: aregister - -24.5.1 aregister and custom posting dates ------------------------------------------ - -Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, -if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report period. -(And in this case it’s the posting date that is shown.) This ensures -that ‘aregister’ can show an accurate historical running balance, -matching the one shown by ‘register -H’ with the same arguments. - - To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the ‘--txn-dates’ -flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom dates, -it’s probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance, Next: balancesheet, Prev: aregister, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.6 balance -============ - -(bal) - - Show accounts and their balances. - - ‘balance’ is one of hledger’s oldest and most versatile commands, for -listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and -more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with -rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. - - Note there are some higher-level variants of the ‘balance’ command -with convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: ‘balancesheet’, -‘balancesheetequity’, ‘cashflow’ and ‘incomestatement’. When you need -more control, then use ‘balance’. - -* Menu: - -* balance features:: -* Simple balance report:: -* Balance report line format:: -* Filtered balance report:: -* List or tree mode:: -* Depth limiting:: -* Dropping top-level accounts:: -* Showing declared accounts:: -* Sorting by amount:: -* Percentages:: -* Multi-period balance report:: -* Balance change end balance:: -* Balance report types:: -* Budget report:: -* Data layout:: -* Useful balance reports:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balance features, Next: Simple balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.1 balance features ------------------------ - -Here’s a quick overview of the ‘balance’ command’s features, followed by -more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the -higher-level commands as well. - - ‘balance’ can show.. - - • accounts as a list (‘-l’) or a tree (‘-t’) - • optionally depth-limited (‘-[1-9]’) - • sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount - - ..and their.. - - • balance changes (the default) - • or actual and planned balance changes (‘--budget’) - • or value of balance changes (‘-V’) - • or change of balance values (‘--valuechange’) - • or unrealised capital gain/loss (‘--gain’) - - ..in.. - - • one time period (the whole journal period by default) - • or multiple periods (‘-D’, ‘-W’, ‘-M’, ‘-Q’, ‘-Y’, ‘-p INTERVAL’) - - ..either.. - - • per period (the default) - • or accumulated since report start date (‘--cumulative’) - • or accumulated since account creation (‘--historical/-H’) - - ..possibly converted to.. - - • cost (‘--value=cost[,COMM]’/‘--cost’/‘-B’) - • or market value, as of transaction dates (‘--value=then[,COMM]’) - • or at period ends (‘--value=end[,COMM]’) - • or now (‘--value=now’) - • or at some other date (‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD’) - - ..with.. - - • totals (‘-T’), averages (‘-A’), percentages (‘-%’), inverted sign - (‘--invert’) - • rows and columns swapped (‘--transpose’) - • another field used as account name (‘--pivot’) - • custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) - (‘--format’) - • commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines - (‘--layout’) - - This command supports the output destination and output format -options, with output formats ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘json’, and (multi-period -reports only:) ‘html’. In ‘txt’ output in a colour-supporting terminal, -negative amounts are shown in red. - - The ‘--related’/‘-r’ flag shows the balance of the _other_ postings -in the transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Simple balance report, Next: Balance report line format, Prev: balance features, Up: balance - -24.6.2 Simple balance report ----------------------------- - -With no arguments, ‘balance’ shows a list of all accounts and their -change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and -outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here -means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can -also have multi-period reports, described later.) - - For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end -balance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. - - Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then -alphabetically by account name. For instance (using -examples/sample.journal): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree -mode - see below) are hidden by default. Use ‘-E/--empty’ to show them -(revealing ‘assets:bank:checking’ here): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E - 0 assets:bank:checking - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless -‘-N’/‘--no-total’ is used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report line format, Next: Filtered balance report, Prev: Simple balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.3 Balance report line format ---------------------------------- - -For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you -can use ‘--format FMT’ to customise the format and content of each line. -Eg: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" - assets $-1 - bank:saving $1 - cash $-2 - expenses $2 - food $1 - supplies $1 - income $-2 - gifts $-1 - salary $-1 - liabilities:debts $1 ---------------------------------- - 0 - - The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each -account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data -fields interpolated like so: - - ‘%[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)’ - - • MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) - - • MAX truncates at this width (optional) - - • FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: - - • ‘depth_spacer’ - a number of spaces equal to the account’s - depth, or if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. - • ‘account’ - the account’s name - • ‘total’ - the account’s balance/posted total, right justified - - Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how -multi-commodity amounts are rendered: - - • ‘%_’ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) - • ‘%^’ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned - • ‘%,’ - render on one line, comma-separated - - There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, ‘%(depth_spacer)’ has no -effect, instead ‘%(account)’ has indentation built in. Experimentation -may be needed to get pleasing results. - - Some example formats: - - • ‘%(total)’ - the account’s total - • ‘%-20.20(account)’ - the account’s name, left justified, padded to - 20 characters and clipped at 20 characters - • ‘%,%-50(account) %25(total)’ - account name padded to 50 - characters, total padded to 20 characters, with multiple - commodities rendered on one line - • ‘%20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)’ - the default format for - the single-column balance report - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Filtered balance report, Next: List or tree mode, Prev: Balance report line format, Up: balance - -24.6.4 Filtered balance report ------------------------------- - -You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from -cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to -limit the postings being matched. Eg: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 - $-2 assets:cash --------------------- - $-2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: List or tree mode, Next: Depth limiting, Prev: Filtered balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.5 List or tree mode ------------------------- - -By default, or with ‘-l/--flat’, accounts are shown as a flat list with -their full names visible, as in the examples above. - - With ‘-t/--tree’, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts’ -"leaf" names indented below their parent: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - 0 - - Notes: - - • "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more - compact output, unless ‘--no-elide’ is used. Boring accounts have - no balance of their own and just one subaccount (eg ‘assets:bank’ - and ‘liabilities’ above). - - • All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from - all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, - which requires explanation when sharing reports with - non-plaintextaccounting-users. A tree mode report’s final total is - the sum of the top-level balances shown, not of all the balances - shown. - - • Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is - sorted separately. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Depth limiting, Next: Dropping top-level accounts, Prev: List or tree mode, Up: balance - -24.6.6 Depth limiting ---------------------- - -With a ‘depth:NUM’ query, or ‘--depth NUM’ option, or just ‘-NUM’ (eg: -‘-3’) balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, -hiding the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an -overview without too much detail. - - Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from -any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 - $-1 assets - $2 expenses - $-2 income - $1 liabilities --------------------- - 0 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Dropping top-level accounts, Next: Showing declared accounts, Prev: Depth limiting, Up: balance - -24.6.7 Dropping top-level accounts ----------------------------------- - -You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using -‘--drop NUM’. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level -account names: - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 - $1 food - $1 supplies --------------------- - $2 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Showing declared accounts, Next: Sorting by amount, Prev: Dropping top-level accounts, Up: balance - -24.6.8 Showing declared accounts --------------------------------- - -With ‘--declared’, accounts which have been declared with an account -directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no -transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need -‘-E/--empty’ to see them.) - - More precisely, _leaf_ declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will -be included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. - - The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance -report, even when you don’t have transactions in all of your declared -accounts yet. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Sorting by amount, Next: Percentages, Prev: Showing declared accounts, Up: balance - -24.6.9 Sorting by amount ------------------------- - -With ‘-S/--sort-amount’, accounts with the largest (most positive) -balances are shown first. Eg: ‘hledger bal expenses -MAS’ shows your -biggest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity -is present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity -first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a -commodity, it is treated as 0). - - Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -‘-S’ shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add -‘--invert’ to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, -which flip the sign automatically. Eg: ‘hledger incomestatement -MAS’). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Percentages, Next: Multi-period balance report, Prev: Sorting by amount, Up: balance - -24.6.10 Percentages -------------------- - -With ‘-%/--percent’, balance reports show each account’s value expressed -as a percentage of the (column) total. - - Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a -column have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each -sign, eg: - -$ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` -$ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` - - Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert -them to one commodity with ‘-B’, ‘-V’, ‘-X’ or ‘--value’, or make a -separate report for each commodity: - -$ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ -$ hledger bal -% cur:€ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Multi-period balance report, Next: Balance change end balance, Prev: Percentages, Up: balance - -24.6.11 Multi-period balance report ------------------------------------ - -With a report interval (set by the ‘-D/--daily’, ‘-W/--weekly’, -‘-M/--monthly’, ‘-Q/--quarterly’, ‘-Y/--yearly’, or ‘-p/--period’ flag), -‘balance’ shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive -time periods (and a title): - -$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E -Balance changes in 2008: - - || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 -===================++================================= - expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 - expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 - income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 - income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 --------------------++--------------------------------- - || $-1 $1 0 0 - - Notes: - - • The report’s start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to - fully encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and - last subperiods have the same duration as the others). - • Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are - not shown, unless ‘-E/--empty’ is used. - • Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless - ‘-E/--empty’ is used. - • Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless - ‘--no-elide’ is used. _(experimental)_ - • Average and/or total columns can be added with the ‘-A/--average’ - and ‘-T/--row-total’ flags. - • The ‘--transpose’ flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. - • The ‘--pivot FIELD’ option causes a different transaction field to - be used as "account name". See PIVOTING. - - Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy -viewing in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: - - • Hide the totals row with ‘-N/--no-total’ - • Convert to a single currency with ‘-V’ - • Maximize the terminal window - • Reduce the terminal’s font size - • View with a pager like less, eg: ‘hledger bal -D --color=yes | less - -RS’ - • Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (‘hledger bal -D - -O csv | vd -f csv’), Emacs’ csv-mode (‘M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a’), or - a spreadsheet (‘hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv’) - • Output as HTML and view with a browser: ‘hledger bal -D -o a.html - && open a.html’ - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance change end balance, Next: Balance report types, Prev: Multi-period balance report, Up: balance - -24.6.12 Balance change, end balance ------------------------------------ - -It’s important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in -balance reports. Here is some terminology we use: - - A *_balance change_* is the net amount added to, or removed from, an -account during some period. - - An *_end balance_* is the amount accumulated in an account as of some -date (and some time, but hledger doesn’t store that; assume end of day -in your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. - - We call it a *_historical end balance_* if it includes all balance -changes since the account was created. For a real world account, this -means it will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in -your bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) - - In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing -revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to -see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. - - ‘balance’ shows balance changes by default. To see accurate -historical end balances: - - 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" - transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the - journal covers the account’s full lifetime. - - 2. Include all of of the account’s prior postings in the report, by - not specifying a report start date, or by using the - ‘-H/--historical’ flag. (‘-H’ causes report start date to be - ignored when summing postings.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report types, Next: Budget report, Prev: Balance change end balance, Up: balance - -24.6.13 Balance report types ----------------------------- - -The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how to -control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don’t -worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some -time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. - - There are three important option groups: - - ‘hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] -...’ - -* Menu: - -* Calculation type:: -* Accumulation type:: -* Valuation type:: -* Combining balance report types:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Calculation type, Next: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.1 Calculation type -.......................... - -The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: - - • ‘--sum’ : sum the posting amounts (*default*) - • ‘--budget’ : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount - (for each account/period) - • ‘--valuechange’ : show the change in period-end historical balance - values (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price - fluctuations) - • ‘--gain’ : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current - valued balance minus each amount’s original cost) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Accumulation type, Next: Valuation type, Prev: Calculation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.2 Accumulation type -........................... - -How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to say -it: which time period’s postings should contribute to each cell’s -calculation. It is one of: - - • ‘--change’ : calculate with postings from column start to column - end, ie "just this column". Typically used to see - revenues/expenses. (*default for balance, incomestatement*) - - • ‘--cumulative’ : calculate with postings from report start to - column end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used - to show changes accumulated since the report’s start date. Not - often used. - - • ‘--historical/-H’ : calculate with postings from journal start to - column end, ie "all postings from before report start date until - this column’s end". Typically used to see historical end balances - of assets/liabilities/equity. (*default for balancesheet, - balancesheetequity, cashflow*) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation type, Next: Combining balance report types, Prev: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.3 Valuation type -........................ - -Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, before -displaying the report. It is one of: - - • no valuation type : don’t convert to cost or value (*default*) - • ‘--value=cost[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to - some other commodity) - • ‘--value=then[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on - transaction dates - • ‘--value=end[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on period - end date(s) - (*default with ‘--valuechange’, ‘--gain’*) - • ‘--value=now[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on today’s - date - • ‘--value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM]’ : convert amounts to market value on - another date - - or one of the equivalent simpler flags: - - • ‘-B/--cost’ : like –value=cost (though, note –cost and –value are - independent options which can both be used at once) - • ‘-V/--market’ : like –value=end - • ‘-X COMM/--exchange COMM’ : like –value=end,COMM - - See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Combining balance report types, Prev: Valuation type, Up: Balance report types - -24.6.13.4 Combining balance report types -........................................ - -Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, -but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The -following restrictions are applied: - - • ‘--valuechange’ implies ‘--value=end’ - • ‘--valuechange’ makes ‘--change’ the default when used with the - ‘balancesheet’/‘balancesheetequity’ commands - • ‘--cumulative’ or ‘--historical’ disables ‘--row-total/-T’ - - For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and -valuation show: - -Valuation:>no valuation ‘--value= then’ ‘--value= end’ ‘--value= -Accumulation:v YYYY-MM-DD - /now’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -‘--change’change in sum of period-end DATE-value - period posting-date value of of change in - market values change in period - in period period -‘--cumulative’change from sum of period-end DATE-value - report start to posting-date value of of change - period end market values change from from report - from report report start start to - start to period to period end period end - end -‘--historicalchange from sum of period-end DATE-value -/-H’ journal start posting-date value of of change - to period end market values change from from journal - (historical end from journal journal start start to - balance) start to period to period end period end - end - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report, Next: Data layout, Prev: Balance report types, Up: balance - -24.6.14 Budget report ---------------------- - -The ‘--budget’ report type activates extra columns showing any budget -goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by -periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual -income, expenses, time usage, etc. - - For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common -expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: - -;; Budget -~ monthly - income $2000 - expenses:food $400 - expenses:bus $50 - expenses:movies $30 - assets:bank:checking - -;; Two months worth of expenses -2017-11-01 - income $1950 - expenses:food $396 - expenses:bus $49 - expenses:movies $30 - expenses:supplies $20 - assets:bank:checking - -2017-12-01 - income $2100 - expenses:food $412 - expenses:bus $53 - expenses:gifts $100 - assets:bank:checking - - You can now see a monthly budget report: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: - - • Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, - by default. - - • In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget - goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: - budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) - - • All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg - assets, assets:bank, and expenses above. - - • Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, - even in list mode. - - This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg -above, the ‘expenses’ actual amount includes the gifts and supplies -transactions, but the ‘expenses:gifts’ and ‘expenses:supplies’ accounts -are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. - - This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the -‘-E/--empty’ flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted -ones, giving the full picture. Eg: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget --empty -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:gifts || 0 $100 - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - expenses:supplies || $20 0 - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with ‘--cumulative’: - -$ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative -Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec -======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] -----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - It’s common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses - -hledger bal -M --budget expenses - - or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): - -hledger bal -M --budget type:rx - - It’s also common to limit or convert them to a single currency -(‘cur:COMM’ or ‘-X COMM [--infer-market-prices]’). If showing multiple -currencies, ‘--layout bare’ or ‘--layout tall’ can help. - - For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. - -* Menu: - -* Budget report start date:: -* Budgets and subaccounts:: -* Selecting budget goals:: -* Budget vs forecast:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report start date, Next: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.1 Budget report start date -.................................. - -This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it’s a -good idea to explicitly set the report’s start date to the first day of -a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ‘~ monthly’ generates -its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no -regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could -exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here the -default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: - -~ monthly in 2020 - (expenses:food) $500 - -2020-01-15 - expenses:food $400 - assets:checking - -$ hledger bal expenses --budget -Budget performance in 2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-15 -==============++============ - || $400 ---------------++------------ - || $400 - - To avoid this, specify the budget report’s period, or at least the -start date, with ‘-b’/‘-e’/‘-p’/‘date:’, to ensure it includes the -budget goal transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, -adding ‘-b 2020/1/1’ to the above: - -$ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 -Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 -===============++======================== - expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] ----------------++------------------------ - || $400 [80% of $500] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budgets and subaccounts, Next: Selecting budget goals, Prev: Budget report start date, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.2 Budgets and subaccounts -................................. - -You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you -have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then -budget(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their -parent, much like account balances behave. - - In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any -account, all its parents would have budget as well. - - To illustrate this, consider the following budget: - -~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and -budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly -means that budget for both ‘expenses:personal’ and ‘expenses’ is $1100. - - Transactions in ‘expenses:personal:electronics’ will be counted both -towards its $100 budget and $1100 of ‘expenses:personal’ , and -transactions in any other subaccount of ‘expenses:personal’ would be -counted towards only towards the budget of ‘expenses:personal’. - - For example, let’s consider these transactions: - -~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/01 Google home hub - expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 - liabilities $-90.00 - -2019/01/02 Phone screen protector - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket - expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 - liabilities - -2019/01/03 Flowers - expenses:personal $30.00 - liabilities - - As you can see, we have transactions in -‘expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades’ and ‘expenses:personal:train -tickets’, and since both of these accounts are without explicitly -defined budget, these transactions would be counted towards budgets of -‘expenses:personal:electronics’ and ‘expenses:personal’ accordingly: - -$ hledger balance --budget -M -Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan -===============================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] --------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - And with ‘--empty’, we can get a better picture of budget allocation -and consumption: - -$ hledger balance --budget -M --empty -Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan -========================================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 - expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] -----------------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Selecting budget goals, Next: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.3 Selecting budget goals -................................ - -The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate -special "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each -account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use -‘print --forecast’ to show these as forecasted transactions: - -$ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated - - By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction -rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report -interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly -periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly -budget report. - - You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to -the ‘--budget’ flag. ‘--budget=DESCPAT’ will match all periodic rules -whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a -regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic -rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then -select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Selecting budget goals, Up: Budget report - -24.6.14.4 Budget vs forecast -............................ - -‘hledger --forecast ...’ and ‘hledger balance --budget ...’ are separate -features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules defined -in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transactions for -reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal -transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same -time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of hledger -1.29: - - CLI: - - • –forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command - • –budget is a ‘balance’ command option, usable only with that - command. - - Visibility of generated transactions: - - • forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary - transactions - • budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts - they produce in –budget reports. - - Periodic transaction rules: - - • –forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules - • –budget uses all periodic rules (‘--budget’) or a selected subset - (‘--budget=DESCPAT’) - - Period of generated transactions: - - • –forecast generates forecast transactions - • from after the last regular transaction to the end of the - report period (‘--forecast’) - • or, during a specified period (‘--forecast=PERIODEXPR’) - • possibly further restricted by a period specified in the - periodic transaction rule - • and always restricted within the bounds of the report period - - • –budget generates budget goal transactions - • throughout the report period - • possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic - transaction rule. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Data layout, Next: Useful balance reports, Prev: Budget report, Up: balance - -24.6.15 Data layout -------------------- - -The ‘--layout’ option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity -amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can -also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has -four possible values: - - • ‘--layout=wide[,WIDTH]’: commodities are shown on a single line, - optionally elided to WIDTH - • ‘--layout=tall’: each commodity is shown on a separate line - • ‘--layout=bare’: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts - are bare numbers - • ‘--layout=tidy’: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, - with one row per data value - - Here are the ‘--layout’ modes supported by each output format; note -only CSV output supports all of them: - -- txt csv html json sql ---------------------------------------- -wide Y Y Y -tall Y Y Y -bare Y Y Y -tidy Y - - Examples: - - • Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - - • Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some - commodities will be hidden: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++=========================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - - • Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in - each column), and account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - - • Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each - commodity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++============================================= - Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - ------------------++--------------------------------------------- - || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - - • Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing - data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare - "account","commodity","balance" - "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" - "total","GLD","70.00" - "total","ITOT","17.00" - "total","USD","5120.50" - "total","VEA","36.00" - "total","VHT","294.00" - - • Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable - has its own column and each row represents a single data point. - See - https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html - for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other software to - consume. Here’s how it looks: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy - "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Useful balance reports, Prev: Data layout, Up: balance - -24.6.16 Useful balance reports ------------------------------- - -Some frequently used ‘balance’ options/reports are: - - • ‘bal -M revenues expenses’ - Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the - ‘incomestatement’ command. - - • ‘bal -M -H assets liabilities’ - Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also - available as the ‘balancesheet’ command. - - • ‘bal -M -H assets liabilities equity’ - Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. - Also available as the ‘balancesheetequity’ command. - - • ‘bal -M assets not:receivable’ - Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the - ‘cashflow’ command. - - Also: - - • ‘bal -M expenses -2 -SA’ - Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average - amount. - - • ‘bal -M --budget expenses’ - Show monthly expenses and budget goals. - - • ‘bal -M --valuechange investments’ - Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. - - • ‘bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA - [--invert]’ - Show top gainers [or losers] last week - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheet, Next: balancesheetequity, Prev: balance, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.7 balancesheet -================= - -(bs) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending -balances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use -the balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive -sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Asset’, ‘Cash’ or -‘Liability’ type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are -declared, it shows top-level accounts named ‘asset’ or ‘liability’ (case -insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger balancesheet -Balance Sheet - -Assets: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash --------------------- - $-1 - -Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - $1 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance -H assets liabilities’, but with -smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign -flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheetequity, Next: cashflow, Prev: balancesheet, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.8 balancesheetequity -======================= - -(bse) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending -balances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown -with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Asset’, ‘Cash’, -‘Liability’ or ‘Equity’ type (see account types). Or if no such -accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named ‘asset’, -‘liability’ or ‘equity’ (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their -subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger balancesheetequity -Balance Sheet With Equity - -Assets: - $-2 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-3 cash --------------------- - $-2 - -Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts --------------------- - $1 - -Equity: - $1 equity:owner --------------------- - $1 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity’, but -with smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with -their sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: cashflow, Next: check, Prev: balancesheetequity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.9 cashflow -============= - -(cf) - - This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and -outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. -Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional -financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Cash’ type (see account -types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts - - • under a top-level account named ‘asset’ (case insensitive, plural - allowed) - • whose name contains some variation of ‘cash’, ‘bank’, ‘checking’ or - ‘saving’. - - More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular -expression: - - ‘^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)’ - - and their subaccounts. - - An example cashflow report: - -$ hledger cashflow -Cashflow Statement - -Cash flows: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash --------------------- - $-1 - -Total: --------------------- - $-1 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment -not:receivable’, but with smarter account detection. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: check, Next: close, Prev: cashflow, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.10 check -=========== - -Check for various kinds of errors in your data. - - hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent -problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you can -use this ‘check’ command to run them on demand, with no output and a -zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as -argument(s). - - Some examples: - -hledger check # basic checks -hledger check -s # basic + strict checks -hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks - - If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to -run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. - - Here are the checks currently available: - -* Menu: - -* Basic checks:: -* Strict checks:: -* Other checks:: -* Custom checks:: -* More about specific checks:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Basic checks, Next: Strict checks, Up: check - -24.10.1 Basic checks --------------------- - -These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger -commands, including ‘check’: - - • *parseable* - data files are well-formed and can be successfully - parsed - - • *balancedwithautoconversion* - all transactions are balanced, - inferring missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting - commodities using costs or automatically-inferred costs - - • *assertions* - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. - (This check can be disabled with ‘-I’/‘--ignore-assertions’.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Strict checks, Next: Other checks, Prev: Basic checks, Up: check - -24.10.2 Strict checks ---------------------- - -These additional checks are run when the ‘-s’/‘--strict’ (strict mode) -flag is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to -‘check’: - - • *accounts* - all account names used by transactions have been - declared - - • *commodities* - all commodity symbols used have been declared - - • *balancednoautoconversion* - transactions are balanced, possibly - using explicit costs but not inferred ones - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Other checks, Next: Custom checks, Prev: Strict checks, Up: check - -24.10.3 Other checks --------------------- - -These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to -‘check’. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, -therefore optional: - - • *ordereddates* - transactions are ordered by date within each file - - • *payees* - all payees used by transactions have been declared - - • *recentassertions* - all accounts with balance assertions have a - balance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting - - • *tags* - all tags used by transactions have been declared - - • *uniqueleafnames* - all account leaf names are unique - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Custom checks, Next: More about specific checks, Prev: Other checks, Up: check - -24.10.4 Custom checks ---------------------- - -A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in -https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: - - • *hledger-check-tagfiles* - all tag values containing / (a forward - slash) exist as file paths - - • *hledger-check-fancyassertions* - more complex balance assertions - are passing - - You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. -See: Cookbook -> Scripting. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: More about specific checks, Prev: Custom checks, Up: check - -24.10.5 More about specific checks ----------------------------------- - -‘hledger check recentassertions’ will complain if any balance-asserted -account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its -latest posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are -regularly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances -against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of -data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion -requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be -true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that -case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the -manual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest -assertions against real-world balances. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close, Next: codes, Prev: check, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.11 close -=========== - -‘close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY]’ - - By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all -accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query -arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other -modes are supported: - - ‘--retain’: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense -balances. This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each -accounting period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based -accounting, but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. - - ‘--migrate’: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most -equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be -useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection). -Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files -to be combined. - - ‘--open’: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This -can be useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. -Similar to Ledger’s equity command. - - You can change the equity account name with ‘--close-acct ACCT’. It -defaults to ‘equity:retained earnings’ with ‘--retain’, or -‘equity:opening/closing balances’ otherwise. - - You can change the transaction description(s) with ‘--close-desc -'DESC'’ and ‘--open-desc 'DESC'’. It defaults to ‘retain earnings’ with -‘--retain’, or ‘closing balances’ and ‘opening balances’ otherwise. - - Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with -an implicit amount. - - With ‘--x/--explicit’ the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it -involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for -each commodity. - - With ‘--interleaved’, each equity posting is shown next to the -corresponding source/destination posting. - - The default closing date is yesterday or the journal’s end date, -whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end -date; the last day of the report period will be the closing date. Eg -‘-e 2022’ means "close on 2022-12-31". - - The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal’s end date, -whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end -date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the -report period will be the closing date; eg ‘-e 2022’ means "close on -2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing date. - -* Menu: - -* close and costs:: -* close and balance assertions:: -* Example retain earnings:: -* Example migrate balances to a new file:: -* Example excluding closing/opening transactions:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close and costs, Next: close and balance assertions, Up: close - -24.11.1 close and costs ------------------------ - -With ‘--show-costs’, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings -for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets, -showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or -investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: close and balance assertions, Next: Example retain earnings, Prev: close and costs, Up: close - -24.11.2 close and balance assertions ------------------------------------- - -Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have -been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if -there is an opening transaction). - - These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them -temporarily with ‘-I’, or remove them if you prefer. - - You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or -realness (‘-C’, ‘-R’, ‘status:’), or generating postings (‘--auto’), -with this command, since the balance assertions would depend on these. - - Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the -balance assertions: - -2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 - - To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary -account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two -single-day transactions: - -; in 2022.journal: -2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - equity:pending -5 - -; in 2023.journal: -2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared - equity:pending 5 = 0 - assets:bank:checking -5 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example retain earnings, Next: Example migrate balances to a new file, Prev: close and balance assertions, Up: close - -24.11.3 Example: retain earnings --------------------------------- - -Record 2022’s revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, -appending the generated transaction to the journal: - -$ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal - - Now 2022’s income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again, -exclude the retain transaction. Eg: - -$ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example migrate balances to a new file, Next: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example retain earnings, Up: close - -24.11.4 Example: migrate balances to a new file ------------------------------------------------ - -Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on -2023-01-01: - -$ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 -# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal -# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal - - Now 2022’s balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced -accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that -case, try adding –infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing -transaction. Eg: - -$ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example migrate balances to a new file, Up: close - -24.11.5 Example: excluding closing/opening transactions -------------------------------------------------------- - -When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening -transactions cause some noise in reports like ‘print’ and ‘register’. -You can exclude them as shown above, but ‘not:desc:...’ could be -fragile, and also you will need to avoid excluding the very first -opening transaction, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, -using tags: add ‘clopen:’ tags to all opening/closing balances -transactions except the first, like this: - -; 2021.journal -2021-06-01 first opening balances -... -2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 -... - -; 2022.journal -2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 -... -2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 -... - -; 2023.journal -2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 -... - - Now, assuming a combined journal like: - -; all.journal -include 2021.journal -include 2022.journal -include 2023.journal - - The ‘clopen:’ tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. -To show a clean multi-year checking register: - -$ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen - - And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022’s year-end -balance sheet: - -$ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: codes, Next: commodities, Prev: close, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.12 codes -=========== - -List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. - - This command prints the value of each transaction’s code field, in -the order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional -value written in parentheses between the date and description, often -used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. - - Transactions aren’t required to have a code, and missing or empty -codes will not be shown by default. With the ‘-E’/‘--empty’ flag, they -will be printed as blank lines. - - You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. - - Examples: - -2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket - Food $5.00 - Checking - -2022/1/2 (124) Post Office - Postage $8.32 - Checking - -2022/1/3 Supermarket - Food $11.23 - Checking - -2022/1/4 (126) Post Office - Postage $3.21 - Checking - -$ hledger codes -123 -124 -126 - -$ hledger codes -E -123 -124 - -126 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: commodities, Next: descriptions, Prev: codes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.13 commodities -================= - -List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: descriptions, Next: diff, Prev: commodities, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.14 descriptions -================== - -List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in -transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a -subset of transactions. - - Example: - -$ hledger descriptions -Store Name -Gas Station | Petrol -Person A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: diff, Next: files, Prev: descriptions, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.15 diff -========== - -Compares a particular account’s transactions in two input files. It -shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in -the other. - - More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either -file, it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts -the same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) -Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when -multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal -entry. - - This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account’s transactions -from your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree -about the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your -journal to find out the cause. - - Examples: - -$ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro -These transactions are in the first file only: - -2014/01/01 Opening Balances - assets:bank:giro EUR ... - ... - equity:opening balances EUR -... - -These transactions are in the second file only: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: files, Next: help, Prev: diff, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.16 files -=========== - -List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only -file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: help, Next: import, Prev: files, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.17 help -========== - -Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with ‘info’, ‘man’, or a -pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. TOPIC -can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case insensitive. -Eg: ‘commands’, ‘print’, ‘forecast’, ‘journal’, ‘amount’, ‘"auto -postings"’. - - This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger -version. It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal -to a web browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing -tools are not installed on your system. - - By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info -since the hledger manual is large). You can select a particular viewer -with the ‘-i’, ‘-m’, or ‘-p’ flags. - - Examples - -$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - - -File: hledger.info, Node: import, Next: incomestatement, Prev: help, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.18 import -============ - -Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to -the journal. Or with –dry-run, just print the transactions that would -be added. Or with –catchup, just mark all of the FILEs’ transactions as -imported, without actually importing any. - - This command may append new transactions to the main journal file -(which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not -changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the -journal file (see also ‘add’). - - Unlike other hledger commands, with ‘import’ the journal file is an -output file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing -data will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, -so to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run -‘hledger import bank.csv’ or perhaps ‘hledger import *.csv’. - - Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the -most common import source, and these docs focus on that case. - -* Menu: - -* Deduplication:: -* Import testing:: -* Importing balance assignments:: -* Commodity display styles:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplication, Next: Import testing, Up: import - -24.18.1 Deduplication ---------------------- - -As a convenience ‘import’ does _deduplication_ while reading -transactions. This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the -same", but rather "ignore transactions that have been seen before". -This is intended for when you are periodically importing foreign data -which may contain already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day -you download bank CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely -run ‘hledger import bank.csv’ and only new transactions will be -imported. (‘import’ is idempotent.) - - Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with -unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming -that: - - 1. new items always have the newest dates - 2. item dates do not change across reads - 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order - across reads. - - These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true -enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but -violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won’t matter (and if -you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to be -the ones affected). - - hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by -saving a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when -reading ‘finance/bank.csv’, it will look for and update the -‘finance/.latest.bank.csv’ state file. The format is simple: one or -more lines containing the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I -have processed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on -that date." Normally you won’t see or manipulate these state files -yourself. But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making -all transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a -certain date. - - Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by -‘print --new’, but this is less often used. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Import testing, Next: Importing balance assignments, Prev: Deduplication, Up: import - -24.18.2 Import testing ----------------------- - -With ‘--dry-run’, the transactions that will be imported are printed to -the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output -is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse it. -Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not -categorised: - -$ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown - - or (live updating): - -$ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' - - Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it’s currently -possible for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the -actual import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving -them out of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To -prevent this, do a –dry-run first and fix any problems before the real -import. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Importing balance assignments, Next: Commodity display styles, Prev: Import testing, Up: import - -24.18.3 Importing balance assignments -------------------------------------- - -Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit -(like ‘hledger print -x’). This means that any balance assignments in -imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don’t get to see -the main file’s account balances. As a result, importing entries with -balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances -and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting -amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: - -$ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE - - (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, -please test it and send a pull request.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display styles, Prev: Importing balance assignments, Up: import - -24.18.4 Commodity display styles --------------------------------- - -Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity -styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: incomestatement, Next: notes, Prev: import, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.19 incomestatement -===================== - -(is) - - This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and -expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal -positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the ‘Revenue’ or ‘Expense’ -type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows -top-level accounts named ‘revenue’ or ‘income’ or ‘expense’ (case -insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - -$ hledger incomestatement -Income Statement - -Revenues: - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary --------------------- - $-2 - -Expenses: - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies --------------------- - $2 - -Total: --------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the ‘balance’ command, and -supports many of that command’s features, such as multi-period reports. -It is similar to ‘hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses’, but -with smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their -sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, ‘html’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: notes, Next: payees, Prev: incomestatement, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.20 notes -=========== - -List the unique notes that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in -alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of -transactions. The note is the part of the transaction description after -a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - Example: - -$ hledger notes -Petrol -Snacks - - -File: hledger.info, Node: payees, Next: prices, Prev: notes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.21 payees -============ - -List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. - - This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared -with payee directives (–declared), used in transaction descriptions -(–used), or both (the default). - - The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | -character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This -implies –used. - - Example: - -$ hledger payees -Store Name -Gas Station -Person A - - -File: hledger.info, Node: prices, Next: print, Prev: payees, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.22 prices -============ - -Print market price directives from the journal. With -–infer-market-prices, generate additional market prices from costs. -With –infer-reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting -known prices. Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are -displayed with their full precision. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: print, Next: register, Prev: prices, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.23 print -=========== - -Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. - - The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from -the journal file, sorted by date (or with ‘--date2’, by secondary date). - - Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg -the placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their -decimal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one -alteration: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) - - Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not -across all transactions). - - Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. -This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it -to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the -directives and file-level comments. - - Eg: - -$ hledger print -2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - -2008/06/01 gift - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts $-1 - -2008/06/02 save - assets:bank:saving $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - -2008/06/03 * eat & shop - expenses:food $1 - expenses:supplies $1 - assets:cash $-2 - -2008/12/31 * pay off - liabilities:debts $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - print’s output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can -process it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for -certain kinds of search, eg: - -# Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. -# -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. -$ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food - - There are some situations where print’s output can become -unparseable: - - • Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or - balance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. - • Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. - • Account aliases can generate bad account names. - - Normally, the journal entry’s explicit or implicit amount style is -preserved. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it -will not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but -not written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the -‘-x’/‘--explicit’ flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can -be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable -and robust against data entry errors. ‘-x’ is also implied by using any -of ‘-B’,‘-V’,‘-X’,‘--value’. - - Note, ‘-x’/‘--explicit’ will cause postings with a multi-commodity -amount (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an -implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, -keeping the output parseable. - - With ‘-B’/‘--cost’, amounts with costs are converted to cost using -that price. This can be used for troubleshooting. - - With ‘-m DESC’/‘--match=DESC’, print does a fuzzy search for one -recent transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC -should contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough -match, no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be -non-zero. - - With ‘--new’, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a -previous run. This uses the same deduplication system as the ‘import’ -command. (See import’s docs for details.) - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and -(experimental) ‘json’ and ‘sql’. - - Here’s an example of print’s CSV output: - -$ hledger print -Ocsv -"txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" -"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" -"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" -"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" -"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" -"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" -"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" -"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" -"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" -"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - - • There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction’s - fields repeated. - • The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong - to the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions - are reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a - different order, etc.) - • The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" - (numeric quantity) fields. - • The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" - column, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the - accounting sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and - zero or greater amounts under debit.) - - -File: hledger.info, Node: register, Next: rewrite, Prev: print, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.24 register -============== - -(reg) - - Show postings and their running total. - - The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, -in date order, with their running total or running historical balance. -(See also the ‘aregister’ command, which shows matched transactions in a -specific account.) - - register normally shows line per posting, but note that -multi-commodity amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per -commodity). - - It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to -see that account’s activity: - -$ hledger register checking -2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 -2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 -2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 -2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - With ‘--date2’, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first -1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause -visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to -ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the -‘--align-all’ flag. - - The ‘--historical’/‘-H’ flag adds the balance from any undisplayed -prior postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to -see only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: - -$ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical -2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 -2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 -2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - The ‘--depth’ option limits the amount of sub-account detail -displayed. - - The ‘--average’/‘-A’ flag shows the running average posting amount -instead of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the -average for the whole report period). This flag implies ‘--empty’ (see -below). It is affected by ‘--historical’. It works best when showing -just one account and one commodity. - - The ‘--related’/‘-r’ flag shows the _other_ postings in the -transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - The ‘--invert’ flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used -on an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative -numbers. It’s also useful to show postings on the checking account -together with the related account: - -$ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking - - With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per -interval, aggregating the postings to each account: - -$ hledger register --monthly income -2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 -2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - - Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, -are not shown by default; use the ‘--empty’/‘-E’ flag to see them: - -$ hledger register --monthly income -E -2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 -2008/02 0 $-1 -2008/03 0 $-1 -2008/04 0 $-1 -2008/05 0 $-1 -2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 -2008/07 0 $-2 -2008/08 0 $-2 -2008/09 0 $-2 -2008/10 0 $-2 -2008/11 0 $-2 -2008/12 0 $-2 - - Often, you’ll want to see just one line per interval. The ‘--depth’ -option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: - -$ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h -2008/01 assets $1 $1 -2008/06 assets $-1 0 -2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 - - Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates -these will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of -intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full -length and comparable to the others in the report. - - With ‘-m DESC’/‘--match=DESC’, register does a fuzzy search for one -recent posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should -contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, -no posting will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. - -* Menu: - -* Custom register output:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Custom register output, Up: register - -24.24.1 Custom register output ------------------------------- - -register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. -You can override this by setting the ‘COLUMNS’ environment variable (not -a bash shell variable) or by using the ‘--width’/‘-w’ option. - - The description and account columns normally share the space equally -(about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a -description width as part of –width’s argument, comma-separated: -‘--width W,D’ . Here’s a diagram (won’t display correctly in –help): - -<--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> -date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) -DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA - - and some examples: - -$ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) -$ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 -$ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable -$ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) -$ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 -$ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 - - This command also supports the output destination and output format -options The output formats supported are ‘txt’, ‘csv’, and -(experimental) ‘json’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite, Next: roi, Prev: register, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.25 rewrite -============= - -Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. -For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print -–auto. - - This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It -reads the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but -adds one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. -The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing -transaction’s first posting amount. - - Examples: - -$ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' -$ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' -$ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger - - rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: - -= ^income amt:<0 date:2017 - (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income - (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - - Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the -two spaces between account and amount. - - More: - -$ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... -$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' -$ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' -$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' - - Argument for ‘--add-posting’ option is a usual posting of transaction -with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can use -‘'*'’ (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a -factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount -includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new -commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount’s -commodity. - -* Menu: - -* Re-write rules in a file:: -* Diff output format:: -* rewrite vs print --auto:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Re-write rules in a file, Next: Diff output format, Up: rewrite - -24.25.1 Re-write rules in a file --------------------------------- - -During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transactions" -found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this -operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. - -$ rewrite-rules.journal - - Make contents look like this: - -= ^income - (liabilities:tax) *.33 - -= expenses:gifts - budget:gifts *-1 - assets:budget *1 - - Note that ‘'='’ (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in -transactions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you -want to match the posting to add new ones. - -$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - This is something similar to the commands pipeline: - -$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ - | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ - --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ - > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in -journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added -postings. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Diff output format, Next: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Re-write rules in a file, Up: rewrite - -24.25.2 Diff output format --------------------------- - -To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may -find useful output in form of unified diff. - -$ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - - Output might look like: - ---- /tmp/examples/sample.journal -+++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal -@@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ - 2008/01/01 income -- assets:bank:checking $1 -+ assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary -+ (liabilities:tax) 0 -@@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ - 2008/06/01 gift -- assets:bank:checking $1 -+ assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts -+ (liabilities:tax) 0 - - If you’ll pass this through ‘patch’ tool you’ll get transactions -containing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that -multiple files might be update according to list of input files -specified via ‘--file’ options and ‘include’ directives inside of these -files. - - Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of -output from ‘hledger print’. - - See also: - - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Diff output format, Up: rewrite - -24.25.3 rewrite vs. print –auto -------------------------------- - -This command predates print –auto, and currently does much the same -thing, but with these differences: - - • with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all - other files. print –auto uses standard directive scoping; rules - affect only child files. - - • rewrite’s query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are - printed. print –auto’s query limits which transactions are - printed. - - • rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. - print –auto applies rules specified in the journal. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: roi, Next: stats, Prev: rewrite, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.26 roi -========= - -Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on -your investments. - - At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an -account name) to select your investment(s) with ‘--inv’, and another -query to identify your profit and loss transactions with ‘--pnl’. - - If you do not record changes in the value of your investment -manually, or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), -‘--pnl’ could be an empty query (‘--pnl ""’ or ‘--pnl STR’ where ‘STR’ -does not match any of your accounts). - - This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return -(IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for -the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before -display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. - - Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate -‘--cost’ or ‘--value’ flags (see VALUATION). - - Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: - - • Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return - (IRR). Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of - investment becomes negative at some point in time. - • Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of - Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or - converges too slowly. - - Examples: - - • Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/investing/roi-unrealised.ledger - - • Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html - -* Menu: - -* Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl:: -* Semantics of --inv and --pnl:: -* IRR and TWR explained:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Next: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.1 Spaces and special characters in ‘--inv’ and ----------------------------------------------------- - -‘--pnl’ Note that ‘--inv’ and ‘--pnl’’s argument is a query, and queries -could have several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). - - To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, -you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): - -$ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' - - If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra -level of nested quoting, eg: - -$ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Next: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.2 Semantics of ‘--inv’ and ‘--pnl’ ----------------------------------------- - -Query supplied to ‘--inv’ has to match all transactions that are related -to your investment. Transactions not matching ‘--inv’ will be ignored. - - In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match ‘--inv’ -to be "investment postings" and other postings (not matching ‘--inv’) -will be sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", -as ROI needs to know which part of the investment value is your -contributions and which is due to the return on investment. - - • "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling - assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity - and any other commodity. Example: - - 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil - assets:cash -$100 - investment:snake oil - - 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil - assets:cash $10 - investment:snake oil = 0 - - • "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: - - 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value - investment:snake oil = $57 - equity:unrealized profit or loss - - All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless -they match ‘--pnl’ query. Changes in value of your investment due to -"profit and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment -return. - - Example: if you use ‘--inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized’, then -postings in the example below would be classifed as: - -2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 - assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - investment:snake oil ; investment posting - -2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 - equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting - snake oil ; investment posting - -2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 - equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting - cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - snake oil $50 ; investment posting - - -File: hledger.info, Node: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi - -24.26.3 IRR and TWR explained ------------------------------ - -"ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was -computed as a difference between current value of investment and its -initial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. - - However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where -investments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate -of growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need -different ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements -two of them: IRR and TWR. - - Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate -of return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. -Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains -would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percentage -of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your investment, -you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same rate of -return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each period between -in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a way that gives -you a compound annual rate of return that investment is expected to -generate. - - As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that -you personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are -the postings that match the query in the‘--inv’ argument and NOT match -the query in the‘--pnl’ argument. - - If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as -transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unrealized -gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to -compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate of -return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or -close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. - - In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net -present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present -value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This -could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven’t done -discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger -should produce results that match the ‘XIRR’ formula in Excel. - - Second way to compute rate of return that ‘roi’ command implements is -called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also -break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, -out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period -and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR -are quite different. - - TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where -in-flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment -and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change -in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of -your investment. - - References: - - • Explanation of rate of return - • Explanation of IRR - • Explanation of TWR - • Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations - of both metrics - - -File: hledger.info, Node: stats, Next: tags, Prev: roi, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.27 stats -=========== - -Show journal and performance statistics. - - The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, -or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report -for each report period. - - At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and -number of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate -and will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger -version, haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of -interest. The ‘stats’ command’s run time is similar to that of a -single-column balance report. - - Example: - -$ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal -Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal -Included files : -Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) -Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) -Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) -Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) -Payees/descriptions : 1000 -Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) -Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) -Market prices : 1000 (A) - -Run time : 0.12 s -Throughput : 8342 txns/s - - This command supports the -o/–output-file option (but not --O/–output-format selection). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: tags, Next: test, Prev: stats, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.28 tags -========== - -List the tags used in the journal, or their values. - - This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on -transactions, postings, or account declarations. - - With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular -expression (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. - - With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this -query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, -desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions -and their accounts. - - With the –values flag, the tags’ unique non-empty values are listed -instead. With -E/–empty, blank/empty values are also shown. - - With –parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, -with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are -always shown first.) - - Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, -postings also acquire tags from their account and transaction, -transactions also acquire tags from their postings. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: test, Prev: tags, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS - -24.29 test -========== - -Run built-in unit tests. - - This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, -printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will -be non-zero. - - This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to -sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All -tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report as -a bug! - - This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -– (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, -with ANSI colour codes disabled: - -$ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never - - For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options -(‘-- --help’ currently doesn’t show them). - - -File: hledger.info, Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: PART 4 COMMANDS, Up: Top - -25 PART 5: COMMON TASKS -*********************** - -Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. - -* Menu: - -* Getting help:: -* Constructing command lines:: -* Starting a journal file:: -* Setting opening balances:: -* Recording transactions:: -* Reconciling:: -* Reporting:: -* Migrating to a new file:: - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Getting help, Next: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.1 Getting help -================= - -Here’s how to list commands and view options and command docs: - -$ hledger # show available commands -$ hledger --help # show common options -$ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation - - You can also view your hledger version’s manual in several formats by -using the help command. Eg: - -$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) -$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual -$ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command - - To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit -https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion archives -can be found at https://hledger.org/support. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Constructing command lines, Next: Starting a journal file, Prev: Getting help, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.2 Constructing command lines -=============================== - -hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it -simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges -described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: - - • command-specific options must go after the command (it’s fine to - put common options there too: ‘hledger CMD OPTS ARGS’) - • running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing - (‘hledger-ui OPTS ARGS’) - • enclose "problematic" args in single quotes - • if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression - metacharacters from the shell - • to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add - ‘--debug=2’. - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Starting a journal file, Next: Setting opening balances, Prev: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.3 Starting a journal file -============================ - -hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, -‘$HOME/.hledger.journal’ by default: - -$ hledger stats -The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. -Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. -Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. - - You can override this by setting the ‘LEDGER_FILE’ environment -variable. It’s a good practice to keep this important file under -version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could do -something like this: - -$ mkdir ~/finance -$ cd ~/finance -$ git init -Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ -$ touch 2020.journal -$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc -$ source ~/.bashrc -$ hledger stats -Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal -Included files : -Transactions span : to (0 days) -Last transaction : none -Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) -Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) -Payees/descriptions : 0 -Accounts : 0 (depth 0) -Commodities : 0 () -Market prices : 0 () - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Setting opening balances, Next: Recording transactions, Prev: Starting a journal file, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.4 Setting opening balances -============================= - -Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some -real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit -cards..). - - To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or -two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a -recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can -always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg -going back to january 1st. - - Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the -balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: - - • The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an - entry like this: - - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 - assets:cash $100 = $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances - - These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at - the end of the previous day. - - The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means - "cleared & confirmed". - - The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as - you’ll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. - - The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra - error checking. - - • The second way: run ‘hledger add’ and follow the prompts to record - a similar transaction: - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 - Description: * opening balances - Account 1: assets:bank:checking - Amount 1: $1000 - Account 2: assets:bank:savings - Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 - Account 3: assets:cash - Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 - Account 4: liabilities:creditcard - Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 - Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances - Amount 5 [$-3050]: - Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2020-01-01]: . - - If you’re using version control, this could be a good time to commit -the journal. Eg: - -$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Recording transactions, Next: Reconciling, Prev: Setting opening balances, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.5 Recording transactions -=========================== - -As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using -one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the -hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to -convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. - - Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual -and hledger.org for more ideas: - -2020/1/10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - -2020.1.12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - -2020-01-15 paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reconciling, Next: Reporting, Prev: Recording transactions, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.6 Reconciling -================ - -Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported -balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your -bank’s website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the -real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made -a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) -frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it -pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and -discrepancies. - - A typical workflow: - - 1. Reconcile cash. Count what’s in your wallet. Compare with what - hledger reports (‘hledger bal cash’). If they are different, try - to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the - already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful - (‘hledger reg cash’). If you can’t find the error, add an - adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and - can’t explain the missing $2, it could be: - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank’s website. Compare - today’s (cleared) balance with hledger’s cleared balance (‘hledger - bal checking -C’). If they are different, track down the error or - record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, - similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually - compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank - with the one reported by ‘hledger reg checking -C’. This will be - easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to - your bank’s clearing dates. - - 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. - - Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a -live-updating register while you edit the journal: ‘hledger-ui --watch ---register checking -C’ - - After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled -transactions’ status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track -that, by adding the ‘*’ marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, -insert ‘*’ between ‘2020-01-15’ and ‘paycheck’ - - If you’re using version control, this can be another good time to -commit: - -$ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Reporting, Next: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reconciling, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.7 Reporting -============== - -Here are some basic reports. - - Show all transactions: - -$ hledger print -2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - -2020-01-10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - -2020-01-12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - -2020-01-15 * paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - -2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - Show account names, and their hierarchy: - -$ hledger accounts --tree -assets - bank - checking - savings - cash -equity - opening/closing balances -expenses - food - misc -income - gifts - salary -liabilities - creditcard - - Show all account totals: - -$ hledger balance - $4105 assets - $4000 bank - $2000 checking - $2000 savings - $105 cash - $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances - $15 expenses - $13 food - $2 misc - $-1020 income - $-20 gifts - $-1000 salary - $-50 liabilities:creditcard --------------------- - 0 - - Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to -depth 2: - -$ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 - $4000 assets:bank - $105 assets:cash - $-50 liabilities:creditcard --------------------- - $4055 - - Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple -balance sheet: - -$ hledger bs -2 -Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-16 -========================++============ - Assets || -------------------------++------------ - assets:bank || $4000 - assets:cash || $105 -------------------------++------------ - || $4105 -========================++============ - Liabilities || -------------------------++------------ - liabilities:creditcard || $50 -------------------------++------------ - || $50 -========================++============ - Net: || $4055 - - The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use ‘bse’ -for a full balance sheet with equity.) - - Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: - -hledger is -Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 -===============++======================= - Revenues || ----------------++----------------------- - income:gifts || $20 - income:salary || $1000 ----------------++----------------------- - || $1020 -===============++======================= - Expenses || ----------------++----------------------- - expenses:food || $13 - expenses:misc || $2 ----------------++----------------------- - || $15 -===============++======================= - Net: || $1005 - - The final total is your net income during this period. - - Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: - -$ hledger register cash -2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 -2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 -2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 -2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 - - Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: - -$ hledger activity -W -2019-12-30 ***** -2020-01-06 **** -2020-01-13 **** - - -File: hledger.info, Node: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reporting, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS - -25.8 Migrating to a new file -============================ - -At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new -file, so that old transactions don’t slow down or clutter your reports, -and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the -close command. - - If using version control, don’t forget to ‘git add’ the new file. - - -Tag Table: -Node: Top210 -Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE3946 -Ref: #part-1-user-interface4087 -Node: Options4087 -Ref: #options4206 -Node: General options4348 -Ref: #general-options4473 -Node: Command options8923 -Ref: #command-options9074 -Node: Command arguments9490 -Ref: #command-arguments9648 -Node: Special characters10550 -Ref: #special-characters10713 -Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters10876 -Ref: #single-escaping-shell-metacharacters11117 -Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters11752 -Ref: #double-escaping-regular-expression-metacharacters12063 -Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands12633 -Ref: #triple-escaping-for-add-on-commands12893 -Node: Less escaping13561 -Ref: #less-escaping13715 -Node: Unicode characters14053 -Ref: #unicode-characters14218 -Node: Regular expressions15650 -Ref: #regular-expressions15790 -Node: Environment17644 -Ref: #environment17755 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-Node: Aliases and multiple files95768 -Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files95974 -Node: end aliases directive96559 -Ref: #end-aliases-directive96784 -Node: Aliases can generate bad account names96933 -Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names97183 -Node: Aliases and account types97780 -Ref: #aliases-and-account-types97974 -Node: commodity directive98676 -Ref: #commodity-directive98856 -Node: Commodity error checking101460 -Ref: #commodity-error-checking101608 -Node: decimal-mark directive102137 -Ref: #decimal-mark-directive102325 -Node: include directive102726 -Ref: #include-directive102896 -Node: P directive103844 -Ref: #p-directive103995 -Node: payee directive104894 -Ref: #payee-directive105049 -Node: tag directive105369 -Ref: #tag-directive105530 -Node: Periodic transactions106002 -Ref: #periodic-transactions106168 -Node: Periodic rule syntax107906 -Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax108086 -Node: Periodic rules and relative dates108741 -Ref: #periodic-rules-and-relative-dates109009 -Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!109548 -Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description109827 -Node: Other syntax110517 -Ref: #other-syntax110643 -Node: Auto postings111288 -Ref: #auto-postings111424 -Node: Auto postings and multiple files113935 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files114137 -Node: Auto postings and dates114354 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates114626 -Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions114801 -Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions115140 -Node: Auto posting tags115647 -Ref: #auto-posting-tags115860 -Node: Balance assignments116522 -Ref: #balance-assignments116702 -Node: Balance assignments and prices118036 -Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices118206 -Node: Bracketed posting dates118417 -Ref: #bracketed-posting-dates118603 -Node: D directive119147 -Ref: #d-directive119321 -Node: apply account directive120989 -Ref: #apply-account-directive121175 -Node: Y directive121874 -Ref: #y-directive122040 -Node: Secondary dates122884 -Ref: #secondary-dates123040 -Node: Star comments123872 -Ref: #star-comments124034 -Node: Valuation expressions124574 -Ref: #valuation-expressions124753 -Node: Virtual postings124875 -Ref: #virtual-postings125056 -Node: Other Ledger directives126628 -Ref: #other-ledger-directives126793 -Node: CSV127363 -Ref: #csv127456 -Node: CSV rules cheatsheet129559 -Ref: #csv-rules-cheatsheet129691 -Node: separator131459 -Ref: #separator131590 -Node: skip132168 -Ref: #skip132280 -Node: date-format132863 -Ref: #date-format132988 -Node: timezone133734 -Ref: #timezone133861 -Node: newest-first134894 -Ref: #newest-first135036 -Node: intra-day-reversed135620 -Ref: #intra-day-reversed135778 -Node: decimal-mark136275 -Ref: #decimal-mark136420 -Node: fields list136759 -Ref: #fields-list136900 -Node: Field assignment138623 -Ref: #field-assignment138767 -Node: Field names139816 -Ref: #field-names139947 -Node: date field141168 -Ref: #date-field141286 -Node: date2 field141338 -Ref: #date2-field141479 -Node: status field141541 -Ref: #status-field141684 -Node: code field141739 -Ref: #code-field141884 -Node: description field141935 -Ref: #description-field142095 -Node: comment field142160 -Ref: #comment-field142315 -Node: account field142628 -Ref: #account-field142778 -Node: amount field143374 -Ref: #amount-field143523 -Node: currency field145628 -Ref: #currency-field145781 -Node: balance field146050 -Ref: #balance-field146182 -Node: if block146570 -Ref: #if-block146695 -Node: Matchers148119 -Ref: #matchers148233 -Node: if table149763 -Ref: #if-table149889 -Node: balance-type151325 -Ref: #balance-type151458 -Node: include152166 -Ref: #include152297 -Node: Working with CSV152747 -Ref: #working-with-csv152894 -Node: Rapid feedback153265 -Ref: #rapid-feedback153398 -Node: Valid CSV153854 -Ref: #valid-csv154000 -Node: File Extension154754 -Ref: #file-extension154927 -Node: Reading CSV from standard input155517 -Ref: #reading-csv-from-standard-input155741 -Node: Reading multiple CSV files155907 -Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files156125 -Node: Valid transactions156374 -Ref: #valid-transactions156568 -Node: Deduplicating importing157196 -Ref: #deduplicating-importing157391 -Node: Setting amounts158437 -Ref: #setting-amounts158608 -Node: Amount signs161131 -Ref: #amount-signs161299 -Node: Setting currency/commodity162038 -Ref: #setting-currencycommodity162242 -Node: Amount decimal places163434 -Ref: #amount-decimal-places163640 -Node: Referencing other fields163958 -Ref: #referencing-other-fields164171 -Node: How CSV rules are evaluated165074 -Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated165291 -Node: Well factored rules166804 -Ref: #well-factored-rules166972 -Node: CSV rules examples167310 -Ref: #csv-rules-examples167445 -Node: Bank of Ireland167510 -Ref: #bank-of-ireland167647 -Node: Coinbase169115 -Ref: #coinbase169253 -Node: Amazon170306 -Ref: #amazon170431 -Node: Paypal172156 -Ref: #paypal172264 -Node: Timeclock179910 -Ref: #timeclock180015 -Node: Timedot182183 -Ref: #timedot182306 -Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS187157 -Ref: #part-3-reporting-concepts187321 -Node: Time periods187321 -Ref: #time-periods187455 -Node: Report start & end date187573 -Ref: #report-start-end-date187725 -Node: Smart dates189458 -Ref: #smart-dates189611 -Node: Report intervals191571 -Ref: #report-intervals191726 -Node: Date adjustment192178 -Ref: #date-adjustment192338 -Node: Period expressions193670 -Ref: #period-expressions193811 -Node: Period expressions with a report interval195647 -Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval195881 -Node: More complex report intervals196111 -Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals196356 -Node: Multiple weekday intervals198285 -Ref: #multiple-weekday-intervals198474 -Node: Depth199338 -Ref: #depth199440 -Node: Queries199760 -Ref: #queries199862 -Node: Query types200807 -Ref: #query-types200928 -Node: Combining query terms204268 -Ref: #combining-query-terms204445 -Node: Queries and command options205543 -Ref: #queries-and-command-options205742 -Node: Queries and valuation206007 -Ref: #queries-and-valuation206202 -Node: Querying with account aliases206441 -Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases206652 -Node: Querying with cost or value206794 -Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value206971 -Node: Pivoting207280 -Ref: #pivoting207394 -Node: Generating data208882 -Ref: #generating-data209014 -Node: Forecasting209512 -Ref: #forecasting209637 -Node: Budgeting212524 -Ref: #budgeting212644 -Node: Cost reporting212915 -Ref: #cost-reporting213043 -Node: -B Convert to cost214158 -Ref: #b-convert-to-cost214314 -Node: Equity conversion postings215722 -Ref: #equity-conversion-postings215936 -Node: Inferring equity postings from cost216831 -Ref: #inferring-equity-postings-from-cost217080 -Node: Inferring cost from equity postings217899 -Ref: #inferring-cost-from-equity-postings218147 -Node: When to infer cost/equity219956 -Ref: #when-to-infer-costequity220174 -Node: How to record conversions220582 -Ref: #how-to-record-conversions220774 -Node: Conversion with implicit cost221065 -Ref: #conversion-with-implicit-cost221270 -Node: Conversion with explicit cost222175 -Ref: #conversion-with-explicit-cost222420 -Node: Conversion with equity postings222847 -Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings223116 -Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost223953 -Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings-and-explicit-cost224220 -Node: Cost tips224694 -Ref: #cost-tips224820 -Node: Valuation225556 -Ref: #valuation225680 -Node: -V Value226466 -Ref: #v-value226592 -Node: -X Value in specified commodity226791 -Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity226986 -Node: Valuation date227143 -Ref: #valuation-date227314 -Node: Finding market price227753 -Ref: #finding-market-price227958 -Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions229138 -Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions229416 -Node: Valuation commodity232262 -Ref: #valuation-commodity232475 -Node: Simple valuation examples233720 -Ref: #simple-valuation-examples233918 -Node: --value Flexible valuation234581 -Ref: #value-flexible-valuation234787 -Node: More valuation examples236473 -Ref: #more-valuation-examples236682 -Node: Interaction of valuation and queries238693 -Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries238934 -Node: Effect of valuation on reports239414 -Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports239611 -Node: PART 4 COMMANDS247370 -Ref: #part-4-commands247513 -Node: Commands overview247883 -Ref: #commands-overview248017 -Node: DATA ENTRY248196 -Ref: #data-entry248320 -Node: DATA CREATION248523 -Ref: #data-creation248677 -Node: DATA MANAGEMENT248801 -Ref: #data-management248966 -Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL249091 -Ref: #reports-financial249266 -Node: REPORTS VERSATILE249581 -Ref: #reports-versatile249754 -Node: REPORTS BASIC250015 -Ref: #reports-basic250167 -Node: HELP250700 -Ref: #help250822 -Node: ADD-ONS250881 -Ref: #add-ons250987 -Node: accounts251584 -Ref: #accounts251717 -Node: activity253692 -Ref: #activity253811 -Node: add254185 -Ref: #add254295 -Node: aregister257156 -Ref: #aregister257277 -Node: aregister and custom posting dates260253 -Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates260419 -Node: balance260987 -Ref: #balance261113 -Node: balance features262118 -Ref: #balance-features262258 -Node: Simple balance report264388 -Ref: #simple-balance-report264573 -Node: Balance report line format266218 -Ref: #balance-report-line-format266420 -Node: Filtered balance report268670 -Ref: #filtered-balance-report268862 -Node: List or tree mode269189 -Ref: #list-or-tree-mode269357 -Node: Depth limiting270732 -Ref: #depth-limiting270898 -Node: Dropping top-level accounts271515 -Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts271715 -Node: Showing declared accounts272029 -Ref: #showing-declared-accounts272228 -Node: Sorting by amount272769 -Ref: #sorting-by-amount272936 -Node: Percentages273626 -Ref: #percentages273785 -Node: Multi-period balance report274355 -Ref: #multi-period-balance-report274555 -Node: Balance change end balance276948 -Ref: #balance-change-end-balance277157 -Node: Balance report types278605 -Ref: #balance-report-types278786 -Node: Calculation type279302 -Ref: #calculation-type279457 -Node: Accumulation type279988 -Ref: #accumulation-type280168 -Node: Valuation type281096 -Ref: #valuation-type281284 -Node: Combining balance report types282351 -Ref: #combining-balance-report-types282545 -Node: Budget report284449 -Ref: #budget-report284601 -Node: Budget report start date290335 -Ref: #budget-report-start-date290513 -Node: Budgets and subaccounts291875 -Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts292082 -Node: Selecting budget goals295568 -Ref: #selecting-budget-goals295767 -Node: Budget vs forecast296814 -Ref: #budget-vs-forecast296973 -Node: Data layout298673 -Ref: #data-layout298823 -Node: Useful balance reports306764 -Ref: #useful-balance-reports306914 -Node: balancesheet308067 -Ref: #balancesheet308212 -Node: balancesheetequity309578 -Ref: #balancesheetequity309736 -Node: cashflow311179 -Ref: #cashflow311310 -Node: check312796 -Ref: #check312910 -Node: Basic checks313716 -Ref: #basic-checks313836 -Node: Strict checks314374 -Ref: #strict-checks314517 -Node: Other checks314958 -Ref: #other-checks315100 -Node: Custom checks315677 -Ref: #custom-checks315834 -Node: More about specific checks316255 -Ref: #more-about-specific-checks316417 -Node: close317149 -Ref: #close317260 -Node: close and costs319898 -Ref: #close-and-costs320042 -Node: close and balance assertions320331 -Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions320533 -Node: Example retain earnings321704 -Ref: #example-retain-earnings321921 -Node: Example migrate balances to a new file322279 -Ref: #example-migrate-balances-to-a-new-file322544 -Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions323097 -Ref: #example-excluding-closingopening-transactions323346 -Node: codes324524 -Ref: #codes324641 -Node: commodities325517 -Ref: #commodities325653 -Node: descriptions325723 -Ref: #descriptions325860 -Node: diff326151 -Ref: #diff326266 -Node: files327312 -Ref: #files327421 -Node: help327562 -Ref: #help-1327671 -Node: import328661 -Ref: #import328784 -Node: Deduplication329892 -Ref: #deduplication330017 -Node: Import testing331939 -Ref: #import-testing332104 -Node: Importing balance assignments332955 -Ref: #importing-balance-assignments333161 -Node: Commodity display styles333818 -Ref: #commodity-display-styles333991 -Node: incomestatement334120 -Ref: #incomestatement334262 -Node: notes335629 -Ref: #notes335751 -Node: payees336113 -Ref: #payees336228 -Node: prices336753 -Ref: #prices336868 -Node: print337170 -Ref: #print337285 -Node: register342731 -Ref: #register342853 -Node: Custom register output347962 -Ref: #custom-register-output348093 -Node: rewrite349468 -Ref: #rewrite349586 -Node: Re-write rules in a file351498 -Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file351661 -Node: Diff output format352814 -Ref: #diff-output-format352997 -Node: rewrite vs print --auto354109 -Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto354271 -Node: roi354845 -Ref: #roi354952 -Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl356713 -Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl356961 -Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl357459 -Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl357706 -Node: IRR and TWR explained359584 -Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained359744 -Node: stats362856 -Ref: #stats362964 -Node: tags364361 -Ref: #tags-1364468 -Node: test365485 -Ref: #test365578 -Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS366328 -Ref: #part-5-common-tasks366461 -Node: Getting help366735 -Ref: #getting-help366876 -Node: Constructing command lines367640 -Ref: #constructing-command-lines367841 -Node: Starting a journal file368522 -Ref: #starting-a-journal-file368729 -Node: Setting opening balances369927 -Ref: #setting-opening-balances370132 -Node: Recording transactions373285 -Ref: #recording-transactions373474 -Node: Reconciling374030 -Ref: #reconciling374182 -Node: Reporting376495 -Ref: #reporting376644 -Node: Migrating to a new file380633 -Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file380790 +This is hledger.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.0.3 from stdin. + +INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications +START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY +* hledger: (hledger). Command-line plain text accounting tool. +END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Top, Next: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: (dir) + +hledger(1) +********** + +hledger - robust, friendly plain text accounting (CLI version) + + 'hledger' +'hledger [-f FILE] COMMAND [OPTS] [ARGS]' +'hledger [-f FILE] ADDONCMD -- [OPTS] [ARGS]' + + hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs +for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry +accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by +and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with +beancount(1). + + This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.2. +It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by +all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some +bookkeeping/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in +here to use hledger productively, but when you have a question about +functionality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip +ahead or skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an +info manual or man page on your system. You can also get it from +hledger itself with +'hledger --man', 'hledger --info' or 'hledger help [TOPIC]'. + + The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files +describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a +useful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). +Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect +other 'hledger-*' executables as extra subcommands. + + hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, +timedot, or CSV format. The default file is '.hledger.journal' in your +home directory; this can be overridden with one or more '-f FILE' +options, or the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable. hledger CLI can +also read from stdin with '-f-'; more on that below. + + Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one +transaction: + +2015-10-16 bought food + expenses:food $10 + assets:cash + + Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more +_accounts_: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, +people, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using ':' to +indicate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account +name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (_debit_), +negatives are outflow from it (_credit_). (Some reports show revenue, +liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; +this is normal.) + + hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can +install other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more +extensive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM ++ vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see +https://hledger.org/editors.html). + + To get started, run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts, or save +some entries like the above in '$HOME/.hledger.journal', then try +commands like: +'hledger print -x' +'hledger aregister assets' +'hledger balance' +'hledger balancesheet' +'hledger incomestatement'. +Run 'hledger' to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal +file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. + +* Menu: + +* PART 1 USER INTERFACE:: +* Options:: +* Environment:: +* Input:: +* Commands:: +* Output:: +* Limitations:: +* Troubleshooting:: +* PART 2 DATA FORMATS:: +* Journal:: +* CSV:: +* Timeclock:: +* Timedot:: +* PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS:: +* Time periods:: +* Depth:: +* Queries:: +* Pivoting:: +* Generating data:: +* Forecasting:: +* Budgeting:: +* Cost reporting:: +* Valuation:: +* PART 4 COMMANDS:: +* PART 5 COMMON TASKS:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Next: Options, Prev: Top, Up: Top + +1 PART 1: USER INTERFACE +************************ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Options, Next: Environment, Prev: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: Top + +2 Options +********* + +* Menu: + +* General options:: +* Command options:: +* Command arguments:: +* Special characters:: +* Unicode characters:: +* Regular expressions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: General options, Next: Command options, Up: Options + +2.1 General options +=================== + +To see general usage help, including general options which are supported +by most hledger commands, run 'hledger -h'. + + General help options: + +'-h --help' + + show general or COMMAND help +'--man' + + show general or COMMAND user manual with man +'--info' + + show general or COMMAND user manual with info +'--version' + + show general or ADDONCMD version +'--debug[=N]' + + show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) + + General input options: + +'-f FILE --file=FILE' + + use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: + '$LEDGER_FILE' or '$HOME/.hledger.journal') +'--rules-file=RULESFILE' + + Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: FILE.rules) +'--separator=CHAR' + + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') +'--alias=OLD=NEW' + + rename accounts named OLD to NEW +'--anon' + + anonymize accounts and payees +'--pivot FIELDNAME' + + use some other field or tag for the account name +'-I --ignore-assertions' + + disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance + assignments) +'-s --strict' + + do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are + declared) + + General reporting options: + +'-b --begin=DATE' + + include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to + preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) +'-e --end=DATE' + + include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to + following subperiod end when using a report interval) +'-D --daily' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by day +'-W --weekly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by week +'-M --monthly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by month +'-Q --quarterly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter +'-Y --yearly' + + multiperiod/multicolumn report by year +'-p --period=PERIODEXP' + + set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once + using period expressions syntax +'--date2' + + match the secondary date instead (see command help for other + effects) +'--today=DATE' + + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for + tests/examples) +'-U --unmarked' + + include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) +'-P --pending' + + include only pending postings/txns +'-C --cleared' + + include only cleared postings/txns +'-R --real' + + include only non-virtual postings +'-NUM --depth=NUM' + + hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep +'-E --empty' + + show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in + hledger-ui/hledger-web) +'-B --cost' + + convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time +'-V --market' + + convert amounts to their market value in default valuation + commodities +'-X --exchange=COMM' + + convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM +'--value' + + convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than + -B/-V/-X +'--infer-market-prices' + + use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional market + prices, as if they were P directives +'--auto' + + apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. +'--forecast' + + generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, for + the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, also + make ordinary future transactions visible. +'--commodity-style' + + Override the commodity style in the output for the specified + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. +'--color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN)' + + Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a + color-supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg + when piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A + NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. +'--pretty[=WHEN]' + + Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing characters. + Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', 'never' + also work). If you provide an argument you must use '=', e.g. + '-pretty=yes'. + + When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, +the last one takes precedence. + + Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Command options, Next: Command arguments, Prev: General options, Up: Options + +2.2 Command options +=================== + +To see options for a particular command, including command-specific +options, run: 'hledger COMMAND -h'. + + Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: +'hledger print -x'. + + Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its +options after a double-hyphen, eg: 'hledger ui -- --watch'. Or, you can +run the add-on executable directly: 'hledger-ui --watch'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Command arguments, Next: Special characters, Prev: Command options, Up: Options + +2.3 Command arguments +===================== + +Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which are +often a query, filtering the data in some way. + + You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and +then reuse them by writing '@FILENAME' as a command line argument. Eg: +'hledger bal @foo.args'. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument +that begins with a literal '@', precede it with '--', eg: 'hledger bal +-- @ARG'). + + Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or +argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see +a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or +nothing). Bad: + +assets depth:2 +-X USD + + Good: + +assets +depth:2 +-X=USD + + For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting +than you would at the command prompt. Bad: + +-X"$" + + Good: + +-X$ + + See also: Save frequently used options. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Special characters, Next: Unicode characters, Prev: Command arguments, Up: Options + +2.4 Special characters +====================== + +* Menu: + +* Single escaping shell metacharacters:: +* Double escaping regular expression metacharacters:: +* Triple escaping for add-on commands:: +* Less escaping:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Next: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.1 Single escaping (shell metacharacters) +-------------------------------------------- + +In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as +spaces, '<', '>', '(', ')', '|', '$' and '\' - should be "shell-escaped" +if you want hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in +single or double quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to +match an account name containing a space: + +$ hledger register 'credit card' + + or: + +$ hledger register credit\ card + + Windows users should keep in mind that 'cmd' treats single quote as a +regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. +PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Next: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Prev: Single escaping shell metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.2 Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) +--------------------------------------------------------- + +Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such +as '.', '^', '$', '[', ']', '(', ')', '|', and '\' - may need to be +"regex-escaped" if you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's +regular expression engine. This is done by writing backslashes before +them, but since backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both +shell-escaping and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal +'$' sign while using the bash shell: + +$ hledger balance cur:'\$' + + or: + +$ hledger balance cur:\\$ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Next: Less escaping, Prev: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters, Up: Special characters + +2.4.3 Triple escaping (for add-on commands) +------------------------------------------- + +When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described +below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or +arguments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra +level of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal '$' sign while using the +bash shell and running an add-on command ('ui'): + +$ hledger ui cur:'\\$' + + or: + +$ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ + + If you wondered why _four_ backslashes, perhaps this helps: + +unescaped: '$' +escaped: '\$' +double-escaped: '\\$' +triple-escaped: '\\\\$' + + Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable +directly: + +$ hledger-ui cur:\\$ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Less escaping, Prev: Triple escaping for add-on commands, Up: Special characters + +2.4.4 Less escaping +------------------- + +Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell +command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should +use one less level of escaping. Those places include: + + * an @argumentfile + * hledger-ui's filter field + * hledger-web's search form + * GHCI's prompt (used by developers). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Unicode characters, Next: Regular expressions, Prev: Special characters, Up: Options + +2.5 Unicode characters +====================== + +hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: + + * they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command + line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's + search/add/edit forms, etc.) + + * they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and + on-screen alignment should be preserved. + + This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: + + * A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can + decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale + like this: 'export LANG=en_US.UTF-8'. There are some more details + in Troubleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger + will quit on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all + GHC-compiled programs). + + * your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) + must support unicode + + * the terminal must be using a font which includes the required + unicode glyphs + + * the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as + double width (for report alignment) + + * on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same + kind of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the + standard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download + page) might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys + terminal, and vice versa. (See eg #961). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Regular expressions, Prev: Unicode characters, Up: Options + +2.6 Regular expressions +======================= + +hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: + + * query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search + form: 'REGEX', 'desc:REGEX', 'cur:REGEX', 'tag:...=REGEX' + * CSV rules conditional blocks: 'if REGEX ...' + * account alias directive and '--alias' option: 'alias /REGEX/ = + REPLACEMENT', '--alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' + + hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If +they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what +they support: + + 1. they are case insensitive + 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing + being matched) + 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) + 4. they also support GNU word boundaries ('\b', '\B', '\<', '\>') + 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write '\1', it will + match the digit '1'. Except when doing text replacement, eg in + account aliases, where backreferences can be used in the + replacement string to reference capturing groups in the search + regexp. + 6. they do not support mode modifiers ('(?s)'), character classes + ('\w', '\d'), or anything else not mentioned above. + + Some things to note: + + * In the 'alias' directive and '--alias' option, regular expressions + must be enclosed in forward slashes ('/REGEX/'). Elsewhere in + hledger, these are not required. + + * In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like '$' as + a literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts + with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write 'cur:\$'. + + * On the command line, some metacharacters like '$' have a special + meaning to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. + See Special characters. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Environment, Next: Input, Prev: Options, Up: Top + +3 Environment +************* + +*LEDGER_FILE* The journal file path when not specified with '-f'. + + On unix computers, the default value is: '~/.hledger.journal'. + + A more typical value is something like '~/finance/YYYY.journal', +where '~/finance' is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is +the current year. Or, '~/finance/current.journal', where +current.journal is a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. + + The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of +your shell's startup files (eg '~/.profile'): + +export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` + + On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set +environment variables, that will also affect applications started from +the GUI (eg, Emacs started from a dock icon): In +'~/.MacOSX/environment.plist', add an entry like: + +{ + "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" +} + + For this to take effect you might need to 'killall Dock', or reboot. + + On Windows computers, the default value is probably +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'. You can change this by running a +command like this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be +an Administrator, and if this persists across a reboot): + +> setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" + + Or, change it in settings: see +https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html. + + *COLUMNS* The screen width used by the register command. Default: +the full terminal width. + + *NO_COLOR* If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not +use ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the +-color/-colour option. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Input, Next: Commands, Prev: Environment, Up: Top + +4 Input +******* + +hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default +data file is '$HOME/.hledger.journal' (or on Windows, something like +'C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal'). + + You can override this with the '$LEDGER_FILE' environment variable: + +$ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal +$ hledger stats + + or with one or more '-f/--file' options: + +$ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats + + The file name '-' means standard input: + +$ cat some.journal | hledger -f- + +* Menu: + +* Data formats:: +* Multiple files:: +* Strict mode:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Data formats, Next: Multiple files, Up: Input + +4.1 Data formats +================ + +Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in +any of the supported file formats, which currently are: + +Reader: Reads: Used for file + extensions: +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +'journal'hledger journal files and some Ledger '.journal' '.j' + journals, for transactions '.hledger' '.ledger' +'timeclock'timeclock files, for precise time '.timeclock' + logging +'timedot'timedot files, for approximate time '.timedot' + logging +'csv' comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated '.csv' '.ssv' '.tsv' + values, for data import + + These formats are described in more detail below. + + hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions +shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes +'journal' format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a +recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show +relevant error messages. + + You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file +path with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv +format: + +$ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats + + Or to read stdin ('-') as timeclock format: + +$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple files, Next: Strict mode, Prev: Data formats, Up: Input + +4.2 Multiple files +================== + +You can specify multiple '-f' options, to read multiple files as one big +journal. There are some limitations with this: + + * most directives do not affect sibling files + * balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous + files + + If you need either of those things, you can + + * use a single parent file which includes the others + * or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: 'cat + a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Strict mode, Prev: Multiple files, Up: Input + +4.3 Strict mode +=============== + +hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most +important errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files +without a lot of declarations: + + * Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? + * Are all transactions balanced ? + * Do all balance assertions pass ? + + With the '-s'/'--strict' flag, additional checks are performed: + + * Are all accounts posted to, declared with an 'account' directive ? + (Account error checking) + * Are all commodities declared with a 'commodity' directive ? + (Commodity error checking) + * Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? + + You can use the check command to run individual checks - the ones +listed above and some more. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commands, Next: Output, Prev: Input, Up: Top + +5 Commands +********** + +hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). +Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. +A few assist with data entry and management. + + Run 'hledger' with no arguments to list the commands available, and +'hledger CMD' to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or +its standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous +prefix of the name. Eg: 'hledger bal'. + +* Menu: + +* Add-on commands:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Add-on commands, Up: Commands + +5.1 Add-on commands +=================== + +Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts in +your PATH + + * whose name starts with 'hledger-' + * whose name ends with a recognised file extension: + '.bat','.com','.exe', '.hs','.lhs','.pl','.py','.rb','.rkt','.sh' + or none + * and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. + + Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or +programs have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for +command-line options, parsing and reporting. + + Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. +See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. + + Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a +double dash ('--') preceding them. Eg you must write: + +$ hledger web -- --serve + + and not: + +$ hledger web --serve + + (because the '--serve' flag belongs to 'hledger-web', not 'hledger'). + + The '-h/--help' and '--version' flags don't require '--'. + + If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the +add-on program directly, eg: + +$ hledger-web --serve + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output, Next: Limitations, Prev: Commands, Up: Top + +6 Output +******** + +* Menu: + +* Output destination:: +* Output format:: +* Commodity styles:: +* Colour:: +* Box-drawing:: +* Paging:: +* Debug output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output destination, Next: Output format, Up: Output + +6.1 Output destination +====================== + +hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can +of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: + +$ hledger print > foo.txt + + Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also +provide the '-o/--output-file' option, which does the same thing without +needing the shell. Eg: + +$ hledger print -o foo.txt +$ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Output format, Next: Commodity styles, Prev: Output destination, Up: Output + +6.2 Output format +================= + +Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the +terminal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: + +- txt csv html json sql +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- +aregister Y Y Y Y +balance Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1,2_ Y +balancesheet Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +balancesheetequity Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +cashflow Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +incomestatement Y _1_ Y _1_ Y _1_ Y +print Y Y Y Y +register Y Y Y + + * _1 Also affected by the balance commands' '--layout' option._ + * _2 'balance' does not support html output without a report interval + or with '--budget'._ + + The output format is selected by the '-O/--output-format=FMT' option: + +$ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout + + or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the +'-o/--output-file=FILE.FMT' option: + +$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv + + The '-O' option can be combined with '-o' to override the file +extension, if needed: + +$ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt + + Some notes about the various output formats: + +* Menu: + +* CSV output:: +* HTML output:: +* JSON output:: +* SQL output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV output, Next: HTML output, Up: Output format + +6.2.1 CSV output +---------------- + + * In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are + disabled automatically. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: HTML output, Next: JSON output, Prev: CSV output, Up: Output format + +6.2.2 HTML output +----------------- + + * HTML output can be styled by an optional 'hledger.css' file in the + same directory. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: JSON output, Next: SQL output, Prev: HTML output, Up: Output format + +6.2.3 JSON output +----------------- + + * This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + * Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful + representation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the + JSON, read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger-lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. + + * hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 + significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can + arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction + prices), and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show + quantities as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We + don't limit the number of integer digits, but that part is under + your control. We hope this approach will not cause problems in + practice; if you find otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: SQL output, Prev: JSON output, Up: Output format + +6.2.4 SQL output +---------------- + + * This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + * SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and + Postgres. + + * For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated 'id' + field to be a PRIMARY KEY. Eg: + + $ hledger print -O sql | sed 's/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g' | ... + + * SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will + be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables + created via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to + either clear tables of existing data (via 'delete' or 'truncate' + SQL statements) or drop tables completely as otherwise your + postings will be duped. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity styles, Next: Colour, Prev: Output format, Up: Output + +6.3 Commodity styles +==================== + +When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for +each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. + + If needed, this can be overridden by a '-c/--commodity-style' option +(except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the 'print' command, +which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the +following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: + +$ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' + + This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple +commodities/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity +directive. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Colour, Next: Box-drawing, Prev: Commodity styles, Up: Output + +6.4 Colour +========== + +In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal +supports it: + + * if the '--color/--colour' option is given a value of 'yes' or + 'always' (or 'no' or 'never'), colour will (or will not) be used; + * otherwise, if the 'NO_COLOR' environment variable is set, colour + will not be used; + * otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) + supports it. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Box-drawing, Next: Paging, Prev: Colour, Up: Output + +6.5 Box-drawing +=============== + +In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to +render prettier tables: + + * if the '--pretty' option is given a value of 'yes' or 'always' (or + 'no' or 'never'), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; + * otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Paging, Next: Debug output, Prev: Box-drawing, Up: Output + +6.6 Paging +========== + +When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the +pager specified by the 'PAGER' environment variable, or 'less', or +'more'. (A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time +rather than scrolling everything off screen). Currently it does this +only for help output, not for reports; specifically, + + * when listing commands, with 'hledger' + * when showing help with 'hledger [CMD] --help', + * when viewing manuals with 'hledger help' or 'hledger --man'. + + Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses +eg for bold emphasis. For the common pager 'less' (and its 'more' +compatibility mode), we add 'R' to the 'LESS' and 'MORE' environment +variables to make this work. If you use a different pager, you might +need to configure it similarly, to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us +know). Otherwise, you can set the 'NO_COLOR' environment variable to 1 +to disable all ANSI output (see Colour). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Debug output, Prev: Paging, Up: Output + +6.7 Debug output +================ + +We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and +develop. You can add '--debug[=N]' to any hledger command line to see +additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) to +9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase until +you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not affected +by '-o/--output-file' (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: +'2>&1'). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help +reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output in +a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: + +hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Limitations, Next: Troubleshooting, Prev: Output, Up: Top + +7 Limitations +************* + +The need to precede add-on command options with '--' when invoked from +hledger is awkward. + + When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system +locale must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on +POSIX, set LANG to something other than C. + + In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours +are not supported. + + On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when +running a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. + + In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in +hledger add. + + Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger +and Ledger > Differences > journal format. + + On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than +Ledger. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Next: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Prev: Limitations, Up: Top + +8 Troubleshooting +***************** + +Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and +remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug +tracker): + + *Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found"* +stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should +be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, +that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. + + *I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default +file* +'LEDGER_FILE' should be a real environment variable, not just a shell +variable. The command 'env | grep LEDGER_FILE' should show it. You may +need to use 'export'. Here's an explanation. + + *Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or +incomplete multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: +invalid argument (invalid character)"* +Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need to +have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise they +will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii +characters. + + To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which +supports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. + + Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: + +$ file my.journal +my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded +$ echo $LANG +C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 +$ locale -a # which locales are installed ? +C +en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use +POSIX +$ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command + + If available, 'C.UTF-8' will also work. If your preferred locale +isn't listed by 'locale -a', you might need to install it. Eg on +Ubuntu/Debian: + +$ apt-get install language-pack-fr +$ locale -a +C +en_US.utf8 +fr_BE.utf8 +fr_CA.utf8 +fr_CH.utf8 +fr_FR.utf8 +fr_LU.utf8 +POSIX +$ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print + + Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: + +$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile +$ bash --login + + Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the +difference on MacOS ('UTF-8', not 'utf8'). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) +allow variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: + +$ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf +en_US.UTF-8 +$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Next: Journal, Prev: Troubleshooting, Up: Top + +9 PART 2: DATA FORMATS +********************** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Journal, Next: CSV, Prev: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Up: Top + +10 Journal +********** + +hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's a +cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal format. + +* Menu: + +* Journal cheatsheet:: +* About journal format:: +* Comments:: +* Transactions:: +* Dates:: +* Status:: +* Code:: +* Description:: +* Transaction comments:: +* Postings:: +* Account names:: +* Amounts:: +* Costs:: +* Balance assertions:: +* Posting comments:: +* Tags:: +* Directives:: +* account directive:: +* alias directive:: +* commodity directive:: +* decimal-mark directive:: +* include directive:: +* P directive:: +* payee directive:: +* tag directive:: +* Periodic transactions:: +* Other syntax:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Journal cheatsheet, Next: About journal format, Up: Journal + +10.1 Journal cheatsheet +======================= + +# Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format +# (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). +# hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: + +############################################################################### +# 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. +# They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". + +# hash comment line +; semicolon comment line +comment +These lines +are commented. +end comment + +# Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, +# from ; (semicolon) to end of line. + +############################################################################### +# 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. +# They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). + +account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. +account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) +alias chkg = assets:checking +commodity $0.00 +decimal-mark . +include /dev/null +payee Whole Foods +P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 +~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description + expenses:food $400 + expenses:home $1000 + budgeted + +############################################################################### +# 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, +# usually describing movements of money. +# They begin with a date. + +# DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. +# ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. +# ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. +# ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. +# ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). + +2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way + assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. + assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. + assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. + liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. + equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. + +2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes + ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". + ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. + ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: + assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) + expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) + ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" + +Kv +2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. + ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. + assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 + expenses:clothing GBP 10 + assets:gringotts -10 gold + assets:pouch 10 gold + revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols + assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. + +2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ + assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost + assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost + assets:checking $-7.00 + +2022-01-02 assert balances + ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. + assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA + assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold + assets:savings $0 = $1000 + +1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. + ; Postings are not required. + +2022.01.01 These date +2022/1/1 formats are +12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: About journal format, Next: Comments, Prev: Journal cheatsheet, Up: Journal + +10.2 About journal format +========================= + +hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal +entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard +accounting general journal. I use file names ending in '.journal', but +that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction +entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between +two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger +and humans. + + hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's +journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal files +as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and ledger on +the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're getting. + + You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just +use the add or web or import commands to create and update it. + + Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and +track changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons +such as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and +hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, +formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor +configuration at hledger.org for the full list. + + Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's +data model). + + A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file +comments, transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction +rules and auto posting rules as directives). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Comments, Next: Transactions, Prev: About journal format, Up: Journal + +10.3 Comments +============= + +Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash ('#') or +a semicolon (';'). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore +regions beginning with a 'comment' line and ending with an 'end comment' +line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: + + * '#' for top-level notes + * ';' for commenting out things temporarily + * 'comment' for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's + there, or you might get confused) + + Eg: + +# a comment line +; another commentline +comment +A multi-line comment block, +continuing until "end comment" directive +or the end of the current file. +end comment + + Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, +from ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting +comments, and Account comments below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Transactions, Next: Dates, Prev: Comments, Up: Journal + +10.4 Transactions +================= + +Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They +represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities +between two or more named accounts. + + Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a +simple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following +optional fields, separated by spaces: + + * a status character (empty, '!', or '*') + * a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) + * a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) + * a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of + line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) + * 0 or more indented _posting_ lines, describing what was transferred + and the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, + but not blank lines or non-indented lines). + + Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: + +2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Dates, Next: Status, Prev: Transactions, Up: Journal + +10.5 Dates +========== + +* Menu: + +* Simple dates:: +* Posting dates:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple dates, Next: Posting dates, Up: Dates + +10.5.1 Simple dates +------------------- + +Dates in the journal file use _simple dates_ format: 'YYYY-MM-DD' or +'YYYY/MM/DD' or 'YYYY.MM.DD', with leading zeros optional. The year may +be omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the +current transaction, the default year set with a 'Y' directive, or the +current date when the command is run. Some examples: '2010-01-31', +'2010/01/31', '2010.1.31', '1/31'. + + (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart +dates documented in the hledger manual.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Posting dates, Prev: Simple dates, Up: Dates + +10.5.2 Posting dates +-------------------- + +You can give individual postings a different date from their parent +transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) +like 'date:DATE'. This is probably the best way to control posting +dates precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May +reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for +easy bank reconciliation: + +2015/5/30 + expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 + assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 + +$ hledger -f t.j register food +2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 + +$ hledger -f t.j register checking +2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 + + DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will +use the year of the transaction's date. +The 'date:' tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg +a 'date:' tag with no value is not allowed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Status, Next: Code, Prev: Dates, Up: Journal + +10.6 Status +=========== + +Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a +status mark, which is a single character before the transaction +description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, +indicating one of three statuses: + +mark status + +----------------- + unmarked +'!' pending +'*' cleared + + When reporting, you can filter by status with the '-U/--unmarked', +'-P/--pending', and '-C/--cleared' flags; or the 'status:', 'status:!', +and 'status:*' queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. + + Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" +state is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to +unmarked for clarity. + + To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching +pending, combine -U and -P. + + Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with +real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and +shortcuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can +toggle transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. + + What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to +you. Here's one suggestion: + +status meaning +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review +pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big + reconciliation) +cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered + correct + + With this scheme, you would use '-PC' to see the current balance at +your bank, '-U' to see things which will probably hit your bank soon +(like uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of +your finances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Code, Next: Description, Prev: Status, Up: Journal + +10.7 Code +========= + +After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally +write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good +place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id +or reference number. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Description, Next: Transaction comments, Prev: Code, Up: Journal + +10.8 Description +================ + +A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date +and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the +"narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you +wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike +comments. + +* Menu: + +* Payee and note:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Payee and note, Up: Description + +10.8.1 Payee and note +--------------------- + +You can optionally include a '|' (pipe) character in descriptions to +subdivide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on +the left (up to the first '|') and an additional note field on the right +(after the first '|'). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more +precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Transaction comments, Next: Postings, Prev: Description, Up: Journal + +10.9 Transaction comments +========================= + +Text following ';', after a transaction description, and/or on indented +lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They +are reproduced by 'print' but otherwise ignored, except they may contain +tags, which are not ignored. + +2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment + ; a second line of transaction comment + expenses 1 + assets + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Postings, Next: Account names, Prev: Transaction comments, Up: Journal + +10.10 Postings +============== + +A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount +from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or +tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: + + * (optional) a status character (empty, '!', or '*'), followed by a + space + * (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing *single + spaces*, until end of line or a double space) + * (optional) *two or more spaces* or tabs followed by an amount. + + Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are +being removed. + + The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a +convenience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to +balance the transaction. + + Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name +and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing +spaces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before +the amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account names, Next: Amounts, Prev: Postings, Up: Journal + +10.11 Account names +=================== + +Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in +Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such +as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed +from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". + + You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the +traditional accounting categories, which in english are 'assets', +'liabilities', 'equity', 'revenues', 'expenses'. (You might see these +referred to as A, L, E, R, X for short.) + + For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts +into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account +name parts. For example, from the account names 'assets:bank:checking' +and 'expenses:food', hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: + +assets +assets:bank +assets:bank:checking +expenses +expenses:food + + Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: + +assets + bank + checking +expenses + food + + hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you +can go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account +names relatively simple may be best when starting out. + + Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, +numbers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an +amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by *two or +more spaces* (or tabs). + + Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate +virtual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to +the account name have no special meaning. + + Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account +aliases. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amounts, Next: Costs, Prev: Account names, Up: Journal + +10.12 Amounts +============= + +After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: between +account name and amount, there must be *two or more spaces*.) + + hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international +formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the +"quantity"): + +1 + + ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this +below), to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a +separating space: + +$1 +4000 AAPL +3 "green apples" + + Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus +is the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side +commodity symbol: + +-$1 +$-1 + + One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable +when parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): + ++ $1 +$- 1 + + Scientific E notation is allowed: + +1E-6 +EUR 1E3 + +* Menu: + +* Decimal marks digit group marks:: +* Commodity:: +* Directives influencing number parsing and display:: +* Commodity display style:: +* Rounding:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Decimal marks digit group marks, Next: Commodity, Up: Amounts + +10.12.1 Decimal marks, digit group marks +---------------------------------------- + +A _decimal mark_ can be written as a period or a comma: + +1.23 +1,23456780000009 + + In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), +groups of digits can optionally be separated by a _digit group mark_ - a +space, comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): + + $1,000,000.00 + EUR 2.000.000,00 +INR 9,99,99,999.00 + 1 000 000.9455 + + Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal +mark is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? + +1,000 +1.000 + + If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above +are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. + + To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, +especially if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands +separators), we recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark +character in each journal file, using a directive at the top of the +file. The 'decimal-mark' directive is best, otherwise 'commodity' +directives will also work. These are described below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity, Next: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Prev: Decimal marks digit group marks, Up: Amounts + +10.12.2 Commodity +----------------- + +Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal +number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or +any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. + + If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or +punctuation), you must always write it inside double quotes ('"green +apples"', '"ABC123"'). + + If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with +name '""'; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". + + Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more +powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of +the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: '1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 +TSLA'. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in +hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. + + (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, +these are the 'Amount' and 'MixedAmount' types.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Next: Commodity display style, Prev: Commodity, Up: Amounts + +10.12.3 Directives influencing number parsing and display +--------------------------------------------------------- + +You can add 'decimal-mark' and 'commodity' directives to the journal, to +declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These +are described below, but here's a quick example: + +# the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) +decimal-mark . + +# display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: +commodity $1,000.00 +commodity EUR 1.000,00 +commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 +commodity 1 000 000.9455 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display style, Next: Rounding, Prev: Directives influencing number parsing and display, Up: Amounts + +10.12.4 Commodity display style +------------------------------- + +For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display +style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all +amounts displayed by the 'print' command, are displayed with all of +their decimal digits visible.) + + A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. + + First, if a default commodity is declared with 'D', this commodity +and its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. + + Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in +order of preference: + + * The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol + commodity), if any. + * The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. + (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are + ignored, currently.) + * The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: '$1000.00'. + (Symbol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) + + A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: + + * Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first + amount + * Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group + sizes), if any + * Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. + + Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but +occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is +inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a +commodity directive to fix the display style. + + To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the +style declared by a 'commodity' directive, or (b) the style of the first +posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style and +the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are +showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal +places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: + +# declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their +# input number formats and output display styles: +commodity EUR 1.000, +commodity $1000.00 +commodity 1000.00000000 BTC +commodity 1 000. + + The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command +line option. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Rounding, Prev: Commodity display style, Up: Amounts + +10.12.5 Rounding +---------------- + +Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal +places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by the +commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it +rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal +places is "0"). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Costs, Next: Balance assertions, Prev: Amounts, Up: Journal + +10.13 Costs +=========== + +After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling +price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either '@ +UNITPRICE' or '@@ TOTALPRICE' after it. This indicates a conversion +transaction, where one commodity is exchanged for another. + + (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, +discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded +that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it +"cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase +or a sale.) + + Costs are usually written explicitly with '@' or '@@', but can also +be inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. +Note, if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the +first posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. + + As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign +currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or +implicitly: + + 1. Write the price per unit, as '@ UNITPRICE' after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 + + 2. Write the total price, as '@@ TOTALPRICE' after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot + assets:dollars + + 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, + and let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. + Note the effect of posting order: the price is added to first + posting, making it '€100 @@ $135', as in example 2: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros €100 ; one hundred euros purchased + assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 + + Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the '-B/--cost' +flag; this is discussed more in the ˜COST REPORTING section. + +* Menu: + +* Other cost/lot notations:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other cost/lot notations, Up: Costs + +10.13.1 Other cost/lot notations +-------------------------------- + +A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a number +of cost/lot-related notations: + + * '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST' + * expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger + * when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at + selling time + + * '(@) UNITCOST' and '(@@) TOTALCOST' (virtual cost) + * like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, + don't use it when inferring market prices". + + Currently, hledger treats the above like '@' and '@@'; the +parentheses are ignored. + + * '{=FIXEDUNITCOST}' and '{{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}}' (fixed price) + * when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't + let it fluctuate in value reports" + + * '{UNITCOST}' and '{{TOTALCOST}}' (lot price) + * can be used identically to '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST', + also creates a lot + * when selling, combined with '@ ...', specifies an investment + lot by its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present + + * and related: '[YYYY/MM/DD]' (lot date) + * when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot + * when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date + + * '(SOME TEXT)' (lot note) + * when buying, attaches this note to the lot + * when selling, selects a lot by its note + + Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after +the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction +balancing.) + + For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: + + * '@ UNITCOST' and '@@ TOTALCOST' + * expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger + * when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined + with '{...}': documents the cost/selling price (not used for + transaction balancing) + + * '{UNITCOST}' and '{{TOTALCOST}}' + * when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction + balancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis + attached + * when selling (reducing), + * selects a lot by its cost basis + * raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be + selected unambiguously (depending on booking method + configured) + * expresses the selling price for transaction balancing + + Currently, hledger accepts the '{UNITCOST}'/'{{TOTALCOST}}' notation +but ignores it. + + * variations: '{}', '{YYYY-MM-DD}', '{"LABEL"}', '{UNITCOST, + "LABEL"}', '{UNITCOST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"}' etc. + + Currently, hledger rejects these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assertions, Next: Posting comments, Prev: Costs, Up: Journal + +10.14 Balance assertions +======================== + +hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. +These look like, for example, '= EXPECTEDBALANCE' following a posting's +amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and +b after each posting: + +2013/1/1 + a $1 =$1 + b =$-1 + +2013/1/2 + a $1 =$2 + b $-1 =$-2 + + After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance +assertions and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions +can protect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances +while cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with +the '-I/--ignore-assertions' flag, which can be useful for +troubleshooting or for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently +does not disable balance assignments, described below). + +* Menu: + +* Assertions and ordering:: +* Assertions and multiple included files:: +* Assertions and multiple -f files:: +* Assertions and commodities:: +* Assertions and prices:: +* Assertions and subaccounts:: +* Assertions and virtual postings:: +* Assertions and auto postings:: +* Assertions and precision:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and ordering, Next: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.1 Assertions and ordering +------------------------------- + +hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and +then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is +different from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. +(Also, Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated +postings to the same account within a transaction.) + + So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder +differently-dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder +same-dated transactions or postings, assertions might break and require +updating. This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise +control over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you +can assert intra-day balances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple included files, Next: Assertions and multiple -f files, Prev: Assertions and ordering, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.2 Assertions and multiple included files +---------------------------------------------- + +Multiple files included with the 'include' directive are processed as if +concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting order +within each file. It means that balance assertions in later files will +see balance from earlier files. + + And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, +split across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's +balance on that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file +- the last one in the sequence, probably. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and multiple -f files, Next: Assertions and commodities, Prev: Assertions and multiple included files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.3 Assertions and multiple -f files +---------------------------------------- + +Unlike 'include', when multiple files are specified on the command line +with multiple '-f/--file' options, balance assertions will not see +balance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want +problems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. + + If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use +'include', or concatenate the files temporarily. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and commodities, Next: Assertions and prices, Prev: Assertions and multiple -f files, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.4 Assertions and commodities +---------------------------------- + +The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in +fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the +(possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions work +in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. + + To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you +can write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. + + You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double +equals sign ('== EXPECTEDBALANCE'). This asserts that there are no +other commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, +that their balance is 0). + +2013/1/1 + a $1 + a 1€ + b $-1 + c -1€ + +2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed + a 0 = $1 + a 0 = 1€ + b 0 == $-1 + c 0 == -1€ + +2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1€ + a 0 == $1 + + It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance +that has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each +commodity into its own subaccount: + +2013/1/1 + a:usd $1 + a:euro 1€ + b + +2013/1/2 + a 0 == 0 + a:usd 0 == $1 + a:euro 0 == 1€ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and prices, Next: Assertions and subaccounts, Prev: Assertions and commodities, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.5 Assertions and prices +----------------------------- + +Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without +one: + +2019/1/1 + (a) $1 @ €1 = $1 + + We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows +them, even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or +fails. This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used +to generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance +_assignments_ do use them (see below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and subaccounts, Next: Assertions and virtual postings, Prev: Assertions and prices, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.6 Assertions and subaccounts +---------------------------------- + +The balance assertions above ('=' and '==') do not count the balance +from subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You +can assert the balance including subaccounts by writing '=*' or '==*', +eg: + +2019/1/1 + equity:opening balances + checking:a 5 + checking:b 5 + checking 1 ==* 11 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and virtual postings, Next: Assertions and auto postings, Prev: Assertions and subaccounts, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.7 Assertions and virtual postings +--------------------------------------- + +Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they +are not affected by the '--real/-R' flag or 'real:' query. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and auto postings, Next: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and virtual postings, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.8 Assertions and auto postings +------------------------------------ + +Balance assertions _are_ affected by the '--auto' flag, which generates +auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings +are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two +balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of +these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: + + * assert the balance calculated with '--auto', and always use + '--auto' with that file + * or assert the balance calculated without '--auto', and never use + '--auto' with that file + * or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings + (or avoid auto postings entirely). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Assertions and precision, Prev: Assertions and auto postings, Up: Balance assertions + +10.14.9 Assertions and precision +-------------------------------- + +Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are not +always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may limit the +display precision, but this will not affect balance assertions. Balance +assertion failure messages show exact amounts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Posting comments, Next: Tags, Prev: Balance assertions, Up: Journal + +10.15 Posting comments +====================== + +Text following ';', at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented +lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are +reproduced by 'print' but otherwise ignored, except they may contain +tags, which are not ignored. + +2012-01-01 + expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 + assets + ; a comment for posting 2 + ; a second comment line for posting 2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Tags, Next: Directives, Prev: Posting comments, Up: Journal + +10.16 Tags +========== + +Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, +postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. + + They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately +followed by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account +directive's comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that +things in comments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are +recorded: one on the checking account, two on the transaction, and one +on the expenses posting: + +account assets:checking ; accounttag: + +2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: + ; transactiontag-2: + assets:checking $-1 + expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: + + Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. +And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' +accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively +has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the +transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses +posting). + + You can list tag names with 'hledger tags [NAMEREGEX]', or match by +tag name with a 'tag:NAMEREGEX' query. + +* Menu: + +* Tag values:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Tag values, Up: Tags + +10.16.1 Tag values +------------------ + +Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a +comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this +means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the +following posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and +"" (empty) respectively: + + expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz + + Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than +overriding: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the +new name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to +override a tag's value or remove a tag.) + + You can list a tag's values with 'hledger tags TAGNAME --values', or +match by tag value with a 'tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX' query. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives, Next: account directive, Prev: Tags, Up: Journal + +10.17 Directives +================ + +A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, +that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, +and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, +but there are many differences, and also some differences between +hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: + + * _subdirective_ - Some directives support subdirectives, written + indented below the parent directive. + + * _decimal mark_ - The character to interpret as a decimal mark + (period or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. + + * _display style_ - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: + symbol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of + decimal places. + + Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you +will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key +directives for particular needs: + +purpose directives +-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +*READING DATA:* +Declare file's decimal mark to help parse 'decimal-mark' +amounts accurately +Rewrite account names 'alias' +Comment out sections of the data 'comment' +Include extra data files 'include' +*GENERATING DATA:* +Generate recurring transactions or budget '~' +goals +Generate extra postings on transactions '=' +*CHECKING FOR ERRORS:* +Define valid entities to provide more 'account', 'commodity', +error checking 'payee' +*REPORTING:* +Declare accounts' type and display order 'account' +Declare commodity display styles 'commodity' +Declare market prices 'P' + +* Menu: + +* Directive effects:: +* Directives and multiple files:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directive effects, Next: Directives and multiple files, Up: Directives + +10.17.1 Directive effects +------------------------- + +And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal +entries (transactions) it affects: + +directivewhat it does ends + at + file + end? +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- +*'account'*Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; andN + its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. +*'alias'*Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of Y + current file or 'end aliases'. Command line equivalent: + '--alias' +*'comment'*Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file orY + 'end comment'. +*'commodity'*Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checkingN,Y,N,N + all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing + amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of + current file (if there is no 'decimal-mark' directive) 3. and + the display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is + also the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in + this commodity. Takes precedence over 'D'. Subdirectives: + 'format' (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: + '-c/--commodity-style' +*'decimal-mark'*Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all Y + commodities in following entries until next 'decimal-mark' or + end of current file. Included files can override. Takes + precedence over 'commodity' and 'D'. +*'include'*Includes entries and directives from another file, as if theyN + were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple + '-f/--file' +*'payee'*Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N +*'P'*Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N + reports. +*'~'*Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N +(tilde)transactions with '--forecast' and budget goals with 'balance + --budget'. +Other +syntax: +*'applyPrepends a common parent account to all account names, in Y +account'*following entries until end of current file or 'end apply + account'. +*'D'*Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N + there is no 'commodity' directive for this commodity: its + decimal mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. +*'Y'*Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y + entries until end of current file. +*'='*Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly +(equals)matched transactions with '--auto', in current, parent, and + child files (but not sibling files, see #1212). +*OtherOther directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but +Ledgerignored. +directives* + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Directives and multiple files, Prev: Directive effects, Up: Directives + +10.17.2 Directives and multiple files +------------------------------------- + +If you use multiple '-f'/'--file' options, or the 'include' directive, +hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect +input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which they +occur (and on any included files in that region). + + This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports +stable and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise +you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in a +different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up your +files. + + It can be surprising though; for example, it means that 'alias' +directives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: account directive, Next: alias directive, Prev: Directives, Up: Journal + +10.18 'account' directive +========================= + +'account' directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places +that amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these +declarations can provide several benefits: + + * They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a + reference. + * In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by + transactions, which helps detect typos. + * They control account display order in reports, allowing + non-alphabetic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). + * They help with account name completion (in hledger add, + hledger-web, hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) + * They can store additional account information as comments, or as + tags which can be used to filter or pivot reports. + * They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, + equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement. + + They are written as the word 'account' followed by a hledger-style +account name, eg: + +account assets:bank:checking + + Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not +allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts +used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: + +account (assets:bank:checking) + +* Menu: + +* Account comments:: +* Account subdirectives:: +* Account error checking:: +* Account display order:: +* Account types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account comments, Next: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive + +10.18.1 Account comments +------------------------ + +Text following *two or more spaces* and ';' at the end of an account +directive line, and/or following ';' on indented lines immediately below +it, form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may +contain tags, which are not ignored. + + The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because +';' is allowed in account names. + +account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon + ; next-line comment + ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account subdirectives, Next: Account error checking, Prev: Account comments, Up: account directive + +10.18.2 Account subdirectives +----------------------------- + +Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently +ignored: + +account assets:bank:checking + format subdirective is ignored + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account error checking, Next: Account display order, Prev: Account subdirectives, Up: account directive + +10.18.3 Account error checking +------------------------------ + +By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence when +a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means hledger +can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the journal. +Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in balance +reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. + + In strict mode, enabled with the '-s'/'--strict' flag, hledger will +report an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not +been declared by an account directive. Some notes: + + * The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the + correct account name capitalisation. + * The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see + directives). This means it affects all of the current file, and + any files it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The + position of account directives within the file does not matter, + though it's usual to put them at the top. + * Accounts can only be declared in 'journal' files, but will affect + included files of all types. + * It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" + with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account display order, Next: Account types, Prev: Account error checking, Up: account directive + +10.18.4 Account display order +----------------------------- + +The order in which account directives are written influences the order +in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By +default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these +account directives to the journal file: + +account assets +account liabilities +account equity +account revenues +account expenses + + those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: + +$ hledger accounts -1 +assets +liabilities +equity +revenues +expenses + + Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. + + Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group +of sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this +directive: + +account other:zoo + + would influence the position of 'zoo' among 'other''s subaccounts, +but not the position of 'other' among the top-level accounts. This +means: + + * you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg 'account other' + above) that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their + display order + * sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display 'x:y' in + between 'a:b' and 'a:c'). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Account types, Prev: Account display order, Up: account directive + +10.18.5 Account types +--------------------- + +hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, +expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and +incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the 'type:' query. + + As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types +automatically if you are using common english-language top-level account +names (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types +explicitly, by adding a 'type:' tag to your top-level account +directives. Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The +tag's value should be one of the five main account types: + + * 'A' or 'Asset' (things you own) + * 'L' or 'Liability' (things you owe) + * 'E' or 'Equity' (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of + assets & liabilities) + * 'R' or 'Revenue' (what you received money from, AKA income; + technically part of Equity) + * 'X' or 'Expense' (what you spend money on; technically part of + Equity) + + or, it can be (these are used less often): + + * 'C' or 'Cash' (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the + cashflow report) + * 'V' or 'Conversion' (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST + REPORTING).) + + Here is a typical set of account type declarations: + +account assets ; type: A +account liabilities ; type: L +account equity ; type: E +account revenues ; type: R +account expenses ; type: X + +account assets:bank ; type: C +account assets:cash ; type: C + +account equity:conversion ; type: V + + Here are some tips for working with account types. + + * The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. + These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get + going; if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare + your account types. See also Regular expressions. + + If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: + --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash + ^assets?(:|$) | Asset + ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability + ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion + ^equity(:|$) | Equity + ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue + ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + + * If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an + account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared + and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. + + * Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See + Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. + + * As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their + parent account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by + the first of these that exists: + + 1. A 'type:' declaration for this account. + 2. A 'type:' declaration in the parent accounts above it, + preferring the nearest. + 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. + 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, + preferring the nearest parent. + 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. + + * For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: + + $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: alias directive, Next: commodity directive, Prev: account directive, Up: Journal + +10.19 'alias' directive +======================= + +You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or +parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: + + * expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing + easier data entry and a less verbose journal + * adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts + * experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy + * combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference + on one line + * customising reports + + Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. +They do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or +hledger-web. + + Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use +correctly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; +more on this below. + + See also Rewrite account names. + +* Menu: + +* Basic aliases:: +* Regex aliases:: +* Combining aliases:: +* Aliases and multiple files:: +* end aliases directive:: +* Aliases can generate bad account names:: +* Aliases and account types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Basic aliases, Next: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.1 Basic aliases +--------------------- + +To set an account alias, use the 'alias' directive in your journal file. +This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its +included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces +around the = are optional: + +alias OLD = NEW + + Or, you can use the '--alias 'OLD=NEW'' option on the command line. +This affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases +interactively. + + OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will +replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. +Subaccounts are also affected. Eg: + +alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking +; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Regex aliases, Next: Combining aliases, Prev: Basic aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.2 Regex aliases +--------------------- + +There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, +indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the only +place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular +expression.) + + Eg: + +alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT + + or: + +$ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... + + Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by +REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. + + If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg +'/\/=:'. + + If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced +by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: + +alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 +; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" + + REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end +of option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining aliases, Next: Aliases and multiple files, Prev: Regex aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.3 Combining aliases +------------------------- + +You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives +and/or command line options. + + Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, +then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the +effect of previously applied aliases. + + In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be +applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal +entry, we apply: + + 1. 'alias' directives preceding the journal entry, most recently + parsed first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to + top) + 2. '--alias' options, in the order they appeared on the command line + (left to right). + + In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: + + * the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied + first + * the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on + * aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. + + This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps +provide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way +independent of which files are being read and in which order. + + In case of trouble, adding '--debug=6' to the command line will show +which aliases are being applied when. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and multiple files, Next: end aliases directive, Prev: Combining aliases, Up: alias directive + +10.19.4 Aliases and multiple files +---------------------------------- + +As explained at Directives and multiple files, 'alias' directives do not +affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, + +hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal + + account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. +Including the aliases doesn't work either: + +include a.aliases + +2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases + foo 1 + bar + + This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the +start of your top-most file, like this: + +alias foo=Foo +alias bar=Bar + +2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above + foo 1 + bar + +include c.journal ; also affected + + +File: hledger.info, Node: end aliases directive, Next: Aliases can generate bad account names, Prev: Aliases and multiple files, Up: alias directive + +10.19.5 'end aliases' directive +------------------------------- + +You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the +journal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: + +end aliases + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases can generate bad account names, Next: Aliases and account types, Prev: end aliases directive, Up: alias directive + +10.19.6 Aliases can generate bad account names +---------------------------------------------- + +Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, which +could cause confusing reports or invalid 'print' output. For example, +you could erase all account names: + +2021-01-01 + a:aa 1 + b + +$ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' +2021-01-01 + 1 + + The above 'print' output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert +an illegal double space, causing 'print' output that would give a +different journal when reparsed: + +2021-01-01 + old 1 + other + +$ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print +2021-01-01 + new USD 1 + other + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Aliases and account types, Prev: Aliases can generate bad account names, Up: alias directive + +10.19.7 Aliases and account types +--------------------------------- + +If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account +types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in +effect. + + However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg +renaming parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could +prevent child accounts from inheriting the account type of their +parents. + + Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, +renaming it by an alias could prevent or alter that. + + If you are using account aliases and the 'type:' query is not +matching accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts +command, eg something like: + +$ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a + + +File: hledger.info, Node: commodity directive, Next: decimal-mark directive, Prev: alias directive, Up: Journal + +10.20 'commodity' directive +=========================== + +You can use 'commodity' directives to declare your commodities. In fact +the 'commodity' directive performs several functions at once: + + 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can + optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf + Commodity error checking) + + 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to + expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international + number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both + '1,000' and '1.000' as 1. (Cf Amounts) + + 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying + output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of + decimal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display + style) + + You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives +sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable +parsing and display. + + Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since +for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). + + A commodity directive is just the word 'commodity' followed by a +sample amount, like this: + +;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT + +commodity $1000.00 +commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment + + It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the 'format' +subdirective, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol +appears twice; it must be the same in both places: + +;commodity SYMBOL +; format SAMPLEAMOUNT + +; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, +; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, +; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. +commodity INR + format INR 1,00,00,000.00 + + Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or +punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). + + The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is +significant. It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a +comma - followed by 0 or more decimal digits. + + A few more examples: + +# number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: +commodity $1,000.00 +commodity EUR 1.000,00 +commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 +commodity 1 000 000. + + Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with +zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) + + Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display +style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. + +* Menu: + +* Commodity error checking:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity error checking, Up: commodity directive + +10.20.1 Commodity error checking +-------------------------------- + +In strict mode, enabled with the '-s'/'--strict' flag, hledger will +report an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared +by a 'commodity' directive. This works similarly to account error +checking, see the notes there for more details. + + Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because +currently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity +with a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts +are always allowed to have no commodity symbol. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark directive, Next: include directive, Prev: commodity directive, Up: Journal + +10.21 'decimal-mark' directive +============================== + +You can use a 'decimal-mark' directive - usually one per file, at the +top of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark +when parsing amounts in this file. It can look like + +decimal-mark . + + or + +decimal-mark , + + This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we +recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg +thousands separators). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: include directive, Next: P directive, Prev: decimal-mark directive, Up: Journal + +10.22 'include' directive +========================= + +You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include +directive, like this: + +include FILEPATH + + Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or +timedot files can be included (not CSV files, currently). + + If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the +current file's folder. + + A tilde means home directory, eg: 'include ~/main.journal'. + + The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: +'include *.journal'. + + There is limited support for recursive wildcards: '**/' (the slash is +required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient +since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but +this can be done, eg: 'include */**/*.journal'. + + The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, +overriding the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input +files): 'include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: P directive, Next: payee directive, Prev: include directive, Up: Journal + +10.23 'P' directive +=================== + +The 'P' directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate +between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports to +convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or after +that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock exchange, +cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. + + The format is: + +P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT + + DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the +commodity being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and +quantity) of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this +date. Examples: + +# one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: +P 2009-01-01 € $1.35 + +# and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: +P 2010-01-01 € $1.40 + + The '-V', '-X' and '--value' flags use these market prices to show +amount values in another commodity. See Valuation. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: payee directive, Next: tag directive, Prev: P directive, Up: Journal + +10.24 'payee' directive +======================= + +'payee PAYEE NAME' + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which +may appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report +an error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been +declared. Eg: + +payee Whole Foods + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: tag directive, Next: Periodic transactions, Prev: payee directive, Up: Journal + +10.25 'tag' directive +===================== + +'tag TAGNAME' + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names +allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: + +tag item-id + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is +used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use +of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can +declare and check your tags . + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic transactions, Next: Other syntax, Prev: tag directive, Up: Journal + +10.26 Periodic transactions +=========================== + +The '~' directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives +allow hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in +reports, not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. + + Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, +read this whole section, or at least these tips: + + 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - + read about this below. + 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with 'hledger + print --forecast tag:generated' or 'hledger register --forecast + tag:generated'. + 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last + non-forecasted transaction's date. + 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. + See below for the exact start/end rules. + 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs + improvement, but is worth studying. + 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a + natural boundary of that interval. Eg in 'weekly from DATE', DATE + must be a monday. '~ weekly from 2019/10/1' (a tuesday) will give + an error. + 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically + expanded to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done + to improve reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. + Yes, it's a bit inconsistent with the above.) Eg: '~ every 10th + day of month from 2020/01', which is equivalent to '~ every 10th + day of month from 2020/01/01', will be adjusted to start on + 2019/12/10. + +* Menu: + +* Periodic rule syntax:: +* Periodic rules and relative dates:: +* Two spaces between period expression and description!:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rule syntax, Next: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.1 Periodic rule syntax +---------------------------- + +A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the +date replaced by a tilde ('~') followed by a period expression +(mnemonic: '~' looks like a recurring sine wave.): + +# every first of month +~ monthly + expenses:rent $2000 + assets:bank:checking + +# every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: +~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 + expenses:utilities $400 + assets:bank:checking + + The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying +multi-period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies +report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start +dates). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Periodic rules and relative dates, Next: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rule syntax, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.2 Periodic rules and relative dates +----------------------------------------- + +Partial or relative dates (like '12/31', '25', 'tomorrow', 'last week', +'next quarter') are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the +results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted +relative to, in order of preference: + + 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent 'Y' + directive + 2. or the date specified with '--today' + 3. or the date on which you are running the report. + + They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period +dates. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!, Prev: Periodic rules and relative dates, Up: Periodic transactions + +10.26.3 Two spaces between period expression and description! +------------------------------------------------------------- + +If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, these +must be separated by *two or more spaces*. This helps hledger know +where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not +accidentally alter their meaning, as in this example: + +; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" +; || +; vv +~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review + assets:bank:checking $1500 + income:acme inc + + So, + + * Do write two spaces between your period expression and your + transaction description, if any. + * Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period + expression. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other syntax, Prev: Periodic transactions, Up: Journal + +10.27 Other syntax +================== + +hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to +make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some of +the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, but +in general, features in this section are considered less important or +even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to help +you decide if you want to use them. + +* Menu: + +* Auto postings:: +* Balance assignments:: +* Bracketed posting dates:: +* D directive:: +* apply account directive:: +* Y directive:: +* Secondary dates:: +* Star comments:: +* Valuation expressions:: +* Virtual postings:: +* Other Ledger directives:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings, Next: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.1 Auto postings +--------------------- + +The '=' directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary +extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all +transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the '--auto' flag. + + Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your +financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy in +an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features like +balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. + + An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: + += QUERY + ACCOUNT AMOUNT + ... + ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] + + except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: '=' suggests +matching), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and +each "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting +amounts can be: + + * a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg '$2'. This will be + used as-is. + * a number, eg '2'. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched + posting will be added to this. + * a numeric multiplier, eg '*2' (a star followed by a number N). The + matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be + multiplied by N. + * a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg '*$2' (a star, number N, + and symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by + N, and its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. + + Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double +quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second +query term below: + += expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' + (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 + + Some examples: + +; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation += expenses:food + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + +; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount += expenses:gifts + assets:checking:gifts *-1 + assets:checking *1 + +2017/12/1 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + +2017/12/14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + +$ hledger print --auto +2017-12-01 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + +2017-12-14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + assets:checking:gifts -$20 + assets:checking $20 + +* Menu: + +* Auto postings and multiple files:: +* Auto postings and dates:: +* Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions:: +* Auto posting tags:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and multiple files, Next: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.1 Auto postings and multiple files +.......................................... + +An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or +in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect +sibling files (when multiple '-f'/'--file' are used - see #1212). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and dates, Next: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Prev: Auto postings and multiple files, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.2 Auto postings and dates +................................. + +A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking +precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also be +used in the generated posting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Next: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and dates, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.3 Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred +............................................................ + +amounts / balance assertions Currently, auto postings are added: + + * after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked + for balancedness, + * but before balance assertions are checked. + + Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and +after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 +for background. + + This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with +a missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to +infer amounts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Auto posting tags, Prev: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings + +10.27.1.4 Auto posting tags +........................... + +Automated postings will have some extra tags: + + * 'generated-posting:= QUERY' - shows this was generated by an auto + posting rule, and the query + * '_generated-posting:= QUERY' - a hidden tag, which does not appear + in hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated + "just now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the + journal. + + Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules +will have these tags added: + + * 'modified:' - this transaction was modified + * '_modified:' - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this + transaction was modified "just now". + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments, Next: Bracketed posting dates, Prev: Auto postings, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.2 Balance assignments +--------------------------- + +Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like +balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the +equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy the +assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when setting +opening balances: + +; starting a new journal, set asset account balances +2016/1/1 opening balances + assets:checking = $409.32 + assets:savings = $735.24 + assets:cash = $42 + equity:opening balances + + or when adjusting a balance to reality: + +; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense +2016/1/15 + assets:cash = $0 + expenses:misc + + The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the +commodity at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings +of the commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or +assignment). + + Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less +explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do +the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance +assignments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make +your financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less +trustworthy in an audit. + +* Menu: + +* Balance assignments and prices:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance assignments and prices, Up: Balance assignments + +10.27.2.1 Balance assignments and prices +........................................ + +A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have +that price attached: + +2019/1/1 + (a) = $1 @ €2 + +$ hledger print --explicit +2019-01-01 + (a) $1 @ €2 = $1 @ €2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Bracketed posting dates, Next: D directive, Prev: Balance assignments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.3 Bracketed posting dates +------------------------------- + +For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's +bracketed date syntax is also supported: '[DATE]', '[DATE=DATE2]' or +'[=DATE2]' in posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any +square-bracketed sequence of the '0123456789/-.=' characters in this +way. With this syntax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and +DATE2 infers its year from DATE. + + Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's +'date:'/'date2:' tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date +syntax. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: D directive, Next: apply account directive, Prev: Bracketed posting dates, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.4 'D' directive +--------------------- + +'D AMOUNT' + + This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any +subsequent commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing +the journal. This effect lasts until the next 'D' directive, or the end +of the journal. + + For compatibility/historical reasons, 'D' also acts like a +'commodity' directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing +and display style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity +symbol, but a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must +include a decimal mark (either period or comma). Eg: + +; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars +; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) +D $1,000.00 + +1/1 + a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 + b + + Interactions with other directives: + + For setting a commodity's display style, a 'commodity' directive has +highest priority, then a 'D' directive. + + For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, +'decimal-mark' has highest priority, then 'commodity', then 'D'. + + For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a 'commodity' +directive is required ('hledger check commodities' ignores 'D' +directives). + + Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less +explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is +usually an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to +track multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant +with 'commodity' and 'decimal-mark'. And it works differently from +Ledger's 'D'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: apply account directive, Next: Y directive, Prev: D directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.5 'apply account' directive +--------------------------------- + +This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended to +all accounts in following entries, until an 'end apply account' +directive or end of current file. Eg: + +apply account home + +2010/1/1 + food $10 + cash + +end apply account + + is equivalent to: + +2010/01/01 + home:food $10 + home:cash $-10 + + 'account' directives are also affected, and so is any 'include'd +content. + + Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not +affected. + + Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is +prepended. + + Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less +portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Y directive, Next: Secondary dates, Prev: apply account directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.6 'Y' directive +--------------------- + +'Y YEAR' + + or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): + + 'year YEAR' 'apply year YEAR' + + The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for +subsequent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: + +Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 + +12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 + expenses 1 + assets + +year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 + +2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected + expenses 1 + assets + +1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 + expenses 1 + assets + + Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at +least) makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less +trustworthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their +corresponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in +your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's +date. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Secondary dates, Next: Star comments, Prev: Y directive, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.7 Secondary dates +----------------------- + +A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals +sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. When +running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but with +the '--date2' flag (or '--aux-date' or '--effective'), the secondary +(right) date will be used instead. + + The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow +a consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = +date the transaction was initiated, if different". + + Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, +and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates +consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which reporting +mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler and +better. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Star comments, Next: Valuation expressions, Prev: Secondary dates, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.8 Star comments +--------------------- + +Lines beginning with '*' (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This +feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, +allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed +with org mode. + + Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. +Decreases your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode +just for folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; +nowadays you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without +losing ledger mode's features. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation expressions, Next: Virtual postings, Prev: Star comments, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.9 Valuation expressions +----------------------------- + +Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double +parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Virtual postings, Next: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Valuation expressions, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.10 Virtual postings +------------------------- + +A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a _virtual +posting_ or _unbalanced posting_, which means it is exempt from the +usual rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. + + This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to +avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special +cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances +without using a balancing equity account: + +2022-01-01 opening balances + (assets:checking) $1000 + (assets:savings) $2000 + + A posting with brackets around the account name is called a _balanced +virtual posting_. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must +add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: + +2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else + assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other + expenses:food $7 ; <- + expenses:food $3 ; <- + [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other + [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- + (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance + + Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed +are called _real postings_. You can exclude virtual postings from +reports with the '-R/--real' flag or a 'real:1' query. + + Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid +figuring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable +and less trustworthy in an audit. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Virtual postings, Up: Other syntax + +10.27.11 Other Ledger directives +-------------------------------- + +These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This +allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's +reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. + +apply fixed COMM AMT +apply tag TAG +assert EXPR +bucket / A ACCT +capture ACCT REGEX +check EXPR +define VAR=EXPR +end apply fixed +end apply tag +end apply year +end tag +eval / expr EXPR +python + PYTHONCODE +tag NAME +value EXPR +--command-line-flags + + See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed +hledger/Ledger syntax comparison. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV, Next: Timeclock, Prev: Journal, Up: Top + +11 CSV +****** + +hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, +semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting +each record into a transaction. + + (To learn about _writing_ CSV, see CSV output.) + + For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure +they have a corresponding '.csv', '.tsv' or '.ssv' file extension or use +a hledger file prefix (see File Extension below). + + Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding _rules file_. +This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields layout, +date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, and +how to categorise transactions based on description or other attributes. + + By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file +with an extra '.rules' extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked +to read 'foo/FILE.csv', hledger looks for 'foo/FILE.csv.rules'. You can +specify a different rules file with the '--rules-file' option. If no +rules file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which +you'll need to adjust. + + At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, +and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines +there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: + +Date, Description, Id, Amount +12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 + +# basic.csv.rules +skip 1 +fields date, description, , amount +date-format %d/%m/%Y + +$ hledger print -f basic.csv +2019-11-12 Foo + expenses:unknown 10.23 + income:unknown -10.23 + + There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, +and more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at +https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. + +* Menu: + +* CSV rules cheatsheet:: +* separator:: +* skip:: +* date-format:: +* timezone:: +* newest-first:: +* intra-day-reversed:: +* decimal-mark:: +* fields list:: +* Field assignment:: +* Field names:: +* if block:: +* Matchers:: +* if table:: +* balance-type:: +* include:: +* Working with CSV:: +* CSV rules examples:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules cheatsheet, Next: separator, Up: CSV + +11.1 CSV rules cheatsheet +========================= + +The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. +(Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' or ';' or '*' are ignored.) + +*'separator'* declare the field separator, instead of + relying on file extension +*'skip'* skip one or more header lines at start of file +*'date-format'* declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times +*'timezone'* declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV + date-times +*'newest-first'* improve txn order when: there are multiple + records, newest first, all with the same date +*'intra-day-reversed'* improve txn order when: same-day txns are in + opposite order to the overall file +*'decimal-mark'* declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, + when ambiguous +*'fields' list* name CSV fields for easy reference, and + optionally assign their values to hledger + fields +*Field assignment* assign a CSV value or interpolated text value + to a hledger field +*'if' block* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + or 'skip' a record or 'end' (skip rest of + file) +*'if' table* conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + using compact syntax +*'balance-type'* select which type of balance + assertions/assignments to generate +*'include'* inline another CSV rules file + + Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are +evaluated. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: separator, Next: skip, Prev: CSV rules cheatsheet, Up: CSV + +11.2 'separator' +================ + +You can use the 'separator' rule to read other kinds of +character-separated data. The argument is any single separator +character, or the words 'tab' or 'space' (case insensitive). Eg, for +comma-separated values (CSV): + +separator , + + or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): + +separator ; + + or for tab-separated values (TSV): + +separator TAB + + If the input file has a '.csv', '.ssv' or '.tsv' file extension (or a +'csv:', 'ssv:', 'tsv:' prefix), the appropriate separator will be +inferred automatically, and you won't need this rule. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: skip, Next: date-format, Prev: separator, Up: CSV + +11.3 'skip' +=========== + +skip N + + The word 'skip' followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells +hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input +data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need +to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains +header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not +parsed as CSV. + + 'skip' can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip +individual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still +required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date-format, Next: timezone, Prev: skip, Up: CSV + +11.4 'date-format' +================== + +date-format DATEFMT + + This is a helper for the 'date' (and 'date2') fields. If your CSV +dates are not formatted like 'YYYY-MM-DD', 'YYYY/MM/DD' or 'YYYY.MM.DD', +you'll need to add a date-format rule describing them with a +strptime-style date parsing pattern - see +https://hackage.haskell.org/package/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. +The pattern must parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: + +# MM/DD/YY +date-format %m/%d/%y + +# D/M/YYYY +# The - makes leading zeros optional. +date-format %-d/%-m/%Y + +# YYYY-Mmm-DD +date-format %Y-%h-%d + +# M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk +# Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. +date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk + + +File: hledger.info, Node: timezone, Next: newest-first, Prev: date-format, Up: CSV + +11.5 'timezone' +=============== + +timezone TIMEZONE + + When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone +other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you +can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps +prevent off-by-one dates. + + When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't +need this rule; instead, use '%Z' in 'date-format' (or '%z', '%EZ', +'%Ez'; see the formatTime link above). + + In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware +conversion, localising the CSV date-times to your current system time +zone. If you prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for +reproducibility, you can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with +the TZ environment variable, eg: + +$ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv + + 'timezone' currently does not understand timezone names, except +"UTC", "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". +For others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: newest-first, Next: intra-day-reversed, Prev: timezone, Up: CSV + +11.6 'newest-first' +=================== + +hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered +chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can +auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV +where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are +oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, +like: + +2022-10-01, txn 3... +2022-10-01, txn 2... +2022-10-01, txn 1... + + you can add the 'newest-first' rule to help hledger generate the +transactions in correct order. + +# same-day CSV records are newest first +newest-first + + +File: hledger.info, Node: intra-day-reversed, Next: decimal-mark, Prev: newest-first, Up: CSV + +11.7 'intra-day-reversed' +========================= + +CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to +the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the +transactions on each date are oldest first: + +2022-10-02, txn 3... +2022-10-02, txn 4... +2022-10-01, txn 1... +2022-10-01, txn 2... + + In this situation, add the 'intra-day-reversed' rule, and hledger +will compensate, improving the order of transactions. + +# transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order +intra-day-reversed + + +File: hledger.info, Node: decimal-mark, Next: fields list, Prev: intra-day-reversed, Up: CSV + +11.8 'decimal-mark' +=================== + +decimal-mark . + + or: + +decimal-mark , + + hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal +mark when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the +CSV contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you +should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid +misparsed numbers. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: fields list, Next: Field assignment, Prev: decimal-mark, Up: CSV + +11.9 'fields' list +================== + +fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... + + A fields list (the word 'fields' followed by comma-separated field +names) is optional, but convenient. It does two things: + + 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if + you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say + '%SomeField' instead of remembering '%13'. + + 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described + below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger + field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and + build a transaction. + + Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the +transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields for +later reference; and ignore the others": + +fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield + + In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to +the CSV file's separator. Also: + + * There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). + * Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field + names are optional. + * Field names may contain '_' (underscore) or '-' (hyphen). + * Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty + name. + + If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for +your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces replaced +by underscores). + + Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning +to a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's +"balance" field 'balance_' to avoid directly setting hledger's 'balance' +field (and generating a balance assertion). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Field assignment, Next: Field names, Prev: fields list, Up: CSV + +11.10 Field assignment +====================== + +HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE + + Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to +hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields +list (see above). + + To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of +the standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, +followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may +interpolate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV +record ('%N'), or by the name they were given in the fields list +('%CSVFIELD'). + + Some examples: + +# set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended +amount %4 USD + +# combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags +comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 + + Tips: + + * Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like '" 1 "' + becomes '1' when interpolated) (#1051). + * Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate + a hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Field names, Next: if block, Prev: Field assignment, Up: CSV + +11.11 Field names +================= + +Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in +hledger CSV rules files: + + 1. *CSV field names* ('CSVFIELD' in these docs): you can optionally + name the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet + automatically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing + arbitrary names in a 'fields' list, eg: + + fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar + + 2. Special *hledger field names* ('HLEDGERFIELD' in these docs): you + must set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction + from a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field + assignment, eg: + + date %When + code %Some_Id + description %What + comment %Foo %Bar + amount1 $ %Total + + or directly in a 'fields' list: + + fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar + currency $ + comment %Foo %Bar + + Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what +happens when you assign values to them: + +* Menu: + +* date field:: +* date2 field:: +* status field:: +* code field:: +* description field:: +* comment field:: +* account field:: +* amount field:: +* currency field:: +* balance field:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date field, Next: date2 field, Up: Field names + +11.11.1 date field +------------------ + +Assigning to 'date' sets the transaction date. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: date2 field, Next: status field, Prev: date field, Up: Field names + +11.11.2 date2 field +------------------- + +'date2' sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: status field, Next: code field, Prev: date2 field, Up: Field names + +11.11.3 status field +-------------------- + +'status' sets the transaction's status, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: code field, Next: description field, Prev: status field, Up: Field names + +11.11.4 code field +------------------ + +'code' sets the transaction's code, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: description field, Next: comment field, Prev: code field, Up: Field names + +11.11.5 description field +------------------------- + +'description' sets the transaction's description, if any. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: comment field, Next: account field, Prev: description field, Up: Field names + +11.11.6 comment field +--------------------- + +'comment' sets the transaction's comment, if any. + + 'commentN', where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. + + You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal '\n' in the +code. A comment starting with '\n' will begin on a new line. + + Comments can contain tags, as usual. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: account field, Next: amount field, Prev: comment field, Up: Field names + +11.11.7 account field +--------------------- + +Assigning to 'accountN', where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of +the Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. + + Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set 'account1' +and 'account2'. Typically 'account1' is associated with the CSV file, +and is set once with a top-level assignment, while 'account2' is set +based on each transaction's description, in conditional rules. + + If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see +below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" +or "income:unknown"). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: amount field, Next: currency field, Prev: account field, Up: Field names + +11.11.8 amount field +-------------------- + +There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different +situations: + + * 'amountN' sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that + posting to be generated. By assigning to 'amount1', 'amount2', ... + etc. you can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't + have to be consecutive; in certain situations using a high number + might be helpful to influence the layout of postings. + + * 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out' should be used instead, as a pair, + when and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. + Eg when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a + single Amount field. Note: + + * Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the + second posting" - that's not correct. Think: "'amountN-in' + and 'amountN-out' together detect the amount for posting N, by + inspecting two CSV fields at once." + * hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will + automatically negate the -out value. + * It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or + zero, so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case + you'll need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). + + * 'amount', with no posting number (and similarly, 'amount-in' and + 'amount-out' with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for + backwards compatibility, and because they have special behaviour + that is sometimes convenient: + + * They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of + posting 2. + * Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost + price. + * Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like 'amount1', or + 'amount2-in' and 'amount2-out') will take precedence. This + allows incrementally migrating old rules files to the new + syntax. + + There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; +please see also "Setting amounts" below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: currency field, Next: balance field, Prev: amount field, Up: Field names + +11.11.9 currency field +---------------------- + +'currency' sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' +amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency +symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. + + 'currencyN' prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's +amount. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance field, Prev: currency field, Up: Field names + +11.11.10 balance field +---------------------- + +'balanceN' sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is +left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. + + 'balance' is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is +equivalent to 'balance1'. + + You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the +'balance-type' rule (see below). + + See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: if block, Next: Matchers, Prev: Field names, Up: CSV + +11.12 'if' block +================ + +Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV +data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can +categorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on +their description (for example). There are two ways to write +conditional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", +described below. + + An if block is the word 'if' and one or more "matcher" expressions +(can be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or +next line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, + +if MATCHER + RULE + + or + +if +MATCHER +MATCHER +MATCHER + RULE + RULE + + If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be +applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special +rules may also be used within an if block: + + * 'skip' - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction + from it) + * 'end' - skips the rest of the current CSV file. + + Some examples: + +# if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" +if groceries + account2 expenses:groceries + +# if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown +if +monthly service fee +atm transaction fee +banking thru software + account2 expenses:business:banking + comment XXX deductible ? check it + +# if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file +if ,,,, + end + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Matchers, Next: if table, Prev: if block, Up: CSV + +11.13 Matchers +============== + +There are two kinds: + + 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular + expression ('REGEX'), which hledger will try to match + case-insensitively anywhere within the CSV record. + Eg: 'whole foods' + + 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name + ('%CSVFIELD REGEX'). hledger will try to match these just within + the named CSV field. + Eg: '%date 2023' + + The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended +regular expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries ('\b', '\B', +'\<', '\>'), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular +expressions" in the hledger manual +(https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expressions). + + With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched +is not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be +converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing +whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if +the original record was: + +2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 + + the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: + +2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 + + When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: + + * By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) + * When a matcher is preceded by ampersand ('&') it will be AND'ed + with the previous matcher (both of them must match). + + There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: if table, Next: balance-type, Prev: Matchers, Up: CSV + +11.14 'if' table +================ + +"if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many +matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like +this: + +if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... +MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... +MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... +MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + + + The first character after 'if' is taken to be the separator for the +rest of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like ',' +or '|' that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is +unrelated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the +matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The +table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line +must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. + + The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher +succeeds, assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding +hledger fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is +equivalent to this sequence of if blocks: + +if MATCHERA + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + +if MATCHERB + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + +if MATCHERC + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + Example: + +if,account2,comment +atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it +%description groceries,expenses:groceries, +2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance-type, Next: include, Prev: if table, Up: CSV + +11.15 'balance-type' +==================== + +Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple +'=' type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding +assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, +eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help with +budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the +'balance-type' rule: + +# balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts +balance-type ==* + + Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: + += single commodity, exclude subaccounts +=* single commodity, include subaccounts +== multi commodity, exclude subaccounts +==* multi commodity, include subaccounts + + +File: hledger.info, Node: include, Next: Working with CSV, Prev: balance-type, Up: CSV + +11.16 'include' +=============== + +include RULESFILE + + This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. +'RULESFILE' is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current +file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between +several rules files, eg: + +# someaccount.csv.rules + +## someaccount-specific rules +fields date,description,amount +account1 assets:someaccount +account2 expenses:misc + +## common rules +include categorisation.rules + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Working with CSV, Next: CSV rules examples, Prev: include, Up: CSV + +11.17 Working with CSV +====================== + +Some tips: + +* Menu: + +* Rapid feedback:: +* Valid CSV:: +* File Extension:: +* Reading CSV from standard input:: +* Reading multiple CSV files:: +* Valid transactions:: +* Deduplicating importing:: +* Setting amounts:: +* Amount signs:: +* Setting currency/commodity:: +* Amount decimal places:: +* Referencing other fields:: +* How CSV rules are evaluated:: +* Well factored rules:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Rapid feedback, Next: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.1 Rapid feedback +---------------------- + +It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting +CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: + +$ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' + + A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions +of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can echo +a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to read the +output. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valid CSV, Next: File Extension, Prev: Rapid feedback, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.2 Valid CSV +----------------- + +Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, and +equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or tab +as separators). This means, eg: + + * Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in + single quotes is not allowed. (Eg ''A','B'' is rejected.) + * When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the + quotes are not allowed. (Eg '"A", "B"' is rejected.) + * When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double + quotes. (Eg 'A"A, B' is rejected.) + + If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to +transform it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more +permissive CSV parser like python's csv lib. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: File Extension, Next: Reading CSV from standard input, Prev: Valid CSV, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.3 File Extension +---------------------- + +To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error +messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), +it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a '.csv', '.ssv' or '.tsv' +filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) + + When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV +reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path with +'csv:', 'ssv:' or 'tsv:': Eg: + +$ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print + + You can also override the default field separator with a separator +rule if needed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reading CSV from standard input, Next: Reading multiple CSV files, Prev: File Extension, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.4 Reading CSV from standard input +--------------------------------------- + +You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, +since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: + +$ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reading multiple CSV files, Next: Valid transactions, Prev: Reading CSV from standard input, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.5 Reading multiple CSV files +---------------------------------- + +If you use multiple '-f' options to read multiple CSV files at once, +hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV +file. But if you use the '--rules-file' option, that rules file will be +used for all the CSV files. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valid transactions, Next: Deduplicating importing, Prev: Reading multiple CSV files, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.6 Valid transactions +-------------------------- + +After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the +generated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing +them, applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. +Any errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying +the problem entry. + + There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated +them, will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the +CSV data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance +assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: + +$ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplicating importing, Next: Setting amounts, Prev: Valid transactions, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.7 Deduplicating, importing +-------------------------------- + +When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank +transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing some +of the same records. + + The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) +append just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, +so you don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which +version of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden '.latest.FILE.csv' +file.) This is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: + +# download the latest CSV files, then run this command. +# Note, no -f flags needed here. +$ hledger import *.csv [--dry] + + This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable +chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) + + A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and +otherwise, exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing +CSV data. See: + + * https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows + * https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting amounts, Next: Amount signs, Prev: Deduplicating importing, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.8 Setting amounts +----------------------- + +Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling +various amount-setting situations: + + 1. *If the amount is in a single CSV field:* + + a. *If its sign indicates direction of flow:* + Assign it to 'amountN', to set the Nth posting's amount. N is + usually 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. + + b. *If another field indicates direction of flow:* + Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate + amount sign. Eg: + + # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": + amount1 -%Amount + if %Type deposit + amount1 %Amount + + 2. *If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit):* + + a. *If both fields are unsigned:* + Assign the fields to 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out'. This + sets posting N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero + value. If it's the -out value, the amount will be negated. + + b. *If either field is signed:* + Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg + below, the -out value already has a minus sign so we undo + hledger's automatic negating by negating once more (but only + if the field is non-empty, so that we don't leave a minus sign + by itself): + + fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out + if %amount1-out [1-9] + amount1-out -%amount1-out + + c. *If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be + empty):* + The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is + non-zero/non-empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such + as '1' and 'none'. For such cases, use conditional rules to + help select the amount. Eg, to handle the above you could + select the value containing non-zero digits: + + fields date, description, in, out + if %in [1-9] + amount1 %in + if %out [1-9] + amount1 %out + + 3. *If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost:* + Use the unnumbered 'amount' (or 'amount-in' and 'amount-out') + syntax. + + 4. *If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts:* + Assign to 'balanceN', to set a balance assignment on the Nth + posting, causing the posting's amount to be calculated + automatically. 'balance' with no number is equivalent to + 'balance1'. In this situation hledger is more likely to guess the + wrong default account name, so you may need to set that explicitly. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amount signs, Next: Setting currency/commodity, Prev: Setting amounts, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.9 Amount signs +-------------------- + +There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing and +sign-flipping: + + * *If an amount value begins with a plus sign:* + that will be removed: '+AMT' becomes 'AMT' + + * *If an amount value is parenthesised:* + it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: '(AMT)' becomes + '-AMT' + + * *If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of + parentheses, or a minus sign and parentheses):* + they cancel out and will be removed: '--AMT' or '-(AMT)' becomes + 'AMT' + + * *If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of + parentheses):* + that is removed, making it an empty value. '"+"' or '"-"' or + '"()"' becomes '""'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting currency/commodity, Next: Amount decimal places, Prev: Amount signs, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.10 Setting currency/commodity +----------------------------------- + +If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount +field(s): + +2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 + + you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it +will be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: + +fields date,description,amount + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown $123.00 + income:unknown $-123.00 + + If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: + +2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 + + You can assign that to the 'currency' pseudo-field, which has the +special effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction +(on the left, with no separating space): + +fields date,description,currency,amount + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown USD123.00 + income:unknown USD-123.00 + + Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, +with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by +a space: + +fields date,description,cur,amt +amount %amt %cur + +2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown 123.00 USD + income:unknown -123.00 USD + + Note we used a temporary field name ('cur') that is not 'currency' - +that would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amount decimal places, Next: Referencing other fields, Prev: Setting currency/commodity, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.11 Amount decimal places +------------------------------ + +Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like +'amount1' influence commodity display styles, such as the number of +decimal places displayed in reports. + + The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display +style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Referencing other fields, Next: How CSV rules are evaluated, Prev: Amount decimal places, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.12 Referencing other fields +--------------------------------- + +In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger +fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger +field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the +hledger field: + +# Name the third CSV field "amount1" +fields date,description,amount1 + +# Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD +amount1 %amount1 USD + +# Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) +comment %amount1 + + Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a +literal "amount1": + +fields date,description,csvamount +amount1 %csvamount USD +# Can't interpolate amount1 here +comment %amount1 + + When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, +only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or +C if "something" is matched, but never A: + +comment A +comment B +if something + comment C + + +File: hledger.info, Node: How CSV rules are evaluated, Next: Well factored rules, Prev: Referencing other fields, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.13 How CSV rules are evaluated +------------------------------------ + +Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need +to). First, + + * 'include' - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth + first. (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for + further includes, recursively, before proceeding.) + + Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is +repeated, the last one wins: + + * 'skip' (at top level) + * 'date-format' + * 'newest-first' + * 'fields' - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial + assignments to hledger fields + + Then for each CSV record in turn: + + * test all 'if' blocks. If any of them contain a 'end' rule, skip + all remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a + 'skip' rule, skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple + matched 'skip' rules, the first one wins. + * collect all field assignments at top level and in matched 'if' + blocks. When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only + the last one. + * compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was + assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a + default + * generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. + + This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger +can use to parse input files. When all files have been read +successfully, the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger +command the user specified. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Well factored rules, Prev: How CSV rules are evaluated, Up: Working with CSV + +11.17.14 Well factored rules +---------------------------- + +Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules +files: + + * Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a + 'common.rules', and adding 'include common.rules' to each CSV's + rules file. + + * Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the + frequently used parts. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: CSV rules examples, Prev: Working with CSV, Up: CSV + +11.18 CSV rules examples +======================== + +* Menu: + +* Bank of Ireland:: +* Coinbase:: +* Amazon:: +* Paypal:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Bank of Ireland, Next: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.1 Bank of Ireland +----------------------- + +Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance +field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not +necessary but provides extra error checking: + +Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance +07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 +07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 + +# bankofireland-checking.csv.rules + +# skip the header line +skip + +# name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields +fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance + +# We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" +# above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: +# +# - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, +# by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience +# +# - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, +# eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day + +# date is in UK/Ireland format +date-format %d/%m/%Y + +# set the currency +currency EUR + +# set the base account for all txns +account1 assets:bank:boi:checking + +$ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print +2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 + income:unknown EUR-10.0 + +2012-12-07 PAYMENT + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 + expenses:unknown EUR5.0 + + The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're +reading directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are +imported into a journal file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Coinbase, Next: Amazon, Prev: Bank of Ireland, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.2 Coinbase +---------------- + +A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is +recorded using cost notation. The legacy 'amount' field name +conveniently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. + +# Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes +# 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" + +# coinbase.csv.rules +skip 1 +fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes +date %Timestamp +date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z +description %Notes +account1 assets:coinbase:cc +amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency + +$ hledger print -f coinbase.csv +2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account + assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP + income:unknown -74.000000 GBP + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Amazon, Next: Paypal, Prev: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.3 Amazon +-------------- + +Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to +generate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably +get this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) + +"Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" +"Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" +"Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + +# amazon-orders.csv.rules + +# skip one header line +skip 1 + +# name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. +# Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. +fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code + +# how to parse the date +date-format %b %-d, %Y + +# combine two fields to make the description +description %toorfrom %name + +# save the status as a tag +comment status:%amzstatus + +# set the base account for all transactions +account1 assets:amazon +# leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). +# I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember + +# set a generic account2 +account2 expenses:misc +amount2 %amzamount +# and maybe refine it further: +#include categorisation.rules + +# add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. +if %fees [1-9] + account3 expenses:fees + amount3 %fees + +$ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print +2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $20.00 + +2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $25.00 + expenses:fees $1.00 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Paypal, Prev: Amazon, Up: CSV rules examples + +11.18.4 Paypal +-------------- + +Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some +Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: + +"Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" +"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" +"10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" +"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" +"10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" +"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" +"10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" +"10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" + +# paypal-custom.csv.rules + +# Tips: +# Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download +# Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" +# Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: +# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" +# This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": +# "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + +fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note + +skip 1 + +date-format %-m/%-d/%Y + +# ignore some paypal events +if +In Progress +Temporary Hold +Update to + skip + +# add more fields to the description +description %description_ %itemtitle + +# save some other fields as tags +comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ + +# convert to short currency symbols +if %currency USD + currency $ +if %currency EUR + currency E +if %currency GBP + currency P + +# generate postings + +# the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account +# (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) +account1 assets:online:paypal +amount1 %netamount + +# the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party +# (account2 is set below) +amount2 -%grossamount + +# if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. +if %feeamount [1-9] + account3 expenses:banking:paypal + amount3 -%feeamount + comment3 business: + +# choose an account for the second posting + +# override the default account names: +# if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) +if %grossamount ^[^-] + account2 income:unknown +# if negative, it's an expense (a credit) +if %grossamount ^- + account2 expenses:unknown + +# apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks +include common.rules + +# apply some overrides specific to this csv + +# Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, +# which can be disregarded in this case. +if +Bank Account +Bank Deposit to PP Account + description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle + account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking + account1 assets:online:paypal + +# Currency conversions +if Currency Conversion + account2 equity:currency conversion + +# common.rules + +if +darcs +noble benefactor + account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub + comment2 business: + +if +Calm Radio + account2 expenses:online:apps + +if +electronic frontier foundation +Patreon +wikimedia +Advent of Code + account2 expenses:dues + +if Google + account2 expenses:online:apps + description google | music + +$ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print +2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 + expenses:online:apps $6.99 + +2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 + +2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 + expenses:dues $7.00 + +2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 + +2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 + expenses:dues $2.00 + expenses:banking:paypal ; business: + +2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 + +2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 + revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: + expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Timeclock, Next: Timedot, Prev: CSV, Up: Top + +12 Timeclock +************ + +The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. + + hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, +these are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and +clock-out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. +The time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are +optional. The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored +(currently the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines +beginning with '#' or ';' or '*', and blank lines, are ignored. + +i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces +o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 +i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account +o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 + + hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting +some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than +one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For +the above time log, 'hledger print' generates these journal entries: + +$ hledger -f t.timeclock print +2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces + (some:account name) 0.33h + +2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 + (another account) 1.64h + +2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 + (another account) 2.01h + + Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: + +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 +$ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week + + To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: + + * use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended + timeclock-x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el + + * at the command line, use these bash aliases: 'shell alias ti="echo + i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o + `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG"' + + * or use the old 'ti' and 'to' scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. + These rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the + ledger 2 executable renamed. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Timedot, Next: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Prev: Timeclock, Up: Top + +13 Timedot +********** + +'timedot' format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. +Compared to 'timeclock' format, it is + + * convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging + * readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. + + A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look +like this: + +2021-08-04 +hom:errands .... .... +fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs +per:admin:finance + + hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each +dot representing a quarter-hour spent: + +$ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader +2021-08-04 * + (hom:errands) 2.00 + +2021-08-04 * + (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 + +2021-08-04 * + (per:admin:finance) 0 + + A day entry begins with a date line: + + * a non-indented *simple date* (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). + + Optionally this can be followed on the same line by + + * a common *transaction description* for this day + * a common *transaction comment* for this day, after a semicolon + (';'). + + After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time +transaction lines, consisting of: + + * an *account name* - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style + account name. + * *two or more spaces* - a field separator, required if there is an + amount (as in journal format). + * a *timedot amount* - dots representing quarter hours, or a number + representing hours. + * an optional *comment* beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. + + In more detail, timedot amounts can be: + + * *dots*: zero or more period characters, each representing one + quarter-hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. + Eg: '.... ..' + + * a *number*, representing hours. Eg: '1.5' + + * a *number immediately followed by a unit symbol* 's', 'm', 'h', + 'd', 'w', 'mo', or 'y', representing seconds, minutes, hours, days + weeks, months or years. Eg '1.5h' or '90m'. The following + equivalencies are assumed: + '60s' = '1m', '60m' = '1h', '24h' = '1d', '7d' = '1w', '30d' = + '1mo', '365d' = '1y'. (This unit will not be visible in the + generated transaction amount, which is always in hours.) + + There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in +the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: + + * Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' or ';' are ignored. + + * Before the first date line, lines beginning with '*' are ignored. + From the first date line onward, a sequence of '*''s followed by a + space at beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs + Org mode) is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an + Org headline, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org + headlines. + + * Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as + transactions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by + default; add -E to see them.) + + More examples: + +# on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. +2016/2/1 +inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... +fos:haskell .... .. +biz:research . + +2016/2/2 +inc:client1 .... .... +biz:research . + +2016/2/3 +inc:client1 4 +fos:hledger 3 +biz:research 1 + +* Time log +** 2020-01-01 +*** adm:time . +*** adm:finance . + +* 2020 Work Diary +** Q1 +*** 2020-02-29 +**** DONE +0700 yoga +**** UNPLANNED +**** BEGUN +hom:chores + cleaning ... + water plants + outdoor - one full watering can + indoor - light watering +**** TODO +adm:planning: trip +*** LATER + + Reporting: + +$ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 +2016-02-02 * + (inc:client1) 2.00 + +2016-02-02 * + (biz:research) 0.25 + +$ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree +Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: + + || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d +============++======================================== + biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + fos || 1.50 0 3.00 + haskell || 1.50 0 0 + hledger || 0 0 3.00 + inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 +------------++---------------------------------------- + || 7.75 2.25 8.00 + + Using period instead of colon as account name separator: + +2016/2/4 +fos.hledger.timedot 4 +fos.ledger .. + +$ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree + 4.50 fos + 4.00 hledger:timedot + 0.50 ledger +-------------------- + 4.50 + + A sample.timedot file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Next: Time periods, Prev: Timedot, Up: Top + +14 PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS +***************************** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Time periods, Next: Depth, Prev: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Up: Top + +15 Time periods +*************** + +* Menu: + +* Report start & end date:: +* Smart dates:: +* Report intervals:: +* Date adjustment:: +* Period expressions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Report start & end date, Next: Smart dates, Up: Time periods + +15.1 Report start & end date +============================ + +By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time +represented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest +transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest +transaction, posting, or market price date. + + Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current +month. You can specify a start and/or end date using '-b/--begin', +'-e/--end', '-p/--period' or a 'date:' query (described below). All of +these accept the smart date syntax (below). + + Some notes: + + * End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date + _after_ the last day you want to see in the report. + * As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with + _options_, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. + * The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of + the start/end dates from options and that from 'date:' queries. + That is, 'date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030'' yields January + 2019, the smallest common time span. + * In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall + on interval boundaries (see below). + + Examples: + +'-b begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 +2016/3/17' +'-e 12/1' end at the start of december 1st of the current year + (11/30 will be the last date included) +'-b all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month +thismonth' +'-p all transactions in the current month +thismonth' +'date:2016/3/17..'the above written as queries instead ('..' can also be + replaced with '-') +'date:..12/1' +'date:thismonth..' +'date:thismonth' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Smart dates, Next: Report intervals, Prev: Report start & end date, Up: Time periods + +15.2 Smart dates +================ + +hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added +convenience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be +written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted +(missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: + +'2004/10/1', exact date, several separators allowed. Year +'2004-01-01', is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 +'2004.9.1' +'2004' start of year +'2004/10' start of month +'10/1' month and day in current year +'21' day in current month +'october, oct' start of month in current year +'yesterday, today, -1, 0, 1 days from today +tomorrow' +'last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period +day/week/month/quarter/year' +'in n n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years' +'n n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years +ahead' +'n -n periods from the current period +days/weeks/months/quarters/years +ago' +'20181201' 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and + day +'201812' 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month + + Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give +surprising results: + +'201813' 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 6-digit year +'20181301' 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 8-digit year +'20181232' 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error +'201801012' 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error + + "Today's date" can be overridden with the '--today' option, in case +it's needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for +periodic transaction rules, which are not affected by '--today'.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Report intervals, Next: Date adjustment, Prev: Smart dates, Up: Time periods + +15.3 Report intervals +===================== + +A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, +balance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a +separate row or column. + + The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line +flags: + + * '-D/--daily' + * '-W/--weekly' + * '-M/--monthly' + * '-Q/--quarterly' + * '-Y/--yearly' + + More complex intervals can be specified using '-p/--period', +described below. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Date adjustment, Next: Period expressions, Prev: Report intervals, Up: Time periods + +15.4 Date adjustment +==================== + +When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end +dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically +adjusted to natural period boundaries. This is convenient for producing +simple periodic reports. More precisely: + + * an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall + on a natural period boundary + + * an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the + last period the same length as the others. + + By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, +with '-b', '-e', '-p' or 'date:', will not be adjusted (since hledger +1.29). This makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, +but it also means that if you are specifying a start date, you should +pick one that's on a period boundary if you want to see simple report +period headings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions, Prev: Date adjustment, Up: Time periods + +15.5 Period expressions +======================= + +The '-p/--period' option specifies a period expression, which is a +compact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report +interval. + + Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the +first quarter of 2009): + +'-p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"' + + Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; +these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The +spaces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. +So the following are equivalent to the above: + +'-p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1"' +'-p2009/1/1to2009/4/1' +'-p2009/1/1..2009/4/1' + + Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also +equivalent to the above: + +'-p "1/1 4/1"' +'-p "jan-apr"' +'-p "this year to 4/1"' + + If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be +the earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: + +'-p "from 2009/1/1"' everything after january 1, 2009 +'-p "since 2009/1"' the same, since is a synonym +'-p "from 2009"' the same +'-p "to 2009"' everything before january 1, 2009 + + You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full +date: + +'-p "2009"' the year 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1” +'-p "2009/1"' the month of january 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to + 2009/2/1” +'-p the first day of 2009; equivalent to “2009/1/1 to +"2009/1/1"' 2009/1/2” + + or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): + +'-p "2009Q1"' first quarter of 2009, equivalent to “2009/1/1 to + 2009/4/1” +'-p "q4"' fourth quarter of the current year + +* Menu: + +* Period expressions with a report interval:: +* More complex report intervals:: +* Multiple weekday intervals:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Period expressions with a report interval, Next: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.1 Period expressions with a report interval +------------------------------------------------ + +A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated +from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word 'in': + +'-p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1"' +'-p "monthly in 2008"' +'-p "quarterly"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More complex report intervals, Next: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: Period expressions with a report interval, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.2 More complex report intervals +------------------------------------ + +Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, +such as: + + * 'biweekly' (every two weeks) + * 'fortnightly' + * 'bimonthly' (every two months) + * 'every day|week|month|quarter|year' + * 'every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years' + + Weekly on a custom day: + + * 'every Nth day of week' ('th', 'nd', 'rd', or 'st' are all accepted + after the number) + * 'every WEEKDAYNAME' (full or three-letter english weekday name, + case insensitive) + + Monthly on a custom day: + + * 'every Nth day [of month]' + * 'every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month]' + + Yearly on a custom day: + + * 'every MM/DD [of year]' (month number and day of month number) + * 'every MONTHNAME DDth [of year]' (full or three-letter english + month name, case insensitive, and day of month number) + * 'every DDth MONTHNAME [of year]' (equivalent to the above) + + Examples: + +'-p "bimonthly from +2008"' +'-p "every 2 weeks"' +'-p "every 5 months from +2009/03"' +'-p "every 2nd day of periods will go from Tue to Tue +week"' +'-p "every Tue"' same +'-p "every 15th day"' period boundaries will be on 15th of each + month +'-p "every 2nd Monday"' period boundaries will be on second Monday + of each month +'-p "every 11/05"' yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of + November +'-p "every 5th November"' same +'-p "every Nov 5th"' same + + Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is +an end date, exclusive as always): + +$ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" + + Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following +tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): + +$ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple weekday intervals, Prev: More complex report intervals, Up: Period expressions + +15.5.3 Multiple weekday intervals +--------------------------------- + +This special form is also supported: + + * 'every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,...' (full or three-letter english + weekday names, case insensitive) + + Also, 'weekday' and 'weekendday' are shorthand for +'mon,tue,wed,thu,fri' and 'sat,sun'. + + This is mainly intended for use with '--forecast', to generate +periodic transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less +useful with '-p', since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal +length, which is unusual. (Related: #1632) + + Examples: + +'-p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be +mon,wed,fri"' Mon-Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun +'-p "every dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will +weekday"' be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun +'-p "every dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri +weekendday"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Depth, Next: Queries, Prev: Time periods, Up: Top + +16 Depth +******** + +With the '--depth NUM' option (short form: '-NUM'), reports will show +accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use +this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same +effect as a 'depth:' query argument: 'depth:2', '--depth=2' or '-2' are +equivalent. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries, Next: Pivoting, Prev: Depth, Up: Top + +17 Queries +********** + +One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise +subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query +arguments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: + + * Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often + account name substrings: + + 'utilities food:groceries' + + * Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in + quotes: + + '"personal care"' + + * Regular expressions are also supported: + + '"^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)"' + + * Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: + + 'date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status:' + + * Add a 'not:' prefix to negate a term: + + 'not:cur:USD' + +* Menu: + +* Query types:: +* Combining query terms:: +* Queries and command options:: +* Queries and valuation:: +* Querying with account aliases:: +* Querying with cost or value:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Query types, Next: Combining query terms, Up: Queries + +17.1 Query types +================ + +Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be +prefixed with *'not:'* to convert them into a negative match. + + *'acct:REGEX', 'REGEX'* +Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular +expression. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and +regular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just +write an account name substring, like 'expenses' or 'food'. + + *'amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N'* +Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or +greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested +and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded +by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. +Otherwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. + + *'code:REGEX'* +Match by transaction code (eg check number). + + *'cur:REGEX'* +Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose +currency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial +match, use '.*REGEX.*'). Note, to match special characters which are +regex-significant, you need to escape them with '\'. And for characters +which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of +escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: +'hledger print cur:\\$'. + + *'desc:REGEX'* +Match transaction descriptions. + + *'date:PERIODEXPR'* +Match dates (or with the '--date2' flag, secondary dates) within the +specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report +interval. Examples: +'date:2016', 'date:thismonth', 'date:2/1-2/15', +'date:2021-07-27..nextquarter'. + + *'date2:PERIODEXPR'* +Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the +'--date2' flag). + + *'depth:N'* +Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this +depth. + + *'note:REGEX'* +Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of '|', or +the whole description if there's no '|'). + + *'payee:REGEX'* +Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left of +'|', or the whole description if there's no '|'). + + *'real:, real:0'* +Match real or virtual postings respectively. + + *'status:, status:!, status:*'* +Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. + + *'type:TYPECODES'* +Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). +'TYPECODES' is one or more of the single-letter account type codes +'ALERXCV', case insensitive. Note 'type:A' and 'type:E' will also match +their respective subtypes 'C' (Cash) and 'V' (Conversion). Certain +kinds of account alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts +> Aliases and account types. + + *'tag:REGEX[=REGEX]'* +Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by +value, use 'tag:.=REGEX'.) + + When querying by tag, note that: + + * Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts + * Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their + transaction + * Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. + + (*'inacct:ACCTNAME'* +A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells +hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining query terms, Next: Queries and command options, Prev: Query types, Up: Queries + +17.2 Combining query terms +========================== + +When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which +match: + + * any of the description terms AND + * any of the account terms AND + * any of the status terms AND + * all the other terms. + + The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: + + * match any of the description terms AND + * have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND + * have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND + * match all the other terms. + + Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not +support full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND +or OR in your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but +here are some tricks that can help: + + 1. Use a doubled 'not:' prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses + paid with cash: + + $ hledger print food not:not:cash + + 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with 'print', piping the result into + a second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): + + $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and command options, Next: Queries and valuation, Prev: Combining query terms, Up: Queries + +17.3 Queries and command options +================================ + +Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: 'depth:2' is +equivalent to '--depth 2', 'date:2020' is equivalent to '-p 2020', etc. +When you mix command options and query arguments, generally the +resulting query is their intersection. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and valuation, Next: Querying with account aliases, Prev: Queries and command options, Up: Queries + +17.4 Queries and valuation +========================== + +When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value +reports, 'cur:' and 'amt:' match the old commodity symbol and the old +amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's +reversed, see #1625). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with account aliases, Next: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Queries and valuation, Up: Queries + +17.5 Querying with account aliases +================================== + +When account names are rewritten with '--alias' or 'alias', note that +'acct:' will match either the old or the new account name. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Querying with cost or value, Prev: Querying with account aliases, Up: Queries + +17.6 Querying with cost or value +================================ + +When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value +reports, note that 'cur:' matches the new commodity symbol, and not the +old one, and 'amt:' matches the new quantity, and not the old one. +Note: this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see +the discussion at #1625. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Pivoting, Next: Generating data, Prev: Queries, Up: Top + +18 Pivoting +*********** + +Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The +'--pivot FIELD' option substitutes some other transaction field for +account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's +value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields 'status', +'code', 'description', 'payee', 'note', or a tag name. When pivoting on +a tag and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first +value is displayed. Values containing 'colon:separated:parts' will be +displayed hierarchically, like account names. + + Some examples: + +2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment + assets:bank account 2 EUR + income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe + + Normal balance report showing account names: + +$ hledger balance + 2 EUR assets:bank account + -2 EUR income:dues +-------------------- + 0 + + Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: + +$ hledger balance --pivot member + 2 EUR + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + 0 + + One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): + +$ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + -2 EUR + + Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account +name"): + +$ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. + -2 EUR John Doe +-------------------- + -2 EUR + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Generating data, Next: Forecasting, Prev: Pivoting, Up: Top + +19 Generating data +****************** + +Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report time) +are built in to hledger's journal format: + + * Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain + transactions. They are activated by the '--auto' flag. + + * Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, + usually dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. + They are activated by the '--forecast' or 'balance --budget' + options, described next. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Forecasting, Next: Budgeting, Prev: Generating data, Up: Top + +20 Forecasting +************** + +The '--forecast' flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the +journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usually +recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. 'hledger +print --forecast' is a good way to see them. + + This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps +experimenting with different scenarios. + + It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe +recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of 'print +--forecast' into the journal. + + The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like +'generated-transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR', indicating which periodic rule +generated them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named +'_generated-transaction:', which you can use to reliably match +transactions generated "just now" (rather than 'print'ed in the past). + + The forecast transactions are generated within a _forecast period_, +which is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the +bounds for generated transactions, report period controls which +transactions are reported.) The forecast period begins on: + + * the start date provided within '--forecast''s argument, if any + * otherwise, the later of + * the report start date, if specified (with '-b'/'-p'/'date:') + * the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, + if any + + * otherwise today. + + It ends on: + + * the end date provided within '--forecast''s argument, if any + * otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with + '-e'/'-p'/'date:') + * otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. + + Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic +transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start until +after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, but +you can get around it in two ways: + + * If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them + periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: '~ + YYYY-MM-DD') rather than ordinary transactions. That way they + won't suppress other periodic transactions. + + * Or give '--forecast' a period expression argument. A forecast + period specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and + need not be in the future. Some things to note: + + * You must use '=' between flag and argument; a space won't + work. + * The period expression can specify the forecast period's start + date, end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. + * The period expression should not specify a report interval. + (Each periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) + + Some examples: '--forecast=202001-202004', '--forecast=jan-', +'--forecast=2021'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budgeting, Next: Cost reporting, Prev: Forecasting, Up: Top + +21 Budgeting +************ + +With the balance command's '--budget' report, each periodic transaction +rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals +and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc +below. + + See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Cost reporting, Next: Valuation, Prev: Budgeting, Up: Top + +22 Cost reporting +***************** + +This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions +where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of +currency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: + + * Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. + Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or + cryptocurrency. + + * Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more + conversions. + + * Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, + ie the exchange rate. + + * Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. + And more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the + "secondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a + purchase or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. + Also, the "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. + +* Menu: + +* -B Convert to cost:: +* Equity conversion postings:: +* Inferring equity postings from cost:: +* Inferring cost from equity postings:: +* When to infer cost/equity:: +* How to record conversions:: +* Cost tips:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -B Convert to cost, Next: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.1 -B: Convert to cost +======================== + +As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can +also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding '@ +UNITPRICE' or '@@ TOTALPRICE'. + + Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding +the '-B/--cost' flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). +Eg: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + +$ hledger bal -N + $-135 assets:dollars + €100 assets:euros +$ hledger bal -N -B + $-135 assets:dollars + $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost + + Notes: + + -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the +inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if +example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, +-B shows something different: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold + assets:euros €100 ; for 100 euros + +$ hledger bal -N -B + €-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price + €100 assets:euros + + The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does +not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting +equation and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Equity conversion postings, Next: Inferring equity postings from cost, Prev: -B Convert to cost, Up: Cost reporting + +22.2 Equity conversion postings +=============================== + +By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a +different notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance +conversion transactions. In this style, the above entry might be +written: + +2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost +reporting more difficult for PTA tools. + + Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to +the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. + + You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at +the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But be +sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a +not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring equity postings from cost, Next: Inferring cost from equity postings, Prev: Equity conversion postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.3 Inferring equity postings from cost +======================================== + +With '--infer-equity', hledger detects transactions written with PTA +cost notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars -$135 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 + +$ hledger print --infer-equity +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + assets:euros €100 @ $1.35 + equity:conversion:$-€:€ €-100 ; generated-posting: + equity:conversion:$-€:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: + + The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion +account type declaration. + + -infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded +using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and +balance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal +entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Inferring cost from equity postings, Next: When to infer cost/equity, Prev: Inferring equity postings from cost, Up: Cost reporting + +22.4 Inferring cost from equity postings +======================================== + +The reverse operation is possible using '--infer-costs', which detects +transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost +notation to them: + +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + +$ hledger print --infer-costs +2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 @@ €100 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + -infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/-cost, allowing cost +reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity +postings: + +$ hledger print --infer-costs -B +2009-01-01 + assets:dollars €-100 + assets:euros €100 + + Notes: + + For '--infer-costs' to work, an exchange must consist of four +postings: + + 1. two non-equity postings + 2. two equity postings, next to one another + 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type + 'V'/'Conversion' (or if they are not declared, they must be named + 'equity:conversion', 'equity:trade', 'equity:trading' or + subaccounts of these) + 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity + postings' amounts. + + Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. + + When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added +to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in the +commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. If +you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can use +explicit cost notation instead. + + -infer-equity and -infer-costs can be used together, if you have a +mixture of both notations in your journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: When to infer cost/equity, Next: How to record conversions, Prev: Inferring cost from equity postings, Up: Cost reporting + +22.5 When to infer cost/equity +============================== + +Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled +by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two +suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: + + 1. When you use -B, always use -infer-costs as well. Eg: 'hledger bal + -B --infer-costs' + + 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: 'alias hl="hledger + --infer-equity --infer-costs"' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: How to record conversions, Next: Cost tips, Prev: When to infer cost/equity, Up: Cost reporting + +22.6 How to record conversions +============================== + +Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in +hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. + +* Menu: + +* Conversion with implicit cost:: +* Conversion with explicit cost:: +* Conversion with equity postings:: +* Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with implicit cost, Next: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.1 Conversion with implicit cost +------------------------------------ + +Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the +outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset account: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + assets:cash 120 USD + + hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the +conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred rate +by using 'hledger print -x'. + + Pro: + + * Concise, easy + + Con: + + * Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not + be detected + * Conversion rate is not clear + * Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the -infer-equity + flag + + You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped +commodity symbol, by using 'hledger check commodities'. + + You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using 'hledger +check balancednoautoconversion', or '-s/--strict'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with explicit cost, Next: Conversion with equity postings, Prev: Conversion with implicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.2 Conversion with explicit cost +------------------------------------ + +You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an +error otherwise. + + Pro: + + * Still concise + * Makes the conversion rate clear + * Provides more error checking + + Con: + + * Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the -infer-equity + flag + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings, Next: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with explicit cost, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.3 Conversion with equity postings +-------------------------------------- + +In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not +balanced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD +appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents +reports like 'balancesheetequity' from showing a zero total. + + The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for +each commodity, using an equity account: + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + * Preserves the accounting equation + * Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + * Standard, works in any double entry accounting system + + Con: + + * More verbose + * Conversion rate is not obvious + * Cost reporting requires adding the -infer-costs flag + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost, Prev: Conversion with equity postings, Up: How to record conversions + +22.6.4 Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost +-------------------------------------------------------- + +Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. + +2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + * Preserves the accounting equation + * Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + * Makes the conversion rate clear + * Provides more error checking + + Con: + + * Most verbose + * Not compatible with ledger + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Cost tips, Prev: How to record conversions, Up: Cost reporting + +22.7 Cost tips +============== + + * Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it + makes that clear and helps detect errors. + * Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping + and preserves the accounting equation. + * Combining these is possible. + * When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use + '-B' (short form of '--cost'). + * If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add + '--infer-costs' also. + * If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want + to see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, + use '--infer-equity'. + * Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation, Next: PART 4 COMMANDS, Prev: Cost reporting, Up: Top + +23 Valuation +************ + +Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can +convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in +the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a +certain date). This is controlled by the '--value=TYPE[,COMMODITY]' +option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler '-V' +and '-X COMMODITY' options, and often one of these is all you need: + +* Menu: + +* -V Value:: +* -X Value in specified commodity:: +* Valuation date:: +* Finding market price:: +* --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions:: +* Valuation commodity:: +* Simple valuation examples:: +* --value Flexible valuation:: +* More valuation examples:: +* Interaction of valuation and queries:: +* Effect of valuation on reports:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -V Value, Next: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.1 -V: Value +============== + +The '-V/--market' flag converts amounts to market value in their default +_valuation commodity_, using the market prices in effect on the +_valuation date(s)_, if any. More on these in a minute. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: -X Value in specified commodity, Next: Valuation date, Prev: -V Value, Up: Valuation + +23.2 -X: Value in specified commodity +===================================== + +The '-X/--exchange=COMM' option is like '-V', except you tell it which +currency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to +that. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation date, Next: Finding market price, Prev: -X Value in specified commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.3 Valuation date +=================== + +Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports +have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market +prices will be used. + + For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is +specified, that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the +valuation date is the journal's end date. + + For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day +of the period, by default. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Finding market price, Next: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Prev: Valuation date, Up: Valuation + +23.4 Finding market price +========================= + +To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, +hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, in +this order of preference : + + 1. A _declared market price_ or _inferred market price_: A's latest + market price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a + P directive, or (with the '--infer-market-prices' flag) inferred + from costs. + + 2. A _reverse market price_: the inverse of a declared or inferred + market price from B to A. + + 3. A _forward chain of market prices_: a synthetic price formed by + combining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market + prices, leading from A to B. + + 4. _Any chain of market prices_: a chain of any market prices, + including both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading + from A to B. + + There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger +reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all +possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in +'--debug=2' output). That limit is currently 1000. + + Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not +converted. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Next: Valuation commodity, Prev: Finding market price, Up: Valuation + +23.5 -infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions +========================================================== + +Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, +P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a +chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market +value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as +Ledger does) ? Adding the '--infer-market-prices' flag to '-V', '-X' or +'--value' enables this. + + So for example, 'hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices' will get market +prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on +the same day, the P directive takes precedence. + + There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in +confusing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to +you, read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding +'--debug' or '--debug=2' to troubleshoot. + + '--infer-market-prices' can infer market prices from: + + * multicommodity transactions with explicit prices ('@'/'@@') + + * multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no '@', two + commodities, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings + matters. 'hledger print -x' can be useful for troubleshooting.) + + * multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is + inferred with '--infer-costs'. + + There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is +not specified, prices inferred with '--infer-market-prices' do not help +select a default valuation commodity, as 'P' prices would. So +conversion might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected +('--debug=2' will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation +commmodity, eg: + + * '-X EUR --infer-market-prices', not '-V --infer-market-prices' + * '--value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices', not '--value=then + --infer-market-prices' + + Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here +is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should +work differently, see #1870.) + +2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @ A 1 + +2022-01-01 Positive Total prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @@ A 1 + + +2022-01-02 Negative unit prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @ A -1 + +2022-01-02 Negative total prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @@ A -1 + + +2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @ A -1 + +2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @@ A -1 + + All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each +day, the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the +market prices inferred for B: + +$ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices +P 2022-01-01 B A 1 +P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 +P 2022-01-02 B A -1 +P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 +P 2022-01-03 B A -1 +P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation commodity, Next: Simple valuation examples, Prev: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions, Up: Valuation + +23.6 Valuation commodity +======================== + +*When you specify a valuation commodity ('-X COMM' or '--value +TYPE,COMM'):* +hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a +suitable market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). + + *When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified ('-V' or '--value +TYPE'):* +For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as +follows, in this order of preference: + + 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A + on or before valuation date. + + 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A + on any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred + prices before the valuation date.) + + 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the + '--infer-market-prices' flag is used: the price commodity from the + latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation + date. + + This means: + + * If you have P directives, they determine which commodities '-V' + will convert, and to what. + + * If you have no P directives, and use the '--infer-market-prices' + flag, costs determine it. + + Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not +converted. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple valuation examples, Next: --value Flexible valuation, Prev: Valuation commodity, Up: Valuation + +23.7 Simple valuation examples +============================== + +Here are some quick examples of '-V': + +; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 +P 2016/11/01 € $1.10 + +; purchase some euros on nov 3 +2016/11/3 + assets:euros €100 + assets:checking + +; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 +P 2016/12/21 € $1.03 + + How many euros do I have ? + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros + €100 assets:euros + + What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 + $110.00 assets:euros + + What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date +specified, defaults to today) + +$ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V + $103.00 assets:euros + + +File: hledger.info, Node: --value Flexible valuation, Next: More valuation examples, Prev: Simple valuation examples, Up: Valuation + +23.8 -value: Flexible valuation +=============================== + +'-V' and '-X' are special cases of the more general '--value' option: + + --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. + COMM is an optional commodity symbol. + Shows amounts converted to: + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date + + The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: + +'--value=then' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, + using market prices on each posting's date. +'--value=end' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity, + using market prices on the last day of the report period (or if + unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod reports, + market prices on the last day of each subperiod. +'--value=now' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity + using current market prices (as of when report is generated). +'--value=YYYY-MM-DD' + + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commodity + using market prices on this date. + + To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ',COMM' +part: a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: +*'--value=now,EUR'*. hledger will do its best to convert amounts to +this commodity, deducing market prices as described above. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More valuation examples, Next: Interaction of valuation and queries, Prev: --value Flexible valuation, Up: Valuation + +23.9 More valuation examples +============================ + +Here are some examples showing the effect of '--value', as seen with +'print': + +P 2000-01-01 A 1 B +P 2000-02-01 A 2 B +P 2000-03-01 A 3 B +P 2000-04-01 A 4 B + +2000-01-01 + (a) 1 A @ 5 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 1 A @ 6 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 1 A @ 7 B + + Show the cost of each posting: + +$ hledger -f- print --cost +2000-01-01 + (a) 5 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 6 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 7 B + + Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 +2000-01-01 + (a) 2 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 2 B + + With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last +day of the journal (2000-03-01): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=end +2000-01-01 + (a) 3 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 3 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 3 B + + Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect +today): + +$ hledger -f- print --value=now +2000-01-01 + (a) 4 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 4 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 4 B + + Show the value on 2000/01/15: + +$ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 +2000-01-01 + (a) 1 B + +2000-02-01 + (a) 1 B + +2000-03-01 + (a) 1 B + + You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when +reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: + +P 2000-01-01 A 2B + +2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + +$ hledger print -x -X A +2000-01-01 + a 0 + b 0 + + Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive +specifying a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which +shows no decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, +the commodity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a +commodity directive sets a more useful display style for A: + +P 2000-01-01 A 2B +commodity 0.00A + +2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + +$ hledger print -X A +2000-01-01 + a 0.50A + b -0.50A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Interaction of valuation and queries, Next: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: More valuation examples, Up: Valuation + +23.10 Interaction of valuation and queries +========================================== + +When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, +the following happens. + + 1. The query is separated into two parts: + 1. the currency ('cur:') or amount ('amt:'). + 2. all other parts. + + 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based + on pre-valued amounts. + 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. + 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on + post-valued amounts. + + See: 1625 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Effect of valuation on reports, Prev: Interaction of valuation and queries, Up: Valuation + +23.11 Effect of valuation on reports +==================================== + +Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part of +hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to scroll +sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find +problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. +Related: #329, #1083. + +Report '-B', '-V', '-X' '--value=then' '--value=end''--value=DATE', +type '--cost' '--value=now' +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +*print* +posting cost value at value at posting value at value +amounts report end date report or at + or today journal DATE/today + end +balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged +assertions/assignments +*register* +starting cost value at valued at day value at value +balance report or each historical report or at +(-H) journal posting was made journal DATE/today + end end +starting cost value at valued at day value at value +balance day before each historical day before at +(-H) report or posting was made report or DATE/today +with journal journal +report start start +interval +posting cost value at value at posting value at value +amounts report or date report or at + journal journal DATE/today + end end +summary summarised value at sum of postings value at value +posting cost period in interval, period at +amounts ends valued at ends DATE/today +with interval start +report +interval +running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average +total/averageof of displayed values of of + displayed displayed displayed displayed + values values values values +*balance +(bs, +bse, cf, +is)* +balance sums of value at value at posting value at value +changes costs report end date report or at + or today journal DATE/today + of sums of end of of + postings sums of sums + postings of + postings +budget like like like balance like like +amounts balance balance changes balances balance +(-budget) changes changes changes +grand sum of sum of sum of displayed sum of sum of +total displayed displayed valued displayed displayed + values values values values +*balance +(bs, +bse, cf, +is) with +report +interval* +starting sums of value at sums of values value at sums +balances costs of report of postings report of +(-H) postings start of before report start of postings + before sums of start at sums of before + report all respective all report + start postings posting dates postings start + before before + report report + start start +balance sums of same as sums of values balance value +changes costs of -value=end of postings in change in at +(bal, postings period at each DATE/today +is, bs in period respective period, of +-change, posting dates valued at sums +cf period of +-change) ends postings +end sums of same as sums of values period end value +balances costs of -value=end of postings from balances, at +(bal -H, postings before period valued at DATE/today +is -H, from start to period period of +bs, cf) before end at ends sums + report respective of + start to posting dates postings + period end +budget like like like balance like like +amounts balance balance changes/end balances balance +(-budget) changes/end changes/end balances changes/end + balances balances balances +row sums, sums, sums, averages sums, sums, +totals, averages averages of displayed averages averages +row of of values of of +averages displayed displayed displayed displayed +(-T, -A) values values values values +column sums of sums of sums of sums of sums +totals displayed displayed displayed values displayed of + values values values displayed + values +grand sum, sum, sum, average of sum, sum, +total, average of average of column totals average of average +grand column column column of +average totals totals totals column + totals + + '--cumulative' is omitted to save space, it works like '-H' but with +a zero starting balance. + + *Glossary:* + +_cost_ + + calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). +_value_ + + market value using available market price declarations, or the + unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. +_report start_ + + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise today. +_report or journal start_ + + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. +_report end_ + + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, + otherwise today. +_report or journal end_ + + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or date:, + otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, otherwise + today. +_report interval_ + + a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the + report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many + subperiods). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 4 COMMANDS, Next: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: Valuation, Up: Top + +24 PART 4: COMMANDS +******************* + +* Menu: + +* Commands overview:: +* accounts:: +* activity:: +* add:: +* aregister:: +* balance:: +* balancesheet:: +* balancesheetequity:: +* cashflow:: +* check:: +* close:: +* codes:: +* commodities:: +* descriptions:: +* diff:: +* files:: +* help:: +* import:: +* incomestatement:: +* notes:: +* payees:: +* prices:: +* print:: +* register:: +* rewrite:: +* roi:: +* stats:: +* tags:: +* test:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commands overview, Next: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.1 Commands overview +====================== + +Here are the built-in commands: + +* Menu: + +* DATA ENTRY:: +* DATA CREATION:: +* DATA MANAGEMENT:: +* REPORTS FINANCIAL:: +* REPORTS VERSATILE:: +* REPORTS BASIC:: +* HELP:: +* ADD-ONS:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA ENTRY, Next: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.1 DATA ENTRY +----------------- + +These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your +journal file. + + * add - add transactions using terminal prompts + * import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA CREATION, Next: DATA MANAGEMENT, Prev: DATA ENTRY, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.2 DATA CREATION +-------------------- + + * close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions + * rewrite - generate auto postings, like print -auto + + +File: hledger.info, Node: DATA MANAGEMENT, Next: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Prev: DATA CREATION, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.3 DATA MANAGEMENT +---------------------- + + * check - check for various kinds of error in the data + * diff - compare account transactions in two journal files + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Next: REPORTS VERSATILE, Prev: DATA MANAGEMENT, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.4 REPORTS, FINANCIAL +------------------------- + + * aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account + * balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth + * balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity + * cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets + * incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS VERSATILE, Next: REPORTS BASIC, Prev: REPORTS FINANCIAL, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.5 REPORTS, VERSATILE +------------------------- + + * balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, + gains.. + * print - show transactions or export journal data + * register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running + total + * roi - show return on investments + + +File: hledger.info, Node: REPORTS BASIC, Next: HELP, Prev: REPORTS VERSATILE, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.6 REPORTS, BASIC +--------------------- + + * accounts - show account names + * activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period + * codes - show transaction codes + * commodities - show commodity/currency symbols + * descriptions - show transaction descriptions + * files - show input file paths + * notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions + * payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions + * prices - show market prices + * stats - show journal statistics + * tags - show tag names + * test - run self tests + + +File: hledger.info, Node: HELP, Next: ADD-ONS, Prev: REPORTS BASIC, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.7 HELP +----------- + + * help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager + + +File: hledger.info, Node: ADD-ONS, Prev: HELP, Up: Commands overview + +24.1.8 ADD-ONS +-------------- + +And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed +by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in +hledger's commands list: + + * ui - run hledger's terminal UI + * web - run hledger's web UI + * iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) + * interest - generate interest transactions + * stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage + * Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, + pijul, plot, and more.. + + Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: accounts, Next: activity, Prev: Commands overview, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.2 accounts +============= + +Show account names. + + This command lists account names. By default it shows all known +accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account +directives. + + With query arguments, only matched account names and account names +referenced by matched postings are shown. + + Or it can show just the used accounts ('--used'/'-u'), the declared +accounts ('--declared'/'-d'), the accounts declared but not used +('--unused'), the accounts used but not declared ('--undeclared'), or +the first account matched by an account name pattern, if any ('--find'). + + It shows a flat list by default. With '--tree', it uses indentation +to show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add '--drop N' to +omit the first few account name components. Account names can be +depth-clipped with 'depth:N' or '--depth N' or '-N'. + + With '--types', it also shows each account's type, if it's known. +(See Declaring accounts > Account types.) + + With '--positions', it also shows the file and line number of each +account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration +order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. + + With '--directives', it adds the 'account' keyword, showing valid +account directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is +useful together with '--undeclared' when updating your account +declarations to satisfy 'hledger check accounts'. + + The '--find' flag can be used to look up a single account name, in +the same way that the 'aregister' command does. It returns the +alphanumerically-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it +fails with a non-zero exit code. + + Examples: + +$ hledger accounts +assets:bank:checking +assets:bank:saving +assets:cash +expenses:food +expenses:supplies +income:gifts +income:salary +liabilities:debts + +$ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE +$ hledger check accounts + + +File: hledger.info, Node: activity, Next: add, Prev: accounts, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.3 activity +============= + +Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. + + The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction +counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the +default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. + + Examples: + +$ hledger activity --quarterly +2008-01-01 ** +2008-04-01 ******* +2008-07-01 +2008-10-01 ** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: add, Next: aregister, Prev: activity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.4 add +======== + +Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments will +be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. + + Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, +or generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the +'add' command, which prompts interactively on the console for new +transactions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be +in journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one +of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also +'import'). + + To use it, just run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts. You can +add as many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter '.' +or press control-d or control-c to exit. + + Features: + + * add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by + description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as + a template. + * You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. + * Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. + * The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, + payees/descriptions, dates ('yesterday', 'today', 'tomorrow'). If + the input area is empty, it will insert the default value. + * If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any + bare numbers entered. + * A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. + * Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. + * If you make a mistake, enter '<' at any prompt to go one step + backward. + * Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal + supports it. + + Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): + +$ hledger add +Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal +Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. +Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. +An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. +An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. +If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. +To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. +To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. +Date [2015/05/22]: +Description: supermarket +Account 1: expenses:food +Amount 1: $10 +Account 2: assets:checking +Amount 2 [$-10.0]: +Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . +2015/05/22 supermarket + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking $-10.0 + +Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: +Saved. +Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) +Date [2015/05/22]: $ + + On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the +file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: aregister, Next: balance, Prev: add, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.5 aregister +============== + +(areg) + + Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single +account, with each transaction displayed as one line. + + 'aregister' shows the overall transactions affecting a particular +account (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one +transaction in this account. Transactions before the report start date +are always included in the running balance ('--historical' mode is +always on). + + This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the 'register' +command (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple +accounts, not necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of +thumb: - use 'aregister' for reviewing and reconciling real-world +asset/liability accounts - use 'register' for reviewing detailed +revenues/expenses. + + 'aregister' requires one argument: the account to report on. You can +write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular +expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. + + When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can +be surprising; eg if you have 'assets:per:checking 1' and +'assets:biz:checking 2' accounts, 'hledger areg checking' would select +'assets:biz:checking 2'. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if +in doubt, write the full account name, or a distinctive substring that +matches uniquely. + + Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be +shown. 'aregister' ignores depth limits, so its final total will always +match a balance report with similar arguments. + + Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the +transactions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, +causing it to be different from the account's real-world running +balance. + + An example: this shows the transactions and historical running +balance during july, in the first account whose name contains +"checking": + +$ hledger areg checking date:jul + + Each 'aregister' line item shows: + + * the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if + different, see below) + * the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction + (probably abbreviated) + * the total change to this account's balance from this transaction + * the account's historical running balance after this transaction. + + Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; +add the '-E/--empty' flag to show them. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first +1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause +visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to +ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the +'--align-all' flag. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options. The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and 'json'. + +* Menu: + +* aregister and custom posting dates:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: aregister and custom posting dates, Up: aregister + +24.5.1 aregister and custom posting dates +----------------------------------------- + +Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be shown, +if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report period. +(And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This ensures +that 'aregister' can show an accurate historical running balance, +matching the one shown by 'register -H' with the same arguments. + + To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the '--txn-dates' +flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom dates, +it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance, Next: balancesheet, Prev: aregister, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.6 balance +============ + +(bal) + + Show accounts and their balances. + + 'balance' is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for +listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and +more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with +rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. + + Note there are some higher-level variants of the 'balance' command +with convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: 'balancesheet', +'balancesheetequity', 'cashflow' and 'incomestatement'. When you need +more control, then use 'balance'. + +* Menu: + +* balance features:: +* Simple balance report:: +* Balance report line format:: +* Filtered balance report:: +* List or tree mode:: +* Depth limiting:: +* Dropping top-level accounts:: +* Showing declared accounts:: +* Sorting by amount:: +* Percentages:: +* Multi-period balance report:: +* Balance change end balance:: +* Balance report types:: +* Budget report:: +* Data layout:: +* Useful balance reports:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balance features, Next: Simple balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.1 balance features +----------------------- + +Here's a quick overview of the 'balance' command's features, followed by +more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the +higher-level commands as well. + + 'balance' can show.. + + * accounts as a list ('-l') or a tree ('-t') + * optionally depth-limited ('-[1-9]') + * sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount + + ..and their.. + + * balance changes (the default) + * or actual and planned balance changes ('--budget') + * or value of balance changes ('-V') + * or change of balance values ('--valuechange') + * or unrealised capital gain/loss ('--gain') + + ..in.. + + * one time period (the whole journal period by default) + * or multiple periods ('-D', '-W', '-M', '-Q', '-Y', '-p INTERVAL') + + ..either.. + + * per period (the default) + * or accumulated since report start date ('--cumulative') + * or accumulated since account creation ('--historical/-H') + + ..possibly converted to.. + + * cost ('--value=cost[,COMM]'/'--cost'/'-B') + * or market value, as of transaction dates ('--value=then[,COMM]') + * or at period ends ('--value=end[,COMM]') + * or now ('--value=now') + * or at some other date ('--value=YYYY-MM-DD') + + ..with.. + + * totals ('-T'), averages ('-A'), percentages ('-%'), inverted sign + ('--invert') + * rows and columns swapped ('--transpose') + * another field used as account name ('--pivot') + * custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) + ('--format') + * commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines + ('--layout') + + This command supports the output destination and output format +options, with output formats 'txt', 'csv', 'json', and (multi-period +reports only:) 'html'. In 'txt' output in a colour-supporting terminal, +negative amounts are shown in red. + + The '--related'/'-r' flag shows the balance of the _other_ postings +in the transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Simple balance report, Next: Balance report line format, Prev: balance features, Up: balance + +24.6.2 Simple balance report +---------------------------- + +With no arguments, 'balance' shows a list of all accounts and their +change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and +outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here +means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can +also have multi-period reports, described later.) + + For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end +balance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. + + Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then +alphabetically by account name. For instance (using +examples/sample.journal): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree +mode - see below) are hidden by default. Use '-E/--empty' to show them +(revealing 'assets:bank:checking' here): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E + 0 assets:bank:checking + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless +'-N'/'--no-total' is used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report line format, Next: Filtered balance report, Prev: Simple balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.3 Balance report line format +--------------------------------- + +For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you +can use '--format FMT' to customise the format and content of each line. +Eg: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" + assets $-1 + bank:saving $1 + cash $-2 + expenses $2 + food $1 + supplies $1 + income $-2 + gifts $-1 + salary $-1 + liabilities:debts $1 +--------------------------------- + 0 + + The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each +account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data +fields interpolated like so: + + '%[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME)' + + * MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) + + * MAX truncates at this width (optional) + + * FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: + + * 'depth_spacer' - a number of spaces equal to the account's + depth, or if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. + * 'account' - the account's name + * 'total' - the account's balance/posted total, right justified + + Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how +multi-commodity amounts are rendered: + + * '%_' - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) + * '%^' - render on multiple lines, top-aligned + * '%,' - render on one line, comma-separated + + There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, '%(depth_spacer)' has no +effect, instead '%(account)' has indentation built in. Experimentation +may be needed to get pleasing results. + + Some example formats: + + * '%(total)' - the account's total + * '%-20.20(account)' - the account's name, left justified, padded to + 20 characters and clipped at 20 characters + * '%,%-50(account) %25(total)' - account name padded to 50 + characters, total padded to 20 characters, with multiple + commodities rendered on one line + * '%20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account)' - the default format for + the single-column balance report + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Filtered balance report, Next: List or tree mode, Prev: Balance report line format, Up: balance + +24.6.4 Filtered balance report +------------------------------ + +You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from +cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to +limit the postings being matched. Eg: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 + $-2 assets:cash +-------------------- + $-2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: List or tree mode, Next: Depth limiting, Prev: Filtered balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.5 List or tree mode +------------------------ + +By default, or with '-l/--flat', accounts are shown as a flat list with +their full names visible, as in the examples above. + + With '-t/--tree', the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' +"leaf" names indented below their parent: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + 0 + + Notes: + + * "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more + compact output, unless '--no-elide' is used. Boring accounts have + no balance of their own and just one subaccount (eg 'assets:bank' + and 'liabilities' above). + + * All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from + all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, + which requires explanation when sharing reports with + non-plaintextaccounting-users. A tree mode report's final total is + the sum of the top-level balances shown, not of all the balances + shown. + + * Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is + sorted separately. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Depth limiting, Next: Dropping top-level accounts, Prev: List or tree mode, Up: balance + +24.6.6 Depth limiting +--------------------- + +With a 'depth:NUM' query, or '--depth NUM' option, or just '-NUM' (eg: +'-3') balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, +hiding the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an +overview without too much detail. + + Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from +any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 + $-1 assets + $2 expenses + $-2 income + $1 liabilities +-------------------- + 0 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Dropping top-level accounts, Next: Showing declared accounts, Prev: Depth limiting, Up: balance + +24.6.7 Dropping top-level accounts +---------------------------------- + +You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using +'--drop NUM'. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level +account names: + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 + $1 food + $1 supplies +-------------------- + $2 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Showing declared accounts, Next: Sorting by amount, Prev: Dropping top-level accounts, Up: balance + +24.6.8 Showing declared accounts +-------------------------------- + +With '--declared', accounts which have been declared with an account +directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no +transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need +'-E/--empty' to see them.) + + More precisely, _leaf_ declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will +be included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. + + The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance +report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared +accounts yet. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Sorting by amount, Next: Percentages, Prev: Showing declared accounts, Up: balance + +24.6.9 Sorting by amount +------------------------ + +With '-S/--sort-amount', accounts with the largest (most positive) +balances are shown first. Eg: 'hledger bal expenses -MAS' shows your +biggest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity +is present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity +first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a +commodity, it is treated as 0). + + Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so +'-S' shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add +'--invert' to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, +which flip the sign automatically. Eg: 'hledger incomestatement -MAS'). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Percentages, Next: Multi-period balance report, Prev: Sorting by amount, Up: balance + +24.6.10 Percentages +------------------- + +With '-%/--percent', balance reports show each account's value expressed +as a percentage of the (column) total. + + Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a +column have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each +sign, eg: + +$ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` +$ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` + + Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert +them to one commodity with '-B', '-V', '-X' or '--value', or make a +separate report for each commodity: + +$ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ +$ hledger bal -% cur:€ + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Multi-period balance report, Next: Balance change end balance, Prev: Percentages, Up: balance + +24.6.11 Multi-period balance report +----------------------------------- + +With a report interval (set by the '-D/--daily', '-W/--weekly', +'-M/--monthly', '-Q/--quarterly', '-Y/--yearly', or '-p/--period' flag), +'balance' shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive +time periods (and a title): + +$ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E +Balance changes in 2008: + + || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 +===================++================================= + expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 + expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 + income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 + income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 +-------------------++--------------------------------- + || $-1 $1 0 0 + + Notes: + + * The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to + fully encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and + last subperiods have the same duration as the others). + * Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are + not shown, unless '-E/--empty' is used. + * Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless + '-E/--empty' is used. + * Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless + '--no-elide' is used. _(experimental)_ + * Average and/or total columns can be added with the '-A/--average' + and '-T/--row-total' flags. + * The '--transpose' flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. + * The '--pivot FIELD' option causes a different transaction field to + be used as "account name". See PIVOTING. + + Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy +viewing in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: + + * Hide the totals row with '-N/--no-total' + * Convert to a single currency with '-V' + * Maximize the terminal window + * Reduce the terminal's font size + * View with a pager like less, eg: 'hledger bal -D --color=yes | less + -RS' + * Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata ('hledger bal -D + -O csv | vd -f csv'), Emacs' csv-mode ('M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a'), or + a spreadsheet ('hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv') + * Output as HTML and view with a browser: 'hledger bal -D -o a.html + && open a.html' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance change end balance, Next: Balance report types, Prev: Multi-period balance report, Up: balance + +24.6.12 Balance change, end balance +----------------------------------- + +It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in +balance reports. Here is some terminology we use: + + A *_balance change_* is the net amount added to, or removed from, an +account during some period. + + An *_end balance_* is the amount accumulated in an account as of some +date (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day +in your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. + + We call it a *_historical end balance_* if it includes all balance +changes since the account was created. For a real world account, this +means it will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in +your bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) + + In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing +revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to +see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. + + 'balance' shows balance changes by default. To see accurate +historical end balances: + + 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" + transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the + journal covers the account's full lifetime. + + 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by + not specifying a report start date, or by using the + '-H/--historical' flag. ('-H' causes report start date to be + ignored when summing postings.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Balance report types, Next: Budget report, Prev: Balance change end balance, Up: balance + +24.6.13 Balance report types +---------------------------- + +The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how to +control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't +worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some +time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. + + There are three important option groups: + + 'hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] +...' + +* Menu: + +* Calculation type:: +* Accumulation type:: +* Valuation type:: +* Combining balance report types:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Calculation type, Next: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.1 Calculation type +.......................... + +The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: + + * '--sum' : sum the posting amounts (*default*) + * '--budget' : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount + (for each account/period) + * '--valuechange' : show the change in period-end historical balance + values (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price + fluctuations) + * '--gain' : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current + valued balance minus each amount's original cost) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Accumulation type, Next: Valuation type, Prev: Calculation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.2 Accumulation type +........................... + +How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to say +it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's +calculation. It is one of: + + * '--change' : calculate with postings from column start to column + end, ie "just this column". Typically used to see + revenues/expenses. (*default for balance, incomestatement*) + + * '--cumulative' : calculate with postings from report start to + column end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used + to show changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not + often used. + + * '--historical/-H' : calculate with postings from journal start to + column end, ie "all postings from before report start date until + this column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances + of assets/liabilities/equity. (*default for balancesheet, + balancesheetequity, cashflow*) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Valuation type, Next: Combining balance report types, Prev: Accumulation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.3 Valuation type +........................ + +Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, before +displaying the report. It is one of: + + * no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (*default*) + * '--value=cost[,COMM]' : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to + some other commodity) + * '--value=then[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on + transaction dates + * '--value=end[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on period + end date(s) + (*default with '--valuechange', '--gain'*) + * '--value=now[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on today's + date + * '--value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM]' : convert amounts to market value on + another date + + or one of the equivalent simpler flags: + + * '-B/--cost' : like -value=cost (though, note -cost and -value are + independent options which can both be used at once) + * '-V/--market' : like -value=end + * '-X COMM/--exchange COMM' : like -value=end,COMM + + See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Combining balance report types, Prev: Valuation type, Up: Balance report types + +24.6.13.4 Combining balance report types +........................................ + +Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, +but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The +following restrictions are applied: + + * '--valuechange' implies '--value=end' + * '--valuechange' makes '--change' the default when used with the + 'balancesheet'/'balancesheetequity' commands + * '--cumulative' or '--historical' disables '--row-total/-T' + + For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and +valuation show: + +Valuation:>no valuation '--value= then' '--value= end' '--value= +Accumulation:v YYYY-MM-DD + /now' +----------------------------------------------------------------------------- +'--change'change in sum of period-end DATE-value + period posting-date value of of change in + market values change in period + in period period +'--cumulative'change from sum of period-end DATE-value + report start to posting-date value of of change + period end market values change from from report + from report report start start to + start to period to period end period end + end +'--historicalchange from sum of period-end DATE-value +/-H' journal start posting-date value of of change + to period end market values change from from journal + (historical end from journal journal start start to + balance) start to period to period end period end + end + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report, Next: Data layout, Prev: Balance report types, Up: balance + +24.6.14 Budget report +--------------------- + +The '--budget' report type activates extra columns showing any budget +goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by +periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual +income, expenses, time usage, etc. + + For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common +expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: + +;; Budget +~ monthly + income $2000 + expenses:food $400 + expenses:bus $50 + expenses:movies $30 + assets:bank:checking + +;; Two months worth of expenses +2017-11-01 + income $1950 + expenses:food $396 + expenses:bus $49 + expenses:movies $30 + expenses:supplies $20 + assets:bank:checking + +2017-12-01 + income $2100 + expenses:food $412 + expenses:bus $53 + expenses:gifts $100 + assets:bank:checking + + You can now see a monthly budget report: + +$ hledger balance -M --budget +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: + + * Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, + by default. + + * In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget + goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: + budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) + + * All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg + assets, assets:bank, and expenses above. + + * Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, + even in list mode. + + This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg +above, the 'expenses' actual amount includes the gifts and supplies +transactions, but the 'expenses:gifts' and 'expenses:supplies' accounts +are not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. + + This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the +'-E/--empty' flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted +ones, giving the full picture. Eg: + +$ hledger balance -M --budget --empty +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:gifts || 0 $100 + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + expenses:supplies || $20 0 + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with '--cumulative': + +$ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative +Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec +======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] +----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses + +hledger bal -M --budget expenses + + or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): + +hledger bal -M --budget type:rx + + It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency +('cur:COMM' or '-X COMM [--infer-market-prices]'). If showing multiple +currencies, '--layout bare' or '--layout tall' can help. + + For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. + +* Menu: + +* Budget report start date:: +* Budgets and subaccounts:: +* Selecting budget goals:: +* Budget vs forecast:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget report start date, Next: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.1 Budget report start date +.................................. + +This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a +good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of +a reporting period, because a periodic rule like '~ monthly' generates +its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no +regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could +exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here the +default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: + +~ monthly in 2020 + (expenses:food) $500 + +2020-01-15 + expenses:food $400 + assets:checking + +$ hledger bal expenses --budget +Budget performance in 2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-15 +==============++============ + || $400 +--------------++------------ + || $400 + + To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the +start date, with '-b'/'-e'/'-p'/'date:', to ensure it includes the +budget goal transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, +adding '-b 2020/1/1' to the above: + +$ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 +Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 +===============++======================== + expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] +---------------++------------------------ + || $400 [80% of $500] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budgets and subaccounts, Next: Selecting budget goals, Prev: Budget report start date, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.2 Budgets and subaccounts +................................. + +You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you +have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then +budget(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their +parent, much like account balances behave. + + In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any +account, all its parents would have budget as well. + + To illustrate this, consider the following budget: + +~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and +budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly +means that budget for both 'expenses:personal' and 'expenses' is $1100. + + Transactions in 'expenses:personal:electronics' will be counted both +towards its $100 budget and $1100 of 'expenses:personal' , and +transactions in any other subaccount of 'expenses:personal' would be +counted towards only towards the budget of 'expenses:personal'. + + For example, let's consider these transactions: + +~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/01 Google home hub + expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 + liabilities $-90.00 + +2019/01/02 Phone screen protector + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket + expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 + liabilities + +2019/01/03 Flowers + expenses:personal $30.00 + liabilities + + As you can see, we have transactions in +'expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades' and 'expenses:personal:train +tickets', and since both of these accounts are without explicitly +defined budget, these transactions would be counted towards budgets of +'expenses:personal:electronics' and 'expenses:personal' accordingly: + +$ hledger balance --budget -M +Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan +===============================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] +-------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + And with '--empty', we can get a better picture of budget allocation +and consumption: + +$ hledger balance --budget -M --empty +Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan +========================================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 + expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] +----------------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Selecting budget goals, Next: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Budgets and subaccounts, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.3 Selecting budget goals +................................ + +The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate +special "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each +account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use +'print --forecast' to show these as forecasted transactions: + +$ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated + + By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction +rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report +interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly +periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly +budget report. + + You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to +the '--budget' flag. '--budget=DESCPAT' will match all periodic rules +whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a +regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic +rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then +select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Budget vs forecast, Prev: Selecting budget goals, Up: Budget report + +24.6.14.4 Budget vs forecast +............................ + +'hledger --forecast ...' and 'hledger balance --budget ...' are separate +features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules defined +in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transactions for +reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal +transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same +time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of hledger +1.29: + + CLI: + + * -forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command + * -budget is a 'balance' command option, usable only with that + command. + + Visibility of generated transactions: + + * forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary + transactions + * budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts + they produce in -budget reports. + + Periodic transaction rules: + + * -forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules + * -budget uses all periodic rules ('--budget') or a selected subset + ('--budget=DESCPAT') + + Period of generated transactions: + + * -forecast generates forecast transactions + * from after the last regular transaction to the end of the + report period ('--forecast') + * or, during a specified period ('--forecast=PERIODEXPR') + * possibly further restricted by a period specified in the + periodic transaction rule + * and always restricted within the bounds of the report period + + * -budget generates budget goal transactions + * throughout the report period + * possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic + transaction rule. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Data layout, Next: Useful balance reports, Prev: Budget report, Up: balance + +24.6.15 Data layout +------------------- + +The '--layout' option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity +amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can +also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has +four possible values: + + * '--layout=wide[,WIDTH]': commodities are shown on a single line, + optionally elided to WIDTH + * '--layout=tall': each commodity is shown on a separate line + * '--layout=bare': commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts + are bare numbers + * '--layout=tidy': data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, + with one row per data value + + Here are the '--layout' modes supported by each output format; note +only CSV output supports all of them: + +- txt csv html json sql +--------------------------------------- +wide Y Y Y +tall Y Y Y +bare Y Y Y +tidy Y + + Examples: + + * Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + + * Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some + commodities will be hidden: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++=========================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + + * Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in + each column), and account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + + * Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each + commodity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++============================================= + Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + ------------------++--------------------------------------------- + || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + + * Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing + data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare + "account","commodity","balance" + "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" + "total","GLD","70.00" + "total","ITOT","17.00" + "total","USD","5120.50" + "total","VEA","36.00" + "total","VHT","294.00" + + * Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable + has its own column and each row represents a single data point. + See + https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy-data.html + for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other software to + consume. Here's how it looks: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy + "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Useful balance reports, Prev: Data layout, Up: balance + +24.6.16 Useful balance reports +------------------------------ + +Some frequently used 'balance' options/reports are: + + * 'bal -M revenues expenses' + Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the + 'incomestatement' command. + + * 'bal -M -H assets liabilities' + Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also + available as the 'balancesheet' command. + + * 'bal -M -H assets liabilities equity' + Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. + Also available as the 'balancesheetequity' command. + + * 'bal -M assets not:receivable' + Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the + 'cashflow' command. + + Also: + + * 'bal -M expenses -2 -SA' + Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average + amount. + + * 'bal -M --budget expenses' + Show monthly expenses and budget goals. + + * 'bal -M --valuechange investments' + Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. + + * 'bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA + [--invert]' + Show top gainers [or losers] last week + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheet, Next: balancesheetequity, Prev: balance, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.7 balancesheet +================= + +(bs) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending +balances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use +the balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive +sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Asset', 'Cash' or +'Liability' type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are +declared, it shows top-level accounts named 'asset' or 'liability' (case +insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger balancesheet +Balance Sheet + +Assets: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash +-------------------- + $-1 + +Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + $1 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance -H assets liabilities', but with +smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign +flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: balancesheetequity, Next: cashflow, Prev: balancesheet, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.8 balancesheetequity +======================= + +(bse) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending +balances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown +with normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Asset', 'Cash', +'Liability' or 'Equity' type (see account types). Or if no such +accounts are declared, it shows top-level accounts named 'asset', +'liability' or 'equity' (case insensitive, plurals allowed) and their +subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger balancesheetequity +Balance Sheet With Equity + +Assets: + $-2 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-3 cash +-------------------- + $-2 + +Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts +-------------------- + $1 + +Equity: + $1 equity:owner +-------------------- + $1 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity', but +with smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with +their sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: cashflow, Next: check, Prev: balancesheetequity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.9 cashflow +============= + +(cf) + + This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and +outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. +Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional +financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Cash' type (see account +types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts + + * under a top-level account named 'asset' (case insensitive, plural + allowed) + * whose name contains some variation of 'cash', 'bank', 'checking' or + 'saving'. + + More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular +expression: + + '^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)' + + and their subaccounts. + + An example cashflow report: + +$ hledger cashflow +Cashflow Statement + +Cash flows: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash +-------------------- + $-1 + +Total: +-------------------- + $-1 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment +not:receivable', but with smarter account detection. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: check, Next: close, Prev: cashflow, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.10 check +=========== + +Check for various kinds of errors in your data. + + hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent +problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you can +use this 'check' command to run them on demand, with no output and a +zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as +argument(s). + + Some examples: + +hledger check # basic checks +hledger check -s # basic + strict checks +hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks + + If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to +run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. + + Here are the checks currently available: + +* Menu: + +* Basic checks:: +* Strict checks:: +* Other checks:: +* Custom checks:: +* More about specific checks:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Basic checks, Next: Strict checks, Up: check + +24.10.1 Basic checks +-------------------- + +These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger +commands, including 'check': + + * *parseable* - data files are well-formed and can be successfully + parsed + + * *balancedwithautoconversion* - all transactions are balanced, + inferring missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting + commodities using costs or automatically-inferred costs + + * *assertions* - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. + (This check can be disabled with '-I'/'--ignore-assertions'.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Strict checks, Next: Other checks, Prev: Basic checks, Up: check + +24.10.2 Strict checks +--------------------- + +These additional checks are run when the '-s'/'--strict' (strict mode) +flag is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to +'check': + + * *accounts* - all account names used by transactions have been + declared + + * *commodities* - all commodity symbols used have been declared + + * *balancednoautoconversion* - transactions are balanced, possibly + using explicit costs but not inferred ones + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Other checks, Next: Custom checks, Prev: Strict checks, Up: check + +24.10.3 Other checks +-------------------- + +These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to +'check'. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, +therefore optional: + + * *ordereddates* - transactions are ordered by date within each file + + * *payees* - all payees used by transactions have been declared + + * *recentassertions* - all accounts with balance assertions have a + balance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting + + * *tags* - all tags used by transactions have been declared + + * *uniqueleafnames* - all account leaf names are unique + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Custom checks, Next: More about specific checks, Prev: Other checks, Up: check + +24.10.4 Custom checks +--------------------- + +A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in +https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: + + * *hledger-check-tagfiles* - all tag values containing / (a forward + slash) exist as file paths + + * *hledger-check-fancyassertions* - more complex balance assertions + are passing + + You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. +See: Cookbook -> Scripting. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: More about specific checks, Prev: Custom checks, Up: check + +24.10.5 More about specific checks +---------------------------------- + +'hledger check recentassertions' will complain if any balance-asserted +account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its +latest posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are +regularly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances +against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of +data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion +requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be +true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that +case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the +manual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest +assertions against real-world balances. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: close, Next: codes, Prev: check, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.11 close +=========== + +(equity) + + Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from +another account (typically equity). This can be useful for migrating +balances to a new journal file, or for merging earnings into equity at +end of accounting period. + + By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts +(asset, liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be +configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. + + _(experimental)_ + + This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common +use cases: + + 1. With '--close' (default), it prints a "closing balances" + transaction that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts + by default (this requires account types to be inferred or + declared); or, the accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY + arguments. + + 2. With '--open', it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction + that restores those balances from zero. This is similar to + Ledger's equity command. + + 3. With '--migrate', it prints both the closing and opening + transactions. This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a + new file: run 'hledger close --migrate', add the closing + transaction at the end of the old file, and add the opening + transaction at the start of the new file. The matching + closing/opening transactions cancel each other out, preserving + correct balances during multi-file reporting. + + 4. With '--retain', it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that + transfers RX (revenue and expense) balances to 'equity:retained + earnings'. Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each + accounting period; it is less necessary with computer-based + accounting, but it could still be useful if you want to see the + accounting equation (A=L+E) satisfied. + + In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: + + * the transaction descriptions can be changed with + '--close-desc=DESC' and '--open-desc=DESC' + * the account to transfer to/from can be changed with + '--close-acct=ACCT' and '--open-acct=ACCT' + * the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with 'ACCTQUERY' + (account query arguments). + + By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its +amount left implicit. With '--x/--explicit', the amount will be shown +explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting +will be generated for each of them (similar to 'print -x'). + + With '--show-costs', any amount costs are shown, with separate +postings for each cost. This is currently the best way to view +investment lots. If you have many currency conversion or investment +transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. + + With '--interleaved', each individual transfer is shown with source +and destination postings next to each other. This could be useful for +troubleshooting. + + The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, +whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end +date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the +report period will be the closing date; eg '-e 2022' means "close on +2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing date. + +* Menu: + +* close and balance assertions:: +* Example retain earnings:: +* Example migrate balances to a new file:: +* Example excluding closing/opening transactions:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: close and balance assertions, Next: Example retain earnings, Up: close + +24.11.1 close and balance assertions +------------------------------------ + +Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have +been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if +there is an opening transaction). + + These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them +temporarily with '-I', or remove them if you prefer. + + You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or +realness ('-C', '-R', 'status:'), or generating postings ('--auto'), +with this command, since the balance assertions would depend on these. + + Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the +balance assertions: + +2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 + + To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary +account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two +single-day transactions: + +; in 2022.journal: +2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + equity:pending -5 + +; in 2023.journal: +2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared + equity:pending 5 = 0 + assets:bank:checking -5 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example retain earnings, Next: Example migrate balances to a new file, Prev: close and balance assertions, Up: close + +24.11.2 Example: retain earnings +-------------------------------- + +Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, +appending the generated transaction to the journal: + +$ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal + + Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because +revenues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. To see them +again, you could exclude the retain transaction: + +$ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example migrate balances to a new file, Next: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example retain earnings, Up: close + +24.11.3 Example: migrate balances to a new file +----------------------------------------------- + +Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on +2023-01-01: + +$ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 +# copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal +# copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal + + Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced +accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that +case, try adding -infer-equity.) To see the end-of-year balances again, +you could exclude the closing transaction: + +$ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions, Prev: Example migrate balances to a new file, Up: close + +24.11.4 Example: excluding closing/opening transactions +------------------------------------------------------- + +When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening +transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like +'print' and 'register'. You can exclude them as shown above, but +'not:desc:...' is not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; +also you will want to avoid excluding the very first opening +transaction, which could be awkward. Here is one alternative, using +tags: + + Add 'clopen:' tags to all opening/closing balances transactions +except the first, like this: + +; 2021.journal +2021-06-01 first opening balances +... +2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 +... + +; 2022.journal +2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 +... +2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 +... + +; 2023.journal +2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 +... + + Now, assuming a combined journal like: + +; all.journal +include 2021.journal +include 2022.journal +include 2023.journal + + The 'clopen:' tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. +To show a clean multi-year checking register: + +$ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen + + And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end +balance sheet: + +$ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: codes, Next: commodities, Prev: close, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.12 codes +=========== + +List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. + + This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in +the order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional +value written in parentheses between the date and description, often +used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. + + Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty +codes will not be shown by default. With the '-E'/'--empty' flag, they +will be printed as blank lines. + + You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. + + Examples: + +2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket + Food $5.00 + Checking + +2022/1/2 (124) Post Office + Postage $8.32 + Checking + +2022/1/3 Supermarket + Food $11.23 + Checking + +2022/1/4 (126) Post Office + Postage $3.21 + Checking + +$ hledger codes +123 +124 +126 + +$ hledger codes -E +123 +124 + +126 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: commodities, Next: descriptions, Prev: codes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.13 commodities +================= + +List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: descriptions, Next: diff, Prev: commodities, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.14 descriptions +================== + +List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in +transactions, in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a +subset of transactions. + + Example: + +$ hledger descriptions +Store Name +Gas Station | Petrol +Person A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: diff, Next: files, Prev: descriptions, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.15 diff +========== + +Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It +shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in +the other. + + More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either +file, it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts +the same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) +Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when +multiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal +entry. + + This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions +from your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree +about the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your +journal to find out the cause. + + Examples: + +$ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro +These transactions are in the first file only: + +2014/01/01 Opening Balances + assets:bank:giro EUR ... + ... + equity:opening balances EUR -... + +These transactions are in the second file only: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: files, Next: help, Prev: diff, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.16 files +=========== + +List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only +file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: help, Next: import, Prev: files, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.17 help +========== + +Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with 'info', 'man', or a +pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. TOPIC +can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case insensitive. +Eg: 'commands', 'print', 'forecast', 'journal', 'amount', '"auto +postings"'. + + This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger +version. It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal +to a web browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing +tools are not installed on your system. + + By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this +order): 'info', 'man', '$PAGER', 'less', 'more'. You can force the use +of info, man, or a pager with the '-i', '-m', or '-p' flags, If no +viewer can be found, or the command is run non-interactively, it just +prints the manual to stdout. + + If using 'info', note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC +lookup. If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should +consider installing a newer version, eg with 'brew install texinfo' +(#1770). + + Examples + +$ hledger help --help # show how the help command works +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed + + +File: hledger.info, Node: import, Next: incomestatement, Prev: help, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.18 import +============ + +Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them to +the journal. Or with -dry-run, just print the transactions that would +be added. Or with -catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' transactions as +imported, without actually importing any. + + This command may append new transactions to the main journal file +(which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not +changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the +journal file (see also 'add'). + + Unlike other hledger commands, with 'import' the journal file is an +output file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing +data will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, +so to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run +'hledger import bank.csv' or perhaps 'hledger import *.csv'. + + Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the +most common import source, and these docs focus on that case. + +* Menu: + +* Deduplication:: +* Import testing:: +* Importing balance assignments:: +* Commodity display styles:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Deduplication, Next: Import testing, Up: import + +24.18.1 Deduplication +--------------------- + +As a convenience 'import' does _deduplication_ while reading +transactions. This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the +same", but rather "ignore transactions that have been seen before". +This is intended for when you are periodically importing foreign data +which may contain already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day +you download bank CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely +run 'hledger import bank.csv' and only new transactions will be +imported. ('import' is idempotent.) + + Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with +unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming +that: + + 1. new items always have the newest dates + 2. item dates do not change across reads + 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order + across reads. + + These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true +enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but +violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if +you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to be +the ones affected). + + hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by +saving a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when +reading 'finance/bank.csv', it will look for and update the +'finance/.latest.bank.csv' state file. The format is simple: one or +more lines containing the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I +have processed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on +that date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files +yourself. But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making +all transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a +certain date. + + Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by +'print --new', but this is less often used. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Import testing, Next: Importing balance assignments, Prev: Deduplication, Up: import + +24.18.2 Import testing +---------------------- + +With '--dry-run', the transactions that will be imported are printed to +the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output +is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse it. +Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not +categorised: + +$ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown + + or (live updating): + +$ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' + + Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently +possible for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the +actual import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving +them out of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To +prevent this, do a -dry-run first and fix any problems before the real +import. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Importing balance assignments, Next: Commodity display styles, Prev: Import testing, Up: import + +24.18.3 Importing balance assignments +------------------------------------- + +Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit +(like 'hledger print -x'). This means that any balance assignments in +imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see +the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with +balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances +and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting +amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: + +$ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE + + (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, +please test it and send a pull request.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Commodity display styles, Prev: Importing balance assignments, Up: import + +24.18.4 Commodity display styles +-------------------------------- + +Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity +styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: incomestatement, Next: notes, Prev: import, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.19 incomestatement +===================== + +(is) + + This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and +expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal +positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the 'Revenue' or 'Expense' +type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows +top-level accounts named 'revenue' or 'income' or 'expense' (case +insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + +$ hledger incomestatement +Income Statement + +Revenues: + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary +-------------------- + $-2 + +Expenses: + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies +-------------------- + $2 + +Total: +-------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and +supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. +It is similar to 'hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses', but +with smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their +sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: notes, Next: payees, Prev: incomestatement, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.20 notes +=========== + +List the unique notes that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in +alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of +transactions. The note is the part of the transaction description after +a | character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + Example: + +$ hledger notes +Petrol +Snacks + + +File: hledger.info, Node: payees, Next: prices, Prev: notes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.21 payees +============ + +List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. + + This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared +with payee directives (-declared), used in transaction descriptions +(-used), or both (the default). + + The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | +character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This +implies -used. + + Example: + +$ hledger payees +Store Name +Gas Station +Person A + + +File: hledger.info, Node: prices, Next: print, Prev: payees, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.22 prices +============ + +Print market price directives from the journal. With +-infer-market-prices, generate additional market prices from costs. +With -infer-reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting +known prices. Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are +displayed with their full precision. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: print, Next: register, Prev: prices, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.23 print +=========== + +Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. + + The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from +the journal file, sorted by date (or with '--date2', by secondary date). + + Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg +the placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their +decimal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one +alteration: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) + + Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not +across all transactions). + + Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. +This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it +to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the +directives and file-level comments. + + Eg: + +$ hledger print +2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + +2008/06/01 gift + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts $-1 + +2008/06/02 save + assets:bank:saving $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + +2008/06/03 * eat & shop + expenses:food $1 + expenses:supplies $1 + assets:cash $-2 + +2008/12/31 * pay off + liabilities:debts $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can +process it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for +certain kinds of search, eg: + +# Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. +# -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. +$ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food + + There are some situations where print's output can become +unparseable: + + * Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or + balance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. + * Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. + * Account aliases can generate bad account names. + + Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is +preserved. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it +will not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but +not written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the +'-x'/'--explicit' flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can +be useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable +and robust against data entry errors. '-x' is also implied by using any +of '-B','-V','-X','--value'. + + Note, '-x'/'--explicit' will cause postings with a multi-commodity +amount (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an +implicit amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, +keeping the output parseable. + + With '-B'/'--cost', amounts with costs are converted to cost using +that price. This can be used for troubleshooting. + + With '-m DESC'/'--match=DESC', print does a fuzzy search for one +recent transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC +should contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough +match, no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be +non-zero. + + With '--new', hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a +previous run. This uses the same deduplication system as the 'import' +command. (See import's docs for details.) + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and +(experimental) 'json' and 'sql'. + + Here's an example of print's CSV output: + +$ hledger print -Ocsv +"txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" +"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" +"1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" +"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" +"2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" +"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" +"3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" +"4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" +"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" +"5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + + * There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's + fields repeated. + * The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong + to the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions + are reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a + different order, etc.) + * The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" + (numeric quantity) fields. + * The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" + column, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the + accounting sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and + zero or greater amounts under debit.) + + +File: hledger.info, Node: register, Next: rewrite, Prev: print, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.24 register +============== + +(reg) + + Show postings and their running total. + + The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, +in date order, with their running total or running historical balance. +(See also the 'aregister' command, which shows matched transactions in a +specific account.) + + register normally shows line per posting, but note that +multi-commodity amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per +commodity). + + It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to +see that account's activity: + +$ hledger register checking +2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 +2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 +2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 +2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + With '--date2', it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first +1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause +visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to +ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the +'--align-all' flag. + + The '--historical'/'-H' flag adds the balance from any undisplayed +prior postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to +see only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: + +$ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical +2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 +2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 +2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + The '--depth' option limits the amount of sub-account detail +displayed. + + The '--average'/'-A' flag shows the running average posting amount +instead of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the +average for the whole report period). This flag implies '--empty' (see +below). It is affected by '--historical'. It works best when showing +just one account and one commodity. + + The '--related'/'-r' flag shows the _other_ postings in the +transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + The '--invert' flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used +on an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative +numbers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account +together with the related account: + +$ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking + + With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per +interval, aggregating the postings to each account: + +$ hledger register --monthly income +2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 +2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + + Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, +are not shown by default; use the '--empty'/'-E' flag to see them: + +$ hledger register --monthly income -E +2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 +2008/02 0 $-1 +2008/03 0 $-1 +2008/04 0 $-1 +2008/05 0 $-1 +2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 +2008/07 0 $-2 +2008/08 0 $-2 +2008/09 0 $-2 +2008/10 0 $-2 +2008/11 0 $-2 +2008/12 0 $-2 + + Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The '--depth' +option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: + +$ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h +2008/01 assets $1 $1 +2008/06 assets $-1 0 +2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 + + Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates +these will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of +intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full +length and comparable to the others in the report. + + With '-m DESC'/'--match=DESC', register does a fuzzy search for one +recent posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should +contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, +no posting will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. + +* Menu: + +* Custom register output:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Custom register output, Up: register + +24.24.1 Custom register output +------------------------------ + +register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. +You can override this by setting the 'COLUMNS' environment variable (not +a bash shell variable) or by using the '--width'/'-w' option. + + The description and account columns normally share the space equally +(about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a +description width as part of -width's argument, comma-separated: +'--width W,D' . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in -help): + +<--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> +date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) +DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA + + and some examples: + +$ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) +$ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 +$ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable +$ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) +$ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 +$ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 + + This command also supports the output destination and output format +options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', and +(experimental) 'json'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite, Next: roi, Prev: register, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.25 rewrite +============= + +Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. +For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print +-auto. + + This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It +reads the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but +adds one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. +The posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing +transaction's first posting amount. + + Examples: + +$ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' +$ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' +$ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger + + rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: + += ^income amt:<0 date:2017 + (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income + (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + + Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the +two spaces between account and amount. + + More: + +$ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... +$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' +$ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' +$ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' + + Argument for '--add-posting' option is a usual posting of transaction +with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can use +''*'' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a +factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount +includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new +commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's +commodity. + +* Menu: + +* Re-write rules in a file:: +* Diff output format:: +* rewrite vs print --auto:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Re-write rules in a file, Next: Diff output format, Up: rewrite + +24.25.1 Re-write rules in a file +-------------------------------- + +During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transactions" +found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this +operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. + +$ rewrite-rules.journal + + Make contents look like this: + += ^income + (liabilities:tax) *.33 + += expenses:gifts + budget:gifts *-1 + assets:budget *1 + + Note that ''='' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in +transactions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you +want to match the posting to add new ones. + +$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + This is something similar to the commands pipeline: + +$ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ + | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ + --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ + > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in +journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added +postings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Diff output format, Next: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Re-write rules in a file, Up: rewrite + +24.25.2 Diff output format +-------------------------- + +To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may +find useful output in form of unified diff. + +$ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + + Output might look like: + +--- /tmp/examples/sample.journal ++++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal +@@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ + 2008/01/01 income +- assets:bank:checking $1 ++ assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary ++ (liabilities:tax) 0 +@@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ + 2008/06/01 gift +- assets:bank:checking $1 ++ assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts ++ (liabilities:tax) 0 + + If you'll pass this through 'patch' tool you'll get transactions +containing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that +multiple files might be update according to list of input files +specified via '--file' options and 'include' directives inside of these +files. + + Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of +output from 'hledger print'. + + See also: + + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: rewrite vs print --auto, Prev: Diff output format, Up: rewrite + +24.25.3 rewrite vs. print -auto +------------------------------- + +This command predates print -auto, and currently does much the same +thing, but with these differences: + + * with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all + other files. print -auto uses standard directive scoping; rules + affect only child files. + + * rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are + printed. print -auto's query limits which transactions are + printed. + + * rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. + print -auto applies rules specified in the journal. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: roi, Next: stats, Prev: rewrite, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.26 roi +========= + +Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return on +your investments. + + At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an +account name) to select your investment(s) with '--inv', and another +query to identify your profit and loss transactions with '--pnl'. + + If you do not record changes in the value of your investment +manually, or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), +'--pnl' could be an empty query ('--pnl ""' or '--pnl STR' where 'STR' +does not match any of your accounts). + + This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return +(IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for +the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before +display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. + + Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate +'--cost' or '--value' flags (see VALUATION). + + Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: + + * Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return + (IRR). Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of + investment becomes negative at some point in time. + * Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of + Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or + converges too slowly. + + Examples: + + * Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/investing/roi-unrealised.ledger + + * Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html + +* Menu: + +* Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl:: +* Semantics of --inv and --pnl:: +* IRR and TWR explained:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Next: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.1 Spaces and special characters in '--inv' and +---------------------------------------------------- + +'--pnl' Note that '--inv' and '--pnl''s argument is a query, and queries +could have several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). + + To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, +you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): + +$ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' + + If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra +level of nested quoting, eg: + +$ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Next: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.2 Semantics of '--inv' and '--pnl' +---------------------------------------- + +Query supplied to '--inv' has to match all transactions that are related +to your investment. Transactions not matching '--inv' will be ignored. + + In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match '--inv' +to be "investment postings" and other postings (not matching '--inv') +will be sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", +as ROI needs to know which part of the investment value is your +contributions and which is due to the return on investment. + + * "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling + assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity + and any other commodity. Example: + + 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil + assets:cash -$100 + investment:snake oil + + 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil + assets:cash $10 + investment:snake oil = 0 + + * "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: + + 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value + investment:snake oil = $57 + equity:unrealized profit or loss + + All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless +they match '--pnl' query. Changes in value of your investment due to +"profit and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment +return. + + Example: if you use '--inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized', then +postings in the example below would be classifed as: + +2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 + assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + investment:snake oil ; investment posting + +2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 + equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting + snake oil ; investment posting + +2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 + equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting + cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + snake oil $50 ; investment posting + + +File: hledger.info, Node: IRR and TWR explained, Prev: Semantics of --inv and --pnl, Up: roi + +24.26.3 IRR and TWR explained +----------------------------- + +"ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was +computed as a difference between current value of investment and its +initial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. + + However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where +investments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate +of growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need +different ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements +two of them: IRR and TWR. + + Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate +of return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. +Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains +would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percentage +of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your investment, +you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same rate of +return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each period between +in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a way that gives +you a compound annual rate of return that investment is expected to +generate. + + As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that +you personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are +the postings that match the query in the'--inv' argument and NOT match +the query in the'--pnl' argument. + + If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as +transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unrealized +gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to +compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate of +return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or +close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. + + In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net +present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present +value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This +could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done +discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger +should produce results that match the 'XIRR' formula in Excel. + + Second way to compute rate of return that 'roi' command implements is +called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also +break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, +out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period +and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR +are quite different. + + TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where +in-flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment +and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change +in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of +your investment. + + References: + + * Explanation of rate of return + * Explanation of IRR + * Explanation of TWR + * Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations + of both metrics + + +File: hledger.info, Node: stats, Next: tags, Prev: roi, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.27 stats +=========== + +Show journal and performance statistics. + + The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, +or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report +for each report period. + + At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and +number of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate +and will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger +version, haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of +interest. The 'stats' command's run time is similar to that of a +single-column balance report. + + Example: + +$ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal +Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal +Included files : +Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) +Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) +Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) +Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) +Payees/descriptions : 1000 +Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) +Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) +Market prices : 1000 (A) + +Run time : 0.12 s +Throughput : 8342 txns/s + + This command supports the -o/-output-file option (but not +-O/-output-format selection). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: tags, Next: test, Prev: stats, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.28 tags +========== + +List the tags used in the journal, or their values. + + This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on +transactions, postings, or account declarations. + + With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular +expression (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. + + With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this +query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, +desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions +and their accounts. + + With the -values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed +instead. With -E/-empty, blank/empty values are also shown. + + With -parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, +with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are +always shown first.) + + Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, +postings also acquire tags from their account and transaction, +transactions also acquire tags from their postings. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: test, Prev: tags, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS + +24.29 test +========== + +Run built-in unit tests. + + This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, +printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will +be non-zero. + + This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to +sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All +tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report as +a bug! + + This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a +- (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, +with ANSI colour codes disabled: + +$ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never + + For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options +('-- --help' currently doesn't show them). + + +File: hledger.info, Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Prev: PART 4 COMMANDS, Up: Top + +25 PART 5: COMMON TASKS +*********************** + +Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with hledger. + +* Menu: + +* Getting help:: +* Constructing command lines:: +* Starting a journal file:: +* Setting opening balances:: +* Recording transactions:: +* Reconciling:: +* Reporting:: +* Migrating to a new file:: + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Getting help, Next: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.1 Getting help +================= + +Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: + +$ hledger # show available commands +$ hledger --help # show common options +$ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation + + You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by +using the help command. Eg: + +$ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) +$ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual +$ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command + + To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit +https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion archives +can be found at https://hledger.org/support. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Constructing command lines, Next: Starting a journal file, Prev: Getting help, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.2 Constructing command lines +=============================== + +hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it +simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges +described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: + + * command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to + put common options there too: 'hledger CMD OPTS ARGS') + * running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing + ('hledger-ui OPTS ARGS') + * enclose "problematic" args in single quotes + * if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression + metacharacters from the shell + * to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add + '--debug=2'. + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Starting a journal file, Next: Setting opening balances, Prev: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.3 Starting a journal file +============================ + +hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, +'$HOME/.hledger.journal' by default: + +$ hledger stats +The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. +Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. +Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. + + You can override this by setting the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment +variable. It's a good practice to keep this important file under +version control, and to start a new file each year. So you could do +something like this: + +$ mkdir ~/finance +$ cd ~/finance +$ git init +Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ +$ touch 2020.journal +$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc +$ source ~/.bashrc +$ hledger stats +Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal +Included files : +Transactions span : to (0 days) +Last transaction : none +Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) +Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) +Payees/descriptions : 0 +Accounts : 0 (depth 0) +Commodities : 0 () +Market prices : 0 () + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Setting opening balances, Next: Recording transactions, Prev: Starting a journal file, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.4 Setting opening balances +============================= + +Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some +real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit +cards..). + + To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or +two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a +recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can +always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg +going back to january 1st. + + Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the +balances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: + + * The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an + entry like this: + + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 + assets:cash $100 = $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances + + These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at + the end of the previous day. + + The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means + "cleared & confirmed". + + The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as + you'll be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. + + The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra + error checking. + + * The second way: run 'hledger add' and follow the prompts to record + a similar transaction: + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 + Description: * opening balances + Account 1: assets:bank:checking + Amount 1: $1000 + Account 2: assets:bank:savings + Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 + Account 3: assets:cash + Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 + Account 4: liabilities:creditcard + Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 + Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances + Amount 5 [$-3050]: + Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2020-01-01]: . + + If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit +the journal. Eg: + +$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Recording transactions, Next: Reconciling, Prev: Setting opening balances, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.5 Recording transactions +=========================== + +As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using +one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the +hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to +convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. + + Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual +and hledger.org for more ideas: + +2020/1/10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + +2020.1.12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + +2020-01-15 paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reconciling, Next: Reporting, Prev: Recording transactions, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.6 Reconciling +================ + +Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported +balances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your +bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the +real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not made +a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) +frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let it +pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and +discrepancies. + + A typical workflow: + + 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what + hledger reports ('hledger bal cash'). If they are different, try + to remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the + already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful + ('hledger reg cash'). If you can't find the error, add an + adjustment transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and + can't explain the missing $2, it could be: + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare + today's (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance ('hledger + bal checking -C'). If they are different, track down the error or + record the missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, + similar to the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually + compare the transaction history and running balance from your bank + with the one reported by 'hledger reg checking -C'. This will be + easier if you generally record transaction dates quite similar to + your bank's clearing dates. + + 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. + + Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a +live-updating register while you edit the journal: 'hledger-ui --watch +--register checking -C' + + After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled +transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track +that, by adding the '*' marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, +insert '*' between '2020-01-15' and 'paycheck' + + If you're using version control, this can be another good time to +commit: + +$ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Reporting, Next: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reconciling, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.7 Reporting +============== + +Here are some basic reports. + + Show all transactions: + +$ hledger print +2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + +2020-01-10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + +2020-01-12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + +2020-01-15 * paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + +2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + Show account names, and their hierarchy: + +$ hledger accounts --tree +assets + bank + checking + savings + cash +equity + opening/closing balances +expenses + food + misc +income + gifts + salary +liabilities + creditcard + + Show all account totals: + +$ hledger balance + $4105 assets + $4000 bank + $2000 checking + $2000 savings + $105 cash + $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances + $15 expenses + $13 food + $2 misc + $-1020 income + $-20 gifts + $-1000 salary + $-50 liabilities:creditcard +-------------------- + 0 + + Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to +depth 2: + +$ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 + $4000 assets:bank + $105 assets:cash + $-50 liabilities:creditcard +-------------------- + $4055 + + Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple +balance sheet: + +$ hledger bs -2 +Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-16 +========================++============ + Assets || +------------------------++------------ + assets:bank || $4000 + assets:cash || $105 +------------------------++------------ + || $4105 +========================++============ + Liabilities || +------------------------++------------ + liabilities:creditcard || $50 +------------------------++------------ + || $50 +========================++============ + Net: || $4055 + + The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use 'bse' +for a full balance sheet with equity.) + + Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: + +hledger is +Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 +===============++======================= + Revenues || +---------------++----------------------- + income:gifts || $20 + income:salary || $1000 +---------------++----------------------- + || $1020 +===============++======================= + Expenses || +---------------++----------------------- + expenses:food || $13 + expenses:misc || $2 +---------------++----------------------- + || $15 +===============++======================= + Net: || $1005 + + The final total is your net income during this period. + + Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: + +$ hledger register cash +2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 +2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 +2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 +2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 + + Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: + +$ hledger activity -W +2019-12-30 ***** +2020-01-06 **** +2020-01-13 **** + + +File: hledger.info, Node: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reporting, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS + +25.8 Migrating to a new file +============================ + +At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new +file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, +and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the +close command. + + If using version control, don't forget to 'git add' the new file. + + +Tag Table: +Node: Top210 +Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE3860 +Ref: #part-1-user-interface4001 +Node: Options4001 +Ref: #options4120 +Node: General options4262 +Ref: #general-options4387 +Node: Command options8600 +Ref: #command-options8751 +Node: Command arguments9151 +Ref: #command-arguments9309 +Node: Special characters10189 +Ref: #special-characters10352 +Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters10515 +Ref: #single-escaping-shell-metacharacters10756 +Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters11359 +Ref: #double-escaping-regular-expression-metacharacters11670 +Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands12196 +Ref: #triple-escaping-for-add-on-commands12456 +Node: Less escaping13100 +Ref: #less-escaping13254 +Node: Unicode characters13578 +Ref: #unicode-characters13743 +Node: Regular expressions15155 +Ref: #regular-expressions15295 +Node: Environment17039 +Ref: #environment17150 +Node: Input18719 +Ref: #input18819 +Node: Data formats19362 +Ref: #data-formats19475 +Node: Multiple files20861 +Ref: #multiple-files20998 +Node: Strict mode21467 +Ref: #strict-mode21577 +Node: Commands22301 +Ref: #commands22402 +Node: Add-on commands22874 +Ref: #add-on-commands22976 +Node: Output24061 +Ref: #output24164 +Node: Output destination24291 +Ref: #output-destination24422 +Node: Output format24847 +Ref: #output-format24993 +Node: CSV output26531 +Ref: #csv-output26647 +Node: HTML output26750 +Ref: #html-output26888 +Node: JSON output26982 +Ref: #json-output27120 +Node: SQL output28042 +Ref: #sql-output28158 +Node: Commodity styles28893 +Ref: #commodity-styles29033 +Node: Colour29632 +Ref: #colour29750 +Node: Box-drawing30154 +Ref: #box-drawing30272 +Node: Paging30562 +Ref: #paging30676 +Node: Debug output31629 +Ref: #debug-output31735 +Node: Limitations32398 +Ref: #limitations32518 +Node: Troubleshooting33287 +Ref: #troubleshooting33428 +Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS35910 +Ref: #part-2-data-formats36057 +Node: Journal36057 +Ref: #journal36168 +Node: Journal cheatsheet36807 +Ref: #journal-cheatsheet36948 +Node: About journal format40936 +Ref: #about-journal-format41098 +Node: Comments42616 +Ref: #comments42748 +Node: Transactions43564 +Ref: #transactions43689 +Node: Dates44703 +Ref: #dates44812 +Node: Simple dates44857 +Ref: #simple-dates44975 +Node: Posting dates45475 +Ref: #posting-dates45595 +Node: Status46564 +Ref: #status46667 +Node: Code48375 +Ref: #code48480 +Node: Description48712 +Ref: #description48845 +Node: Payee and note49165 +Ref: #payee-and-note49273 +Node: Transaction comments49608 +Ref: #transaction-comments49763 +Node: Postings50126 +Ref: #postings50261 +Node: Account names51256 +Ref: #account-names51388 +Node: Amounts53062 +Ref: #amounts53179 +Node: Decimal marks digit group marks54164 +Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks54341 +Node: Commodity55355 +Ref: #commodity55544 +Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display56496 +Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display56757 +Node: Commodity display style57209 +Ref: #commodity-display-style57417 +Node: Rounding59586 +Ref: #rounding59706 +Node: Costs60005 +Ref: #costs60123 +Node: Other cost/lot notations62122 +Ref: #other-costlot-notations62256 +Node: Balance assertions64845 +Ref: #balance-assertions64998 +Node: Assertions and ordering66081 +Ref: #assertions-and-ordering66272 +Node: Assertions and multiple included files66972 +Ref: #assertions-and-multiple-included-files67234 +Node: Assertions and multiple -f files67734 +Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-files67987 +Node: Assertions and commodities68384 +Ref: #assertions-and-commodities68608 +Node: Assertions and prices69788 +Ref: #assertions-and-prices69996 +Node: Assertions and subaccounts70423 +Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts70646 +Node: Assertions and virtual postings70970 +Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings71210 +Node: Assertions and auto postings71342 +Ref: #assertions-and-auto-postings71574 +Node: Assertions and precision72219 +Ref: #assertions-and-precision72403 +Node: Posting comments72670 +Ref: #posting-comments72818 +Node: Tags73195 +Ref: #tags73311 +Node: Tag values74504 +Ref: #tag-values74595 +Node: Directives75354 +Ref: #directives75483 +Node: Directive effects77289 +Ref: #directive-effects77445 +Node: Directives and multiple files80410 +Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files80590 +Node: account directive81282 +Ref: #account-directive81440 +Node: Account comments82838 +Ref: #account-comments82990 +Node: Account subdirectives83498 +Ref: #account-subdirectives83691 +Node: Account error checking83833 +Ref: #account-error-checking84033 +Node: Account display order85222 +Ref: #account-display-order85412 +Node: Account types86513 +Ref: #account-types86656 +Node: alias directive90283 +Ref: #alias-directive90446 +Node: Basic aliases91496 +Ref: #basic-aliases91629 +Node: Regex aliases92373 +Ref: #regex-aliases92532 +Node: Combining aliases93422 +Ref: #combining-aliases93602 +Node: Aliases and multiple files94878 +Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files95084 +Node: end aliases directive95663 +Ref: #end-aliases-directive95884 +Node: Aliases can generate bad account names96033 +Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names96283 +Node: Aliases and account types96868 +Ref: #aliases-and-account-types97062 +Node: commodity directive97758 +Ref: #commodity-directive97934 +Node: Commodity error checking100508 +Ref: #commodity-error-checking100656 +Node: decimal-mark directive101171 +Ref: #decimal-mark-directive101355 +Node: include directive101752 +Ref: #include-directive101918 +Node: P directive102842 +Ref: #p-directive102989 +Node: payee directive103872 +Ref: #payee-directive104023 +Node: tag directive104339 +Ref: #tag-directive104496 +Node: Periodic transactions104964 +Ref: #periodic-transactions105130 +Node: Periodic rule syntax106836 +Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax107016 +Node: Periodic rules and relative dates107661 +Ref: #periodic-rules-and-relative-dates107929 +Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!108440 +Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description108719 +Node: Other syntax109403 +Ref: #other-syntax109529 +Node: Auto postings110174 +Ref: #auto-postings110310 +Node: Auto postings and multiple files112781 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files112983 +Node: Auto postings and dates113192 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates113464 +Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions113639 +Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions113978 +Node: Auto posting tags114481 +Ref: #auto-posting-tags114694 +Node: Balance assignments115330 +Ref: #balance-assignments115510 +Node: Balance assignments and prices116840 +Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices117010 +Node: Bracketed posting dates117221 +Ref: #bracketed-posting-dates117407 +Node: D directive117921 +Ref: #d-directive118091 +Node: apply account directive119691 +Ref: #apply-account-directive119873 +Node: Y directive120560 +Ref: #y-directive120722 +Node: Secondary dates121550 +Ref: #secondary-dates121706 +Node: Star comments122520 +Ref: #star-comments122682 +Node: Valuation expressions123214 +Ref: #valuation-expressions123393 +Node: Virtual postings123515 +Ref: #virtual-postings123696 +Node: Other Ledger directives125258 +Ref: #other-ledger-directives125423 +Node: CSV125989 +Ref: #csv126082 +Node: CSV rules cheatsheet128151 +Ref: #csv-rules-cheatsheet128283 +Node: separator129983 +Ref: #separator130110 +Node: skip130650 +Ref: #skip130758 +Node: date-format131329 +Ref: #date-format131450 +Node: timezone132174 +Ref: #timezone132297 +Node: newest-first133302 +Ref: #newest-first133440 +Node: intra-day-reversed134018 +Ref: #intra-day-reversed134172 +Node: decimal-mark134665 +Ref: #decimal-mark134806 +Node: fields list135145 +Ref: #fields-list135282 +Node: Field assignment136953 +Ref: #field-assignment137097 +Node: Field names138124 +Ref: #field-names138255 +Node: date field139458 +Ref: #date-field139576 +Node: date2 field139624 +Ref: #date2-field139765 +Node: status field139821 +Ref: #status-field139964 +Node: code field140013 +Ref: #code-field140158 +Node: description field140203 +Ref: #description-field140363 +Node: comment field140422 +Ref: #comment-field140577 +Node: account field140870 +Ref: #account-field141020 +Node: amount field141590 +Ref: #amount-field141739 +Node: currency field143758 +Ref: #currency-field143911 +Node: balance field144168 +Ref: #balance-field144300 +Node: if block144672 +Ref: #if-block144793 +Node: Matchers146201 +Ref: #matchers146315 +Node: if table147797 +Ref: #if-table147919 +Node: balance-type149341 +Ref: #balance-type149470 +Node: include150170 +Ref: #include150297 +Node: Working with CSV150741 +Ref: #working-with-csv150888 +Node: Rapid feedback151259 +Ref: #rapid-feedback151392 +Node: Valid CSV151844 +Ref: #valid-csv151990 +Node: File Extension152722 +Ref: #file-extension152895 +Node: Reading CSV from standard input153459 +Ref: #reading-csv-from-standard-input153683 +Node: Reading multiple CSV files153847 +Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files154065 +Node: Valid transactions154306 +Ref: #valid-transactions154500 +Node: Deduplicating importing155128 +Ref: #deduplicating-importing155323 +Node: Setting amounts156359 +Ref: #setting-amounts156530 +Node: Amount signs158995 +Ref: #amount-signs159163 +Node: Setting currency/commodity159850 +Ref: #setting-currencycommodity160054 +Node: Amount decimal places161228 +Ref: #amount-decimal-places161434 +Node: Referencing other fields161746 +Ref: #referencing-other-fields161959 +Node: How CSV rules are evaluated162856 +Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated163073 +Node: Well factored rules164526 +Ref: #well-factored-rules164694 +Node: CSV rules examples165018 +Ref: #csv-rules-examples165153 +Node: Bank of Ireland165218 +Ref: #bank-of-ireland165355 +Node: Coinbase166817 +Ref: #coinbase166955 +Node: Amazon168002 +Ref: #amazon168127 +Node: Paypal169846 +Ref: #paypal169954 +Node: Timeclock177598 +Ref: #timeclock177703 +Node: Timedot179835 +Ref: #timedot179958 +Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS184655 +Ref: #part-3-reporting-concepts184819 +Node: Time periods184819 +Ref: #time-periods184953 +Node: Report start & end date185071 +Ref: #report-start-end-date185223 +Node: Smart dates186882 +Ref: #smart-dates187035 +Node: Report intervals188903 +Ref: #report-intervals189058 +Node: Date adjustment189476 +Ref: #date-adjustment189636 +Node: Period expressions190487 +Ref: #period-expressions190628 +Node: Period expressions with a report interval192392 +Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval192626 +Node: More complex report intervals192840 +Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals193085 +Node: Multiple weekday intervals194886 +Ref: #multiple-weekday-intervals195075 +Node: Depth195897 +Ref: #depth195999 +Node: Queries196295 +Ref: #queries196397 +Node: Query types197306 +Ref: #query-types197427 +Node: Combining query terms200601 +Ref: #combining-query-terms200778 +Node: Queries and command options201852 +Ref: #queries-and-command-options202051 +Node: Queries and valuation202300 +Ref: #queries-and-valuation202495 +Node: Querying with account aliases202724 +Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases202935 +Node: Querying with cost or value203065 +Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value203242 +Node: Pivoting203543 +Ref: #pivoting203657 +Node: Generating data205115 +Ref: #generating-data205247 +Node: Forecasting205727 +Ref: #forecasting205852 +Node: Budgeting208623 +Ref: #budgeting208743 +Node: Cost reporting209006 +Ref: #cost-reporting209134 +Node: -B Convert to cost210241 +Ref: #b-convert-to-cost210397 +Node: Equity conversion postings211789 +Ref: #equity-conversion-postings212003 +Node: Inferring equity postings from cost212894 +Ref: #inferring-equity-postings-from-cost213143 +Node: Inferring cost from equity postings213954 +Ref: #inferring-cost-from-equity-postings214202 +Node: When to infer cost/equity215969 +Ref: #when-to-infer-costequity216187 +Node: How to record conversions216583 +Ref: #how-to-record-conversions216775 +Node: Conversion with implicit cost217066 +Ref: #conversion-with-implicit-cost217271 +Node: Conversion with explicit cost218148 +Ref: #conversion-with-explicit-cost218393 +Node: Conversion with equity postings218810 +Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings219079 +Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost219898 +Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings-and-explicit-cost220165 +Node: Cost tips220627 +Ref: #cost-tips220753 +Node: Valuation221459 +Ref: #valuation221583 +Node: -V Value222357 +Ref: #v-value222483 +Node: -X Value in specified commodity222678 +Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity222873 +Node: Valuation date223022 +Ref: #valuation-date223193 +Node: Finding market price223630 +Ref: #finding-market-price223835 +Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions225005 +Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions225281 +Node: Valuation commodity228037 +Ref: #valuation-commodity228250 +Node: Simple valuation examples229463 +Ref: #simple-valuation-examples229661 +Node: --value Flexible valuation230320 +Ref: #value-flexible-valuation230524 +Node: More valuation examples232168 +Ref: #more-valuation-examples232377 +Node: Interaction of valuation and queries234376 +Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries234617 +Node: Effect of valuation on reports235089 +Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports235286 +Node: PART 4 COMMANDS242983 +Ref: #part-4-commands243126 +Node: Commands overview243496 +Ref: #commands-overview243630 +Node: DATA ENTRY243809 +Ref: #data-entry243933 +Node: DATA CREATION244132 +Ref: #data-creation244286 +Node: DATA MANAGEMENT244404 +Ref: #data-management244569 +Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL244690 +Ref: #reports-financial244865 +Node: REPORTS VERSATILE245170 +Ref: #reports-versatile245343 +Node: REPORTS BASIC245596 +Ref: #reports-basic245748 +Node: HELP246257 +Ref: #help246379 +Node: ADD-ONS246436 +Ref: #add-ons246542 +Node: accounts247121 +Ref: #accounts247254 +Node: activity249141 +Ref: #activity249260 +Node: add249634 +Ref: #add249744 +Node: aregister252555 +Ref: #aregister252676 +Node: aregister and custom posting dates255564 +Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates255730 +Node: balance256282 +Ref: #balance256408 +Node: balance features257383 +Ref: #balance-features257523 +Node: Simple balance report259447 +Ref: #simple-balance-report259632 +Node: Balance report line format261257 +Ref: #balance-report-line-format261459 +Node: Filtered balance report263617 +Ref: #filtered-balance-report263809 +Node: List or tree mode264136 +Ref: #list-or-tree-mode264304 +Node: Depth limiting265649 +Ref: #depth-limiting265815 +Node: Dropping top-level accounts266416 +Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts266616 +Node: Showing declared accounts266926 +Ref: #showing-declared-accounts267125 +Node: Sorting by amount267656 +Ref: #sorting-by-amount267823 +Node: Percentages268493 +Ref: #percentages268652 +Node: Multi-period balance report269200 +Ref: #multi-period-balance-report269400 +Node: Balance change end balance271675 +Ref: #balance-change-end-balance271884 +Node: Balance report types273312 +Ref: #balance-report-types273493 +Node: Calculation type274003 +Ref: #calculation-type274158 +Node: Accumulation type274663 +Ref: #accumulation-type274843 +Node: Valuation type275745 +Ref: #valuation-type275933 +Node: Combining balance report types276928 +Ref: #combining-balance-report-types277122 +Node: Budget report278960 +Ref: #budget-report279112 +Node: Budget report start date284794 +Ref: #budget-report-start-date284972 +Node: Budgets and subaccounts286304 +Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts286511 +Node: Selecting budget goals289951 +Ref: #selecting-budget-goals290150 +Node: Budget vs forecast291185 +Ref: #budget-vs-forecast291344 +Node: Data layout292974 +Ref: #data-layout293124 +Node: Useful balance reports301019 +Ref: #useful-balance-reports301169 +Node: balancesheet302254 +Ref: #balancesheet302399 +Node: balancesheetequity303719 +Ref: #balancesheetequity303877 +Node: cashflow305266 +Ref: #cashflow305397 +Node: check306825 +Ref: #check306939 +Node: Basic checks307741 +Ref: #basic-checks307861 +Node: Strict checks308381 +Ref: #strict-checks308524 +Node: Other checks308947 +Ref: #other-checks309089 +Node: Custom checks309652 +Ref: #custom-checks309809 +Node: More about specific checks310226 +Ref: #more-about-specific-checks310388 +Node: close311116 +Ref: #close311227 +Node: close and balance assertions314637 +Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions314815 +Node: Example retain earnings315966 +Ref: #example-retain-earnings316183 +Node: Example migrate balances to a new file316615 +Ref: #example-migrate-balances-to-a-new-file316880 +Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions317456 +Ref: #example-excluding-closingopening-transactions317705 +Node: codes318923 +Ref: #codes319040 +Node: commodities319904 +Ref: #commodities320040 +Node: descriptions320110 +Ref: #descriptions320247 +Node: diff320538 +Ref: #diff320653 +Node: files321695 +Ref: #files321804 +Node: help321945 +Ref: #help-1322054 +Node: import323427 +Ref: #import323550 +Node: Deduplication324636 +Ref: #deduplication324761 +Node: Import testing326655 +Ref: #import-testing326820 +Node: Importing balance assignments327663 +Ref: #importing-balance-assignments327869 +Node: Commodity display styles328518 +Ref: #commodity-display-styles328691 +Node: incomestatement328820 +Ref: #incomestatement328962 +Node: notes330283 +Ref: #notes330405 +Node: payees330767 +Ref: #payees330882 +Node: prices331401 +Ref: #prices331516 +Node: print331814 +Ref: #print331929 +Node: register337267 +Ref: #register337389 +Node: Custom register output342420 +Ref: #custom-register-output342551 +Node: rewrite343888 +Ref: #rewrite344006 +Node: Re-write rules in a file345904 +Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file346067 +Node: Diff output format347216 +Ref: #diff-output-format347399 +Node: rewrite vs print --auto348491 +Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto348651 +Node: roi349207 +Ref: #roi349314 +Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl351035 +Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl351275 +Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl351763 +Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl352002 +Node: IRR and TWR explained353852 +Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained354012 +Node: stats357098 +Ref: #stats357206 +Node: tags358593 +Ref: #tags-1358700 +Node: test359709 +Ref: #test359802 +Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS360544 +Ref: #part-5-common-tasks360677 +Node: Getting help360951 +Ref: #getting-help361092 +Node: Constructing command lines361852 +Ref: #constructing-command-lines362053 +Node: Starting a journal file362710 +Ref: #starting-a-journal-file362917 +Node: Setting opening balances364105 +Ref: #setting-opening-balances364310 +Node: Recording transactions367451 +Ref: #recording-transactions367640 +Node: Reconciling368196 +Ref: #reconciling368348 +Node: Reporting370605 +Ref: #reporting370754 +Node: Migrating to a new file374739 +Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file374896  End Tag Table diff --git a/hledger.txt b/hledger.txt --- a/hledger.txt +++ b/hledger.txt @@ -18,8645 +18,8682 @@ and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with beancount(1). - This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.1. - It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by - all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeep- - ing/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in here to - use hledger productively, but when you have a question about function- - ality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip ahead or - skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an info manual - or man page on your system. You can also get it from hledger itself - with - hledger --man, hledger --info or hledger help [TOPIC]. - - The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files - describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a use- - ful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). - Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect - other hledger-* executables as extra subcommands. - - hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, time- - dot, or CSV format. The default file is .hledger.journal in your home - directory; this can be overridden with one or more -f FILE options, or - the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. hledger CLI can also read from - stdin with -f-; more on that below. - - Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one transac- - tion: - - 2015-10-16 bought food - expenses:food $10 - assets:cash - - Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more - accounts: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, peo- - ple, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using : to indi- - cate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account - name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (debit), - negatives are outflow from it (credit). (Some reports show revenue, - liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; - this is normal.) - - hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can install - other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more exten- - sive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM + - vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see - https://hledger.org/editors.html). - - To get started, run hledger add and follow the prompts, or save some - entries like the above in $HOME/.hledger.journal, then try commands - like: - hledger print -x - hledger aregister assets - hledger balance - hledger balancesheet - hledger incomestatement. - Run hledger to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal - file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. - -PART 1: USER INTERFACE -Options - General options - To see general usage help, including general options which are sup- - ported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h. - - General help options: - - -h --help - show general or COMMAND help - - --man show general or COMMAND user manual with man - - --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info - - --version - show general or ADDONCMD version - - --debug[=N] - show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) - - General input options: - - -f FILE --file=FILE - use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: - $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal) - - --rules-file=RULESFILE - Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: - FILE.rules) - - --separator=CHAR - Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') - - --alias=OLD=NEW - rename accounts named OLD to NEW - - --anon anonymize accounts and payees - - --pivot FIELDNAME - use some other field or tag for the account name - - -I --ignore-assertions - disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance - assignments) - - -s --strict - do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are - declared) - - General reporting options: - - -b --begin=DATE - include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to - preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) - - -e --end=DATE - include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to fol- - lowing subperiod end when using a report interval) - - -D --daily - multiperiod/multicolumn report by day - - -W --weekly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by week - - -M --monthly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by month - - -Q --quarterly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter - - -Y --yearly - multiperiod/multicolumn report by year - - -p --period=PERIODEXP - set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once - using period expressions syntax - - --date2 - match the secondary date instead (see command help for other - effects) - - --today=DATE - override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for - tests/examples) - - -U --unmarked - include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) - - -P --pending - include only pending postings/txns - - -C --cleared - include only cleared postings/txns - - -R --real - include only non-virtual postings - - -NUM --depth=NUM - hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep - - -E --empty - show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in - hledger-ui/hledger-web) - - -B --cost - convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time - - -V --market - convert amounts to their market value in default valuation com- - modities - - -X --exchange=COMM - convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM - - --value - convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than - -B/-V/-X - - --infer-market-prices - use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional - market prices, as if they were P directives - - --auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. - - --forecast - generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, - for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, - also make ordinary future transactions visible. - - --commodity-style - Override the commodity style in the output for the specified - commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. - - --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN) - Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text - output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color- - supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg when - piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A - NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. - - --pretty[=WHEN] - Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing charac- - ters. Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', - 'never' also work). If you provide an argument you must use - '=', e.g. '--pretty=yes'. - - When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the - last one takes precedence. - - Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. - - Command options - To see options for a particular command, including command-specific - options, run: hledger COMMAND -h. - - Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: - hledger print -x. - - Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its - options after a double-hyphen, eg: hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can - run the add-on executable directly: hledger-ui --watch. - - Command arguments - Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which - are often a query, filtering the data in some way. - - You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and - then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: - hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument - that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg: hledger bal -- - @ARG). - - Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or - argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see - a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or noth- - ing). Bad: - - assets depth:2 - -X USD - - Good: - - assets - depth:2 - -X=USD - - For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than - you would at the command prompt. Bad: - - -X"$" - - Good: - - -X$ - - See also: Save frequently used options. - - Special characters - Single escaping (shell metacharacters) - In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as - spaces, <, >, (, ), |, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you want - hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in single or dou- - ble quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to match an - account name containing a space: - - $ hledger register 'credit card' - - or: - - $ hledger register credit\ card - - Windows users should keep in mind that cmd treats single quote as a - regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. - PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. - - Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) - Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such - as ., ^, $, [, ], (, ), |, and \ - may need to be "regex-escaped" if - you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's regular expression - engine. This is done by writing backslashes before them, but since - backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping - and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal $ sign while - using the bash shell: - - $ hledger balance cur:'\$' - - or: - - $ hledger balance cur:\\$ - - Triple escaping (for add-on commands) - When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described - below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or argu- - ments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra level - of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using the bash - shell and running an add-on command (ui): - - $ hledger ui cur:'\\$' - - or: - - $ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ - - If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps: - - - unescaped: $ - escaped: \$ - double-escaped: \\$ - triple-escaped: \\\\$ - - Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable - directly: - - $ hledger-ui cur:\\$ - - Less escaping - Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell - command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should - use one less level of escaping. Those places include: - - o an @argumentfile - - o hledger-ui's filter field - - o hledger-web's search form - - o GHCI's prompt (used by developers). - - Unicode characters - hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: - - o they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command - line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit - forms, etc.) - - o they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on- - screen alignment should be preserved. - - This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: - - o A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can - decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like - this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Trou- - bleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit - on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled pro- - grams). - - o your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) - must support unicode - - o the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode - glyphs - - o the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as dou- - ble width (for report alignment) - - o on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind - of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the stan- - dard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) - might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, - and vice versa. (See eg #961). - - Regular expressions - hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: - - o query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form: - REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX - - o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ... - - o account alias directive and --alias option: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACE- - MENT, --alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT - - hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If - they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what - they support: - - 1. they are case insensitive - - 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing - being matched) - - 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) - - 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>) - - 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match - the digit 1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account - aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string - to reference capturing groups in the search regexp. - - 6. they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, - \d), or anything else not mentioned above. - - Some things to note: - - o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must - be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, - these are not required. - - o In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a - literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts - with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$. - - o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special mean- - ing to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. See Spe- - cial characters. - -Environment - LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. - - On unix computers, the default value is: ~/.hledger.journal. - - A more typical value is something like ~/finance/YYYY.journal, where - ~/finance is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is the - current year. Or, ~/finance/current.journal, where current.journal is - a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. - - The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of - your shell's startup files (eg ~/.profile): - - export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` - - On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment - variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, - Emacs started from a dock icon): In ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, add an - entry like: - - { - "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" - } - - For this to take effect you might need to killall Dock, or reboot. - - On Windows computers, the default value is probably C:\Users\YOUR- - NAME\.hledger.journal. You can change this by running a command like - this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Adminis- - trator, and if this persists across a reboot): - - > setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" - - Or, change it in settings: see https://www.java.com/en/down- - load/help/path.html. - - COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the - full terminal width. - - NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use - ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the - --color/--colour option. - -Input - hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default - data file is $HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like - C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal). - - You can override this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable: - - $ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal - $ hledger stats - - or with one or more -f/--file options: - - $ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats - - The file name - means standard input: - - $ cat some.journal | hledger -f- - - Data formats - Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in - any of the supported file formats, which currently are: - - - Reader: Reads: Used for file exten- - sions: - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - journal hledger journal files and some Ledger .journal .j .hledger - journals, for transactions .ledger - time- timeclock files, for precise time log- .timeclock - clock ging - timedot timedot files, for approximate time .timedot - logging - csv comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated .csv .ssv .tsv - values, for data import - - These formats are described in more detail below. - - hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions - shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes - journal format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a - recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show - relevant error messages. - - You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path - with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format: - - $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats - - Or to read stdin (-) as timeclock format: - - $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- - - Multiple files - You can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big - journal. There are some limitations with this: - - o most directives do not affect sibling files - - o balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous - files - - If you need either of those things, you can - - o use a single parent file which includes the others - - o or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal - b.journal | hledger -f- CMD. - - Strict mode - hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most impor- - tant errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files - without a lot of declarations: - - o Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? - - o Are all transactions balanced ? - - o Do all balance assertions pass ? - - With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed: - - o Are all accounts posted to, declared with an account directive ? - (Account error checking) - - o Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ? (Commodity - error checking) - - o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? - - You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones - listed above and some more. - -Commands - hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). - Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. - A few assist with data entry and management. - - Run hledger with no arguments to list the commands available, and - hledger CMD to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or its - standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous - prefix of the name. Eg: hledger bal. - - Add-on commands - Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts - in your PATH - - o whose name starts with hledger- - - o whose name ends with a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe, - .hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh or none - - o and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. - - Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or programs - have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for command- - line options, parsing and reporting. - - Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. - See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. - - Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a double - dash (--) preceding them. Eg you must write: - - $ hledger web -- --serve - - and not: - - $ hledger web --serve - - (because the --serve flag belongs to hledger-web, not hledger). - - The -h/--help and --version flags don't require --. - - If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the add- - on program directly, eg: - - $ hledger-web --serve - -Output - Output destination - hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can - of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: - - $ hledger print > foo.txt - - Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also pro- - vide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same thing without - needing the shell. Eg: - - $ hledger print -o foo.txt - $ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) - - Output format - Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the termi- - nal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: - - - - txt csv html json sql - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - aregister Y Y Y Y - balance Y 1 Y 1 Y 1,2 Y - balancesheet Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - balancesheetequity Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - cashflow Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - incomestatement Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y - print Y Y Y Y - register Y Y Y - - o 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option. - - o 2 balance does not support html output without a report interval or - with --budget. - - The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option: - - $ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout - - or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the - -o/--output-file=FILE.FMT option: - - $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv - - The -O option can be combined with -o to override the file extension, - if needed: - - $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt - - Some notes about the various output formats: - - CSV output - o In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are - disabled automatically. - - HTML output - o HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same - directory. - - JSON output - o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - o Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful repre- - sentation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the JSON, - read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger- - lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. - - o hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 - significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can - arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), - and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities - as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the - number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We - hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find - otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) - - SQL output - o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. - - o SQL output is expected to work with sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL - - o SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will - be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables cre- - ated via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either - clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements) - or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped. - - Commodity styles - When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for - each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. - - If needed, this can be overridden by a -c/--commodity-style option - (except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the print command, - which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the - following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: - - $ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' - - This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple commodi- - ties/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity direc- - tive. - - Colour - In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal - supports it: - - o if the --color/--colour option is given a value of yes or always (or - no or never), colour will (or will not) be used; - - o otherwise, if the NO_COLOR environment variable is set, colour will - not be used; - - o otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) sup- - ports it. - - Box-drawing - In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to - render prettier tables: - - o if the --pretty option is given a value of yes or always (or no or - never), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; - - o otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. - - Debug output - We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and - develop. You can add --debug[=N] to any hledger command line to see - additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) - to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase - until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not - affected by -o/--output-file (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: - 2>&1). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help - reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output - in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: - - hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log - -Limitations - The need to precede add-on command options with -- when invoked from - hledger is awkward. - - When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale - must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, - set LANG to something other than C. - - In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are - not supported. - - On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running - a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. - - In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger - add. - - Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger and - Ledger > Differences > journal format. - - On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than - Ledger. - -Troubleshooting - Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and - remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug - tracker): - - Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found" - stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should - be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, - that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. - - I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file - LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell - variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may - need to use export. Here's an explanation. - - Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete - multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argu- - ment (invalid character)" - Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need - to have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise - they will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii - characters. - - To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which sup- - ports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. - - Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: - - $ file my.journal - my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded - $ echo $LANG - C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 - $ locale -a # which locales are installed ? - C - en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use - POSIX - $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command - - If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred locale isn't - listed by locale -a, you might need to install it. Eg on - Ubuntu/Debian: - - $ apt-get install language-pack-fr - $ locale -a - C - en_US.utf8 - fr_BE.utf8 - fr_CA.utf8 - fr_CH.utf8 - fr_FR.utf8 - fr_LU.utf8 - POSIX - $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print - - Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: - - $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile - $ bash --login - - Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the differ- - ence on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) allow - variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: - - $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf - en_US.UTF-8 - $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print - -PART 2: DATA FORMATS -Journal - hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's - a cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal for- - mat. - - Journal cheatsheet - # Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format - # (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). - # hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: - - ############################################################################### - # 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. - # They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". - - # hash comment line - ; semicolon comment line - comment - These lines - are commented. - end comment - - # Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, - # from ; (semicolon) to end of line. - - ############################################################################### - # 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. - # They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). - - account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. - account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) - alias chkg = assets:checking - commodity $0.00 - decimal-mark . - include /dev/null - payee Whole Foods - P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 - ~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description - expenses:food $400 - expenses:home $1000 - budgeted - - ############################################################################### - # 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, - # usually describing movements of money. - # They begin with a date. - - # DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. - # ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. - # ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. - # ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. - # ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). - - 2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way - assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. - assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. - assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. - liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. - equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. - - 2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes - ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". - ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. - ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: - assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) - expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) - ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" - - Kv - 2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. - ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. - assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 - expenses:clothing GBP 10 - assets:gringotts -10 gold - assets:pouch 10 gold - revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols - assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. - - 2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ - assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost - assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost - assets:checking $-7.00 - - 2022-01-02 assert balances - ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. - assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA - assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold - assets:savings $0 = $1000 - - 1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. - ; Postings are not required. - - 2022.01.01 These date - 2022/1/1 formats are - 12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). - - About journal format - hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal - entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard - accounting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but - that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction - entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between - two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger - and humans. - - hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's - journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal - files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and - ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get- - ting. - - You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use - the add or web or import commands to create and update it. - - Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track - changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons such - as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and - hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, - formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor configura- - tion at hledger.org for the full list. - - Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's - data model). - - A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file comments, - transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction rules - and auto posting rules as directives). - - Comments - Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (#) or a - semicolon (;). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore - regions beginning with a comment line and ending with an end comment - line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: - - o # for top-level notes - - o ; for commenting out things temporarily - - o comment for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's there, or - you might get confused) - - Eg: - - # a comment line - ; another commentline - comment - A multi-line comment block, - continuing until "end comment" directive - or the end of the current file. - end comment - - Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, from - ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting com- - ments, and Account comments below. - - Transactions - Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They - represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities - between two or more named accounts. - - Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a sim- - ple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following - optional fields, separated by spaces: - - o a status character (empty, !, or *) - - o a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) - - o a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) - - o a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of - line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) - - o 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and - the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but - not blank lines or non-indented lines). - - Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: - - 2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - Dates - Simple dates - Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or - YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, with leading zeros optional. The year may be - omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the cur- - rent transaction, the default year set with a Y directive, or the cur- - rent date when the command is run. Some examples: 2010-01-31, - 2010/01/31, 2010.1.31, 1/31. - - (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart - dates documented in the hledger manual.) - - Posting dates - You can give individual postings a different date from their parent - transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) - like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates - precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May - reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for - easy bank reconciliation: - - 2015/5/30 - expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 - assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 - - $ hledger -f t.j register food - 2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 - - $ hledger -f t.j register checking - 2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 - - DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use - the year of the transaction's date. - The date: tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg - a date: tag with no value is not allowed. - - Status - Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a - status mark, which is a single character before the transaction - description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, - indicating one of three statuses: - - - mark status - ------------------ - unmarked - ! pending - * cleared - - When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, - -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and - status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. - - Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state - is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to - unmarked for clarity. - - To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend- - ing, combine -U and -P. - - Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with - real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short- - cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle - transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. - - What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. - Here's one suggestion: - - - status meaning - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review - pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil- - iation) - cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor- - rect - - With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your - bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like - uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your - finances. - - Code - After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally - write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good - place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id - or reference number. - - Description - A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date - and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the - "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you - wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike - comments. - - Payee and note - You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub- - divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the - left (up to the first |) and an additional note field on the right - (after the first |). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more - precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. - - Transaction comments - Text following ;, after a transaction description, and/or on indented - lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They - are reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain - tags, which are not ignored. - - 2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment - ; a second line of transaction comment - expenses 1 - assets - - Postings - A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount - from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or - tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: - - o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space - - o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single - spaces, until end of line or a double space) - - o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount. - - Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are - being removed. - - The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con- - venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to - balance the transaction. - - Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name - and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa- - ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the - amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. - - Account names - Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in - Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such - as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed - from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". - - You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the - traditional accounting categories, which in english are assets, liabil- - ities, equity, revenues, expenses. (You might see these referred to as - A, L, E, R, X for short.) - - For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts - into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account - name parts. For example, from the account names assets:bank:checking - and expenses:food, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: - - assets - assets:bank - assets:bank:checking - expenses - expenses:food - - Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: - - assets - bank - checking - expenses - food - - hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you can - go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account - names relatively simple may be best when starting out. - - Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, num- - bers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an - amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by two or - more spaces (or tabs). - - Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate vir- - tual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to - the account name have no special meaning. - - Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account - aliases. - - Amounts - After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: - between account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.) - - hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international - formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quan- - tity"): - - 1 - - ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below), - to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a separating - space: - - $1 - 4000 AAPL - 3 "green apples" - - Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is - the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side com- - modity symbol: - - -$1 - $-1 - - One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when - parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): - - + $1 - $- 1 - - Scientific E notation is allowed: - - 1E-6 - EUR 1E3 - - Decimal marks, digit group marks - A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma: - - 1.23 - 1,23456780000009 - - In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups - of digits can optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a space, - comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): - - $1,000,000.00 - EUR 2.000.000,00 - INR 9,99,99,999.00 - 1 000 000.9455 - - Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark - is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? - - 1,000 - 1.000 - - If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above - are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. - - To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially - if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators), we - recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark character in each jour- - nal file, using a directive at the top of the file. The decimal-mark - directive is best, otherwise commodity directives will also work. - These are described below. - - Commodity - Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal - number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or - any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. - - If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctu- - ation), you must always write it inside double quotes ("green apples", - "ABC123"). - - If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with - name ""; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". - - Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more - powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of - the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 - TSLA. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in - hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. - - (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these - are the Amount and MixedAmount types.) - - Directives influencing number parsing and display - You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to the journal, to - declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These - are described below, but here's a quick example: - - # the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) - decimal-mark . - - # display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: - commodity $1,000.00 - commodity EUR 1.000,00 - commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 - commodity 1 000 000.9455 - - - Commodity display style - For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display - style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all - amounts displayed by the print command, are displayed with all of their - decimal digits visible.) - - A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. - - First, if a default commodity is declared with D, this commodity and - its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. - - Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in - order of preference: - - o The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol - commodity), if any. - - o The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. - (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored, - currently.) - - o The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00. (Sym- - bol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) - - A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: - - o Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first - amount - - o Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group - sizes), if any - - o Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. - - Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but - occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is - inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a com- - modity directive to fix the display style. - - To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the - style declared by a commodity directive, or (b) the style of the first - posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style - and the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are - showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal - places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: - - # declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their - # input number formats and output display styles: - commodity EUR 1.000, - commodity $1000.00 - commodity 1000.00000000 BTC - commodity 1 000. - - The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command - line option. - - Rounding - Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal - places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by - the commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it - rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal - places is "0"). - - - Costs - After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling - price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either @ UNIT- - PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE after it. This indicates a conversion transac- - tion, where one commodity is exchanged for another. - - (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, - discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded - that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it - "cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase - or a sale.) - - Costs are usually written explicitly with @ or @@, but can also be - inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. Note, - if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the first - posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. - - As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign - currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or - implicitly: - - 1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 - - 2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot - assets:dollars - - 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and - let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. Note the - effect of posting order: the price is added to first posting, making - it EUR100 @@ $135, as in example 2: - - 2009/1/1 - assets:euros EUR100 ; one hundred euros purchased - assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 - - Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the -B/--cost - flag; this is discussed more in the COST REPORTING section. - - Other cost/lot notations - A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a num- - ber of cost/lot-related notations: - - o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST - - o expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger - - o when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at selling - time - - o (@) UNITCOST and (@@) TOTALCOST (virtual cost) - - o like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, don't - use it when inferring market prices". - - Currently, hledger treats the above like @ and @@; the parentheses are - ignored. - - o {=FIXEDUNITCOST} and {{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}} (fixed price) - - o when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't let it - fluctuate in value reports" - - o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} (lot price) - - o can be used identically to @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST, also cre- - ates a lot - - o when selling, combined with @ ..., specifies an investment lot by - its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present - - o and related: [YYYY/MM/DD] (lot date) - - o when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot - - o when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date - - o (SOME TEXT) (lot note) - - o when buying, attaches this note to the lot - - o when selling, selects a lot by its note - - Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after - the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction bal- - ancing.) - - For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: - - o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST - - o expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger - - o when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined with - {...}: documents the cost/selling price (not used for transaction - balancing) - - o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} - - o when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction bal- - ancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis attached - - o when selling (reducing), - - o selects a lot by its cost basis - - o raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be selected - unambiguously (depending on booking method configured) - - o expresses the selling price for transaction balancing - - Currently, hledger accepts the {UNITCOST}/{{TOTALCOST}} notation but - ignores it. - - o variations: {}, {YYYY-MM-DD}, {"LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, "LABEL"}, {UNIT- - COST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"} etc. - - Currently, hledger rejects these. - - Balance assertions - hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. - These look like, for example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's - amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a - and b after each posting: - - 2013/1/1 - a $1 =$1 - b =$-1 - - 2013/1/2 - a $1 =$2 - b $-1 =$-2 - - After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions - and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro- - tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while - cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the - -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or - for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently does not disable - balance assignments, described below). - - Assertions and ordering - hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and - then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif- - ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also, - Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post- - ings to the same account within a transaction.) - - So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently- - dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated - transactions or postings, assertions might break and require updating. - This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the - order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra- - day balances. - - Assertions and multiple included files - Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as if - concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting - order within each file. It means that balance assertions in later - files will see balance from earlier files. - - And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split - across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's balance on - that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file - the last - one in the sequence, probably. - - Assertions and multiple -f files - Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the command line - with multiple -f/--file options, balance assertions will not see bal- - ance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want prob- - lems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. - - If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use - include, or concatenate the files temporarily. - - Assertions and commodities - The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in - fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the - (possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions - work in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. - - To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can - write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. - - You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double - equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other - commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that - their balance is 0). - - 2013/1/1 - a $1 - a 1EUR - b $-1 - c -1EUR - - 2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed - a 0 = $1 - a 0 = 1EUR - b 0 == $-1 - c 0 == -1EUR - - 2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR - a 0 == $1 - - It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that - has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity - into its own subaccount: - - 2013/1/1 - a:usd $1 - a:euro 1EUR - b - - 2013/1/2 - a 0 == 0 - a:usd 0 == $1 - a:euro 0 == 1EUR - - Assertions and prices - Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without - one: - - 2019/1/1 - (a) $1 @ EUR1 = $1 - - We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them, - even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails. - This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used to - generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance assign- - ments do use them (see below). - - Assertions and subaccounts - The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from - subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You can - assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg: - - 2019/1/1 - equity:opening balances - checking:a 5 - checking:b 5 - checking 1 ==* 11 - - Assertions and virtual postings - Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they - are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query. - - Assertions and auto postings - Balance assertions are affected by the --auto flag, which generates - auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings - are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two - balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of - these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: - - o assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with - that file - - o or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto - with that file - - o or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or - avoid auto postings entirely). - - Assertions and precision - Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are - not always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may - limit the display precision, but this will not affect balance asser- - tions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts. - - Posting comments - Text following ;, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented - lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are - reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain - tags, which are not ignored. - - 2012-01-01 - expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 - assets - ; a comment for posting 2 - ; a second comment line for posting 2 - - Tags - Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, - postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. - - They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately followed - by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account directive's - comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that things in com- - ments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are recorded: one on - the checking account, two on the transaction, and one on the expenses - posting: - - account assets:checking ; accounttag: - - 2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: - ; transactiontag-2: - assets:checking $-1 - expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: - - Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. - And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' - accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively - has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the - transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses - posting). - - You can list tag names with hledger tags [NAMEREGEX], or match by tag - name with a tag:NAMEREGEX query. - - Tag values - Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a - comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this - means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the fol- - lowing posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and "" - (empty) respectively: - - expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz - - Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than overrid- - ing: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the new - name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to override - a tag's value or remove a tag.) - - You can list a tag's values with hledger tags TAGNAME --values, or - match by tag value with a tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX query. - - Directives - A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, - that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, - and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, - but there are many differences, and also some differences between - hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: - - o subdirective - Some directives support subdirectives, written - indented below the parent directive. - - o decimal mark - The character to interpret as a decimal mark (period - or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. - - o display style - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: sym- - bol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of deci- - mal places. - - Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you - will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key - directives for particular needs: - - - purpose directives - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - READING DATA: - Declare file's decimal mark to help parse decimal-mark - amounts accurately - Rewrite account names alias - Comment out sections of the data comment - Include extra data files include - GENERATING DATA: - Generate recurring transactions or budget ~ - goals - Generate extra postings on transactions = - CHECKING FOR ERRORS: - Define valid entities to provide more error account, commodity, payee - checking - REPORTING: - Declare accounts' type and display order account - Declare commodity display styles commodity - Declare market prices P - - Directive effects - And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal - entries (transactions) it affects: - - - - - direc- what it does ends - tive at - file - end? - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - account Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; and N - its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. - alias Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of cur- Y - rent file or end aliases. Command line equivalent: --alias - comment Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file or Y - end comment. - commod- Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checking N,Y,N,N - ity all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing - amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of - current file (if there is no decimal-mark directive) 3. and the - display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is also - the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in this - commodity. Takes precedence over D. Subdirectives: format - (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: -c/--com- - modity-style - deci- Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all commodi- Y - mal- ties in following entries until next decimal-mark or end of cur- - mark rent file. Included files can override. Takes precedence over - commodity and D. - include Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they N - were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple - -f/--file - payee Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N - P Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N - reports. - ~ Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N - (tilde) transactions with --forecast and budget goals with balance - --budget. - Other - syntax: - apply Prepends a common parent account to all account names, in fol- Y - account lowing entries until end of current file or end apply account. - D Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N - there is no commodity directive for this commodity: its decimal - mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. - Y Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y - entries until end of current file. - = Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly - (equals) matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and child - files (but not sibling files, see #1212). - Other Other directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but - Ledger ignored. - direc- - tives - - Directives and multiple files - If you use multiple -f/--file options, or the include directive, - hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect - input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which - they occur (and on any included files in that region). - - This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports sta- - ble and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise - you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in - a different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up - your files. - - It can be surprising though; for example, it means that alias direc- - tives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). - - account directive - account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that - amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these dec- - larations can provide several benefits: - - o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer- - ence. - - o In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by - transactions, which helps detect typos. - - o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha- - betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). - - o They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, - hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) - - o They can store additional account information as comments, or as tags - which can be used to filter or pivot reports. - - o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, - equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement. - - They are written as the word account followed by a hledger-style - account name, eg: - - account assets:bank:checking - - Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not - allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts - used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: - - account (assets:bank:checking) - - Account comments - Text following two or more spaces and ; at the end of an account direc- - tive line, and/or following ; on indented lines immediately below it, - form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may con- - tain tags, which are not ignored. - - The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because ; - is allowed in account names. - - account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon - ; next-line comment - ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 - - Account subdirectives - Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently - ignored: - - account assets:bank:checking - format subdirective is ignored - - Account error checking - By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence - when a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means - hledger can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the jour- - nal. Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in bal- - ance reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. - - In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report - an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not been - declared by an account directive. Some notes: - - o The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the correct - account name capitalisation. - - o The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see direc- - tives). This means it affects all of the current file, and any files - it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The position of - account directives within the file does not matter, though it's usual - to put them at the top. - - o Accounts can only be declared in journal files, but will affect - included files of all types. - - o It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" - with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. - - Account display order - The order in which account directives are written influences the order - in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By - default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these - account directives to the journal file: - - account assets - account liabilities - account equity - account revenues - account expenses - - those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: - - $ hledger accounts -1 - assets - liabilities - equity - revenues - expenses - - Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. - - Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group of - sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this directive: - - account other:zoo - - would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not - the position of other among the top-level accounts. This means: - - o you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) - that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their display - order - - o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between - a:b and a:c). - - Account types - hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, - expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and - incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the type: query. - - As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically - if you are using common english-language top-level account names - (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types - explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account directives. - Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The tag's value - should be one of the five main account types: - - o A or Asset (things you own) - - o L or Liability (things you owe) - - o E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & - liabilities) - - o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically - part of Equity) - - o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity) - - or, it can be (these are used less often): - - o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash- - flow report) - - o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST - REPORTING).) - - Here is a typical set of account type declarations: - - account assets ; type: A - account liabilities ; type: L - account equity ; type: E - account revenues ; type: R - account expenses ; type: X - - account assets:bank ; type: C - account assets:cash ; type: C - - account equity:conversion ; type: V - - Here are some tips for working with account types. - - o The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. - These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get going; - if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare your account - types. See also Regular expressions. - - If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: - --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash - ^assets?(:|$) | Asset - ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability - ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion - ^equity(:|$) | Equity - ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue - ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense - - o If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an - account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared - and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. - - o Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See - Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. - - o As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent - account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by the first - of these that exists: - - 1. A type: declaration for this account. - - 2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts above it, preferring - the nearest. - - 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. - - 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring - the nearest parent. - - 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. - - o For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: - - $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] - - alias directive - You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or - parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: - - o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier - data entry and a less verbose journal - - o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts - - o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy - - o combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on - one line - - o customising reports - - Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They - do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger- - web. - - Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use cor- - rectly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; more - on this below. - - See also Rewrite account names. - - Basic aliases - To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file. - This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its - included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces - around the = are optional: - - alias OLD = NEW - - Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This - affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively. - - OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will - replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. Sub- - accounts are also affected. Eg: - - alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking - ; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" - - Regex aliases - There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, - indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the - only place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular - expression.) - - Eg: - - alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT - - or: - - $ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... - - Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by - REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. - - If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg - /\/=:. - - If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced - by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: - - alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 - ; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" - - REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end of - option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. - - Combining aliases - You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives - and/or command line options. - - Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, - then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the - effect of previously applied aliases. - - In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be - applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal - entry, we apply: - - 1. alias directives preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed - first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top) - - 2. --alias options, in the order they appeared on the command line - (left to right). - - In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: - - o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first - - o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on - - o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. - - This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps pro- - vide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde- - pendent of which files are being read and in which order. - - In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to the command line will show - which aliases are being applied when. - - Aliases and multiple files - As explained at Directives and multiple files, alias directives do not - affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, - - hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal - - account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. - Including the aliases doesn't work either: - - include a.aliases - - 2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases - foo 1 - bar - - This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the start - of your top-most file, like this: - - alias foo=Foo - alias bar=Bar - - 2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above - foo 1 - bar - - include c.journal ; also affected - - end aliases directive - You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the jour- - nal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: - - end aliases - - Aliases can generate bad account names - Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, - which could cause confusing reports or invalid print output. For exam- - ple, you could erase all account names: - - 2021-01-01 - a:aa 1 - b - - $ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' - 2021-01-01 - 1 - - The above print output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert an - illegal double space, causing print output that would give a different - journal when reparsed: - - 2021-01-01 - old 1 - other - - $ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print - 2021-01-01 - new USD 1 - other - - Aliases and account types - If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account - types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in - effect. - - However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg renaming - parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could prevent - child accounts from inheriting the account type of their parents. - - Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, renam- - ing it by an alias could prevent or alter that. - - If you are using account aliases and the type: query is not matching - accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts command, - eg something like: - - $ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a - - commodity directive - You can use commodity directives to declare your commodities. In fact - the commodity directive performs several functions at once: - - 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can - optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf Com- - modity error checking) - - 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to - expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international - number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both - 1,000 and 1.000 as 1. (Cf Amounts) - - 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying - output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of dec- - imal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display - style) - - You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives - sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable - parsing and display. - - Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since - for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). - - A commodity directive is just the word commodity followed by a sample - amount, like this: - - ;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT - - commodity $1000.00 - commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment - - It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the format subdirec- - tive, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol appears - twice; it must be the same in both places: - - ;commodity SYMBOL - ; format SAMPLEAMOUNT - - ; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, - ; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, - ; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. - commodity INR - format INR 1,00,00,000.00 - - Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or - punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). - - The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant. - It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma - followed - by 0 or more decimal digits. - - A few more examples: - - # number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: - commodity $1,000.00 - commodity EUR 1.000,00 - commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 - commodity 1 000 000. - - Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with - zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) - - Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display - style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. - - Commodity error checking - In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report - an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared by a - commodity directive. This works similarly to account error checking, - see the notes there for more details. - - Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because cur- - rently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity with - a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts are - always allowed to have no commodity symbol. - - decimal-mark directive - You can use a decimal-mark directive - usually one per file, at the top - of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark when - parsing amounts in this file. It can look like - - decimal-mark . - - or - - decimal-mark , - - This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we - recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg - thousands separators). - - include directive - You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include - directive, like this: - - include FILEPATH - - Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or timedot - files can be included (not CSV files, currently). - - If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the - current file's folder. - - A tilde means home directory, eg: include ~/main.journal. - - The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: include - *.journal. - - There is limited support for recursive wildcards: **/ (the slash is - required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient - since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but - this can be done, eg: include */**/*.journal. - - The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, overrid- - ing the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input files): - include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md. - - P directive - The P directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate - between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports - to convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or - after that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock - exchange, cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. - - The format is: - - P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT - - DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the commodity - being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and quantity) - of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this date. - Examples: - - # one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: - P 2009-01-01 EUR $1.35 - - # and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: - P 2010-01-01 EUR $1.40 - - The -V, -X and --value flags use these market prices to show amount - values in another commodity. See Valuation. - - - payee directive - payee PAYEE NAME - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which may - appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report an - error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been declared. - Eg: - - payee Whole Foods - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - tag directive - tag TAGNAME - - This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names - allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: - - tag item-id - - Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. - - The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is - used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use - of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can - declare and check your tags . - - Periodic transactions - The ~ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives allow - hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in reports, - not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. - - Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, - read this whole section, or at least these tips: - - 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - - read about this below. - - 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with hledger - print --forecast tag:generated or hledger register --forecast - tag:generated. - - 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last non-fore- - casted transaction's date. - - 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. - See below for the exact start/end rules. - - 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs - improvement, but is worth studying. - - 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a - natural boundary of that interval. Eg in weekly from DATE, DATE - must be a monday. ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an - error. - - 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded - to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done to improve - reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. Yes, it's a bit - inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from - 2020/01, which is equivalent to ~ every 10th day of month from - 2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10. - - Periodic rule syntax - A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the - date replaced by a tilde (~) followed by a period expression (mnemonic: - ~ looks like a recurring sine wave.): - - # every first of month - ~ monthly - expenses:rent $2000 - assets:bank:checking - - # every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: - ~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 - expenses:utilities $400 - assets:bank:checking - - The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying multi- - period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies - report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start - dates). - - Periodic rules and relative dates - Partial or relative dates (like 12/31, 25, tomorrow, last week, next - quarter) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the - results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted - relative to, in order of preference: - - 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent Y directive - - 2. or the date specified with --today - - 3. or the date on which you are running the report. - - They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period - dates. - - Two spaces between period expression and description! - If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, - these must be separated by two or more spaces. This helps hledger know - where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden- - tally alter their meaning, as in this example: - - ; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" - ; || - ; vv - ~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review - assets:bank:checking $1500 - income:acme inc - - So, - - o Do write two spaces between your period expression and your transac- - tion description, if any. - - o Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period - expression. - - Other syntax - hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to - make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some - of the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, - but in general, features in this section are considered less important - or even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to - help you decide if you want to use them. - - Auto postings - The = directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary - extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all - transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the --auto flag. - - Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your - financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy - in an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features - like balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. - - An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: - - = QUERY - ACCOUNT AMOUNT - ... - ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] - - except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: = suggests match- - ing), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and each - "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting - amounts can be: - - o a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg $2. This will be used - as-is. - - o a number, eg 2. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post- - ing will be added to this. - - o a numeric multiplier, eg *2 (a star followed by a number N). The - matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied - by N. - - o a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and - symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and - its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. - - Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double - quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second - query term below: - - = expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' - (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 - - Some examples: - - ; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation - = expenses:food - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - - ; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount - = expenses:gifts - assets:checking:gifts *-1 - assets:checking *1 - - 2017/12/1 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - - 2017/12/14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - - $ hledger print --auto - 2017-12-01 - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking - (liabilities:charity) $-1 - - 2017-12-14 - expenses:gifts $20 - assets:checking - assets:checking:gifts -$20 - assets:checking $20 - - Auto postings and multiple files - An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or - in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect - sibling files (when multiple -f/--file are used - see #1212). - - Auto postings and dates - A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking - precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also - be used in the generated posting. - - Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser- - tions - Currently, auto postings are added: - - o after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for - balancedness, - - o but before balance assertions are checked. - - Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and - after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 - for background. - - This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with a - missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to - infer amounts. - - Auto posting tags - Automated postings will have some extra tags: - - o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post- - ing rule, and the query - - o _generated-posting:= QUERY - a hidden tag, which does not appear in - hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated "just - now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal. - - Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules will - have these tags added: - - o modified: - this transaction was modified - - o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac- - tion was modified "just now". - - Balance assignments - Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like - balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the - equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy - the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when - setting opening balances: - - ; starting a new journal, set asset account balances - 2016/1/1 opening balances - assets:checking = $409.32 - assets:savings = $735.24 - assets:cash = $42 - equity:opening balances - - or when adjusting a balance to reality: - - ; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense - 2016/1/15 - assets:cash = $0 - expenses:misc - - The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity - at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the - commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign- - ment). - - Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less explicit; - to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do the cal- - culations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance assign- - ments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make your - financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy - in an audit. - - Balance assignments and prices - A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have - that price attached: - - 2019/1/1 - (a) = $1 @ EUR2 - - $ hledger print --explicit - 2019-01-01 - (a) $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2 - - Bracketed posting dates - For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's brack- - eted date syntax is also supported: [DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2] in - posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any square-bracketed - sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way. With this syn- - tax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2 infers its - year from DATE. - - Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's - date:/date2: tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date syntax. - - D directive - D AMOUNT - - This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any subsequent - commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing the jour- - nal. This effect lasts until the next D directive, or the end of the - journal. - - For compatibility/historical reasons, D also acts like a commodity - directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing and display - style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity symbol, but - a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must include a deci- - mal mark (either period or comma). Eg: - - ; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars - ; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) - D $1,000.00 - - 1/1 - a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 - b - - Interactions with other directives: - - For setting a commodity's display style, a commodity directive has - highest priority, then a D directive. - - For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, decimal-mark - has highest priority, then commodity, then D. - - For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a commodity - directive is required (hledger check commodities ignores D directives). - - Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less - explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is usu- - ally an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to track - multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant with - commodity and decimal-mark. And it works differently from Ledger's D. - - apply account directive - This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended - to all accounts in following entries, until an end apply account direc- - tive or end of current file. Eg: - - apply account home - - 2010/1/1 - food $10 - cash - - end apply account - - is equivalent to: - - 2010/01/01 - home:food $10 - home:cash $-10 - - account directives are also affected, and so is any included content. - - Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not affected. - - Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is - prepended. - - Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less porta- - ble, and less trustworthy in an audit. - - Y directive - Y YEAR - - or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): - - year YEAR apply year YEAR - - The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for subse- - quent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: - - Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 - - 12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 - expenses 1 - assets - - year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 - - 2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected - expenses 1 - assets - - 1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 - expenses 1 - assets - - Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at least) - makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less trust- - worthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their corre- - sponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in - your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's - date. - - Secondary dates - A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals - sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. - When running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but - with the --date2 flag (or --aux-date or --effective), the secondary - (right) date will be used instead. - - The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a - consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = - date the transaction was initiated, if different". - - Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, - and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates - consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which report- - ing mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler - and better. - - Star comments - Lines beginning with * (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This - feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, - allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed - with org mode. - - Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. Decreases - your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode just for - folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; nowadays - you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without losing - ledger mode's features. - - Valuation expressions - Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double - parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. - - Virtual postings - A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a virtual - posting or unbalanced posting, which means it is exempt from the usual - rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. - - This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to - avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special - cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances - without using a balancing equity account: - - 2022-01-01 opening balances - (assets:checking) $1000 - (assets:savings) $2000 - - A posting with brackets around the account name is called a balanced - virtual posting. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must - add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: - - 2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else - assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other - expenses:food $7 ; <- - expenses:food $3 ; <- - [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other - [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- - (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance - - Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed - are called real postings. You can exclude virtual postings from - reports with the -R/--real flag or a real:1 query. - - Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid fig- - uring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable and - less trustworthy in an audit. - - Other Ledger directives - These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This - allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's - reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. - - apply fixed COMM AMT - apply tag TAG - assert EXPR - bucket / A ACCT - capture ACCT REGEX - check EXPR - define VAR=EXPR - end apply fixed - end apply tag - end apply year - end tag - eval / expr EXPR - python - PYTHONCODE - tag NAME - value EXPR - --command-line-flags - - See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed hledger/Ledger - syntax comparison. - - -CSV - hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, - semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting - each record into a transaction. - - (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.) - - For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure they - have a corresponding .csv, .tsv or .ssv file extension or use a hledger - file prefix (see File Extension below). - - Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding rules file. - This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields lay- - out, date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, - and how to categorise transactions based on description or other - attributes. - - By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file with - an extra .rules extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked to - read foo/FILE.csv, hledger looks for foo/FILE.csv.rules. You can spec- - ify a different rules file with the --rules-file option. If no rules - file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which you'll - need to adjust. - - At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, - and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines - there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: - - Date, Description, Id, Amount - 12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 - - # basic.csv.rules - skip 1 - fields date, description, , amount - date-format %d/%m/%Y - - $ hledger print -f basic.csv - 2019-11-12 Foo - expenses:unknown 10.23 - income:unknown -10.23 - - There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, and - more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. - - CSV rules cheatsheet - The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. - (Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; or * are ignored.) - - - separator declare the field separator, instead of rely- - ing on file extension - skip skip one or more header lines at start of file - date-format declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times - timezone declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV date- - times - newest-first improve txn order when: there are multiple - records, newest first, all with the same date - intra-day-reversed improve txn order when: same-day txns are in - opposite order to the overall file - decimal-mark declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, - when ambiguous - fields list name CSV fields for easy reference, and - optionally assign their values to hledger - fields - Field assignment assign a CSV value or interpolated text value - to a hledger field - - if block conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - or skip a record or end (skip rest of file) - if table conditionally assign values to hledger fields, - using compact syntax - balance-type select which type of balance asser- - tions/assignments to generate - include inline another CSV rules file - - Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are - evaluated. - - separator - You can use the separator rule to read other kinds of character-sepa- - rated data. The argument is any single separator character, or the - words tab or space (case insensitive). Eg, for comma-separated values - (CSV): - - separator , - - or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): - - separator ; - - or for tab-separated values (TSV): - - separator TAB - - If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or a csv:, - ssv:, tsv: prefix), the appropriate separator will be inferred automat- - ically, and you won't need this rule. - - skip - skip N - - The word skip followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells - hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input - data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need - to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains - header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not - parsed as CSV. - - skip can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip indi- - vidual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still - required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. - - date-format - date-format DATEFMT - - This is a helper for the date (and date2) fields. If your CSV dates - are not formatted like YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, you'll - need to add a date-format rule describing them with a strptime-style - date parsing pattern - see https://hackage.haskell.org/pack- - age/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. The pattern must - parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: - - # MM/DD/YY - date-format %m/%d/%y - - # D/M/YYYY - # The - makes leading zeros optional. - date-format %-d/%-m/%Y - - # YYYY-Mmm-DD - date-format %Y-%h-%d - - # M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk - # Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. - date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk - - timezone - timezone TIMEZONE - - When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone - other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you - can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps - prevent off-by-one dates. - - When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't - need this rule; instead, use %Z in date-format (or %z, %EZ, %Ez; see - the formatTime link above). - - In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware conversion, - localising the CSV date-times to your current system time zone. If you - prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for reproducibility, you - can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with the TZ environment - variable, eg: - - $ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv - - timezone currently does not understand timezone names, except "UTC", - "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". For - others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. - - newest-first - hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered - chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can - auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV - where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are - oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, - like: - - 2022-10-01, txn 3... - 2022-10-01, txn 2... - 2022-10-01, txn 1... - - you can add the newest-first rule to help hledger generate the transac- - tions in correct order. - - # same-day CSV records are newest first - newest-first - - intra-day-reversed - CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to - the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the - transactions on each date are oldest first: - - 2022-10-02, txn 3... - 2022-10-02, txn 4... - 2022-10-01, txn 1... - 2022-10-01, txn 2... - - In this situation, add the intra-day-reversed rule, and hledger will - compensate, improving the order of transactions. - - # transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order - intra-day-reversed - - decimal-mark - decimal-mark . - - or: - - decimal-mark , - - hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal mark - when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the CSV - contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you - should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid - misparsed numbers. - - fields list - fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... - - A fields list (the word fields followed by comma-separated field names) - is optional, but convenient. It does two things: - - 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if - you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say %SomeField - instead of remembering %13. - - 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described - below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger - field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and - build a transaction. - - Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the - transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields - for later reference; and ignore the others": - - fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield - - In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to the - CSV file's separator. Also: - - o There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). - - o Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field names - are optional. - - o Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen). - - o Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty - name. - - If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for - your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces - replaced by underscores). - - Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning to - a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's "bal- - ance" field balance_ to avoid directly setting hledger's balance field - (and generating a balance assertion). - - Field assignment - HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE - - Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to - hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields - list (see above). - - To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of the - standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, - followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may inter- - polate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV - record (%N), or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSV- - FIELD). - - Some examples: - - # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended - amount %4 USD - - # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags - comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 - - Tips: - - o Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like " 1 " - becomes 1 when interpolated) (#1051). - - o Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate a - hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). - - Field names - Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in - hledger CSV rules files: - - 1. CSV field names (CSVFIELD in these docs): you can optionally name - the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet auto- - matically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing arbi- - trary names in a fields list, eg: - - fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar - - 2. Special hledger field names (HLEDGERFIELD in these docs): you must - set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction from - a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field - assignment, eg: - - date %When - code %Some_Id - description %What - comment %Foo %Bar - amount1 $ %Total - - or directly in a fields list: - - fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar - currency $ - comment %Foo %Bar - - Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what hap- - pens when you assign values to them: - - date field - Assigning to date sets the transaction date. - - date2 field - date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. - - status field - status sets the transaction's status, if any. - - code field - code sets the transaction's code, if any. - - description field - description sets the transaction's description, if any. - - comment field - comment sets the transaction's comment, if any. - - commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. - - You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code. - A comment starting with \n will begin on a new line. - - Comments can contain tags, as usual. - - account field - Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the - Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. - - Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set account1 and - account2. Typically account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is - set once with a top-level assignment, while account2 is set based on - each transaction's description, in conditional rules. - - If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see - below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" - or "income:unknown"). - - amount field - There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different - situations: - - o amountN sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that posting - to be generated. By assigning to amount1, amount2, ... etc. you - can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't have to be - consecutive; in certain situations using a high number might be help- - ful to influence the layout of postings. - - o amountN-in and amountN-out should be used instead, as a pair, when - and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. Eg - when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a single - Amount field. Note: - - o Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the sec- - ond posting" - that's not correct. Think: "amountN-in and amountN- - out together detect the amount for posting N, by inspecting two CSV - fields at once." - - o hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will automati- - cally negate the -out value. - - o It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or zero, - so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case you'll - need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). - - o amount, with no posting number (and similarly, amount-in and amount- - out with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for backwards - compatibility, and because they have special behaviour that is some- - times convenient: - - o They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of post- - ing 2. - - o Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost - price. - - o Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like amount1, or - amount2-in and amount2-out) will take precedence. This allows - incrementally migrating old rules files to the new syntax. - - There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; please - see also "Setting amounts" below. - - currency field - currency sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' - amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency - symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. - - currencyN prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount. - - balance field - balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is - left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. - - balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent - to balance1. - - You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the balance-type - rule (see below). - - See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. - - if block - Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV - data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can cate- - gorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on - their description (for example). There are two ways to write condi- - tional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", described - below. - - An if block is the word if and one or more "matcher" expressions (can - be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or next - line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, - - if MATCHER - RULE - - or - - if - MATCHER - MATCHER - MATCHER - RULE - RULE - - If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be - applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special - rules may also be used within an if block: - - o skip - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction from - it) - - o end - skips the rest of the current CSV file. - - Some examples: - - # if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" - if groceries - account2 expenses:groceries - - # if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown - if - monthly service fee - atm transaction fee - banking thru software - account2 expenses:business:banking - comment XXX deductible ? check it - - # if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file - if ,,,, - end - - Matchers - There are two kinds: - - 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular - expression (REGEX), which hledger will try to match case-insensi- - tively anywhere within the CSV record. - Eg: whole foods - - 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name - (%CSVFIELD REGEX). hledger will try to match these just within the - named CSV field. - Eg: %date 2023 - - The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended regu- - lar expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, - \>), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular expressions" - in the hledger manual (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expres- - sions). - - With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched is - not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be - converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing - whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if - the original record was: - - 2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 - - the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: - - 2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 - - When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: - - o By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) - - o When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (&) it will be AND'ed with - the previous matcher (both of them must match). - - There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. - - if table - "if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many - matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like - this: - - if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... - MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... - - - The first character after if is taken to be the separator for the rest - of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like , or | - that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is unre- - lated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the - matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The - table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line - must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. - - The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher succeeds, - assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding hledger - fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is equivalent to - this sequence of if blocks: - - if MATCHERA - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - if MATCHERB - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - if MATCHERC - HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 - HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 - ... - - Example: - - if,account2,comment - atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it - %description groceries,expenses:groceries, - 2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out - - balance-type - Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple - = type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding - assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, - eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help - with budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the - balance-type rule: - - # balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts - balance-type ==* - - Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: - - = single commodity, exclude subaccounts - =* single commodity, include subaccounts - == multi commodity, exclude subaccounts - ==* multi commodity, include subaccounts - - include - include RULESFILE - - This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. - RULESFILE is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current - file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between - several rules files, eg: - - # someaccount.csv.rules - - ## someaccount-specific rules - fields date,description,amount - account1 assets:someaccount - account2 expenses:misc - - ## common rules - include categorisation.rules - - Working with CSV - Some tips: - - Rapid feedback - It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting - CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: - - $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' - - A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions - of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can - echo a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to - read the output. - - Valid CSV - Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, - and equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or - tab as separators). This means, eg: - - o Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in single - quotes is not allowed. (Eg 'A','B' is rejected.) - - o When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the quotes - are not allowed. (Eg "A", "B" is rejected.) - - o When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double - quotes. (Eg A"A, B is rejected.) - - If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to trans- - form it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more permis- - sive CSV parser like python's csv lib. - - File Extension - To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error - messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), - it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv - filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) - - When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV - reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path - with csv:, ssv: or tsv:: Eg: - - $ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print - - You can also override the default field separator with a separator rule - if needed. - - Reading CSV from standard input - You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, - since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: - - $ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print - - Reading multiple CSV files - If you use multiple -f options to read multiple CSV files at once, - hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV - file. But if you use the --rules-file option, that rules file will be - used for all the CSV files. - - Valid transactions - After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the gen- - erated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them, - applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. Any - errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying the - problem entry. - - There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated them, - will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the CSV - data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance - assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: - - $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print - - Deduplicating, importing - When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank - transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing - some of the same records. - - The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) append - just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, so you - don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which version - of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden .latest.FILE.csv file.) This - is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: - - # download the latest CSV files, then run this command. - # Note, no -f flags needed here. - $ hledger import *.csv [--dry] - - This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable - chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) - - A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and otherwise, - exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data. - See: - - o https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows - - o https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion - - Setting amounts - Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling var- - ious amount-setting situations: - - 1. If the amount is in a single CSV field: - - a. If its sign indicates direction of flow: - Assign it to amountN, to set the Nth posting's amount. N is usu- - ally 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. - - b. If another field indicates direction of flow: - Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate amount - sign. Eg: - - # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": - amount1 -%Amount - if %Type deposit - amount1 %Amount - - 2. If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit): - - a. If both fields are unsigned: - Assign the fields to amountN-in and amountN-out. This sets posting - N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero value. If it's the - -out value, the amount will be negated. - - b. If either field is signed: - Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg below, the - -out value already has a minus sign so we undo hledger's automatic - negating by negating once more (but only if the field is non-empty, - so that we don't leave a minus sign by itself): - - fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out - if %amount1-out [1-9] - amount1-out -%amount1-out - - c. If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be - empty): - The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is non-zero/non- - empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such as 1 and none. For - such cases, use conditional rules to help select the amount. Eg, - to handle the above you could select the value containing non-zero - digits: - - fields date, description, in, out - if %in [1-9] - amount1 %in - if %out [1-9] - amount1 %out - - 3. If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost: - Use the unnumbered amount (or amount-in and amount-out) syntax. - - 4. If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts: - Assign to balanceN, to set a balance assignment on the Nth posting, - causing the posting's amount to be calculated automatically. balance - with no number is equivalent to balance1. In this situation hledger is - more likely to guess the wrong default account name, so you may need to - set that explicitly. - - Amount signs - There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing - and sign-flipping: - - o If an amount value begins with a plus sign: - that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT - - o If an amount value is parenthesised: - it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT - - o If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of parentheses, - or a minus sign and parentheses): - they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT - - o If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parenthe- - ses): - that is removed, making it an empty value. "+" or "-" or "()" becomes - "". - - Setting currency/commodity - If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount - field(s): - - 2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 - - you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will - be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: - - fields date,description,amount - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown $123.00 - income:unknown $-123.00 - - If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: - - 2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 - - You can assign that to the currency pseudo-field, which has the special - effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction (on the - left, with no separating space): - - fields date,description,currency,amount - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown USD123.00 - income:unknown USD-123.00 - - Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, - with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by - a space: - - fields date,description,cur,amt - amount %amt %cur - - 2020-01-01 foo - expenses:unknown 123.00 USD - income:unknown -123.00 USD - - Note we used a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that - would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. - - Amount decimal places - Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like - amount1 influence commodity display styles, such as the number of deci- - mal places displayed in reports. - - The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display - style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). - - Referencing other fields - In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger - fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger - field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the - hledger field: - - # Name the third CSV field "amount1" - fields date,description,amount1 - - # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD - amount1 %amount1 USD - - # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) - comment %amount1 - - Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a lit- - eral "amount1": - - fields date,description,csvamount - amount1 %csvamount USD - # Can't interpolate amount1 here - comment %amount1 - - When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, - only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or - C if "something" is matched, but never A: - - comment A - comment B - if something - comment C - - How CSV rules are evaluated - Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need - to). First, - - o include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth first. - (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for further - includes, recursively, before proceeding.) - - Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is - repeated, the last one wins: - - o skip (at top level) - - o date-format - - o newest-first - - o fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments - to hledger fields - - Then for each CSV record in turn: - - o test all if blocks. If any of them contain a end rule, skip all - remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule, - skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple matched skip - rules, the first one wins. - - o collect all field assignments at top level and in matched if blocks. - When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only the last - one. - - o compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was - assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a - default - - o generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. - - This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger can - use to parse input files. When all files have been read successfully, - the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger command the - user specified. - - - Well factored rules - Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules - files: - - o Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a com- - mon.rules, and adding include common.rules to each CSV's rules file. - - o Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the frequently - used parts. - - CSV rules examples - Bank of Ireland - Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance - field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not neces- - sary but provides extra error checking: - - Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance - 07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 - 07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 - - # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules - - # skip the header line - skip - - # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields - fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance - - # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" - # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: - # - # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, - # by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience - # - # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, - # eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day - - # date is in UK/Ireland format - date-format %d/%m/%Y - - # set the currency - currency EUR - - # set the base account for all txns - account1 assets:bank:boi:checking - - $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print - 2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 - income:unknown EUR-10.0 - - 2012-12-07 PAYMENT - assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 - expenses:unknown EUR5.0 - - The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're read- - ing directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are - imported into a journal file. - - Coinbase - A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is - recorded using cost notation. The legacy amount field name conve- - niently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. - - # Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes - # 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" - - # coinbase.csv.rules - skip 1 - fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes - date %Timestamp - date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z - description %Notes - account1 assets:coinbase:cc - amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency - - $ hledger print -f coinbase.csv - 2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account - assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP - income:unknown -74.000000 GBP - - Amazon - Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to gener- - ate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably get - this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) - - "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" - "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" - - # amazon-orders.csv.rules - - # skip one header line - skip 1 - - # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. - # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. - fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code - - # how to parse the date - date-format %b %-d, %Y - - # combine two fields to make the description - description %toorfrom %name - - # save the status as a tag - comment status:%amzstatus - - # set the base account for all transactions - account1 assets:amazon - # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). - # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember - - # set a generic account2 - account2 expenses:misc - amount2 %amzamount - # and maybe refine it further: - #include categorisation.rules - - # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. - if %fees [1-9] - account3 expenses:fees - amount3 %fees - - $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print - 2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $20.00 - - 2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed - assets:amazon - expenses:misc $25.00 - expenses:fees $1.00 - - Paypal - Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some - Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: - - "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" - "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" - "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" - "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" - "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" - "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" - "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" - - # paypal-custom.csv.rules - - # Tips: - # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download - # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" - # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: - # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" - # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": - # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" - - fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note - - skip 1 - - date-format %-m/%-d/%Y - - # ignore some paypal events - if - In Progress - Temporary Hold - Update to - skip - - # add more fields to the description - description %description_ %itemtitle - - # save some other fields as tags - comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ - - # convert to short currency symbols - if %currency USD - currency $ - if %currency EUR - currency E - if %currency GBP - currency P - - # generate postings - - # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account - # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) - account1 assets:online:paypal - amount1 %netamount - - # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party - # (account2 is set below) - amount2 -%grossamount - - # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. - if %feeamount [1-9] - account3 expenses:banking:paypal - amount3 -%feeamount - comment3 business: - - # choose an account for the second posting - - # override the default account names: - # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) - if %grossamount ^[^-] - account2 income:unknown - # if negative, it's an expense (a credit) - if %grossamount ^- - account2 expenses:unknown - - # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks - include common.rules - - # apply some overrides specific to this csv - - # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, - # which can be disregarded in this case. - if - Bank Account - Bank Deposit to PP Account - description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle - account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking - account1 assets:online:paypal - - # Currency conversions - if Currency Conversion - account2 equity:currency conversion - - # common.rules - - if - darcs - noble benefactor - account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub - comment2 business: - - if - Calm Radio - account2 expenses:online:apps - - if - electronic frontier foundation - Patreon - wikimedia - Advent of Code - account2 expenses:dues - - if Google - account2 expenses:online:apps - description google | music - - $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print - 2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 - expenses:online:apps $6.99 - - 2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 - - 2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 - expenses:dues $7.00 - - 2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 - - 2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 - expenses:dues $2.00 - expenses:banking:paypal ; business: - - 2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending - assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 - assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 - - 2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed - assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 - revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: - expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: - -Timeclock - The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. - - hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, these - are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock- - out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. The - time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are optional. - The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored (currently - the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines beginning with - # or ; or *, and blank lines, are ignored. - - i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces - o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 - i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account - o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 - - hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting - some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than - one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For - the above time log, hledger print generates these journal entries: - - $ hledger -f t.timeclock print - 2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces - (some:account name) 0.33h - - 2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 - (another account) 1.64h - - 2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 - (another account) 2.01h - - Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: - - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 - $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week - - To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: - - o use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended timeclock- - x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el - - o at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell alias ti="echo - i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o - `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG" - - o or use the old ti and to scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. These - rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 - executable renamed. - - -Timedot - timedot format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. Com- - pared to timeclock format, it is - - o convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging - - o readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. - - A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look like - this: - - 2021-08-04 - hom:errands .... .... - fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs - per:admin:finance - - hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each - dot representing a quarter-hour spent: - - $ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader - 2021-08-04 * - (hom:errands) 2.00 - - 2021-08-04 * - (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 - - 2021-08-04 * - (per:admin:finance) 0 - - A day entry begins with a date line: - - o a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). - - Optionally this can be followed on the same line by - - o a common transaction description for this day - - o a common transaction comment for this day, after a semicolon (;). - - After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time transac- - tion lines, consisting of: - - o an account name - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style account - name. - - o two or more spaces - a field separator, required if there is an - amount (as in journal format). - - o a timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number rep- - resenting hours. - - o an optional comment beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. - - In more detail, timedot amounts can be: - - o dots: zero or more period characters, each representing one quarter- - hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. Eg: .... .. - - o a number, representing hours. Eg: 1.5 - - o a number immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo, or - y, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years. - Eg 1.5h or 90m. The following equivalencies are assumed: - 60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo, 365d = 1y. (This - unit will not be visible in the generated transaction amount, which is - always in hours.) - - There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in - the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: - - o Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored. - - o Before the first date line, lines beginning with * are ignored. From - the first date line onward, a sequence of *'s followed by a space at - beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs Org mode) - is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an Org head- - line, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org headlines. - - o Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as trans- - actions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by - default; add -E to see them.) - - More examples: - - # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. - 2016/2/1 - inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... - fos:haskell .... .. - biz:research . - - 2016/2/2 - inc:client1 .... .... - biz:research . - - 2016/2/3 - inc:client1 4 - fos:hledger 3 - biz:research 1 - - * Time log - ** 2020-01-01 - *** adm:time . - *** adm:finance . - - * 2020 Work Diary - ** Q1 - *** 2020-02-29 - **** DONE - 0700 yoga - **** UNPLANNED - **** BEGUN - hom:chores - cleaning ... - water plants - outdoor - one full watering can - indoor - light watering - **** TODO - adm:planning: trip - *** LATER - - Reporting: - - $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 - 2016-02-02 * - (inc:client1) 2.00 - - 2016-02-02 * - (biz:research) 0.25 - - $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree - Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: - - || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d - ============++======================================== - biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 - fos || 1.50 0 3.00 - haskell || 1.50 0 0 - hledger || 0 0 3.00 - inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 - ------------++---------------------------------------- - || 7.75 2.25 8.00 - - Using period instead of colon as account name separator: - - 2016/2/4 - fos.hledger.timedot 4 - fos.ledger .. - - $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree - 4.50 fos - 4.00 hledger:timedot - 0.50 ledger - -------------------- - 4.50 - - A sample.timedot file. - -PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS -Time periods - Report start & end date - By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time repre- - sented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest - transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest - transaction, posting, or market price date. - - Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current - month. You can specify a start and/or end date using -b/--begin, - -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query (described below). All of these - accept the smart date syntax (below). - - Some notes: - - o End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date - after the last day you want to see in the report. - - o As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with - options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. - - o The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the - start/end dates from options and that from date: queries. That is, - date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030' yields January 2019, the - smallest common time span. - - o In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall - on interval boundaries (see below). - - Examples: - - - -b 2016/3/17 begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 - -e 12/1 end at the start of december 1st of the current year - (11/30 will be the last date included) - -b thismonth all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month - -p thismonth all transactions in the current month - date:2016/3/17.. the above written as queries instead (.. can also be - replaced with -) - date:..12/1 - date:thismonth.. - date:thismonth - - Smart dates - hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added conve- - nience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be - written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted - (missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: - - - 2004/10/1, 2004-01-01, exact date, several separators allowed. Year - 2004.9.1 is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 - 2004 start of year - 2004/10 start of month - 10/1 month and day in current year - 21 day in current month - october, oct start of month in current year - yesterday, today, tomor- -1, 0, 1 days from today - row - last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period - day/week/month/quar- - ter/year - in n n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years - n n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years ahead - n -n periods from the current period - days/weeks/months/quar- - ters/years ago - 20181201 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day - 201812 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month - - Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising - results: - - - 201813 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 6-digit year - 20181301 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of - 8-digit year - 20181232 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error - 201801012 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error - - "Today's date" can be overridden with the --today option, in case it's - needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for periodic - transaction rules, which are not affected by --today.) - - Report intervals - A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, bal- - ance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a sepa- - rate row or column. - - The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line - flags: - - o -D/--daily - - o -W/--weekly - - o -M/--monthly - - o -Q/--quarterly - - o -Y/--yearly - - More complex intervals can be specified using -p/--period, described - below. - - Date adjustment - With a report interval (other than daily), report start / end dates - which have not been specified explicitly and in full (eg not -b - 2023-01-01, but -b 2023-01 or -b 2023 or unspecified) are considered - flexible: - - o A flexible start date will be automatically adjusted earlier if - needed to fall on a natural interval boundary. - - o Similarly, a flexible end date will be adjusted later if needed to - make the last period a whole interval (the same length as the oth- - ers). - - This is convenient for producing clean periodic reports (this is tradi- - tional hledger behaviour). By contrast, fully-specified exact dates - will not be adjusted (this is new in hledger 1.29). - - An example: with a journal whose first date is 2023-01-10 and last date - is 2023-03-20: - - o hledger bal -M -b 2023/1/15 -e 2023/3/10 - The report periods will begin on the 15th day of each month, starting - from 2023-01-15, and the last period's last day will be 2023-03-09. - (Exact start and end dates, neither is adjusted.) - - o hledger bal -M -b 2023-01 -e 2023-04 or hledger bal -M - The report periods will begin on the 1st of each month, starting from - 2023-01-01, and the last period's last day will be 2023-03-31. (Flexi- - ble start and end dates, both are adjusted.) - - Period expressions - The -p/--period option specifies a period expression, which is a com- - pact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report interval. - - Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the - first quarter of 2009): - - - -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" - - Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; - these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The spa- - ces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. So - the following are equivalent to the above: - - - -p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1" - -p2009/1/1to2009/4/1 - -p2009/1/1..2009/4/1 - - Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also - equivalent to the above: - - - -p "1/1 4/1" - -p "jan-apr" - -p "this year to 4/1" - - If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the - earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: - - - - - -p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january - 1, 2009 - -p "since 2009/1" the same, since is a syn- - onym - -p "from 2009" the same - -p "to 2009" everything before january - 1, 2009 - - You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full date: - - - -p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1" - -p "2009/1" the month of january 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/2/1" - -p "2009/1/1" the first day of 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/1/2" - - or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): - - - -p "2009Q1" first quarter of 2009, equivalent to "2009/1/1 to - 2009/4/1" - -p "q4" fourth quarter of the current year - - Period expressions with a report interval - A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated - from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word in: - - - -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" - -p "monthly in 2008" - -p "quarterly" - - More complex report intervals - Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, - such as: - - o biweekly (every two weeks) - - o fortnightly - - o bimonthly (every two months) - - o every day|week|month|quarter|year - - o every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years - - Weekly on a custom day: - - o every Nth day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the - number) - - o every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english weekday name, case - insensitive) - - Monthly on a custom day: - - o every Nth day [of month] - - o every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month] - - Yearly on a custom day: - - o every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number) - - o every MONTHNAME DDth [of year] (full or three-letter english month - name, case insensitive, and day of month number) - - o every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above) - - Examples: - - - -p "bimonthly from 2008" - - -p "every 2 weeks" - -p "every 5 months from - 2009/03" - -p "every 2nd day of week" periods will go from Tue to Tue - -p "every Tue" same - -p "every 15th day" period boundaries will be on 15th of each - month - -p "every 2nd Monday" period boundaries will be on second Monday - of each month - -p "every 11/05" yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of - November - -p "every 5th November" same - -p "every Nov 5th" same - - Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is an - end date, exclusive as always): - - $ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" - - Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following - tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): - - $ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" - - Multiple weekday intervals - This special form is also supported: - - o every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,... (full or three-letter english week- - day names, case insensitive) - - Also, weekday and weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri and - sat,sun. - - This is mainly intended for use with --forecast, to generate periodic - transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less useful with - -p, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal length, which - is unusual. (Related: #1632) - - Examples: - - - -p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be Mon- - mon,wed,fri" Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun - -p "every weekday" dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will - be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun - -p "every weekend- dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri - day" - -Depth - With the --depth NUM option (short form: -NUM), reports will show - accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use - this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same - effect as a depth: query argument: depth:2, --depth=2 or -2 are equiva- - lent. - -Queries - One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise - subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query argu- - ments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: - - o Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often - account name substrings: - - utilities food:groceries - - o Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in - quotes: - - "personal care" - - o Regular expressions are also supported: - - "^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)" - - o Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: - - date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status: - - o Add a not: prefix to negate a term: - - not:cur:USD - - Query types - Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be - prefixed with not: to convert them into a negative match. - - acct:REGEX, REGEX - Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular expres- - sion. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and reg- - ular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just - write an account name substring, like expenses or food. - - amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N - Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or - greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested - and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded - by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. Oth- - erwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. - - code:REGEX - Match by transaction code (eg check number). - - cur:REGEX - Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose cur- - rency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial - match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match special characters which are - regex-significant, you need to escape them with \. And for characters - which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of - escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: - hledger print cur:\\$. - - desc:REGEX - Match transaction descriptions. - - date:PERIODEXPR - Match dates (or with the --date2 flag, secondary dates) within the - specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report - interval. Examples: - date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter. - - date2:PERIODEXPR - Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the - --date2 flag). - - depth:N - Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this - depth. - - note:REGEX - Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the - whole description if there's no |). - - payee:REGEX - Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left - of |, or the whole description if there's no |). - - real:, real:0 - Match real or virtual postings respectively. - - status:, status:!, status:* - Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. - - type:TYPECODES - Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). TYPE- - CODES is one or more of the single-letter account type codes ALERXCV, - case insensitive. Note type:A and type:E will also match their respec- - tive subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion). Certain kinds of account - alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and - account types. - - tag:REGEX[=REGEX] - Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by - value, use tag:.=REGEX.) - - When querying by tag, note that: - - o Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts - - o Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction - - o Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. - - (inacct:ACCTNAME - A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells - hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) - - Combining query terms - When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which - match: - - o any of the description terms AND - - o any of the account terms AND - - o any of the status terms AND - - o all the other terms. - - The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: - - o match any of the description terms AND - - o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND - - o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND - - o match all the other terms. - - Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not support - full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND or OR in - your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but here - are some tricks that can help: - - 1. Use a doubled not: prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses paid - with cash: - - $ hledger print food not:not:cash - - 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with print, piping the result into a - second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): - - $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food - - Queries and command options - Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2 is - equivalent to --depth 2, date:2020 is equivalent to -p 2020, etc. When - you mix command options and query arguments, generally the resulting - query is their intersection. - - Queries and valuation - When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value - reports, cur: and amt: match the old commodity symbol and the old - amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's - reversed, see #1625). - - Querying with account aliases - When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct: - will match either the old or the new account name. - - Querying with cost or value - When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value - reports, note that cur: matches the new commodity symbol, and not the - old one, and amt: matches the new quantity, and not the old one. Note: - this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see the - discussion at #1625. - -Pivoting - Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The - --pivot FIELD option substitutes some other transaction field for - account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's - value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields status, - code, description, payee, note, or a tag name. When pivoting on a tag - and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first value is - displayed. Values containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed - hierarchically, like account names. - - Some examples: - - 2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment - assets:bank account 2 EUR - income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe - - Normal balance report showing account names: - - $ hledger balance - 2 EUR assets:bank account - -2 EUR income:dues - -------------------- - 0 - - Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: - - $ hledger balance --pivot member - 2 EUR - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - 0 - - One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): - - $ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - -2 EUR - - Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account - name"): - - $ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. - -2 EUR John Doe - -------------------- - -2 EUR - -Generating data - Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report - time) are built in to hledger's journal format: - - o Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain transac- - tions. They are activated by the --auto flag. - - o Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, usu- - ally dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. - They are activated by the --forecast or balance --budget options, - described next. - -Forecasting - The --forecast flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the - journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usu- - ally recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. - hledger print --forecast is a good way to see them. - - This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps - experimenting with different scenarios. - - It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe - recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of print - --forecast into the journal. - - The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like generated- - transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR, indicating which periodic rule generated - them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named _generated-transac- - tion:, which you can use to reliably match transactions generated "just - now" (rather than printed in the past). - - The forecast transactions are generated within a forecast period, which - is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the bounds - for generated transactions, report period controls which transactions - are reported.) The forecast period begins on: - - o the start date provided within --forecast's argument, if any - - o otherwise, the later of - - o the report start date, if specified (with -b/-p/date:) - - o the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, if - any - - o otherwise today. - - It ends on: - - o the end date provided within --forecast's argument, if any - - o otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with -e/-p/date:) - - o otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. - - Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic - transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start - until after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, - but you can get around it in two ways: - - o If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them - periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ~ YYYY-MM-DD) - rather than ordinary transactions. That way they won't suppress - other periodic transactions. - - o Or give --forecast a period expression argument. A forecast period - specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and need not be - in the future. Some things to note: - - o You must use = between flag and argument; a space won't work. - - o The period expression can specify the forecast period's start date, - end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. - - o The period expression should not specify a report interval. (Each - periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) - - Some examples: --forecast=202001-202004, --forecast=jan-, --fore- - cast=2021. - -Budgeting - With the balance command's --budget report, each periodic transaction - rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals - and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc - below. - - See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. - -Cost reporting - This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions - where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of cur- - rency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: - - o Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. - Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or - cryptocurrency. - - o Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more conver- - sions. - - o Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, ie - the exchange rate. - - o Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. And - more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the "sec- - ondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a purchase - or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. Also, the - "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. - - -B: Convert to cost - As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can - also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding @ UNIT- - PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE. - - Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding the - -B/--cost flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). Eg: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - - $ hledger bal -N - $-135 assets:dollars - EUR100 assets:euros - $ hledger bal -N -B - $-135 assets:dollars - $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost - - Notes: - - -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the - inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if - example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, - -B shows something different: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold - assets:euros EUR100 ; for 100 euros - - $ hledger bal -N -B - EUR-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price - EUR100 assets:euros - - The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does - not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting equa- - tion and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. - - Equity conversion postings - By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a differ- - ent notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance conversion - transactions. In this style, the above entry might be written: - - 2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost - reporting more difficult for PTA tools. - - Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to - the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. - - You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at - the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But - be sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a - not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. - - Inferring equity postings from cost - With --infer-equity, hledger detects transactions written with PTA cost - notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars -$135 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 - - $ hledger print --infer-equity - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 - equity:conversion:$-EUR:EUR EUR-100 ; generated-posting: - equity:conversion:$-EUR:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: - - The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion account - type declaration. - - --infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded - using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and bal- - ance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal - entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. - - Inferring cost from equity postings - The reverse operation is possible using --infer-costs, which detects - transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost - notation to them: - - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - $ hledger print --infer-costs - 2022-01-01 - assets:dollars $-135 @@ EUR100 - equity:conversion $135 - equity:conversion EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - --infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/--cost, allowing cost - reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity post- - ings: - - $ hledger print --infer-costs -B - 2009-01-01 - assets:dollars EUR-100 - assets:euros EUR100 - - Notes: - - For --infer-costs to work, an exchange must consist of four postings: - - 1. two non-equity postings - - 2. two equity postings, next to one another - - 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type V/Conversion - (or if they are not declared, they must be named equity:conversion, - equity:trade, equity:trading or subaccounts of these) - - 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity post- - ings' amounts. - - Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. - - When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added - to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in - the commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. - If you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can - use explicit cost notation instead. - - --infer-equity and --infer-costs can be used together, if you have a - mixture of both notations in your journal. - - When to infer cost/equity - Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled - by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two - suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: - - 1. When you use -B, always use --infer-costs as well. Eg: hledger bal - -B --infer-costs - - 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: alias hl="hledger - --infer-equity --infer-costs" - - How to record conversions - Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in - hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. - - Conversion with implicit cost - Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the - outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset - account: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - assets:cash 120 USD - - hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the - conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred - rate by using hledger print -x. - - Pro: - - o Concise, easy - - Con: - - o Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not - be detected - - o Conversion rate is not clear - - o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity - flag - - You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped com- - modity symbol, by using hledger check commodities. - - You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using hledger check - balancednoautoconversion, or -s/--strict. - - Conversion with explicit cost - You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error - otherwise. - - Pro: - - o Still concise - - o Makes the conversion rate clear - - o Provides more error checking - - Con: - - o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity - flag - - Conversion with equity postings - In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not bal- - anced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD - appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents - reports like balancesheetequity from showing a zero total. - - The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for - each commodity, using an equity account: - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - o Preserves the accounting equation - - o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - - o Standard, works in any double entry accounting system - - Con: - - o More verbose - - o Conversion rate is not obvious - - o Cost reporting requires adding the --infer-costs flag - - Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost - Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. - - 2021-01-01 - assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD - equity:conversion 100 EUR - equity:conversion -120 USD - assets:cash 120 USD - - Pro: - - o Preserves the accounting equation - - o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place - - o Makes the conversion rate clear - - o Provides more error checking - - Con: - - o Most verbose - - o Not compatible with ledger - - Cost tips - o Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it - makes that clear and helps detect errors. - - o Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping - and preserves the accounting equation. - - o Combining these is possible. - - o When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use -B - (short form of --cost). - - o If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add --infer- - costs also. - - o If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want to - see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, use - --infer-equity. - - o Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). - -Valuation - Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can - convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in - the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a - certain date). This is controlled by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] - option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler -V - and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need: - - -V: Value - The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default - valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation - date(s), if any. More on these in a minute. - - -X: Value in specified commodity - The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which cur- - rency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to - that. - - Valuation date - Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports - have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market - prices will be used. - - For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, - that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date - is the journal's end date. - - For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day - of the period, by default. - - Finding market price - To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, - hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, - in this order of preference : - - 1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market - price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P direc- - tive, or (with the --infer-market-prices flag) inferred from costs. - - 2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market - price from B to A. - - 3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by com- - bining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices, - leading from A to B. - - 4. Any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices, including - both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to - B. - - There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger - reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all - possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in - --debug=2 output). That limit is currently 1000. - - Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not con- - verted. - - --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions - Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, - P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a - chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market - value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as - Ledger does) ? Adding the --infer-market-prices flag to -V, -X or - --value enables this. - - So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices will get market - prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on - the same day, the P directive takes precedence. - - There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confus- - ing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to you, - read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or - --debug=2 to troubleshoot. - - --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from: - - o multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@) - - o multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodi- - ties, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters. - hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.) - - o multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is inferred - with --infer-costs. - - There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is - not specified, prices inferred with --infer-market-prices do not help - select a default valuation commodity, as P prices would. So conversion - might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected (--debug=2 - will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation commmodity, eg: - - o -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices - - o --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-mar- - ket-prices - - Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here - is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should - work differently, see #1870.) - - 2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @ A 1 - - 2022-01-01 Positive Total prices - a A 1 - b B -1 @@ A 1 - - - 2022-01-02 Negative unit prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @ A -1 - - 2022-01-02 Negative total prices - a A 1 - b B 1 @@ A -1 - - - 2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @ A -1 - - 2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices - a A -1 - b B -1 @@ A -1 - - All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each day, - the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the market - prices inferred for B: - - $ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices - P 2022-01-01 B A 1 - P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 - P 2022-01-02 B A -1 - P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 - P 2022-01-03 B A -1 - P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 - - Valuation commodity - When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM): - hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a suit- - able market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). - - When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value - TYPE): - For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as - follows, in this order of preference: - - 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on - or before valuation date. - - 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on - any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred - prices before the valuation date.) - - 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the - --infer-market-prices flag is used: the price commodity from the - latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date. - - This means: - - o If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will - convert, and to what. - - o If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices flag, - costs determine it. - - Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not con- - verted. - - Simple valuation examples - Here are some quick examples of -V: - - ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 - P 2016/11/01 EUR $1.10 - - ; purchase some euros on nov 3 - 2016/11/3 - assets:euros EUR100 - assets:checking - - ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 - P 2016/12/21 EUR $1.03 - - How many euros do I have ? - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros - EUR100 assets:euros - - What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 - $110.00 assets:euros - - What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date specified, - defaults to today) - - $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V - $103.00 assets:euros - - --value: Flexible valuation - -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option: - - --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. - COMM is an optional commodity symbol. - Shows amounts converted to: - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices - - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date - - The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: - - --value=then - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity, using market prices on each posting's date. - - --value=end - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity, using market prices on the last day of the report period - (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod - reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod. - - --value=now - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity using current market prices (as of when report is gener- - ated). - - --value=YYYY-MM-DD - Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- - ity using market prices on this date. - - To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: - a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: --value=now,EUR. - hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing - market prices as described above. - - More valuation examples - Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with - print: - - P 2000-01-01 A 1 B - P 2000-02-01 A 2 B - P 2000-03-01 A 3 B - P 2000-04-01 A 4 B - - 2000-01-01 - (a) 1 A @ 5 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 1 A @ 6 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 1 A @ 7 B - - Show the cost of each posting: - - $ hledger -f- print --cost - 2000-01-01 - (a) 5 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 6 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 7 B - - Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 - 2000-01-01 - (a) 2 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 2 B - - With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last - day of the journal (2000-03-01): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=end - 2000-01-01 - (a) 3 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 3 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 3 B - - Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today): - - $ hledger -f- print --value=now - 2000-01-01 - (a) 4 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 4 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 4 B - - Show the value on 2000/01/15: - - $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 - 2000-01-01 - (a) 1 B - - 2000-02-01 - (a) 1 B - - 2000-03-01 - (a) 1 B - - You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when - reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: - - P 2000-01-01 A 2B - - 2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - - $ hledger print -x -X A - 2000-01-01 - a 0 - b 0 - - Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive specify- - ing a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no - decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the com- - modity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a com- - modity directive sets a more useful display style for A: - - P 2000-01-01 A 2B - commodity 0.00A - - 2000-01-01 - a 1B - b - - $ hledger print -X A - 2000-01-01 - a 0.50A - b -0.50A - - Interaction of valuation and queries - When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, - the following happens. - - 1. The query is separated into two parts: - - 1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:). - - 2. all other parts. - - 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based on - pre-valued amounts. - - 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. - - 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on - post-valued amounts. - - See: 1625 - - Effect of valuation on reports - Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part - of hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to - scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find - problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. - Related: #329, #1083. - - - Report -B, --cost -V, -X --value=then --value=end --value=DATE, - type --value=now - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - print - posting cost value at value at posting value at value at - amounts report end date report or DATE/today - or today journal end - balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged - asser- - tions/assign- - ments - - register - starting bal- cost value at valued at day value at value at - ance (-H) report or each historical report or DATE/today - journal end posting was made journal end - starting bal- cost value at day valued at day value at day value at - ance (-H) before each historical before DATE/today - with report report or posting was made report or - interval journal journal - start start - posting cost value at value at posting value at value at - amounts report or date report or DATE/today - journal end journal end - summary post- summarised value at sum of postings value at value at - ing amounts cost period ends in interval, val- period ends DATE/today - with report ued at interval - interval start - running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average - total/average of displayed of displayed displayed values of displayed of displayed - values values values values - - balance (bs, - bse, cf, is) - balance sums of value at value at posting value at value at - changes costs report end date report or DATE/today of - or today of journal end sums of post- - sums of of sums of ings - postings postings - budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance - amounts changes changes changes ances changes - (--budget) - grand total sum of dis- sum of dis- sum of displayed sum of dis- sum of dis- - played val- played val- valued played val- played values - ues ues ues - - balance (bs, - bse, cf, is) - with report - interval - starting bal- sums of value at sums of values of value at sums of post- - ances (-H) costs of report start postings before report start ings before - postings of sums of report start at of sums of report start - before all postings respective post- all postings - report start before ing dates before - report start report start - balance sums of same as sums of values of balance value at - changes (bal, costs of --value=end postings in change in DATE/today of - is, bs postings in period at respec- each period, sums of post- - --change, cf period tive posting valued at ings - --change) dates period ends - - - - - end balances sums of same as sums of values of period end value at - (bal -H, is costs of --value=end postings from balances, DATE/today of - --H, bs, cf) postings before period valued at sums of post- - from before start to period period ends ings - report start end at respective - to period posting dates - end - budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance - amounts changes/end changes/end changes/end bal- ances changes/end - (--budget) balances balances ances balances - row totals, sums, aver- sums, aver- sums, averages of sums, aver- sums, aver- - row averages ages of dis- ages of dis- displayed values ages of dis- ages of dis- - (-T, -A) played val- played val- played val- played values - ues ues ues - column totals sums of dis- sums of dis- sums of displayed sums of dis- sums of dis- - played val- played val- values played val- played values - ues ues ues - grand total, sum, average sum, average sum, average of sum, average sum, average - grand average of column of column column totals of column of column - totals totals totals totals - - - --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero - starting balance. - - Glossary: - - cost calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). - - value market value using available market price declarations, or the - unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. - - report start - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise today. - - report or journal start - the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or - date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. - - report end - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or - date:, otherwise today. - - report or journal end - the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or - date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, - otherwise today. - - report interval - a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the - report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperi- - ods). - -PART 4: COMMANDS - Commands overview - Here are the built-in commands: - - DATA ENTRY - These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your jour- - nal file. - - o add - add transactions using terminal prompts - - o import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files - - DATA CREATION - o close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions - - o rewrite - generate auto postings, like print --auto - - DATA MANAGEMENT - o check - check for various kinds of error in the data - - o diff - compare account transactions in two journal files - - REPORTS, FINANCIAL - o aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account - - o balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth - - o balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity - - o cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets - - o incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses - - REPORTS, VERSATILE - o balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, gains.. - - o print - show transactions or export journal data - - o register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running - total - - o roi - show return on investments - - REPORTS, BASIC - o accounts - show account names - - o activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period - - o codes - show transaction codes - - o commodities - show commodity/currency symbols - - o descriptions - show transaction descriptions - - o files - show input file paths - - o notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions - - o payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions - - o prices - show market prices - - o stats - show journal statistics - - o tags - show tag names - - o test - run self tests - - HELP - o help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager - - - ADD-ONS - And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed - by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in - hledger's commands list: - - o ui - run hledger's terminal UI - - o web - run hledger's web UI - - o iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) - - o interest - generate interest transactions - - o stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage - - o Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, - pijul, plot, and more.. - - Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. - - accounts - Show account names. - - This command lists account names. By default it shows all known - accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account direc- - tives. - - With query arguments, only matched account names and account names ref- - erenced by matched postings are shown. - - Or it can show just the used accounts (--used/-u), the declared - accounts (--declared/-d), the accounts declared but not used - (--unused), the accounts used but not declared (--undeclared), or the - first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (--find). - - It shows a flat list by default. With --tree, it uses indentation to - show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add --drop N to omit - the first few account name components. Account names can be depth- - clipped with depth:N or --depth N or -N. - - With --types, it also shows each account's type, if it's known. (See - Declaring accounts > Account types.) - - With --positions, it also shows the file and line number of each - account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration - order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. - - With --directives, it adds the account keyword, showing valid account - directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is useful - together with --undeclared when updating your account declarations to - satisfy hledger check accounts. - - The --find flag can be used to look up a single account name, in the - same way that the aregister command does. It returns the alphanumeri- - cally-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it fails - with a non-zero exit code. - - Examples: - - $ hledger accounts - assets:bank:checking - assets:bank:saving - assets:cash - expenses:food - expenses:supplies - income:gifts - income:salary - liabilities:debts - - $ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE - $ hledger check accounts - - activity - Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. - - The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction - counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the - default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. - - Examples: - - $ hledger activity --quarterly - 2008-01-01 ** - 2008-04-01 ******* - 2008-07-01 - 2008-10-01 ** - - add - Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments - will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. - - Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, or - generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the - add command, which prompts interactively on the console for new trans- - actions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be in - journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one - of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also - import). - - To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts. You can add as - many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press - control-d or control-c to exit. - - Features: - - o add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by - description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a - template. - - o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. - - o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. - - o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, pay- - ees/descriptions, dates (yesterday, today, tomorrow). If the input - area is empty, it will insert the default value. - - o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any - bare numbers entered. - - o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. - - o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. - - o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - - o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal - supports it. - - Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2015/05/22]: - Description: supermarket - Account 1: expenses:food - Amount 1: $10 - Account 2: assets:checking - Amount 2 [$-10.0]: - Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2015/05/22 supermarket - expenses:food $10 - assets:checking $-10.0 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2015/05/22]: $ - - On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the - file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). - - aregister - (areg) - - Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single - account, with each transaction displayed as one line. - - aregister shows the overall transactions affecting a particular account - (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one transaction in - this account. Transactions before the report start date are always - included in the running balance (--historical mode is always on). - - This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the register command - (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not - necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of thumb: - use areg- - ister for reviewing and reconciling real-world asset/liability accounts - - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses. - - aregister requires one argument: the account to report on. You can - write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular - expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. - - When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can be - surprising; eg if you have assets:per:checking 1 and assets:biz:check- - ing 2 accounts, hledger areg checking would select assets:biz:checking - 2. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if in doubt, write the - full account name, or a distinctive substring that matches uniquely. - - Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be shown. - aregister ignores depth limits, so its final total will always match a - balance report with similar arguments. - - Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transac- - tions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, caus- - ing it to be different from the account's real-world running balance. - - An example: this shows the transactions and historical running balance - during july, in the first account whose name contains "checking": - - $ hledger areg checking date:jul - - Each aregister line item shows: - - o the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different, - see below) - - o the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction - (probably abbreviated) - - o the total change to this account's balance from this transaction - - o the account's historical running balance after this transaction. - - Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add - the -E/--empty flag to show them. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first - 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause - visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to - ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the - --align-all flag. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options. The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json. - - aregister and custom posting dates - Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be - shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report - period. (And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This - ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance, - matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments. - - To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates - flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom - dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. - - balance - (bal) - - Show accounts and their balances. - - balance is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for - listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and - more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with - rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. - - Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance command with - convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: balancesheet, bal- - ancesheetequity, cashflow and incomestatement. When you need more con- - trol, then use balance. - - balance features - Here's a quick overview of the balance command's features, followed by - more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the - higher-level commands as well. - - balance can show.. - - o accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t) - - o optionally depth-limited (-[1-9]) - - o sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount - - ..and their.. - - o balance changes (the default) - - o or actual and planned balance changes (--budget) - - o or value of balance changes (-V) - - o or change of balance values (--valuechange) - - o or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain) - - ..in.. - - o one time period (the whole journal period by default) - - o or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL) - - ..either.. - - o per period (the default) - - o or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative) - - o or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H) - - ..possibly converted to.. - - o cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B) - - o or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM]) - - o or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM]) - - o or now (--value=now) - - o or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD) - - ..with.. - - o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign - (--invert) - - o rows and columns swapped (--transpose) - - o another field used as account name (--pivot) - - o custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format) - - o commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout) - - This command supports the output destination and output format options, - with output formats txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:) - html. In txt output in a colour-supporting terminal, negative amounts - are shown in red. - - The --related/-r flag shows the balance of the other postings in the - transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. - - Simple balance report - With no arguments, balance shows a list of all accounts and their - change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and - outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here - means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can - also have multi-period reports, described later.) - - For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end bal- - ance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. - - Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then alphabeti- - cally by account name. For instance (using examples/sample.journal): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode - - see below) are hidden by default. Use -E/--empty to show them - (revealing assets:bank:checking here): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E - 0 assets:bank:checking - $1 assets:bank:saving - $-2 assets:cash - $1 expenses:food - $1 expenses:supplies - $-1 income:gifts - $-1 income:salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless - -N/--no-total is used. - - Balance report line format - For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you - can use --format FMT to customise the format and content of each line. - Eg: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" - assets $-1 - bank:saving $1 - cash $-2 - expenses $2 - food $1 - supplies $1 - income $-2 - gifts $-1 - salary $-1 - liabilities:debts $1 - --------------------------------- - 0 - - The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each - account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data - fields interpolated like so: - - %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME) - - o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) - - o MAX truncates at this width (optional) - - o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: - - o depth_spacer - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or - if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. - - o account - the account's name - - o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified - - Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-com- - modity amounts are rendered: - - o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) - - o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned - - o %, - render on one line, comma-separated - - There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no - effect, instead %(account) has indentation built in. Experimentation - may be needed to get pleasing results. - - Some example formats: - - o %(total) - the account's total - - o %-20.20(account) - the account's name, left justified, padded to 20 - characters and clipped at 20 characters - - o %,%-50(account) %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters, - total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on - one line - - o %20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for the - single-column balance report - - Filtered balance report - You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from - cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to - limit the postings being matched. Eg: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 - $-2 assets:cash - -------------------- - $-2 - - List or tree mode - By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with - their full names visible, as in the examples above. - - With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' - "leaf" names indented below their parent: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - 0 - - Notes: - - o "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more compact - output, unless --no-elide is used. Boring accounts have no balance - of their own and just one subaccount (eg assets:bank and liabilities - above). - - o All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from - all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, - which requires explanation when sharing reports with non-plaintextac- - counting-users. A tree mode report's final total is the sum of the - top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown. - - o Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted - separately. - - Depth limiting - With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just -NUM (eg: -3) - balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, hiding - the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an overview - without too much detail. - - Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from - any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 - $-1 assets - $2 expenses - $-2 income - $1 liabilities - -------------------- - 0 - - Dropping top-level accounts - You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using - --drop NUM. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level account - names: - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 - $1 food - $1 supplies - -------------------- - $2 - - - Showing declared accounts - With --declared, accounts which have been declared with an account - directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no - transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need - -E/--empty to see them.) - - More precisely, leaf declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will be - included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. - - The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance - report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared - accounts yet. - - Sorting by amount - With -S/--sort-amount, accounts with the largest (most positive) bal- - ances are shown first. Eg: hledger bal expenses -MAS shows your big- - gest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity is - present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity - first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a - commodity, it is treated as 0). - - Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -S - shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add - --invert to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, - which flip the sign automatically. Eg: hledger incomestatement -MAS). - - - Percentages - With -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed - as a percentage of the (column) total. - - Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a col- - umn have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each - sign, eg: - - $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` - $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` - - Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert - them to one commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or make a separate - report for each commodity: - - $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ - $ hledger bal -% cur:EUR - - Multi-period balance report - With a report interval (set by the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, - -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, -Y/--yearly, or -p/--period flag), bal- - ance shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive time - periods (and a title): - - $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E - Balance changes in 2008: - - || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 - ===================++================================= - expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 - expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 - income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 - income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 - -------------------++--------------------------------- - || $-1 $1 0 0 - - Notes: - - o The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to fully - encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and last subpe- - riods have the same duration as the others). - - o Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are not - shown, unless -E/--empty is used. - - o Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless - -E/--empty is used. - - o Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless - --no-elide is used. (experimental) - - o Average and/or total columns can be added with the -A/--average and - -T/--row-total flags. - - o The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. - - o The --pivot FIELD option causes a different transaction field to be - used as "account name". See PIVOTING. - - Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing - in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: - - o Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total - - o Convert to a single currency with -V - - o Maximize the terminal window - - o Reduce the terminal's font size - - o View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less - -RS - - o Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal -D -O - csv | vd -f csv), Emacs' csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a - spreadsheet (hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv) - - o Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o a.html && - open a.html - - Balance change, end balance - It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in bal- - ance reports. Here is some terminology we use: - - A balance change is the net amount added to, or removed from, an - account during some period. - - An end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date - (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day in - your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. - - We call it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes - since the account was created. For a real world account, this means it - will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in your - bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) - - In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing - revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to - see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. - - balance shows balance changes by default. To see accurate historical - end balances: - - 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" - transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the - journal covers the account's full lifetime. - - 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by not - specifying a report start date, or by using the -H/--historical - flag. (-H causes report start date to be ignored when summing post- - ings.) - - Balance report types - The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how - to control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't - worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some - time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. - - There are three important option groups: - - hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] - ... - - Calculation type - The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: - - o --sum : sum the posting amounts (default) - - o --budget : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount (for - each account/period) - - o --valuechange : show the change in period-end historical balance val- - ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctua- - tions) - - o --gain : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued - balance minus each amount's original cost) - - Accumulation type - How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to - say it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's - calculation. It is one of: - - o --change : calculate with postings from column start to column end, - ie "just this column". Typically used to see revenues/expenses. - (default for balance, incomestatement) - - o --cumulative : calculate with postings from report start to column - end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used to show - changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not often used. - - o --historical/-H : calculate with postings from journal start to col- - umn end, ie "all postings from before report start date until this - column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances of - assets/liabilities/equity. (default for balancesheet, balancesheete- - quity, cashflow) - - Valuation type - Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, - before displaying the report. It is one of: - - o no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (default) - - o --value=cost[,COMM] : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to - some other commodity) - - o --value=then[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on transaction - dates - - o --value=end[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on period end - date(s) - (default with --valuechange, --gain) - - o --value=now[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on today's date - - o --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on - another date - - or one of the equivalent simpler flags: - - o -B/--cost : like --value=cost (though, note --cost and --value are - independent options which can both be used at once) - - o -V/--market : like --value=end - - o -X COMM/--exchange COMM : like --value=end,COMM - - See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. - - Combining balance report types - Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, - but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The - following restrictions are applied: - - o --valuechange implies --value=end - - o --valuechange makes --change the default when used with the bal- - ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands - - o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T - - For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valua- - tion show: - - - Valua- no valuation --value= then --value= end --value= YYYY- - tion:> MM-DD /now - Accumu- - lation:v - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - --change change in period sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - date market val- value of change change in - ues in period in period period - --cumu- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - lative report start to date market val- value of change change from - period end ues from report from report report start - start to period start to period to period end - end end - --his- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of - torical journal start to date market val- value of change change from - /-H period end (his- ues from journal from journal journal start - torical end bal- start to period start to period to period end - ance) end end - - Budget report - The --budget report type activates extra columns showing any budget - goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by - periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual - income, expenses, time usage, etc. - - For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common - expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: - - ;; Budget - ~ monthly - income $2000 - expenses:food $400 - expenses:bus $50 - expenses:movies $30 - assets:bank:checking - - ;; Two months worth of expenses - 2017-11-01 - income $1950 - expenses:food $396 - expenses:bus $49 - expenses:movies $30 - expenses:supplies $20 - assets:bank:checking - - 2017-12-01 - income $2100 - expenses:food $412 - expenses:bus $53 - expenses:gifts $100 - assets:bank:checking - - You can now see a monthly budget report: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: - - o Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, - by default. - - o In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget - goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: bud- - get goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) - - o All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg assets, - assets:bank, and expenses above. - - o Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even - in list mode. - - This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg - above, the expenses actual amount includes the gifts and supplies - transactions, but the expenses:gifts and expenses:supplies accounts are - not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. - - This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the - -E/--empty flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted - ones, giving the full picture. Eg: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] - expenses:gifts || 0 $100 - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] - expenses:supplies || $20 0 - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with --cumulative: - - $ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative - Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: - - || Nov Dec - ======================++==================================================== - assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] - expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] - expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] - expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] - expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] - income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] - ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] - - It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses - - hledger bal -M --budget expenses - - or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): - - hledger bal -M --budget type:rx - - It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency - (cur:COMM or -X COMM [--infer-market-prices]). If showing multiple - currencies, --layout bare or --layout tall can help. - - For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. - - Budget report start date - This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a - good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of - a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ~ monthly generates - its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no - regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could - exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here - the default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: - - ~ monthly in 2020 - (expenses:food) $500 - - 2020-01-15 - expenses:food $400 - assets:checking - - $ hledger bal expenses --budget - Budget performance in 2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-15 - ==============++============ - || $400 - --------------++------------ - || $400 - - To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the - start date, with -b/-e/-p/date:, to ensure it includes the budget goal - transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, adding -b - 2020/1/1 to the above: - - $ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 - Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: - - || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 - ===============++======================== - expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] - ---------------++------------------------ - || $400 [80% of $500] - - Budgets and subaccounts - You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you - have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then bud- - get(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their - parent, much like account balances behave. - - In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any - account, all its parents would have budget as well. - - To illustrate this, consider the following budget: - - ~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and - budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly - means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100. - - Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both - towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal , and transac- - tions in any other subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted - towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal. - - For example, let's consider these transactions: - - ~ monthly from 2019/01 - expenses:personal $1,000.00 - expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/01 Google home hub - expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 - liabilities $-90.00 - - 2019/01/02 Phone screen protector - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket - expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 - liabilities - - 2019/01/03 Flowers - expenses:personal $30.00 - liabilities - - As you can see, we have transactions in expenses:personal:electron- - ics:upgrades and expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of - these accounts are without explicitly defined budget, these transac- - tions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics - and expenses:personal accordingly: - - $ hledger balance --budget -M - Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan - ===============================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] - -------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and - consumption: - - $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty - Budget performance in 2019/01: - - || Jan - ========================================++=============================== - expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] - expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 - expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 - liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] - ----------------------------------------++------------------------------- - || 0 [ 0] - - Selecting budget goals - The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate spe- - cial "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each - account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use - print --forecast to show these as forecasted transactions: - - $ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated - - By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction - rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report - interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly - periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly - budget report. - - You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to - the --budget flag. --budget=DESCPAT will match all periodic rules - whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a - regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic - rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then - select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. - - Budget vs forecast - hledger --forecast ... and hledger balance --budget ... are separate - features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules - defined in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transac- - tions for reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal - transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same - time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of - hledger 1.29: - - CLI: - - o --forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command - - o --budget is a balance command option, usable only with that command. - - Visibility of generated transactions: - - o forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary trans- - actions - - o budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts - they produce in --budget reports. - - Periodic transaction rules: - - o --forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules - - o --budget uses all periodic rules (--budget) or a selected subset - (--budget=DESCPAT) - - Period of generated transactions: - - o --forecast generates forecast transactions - - o from after the last regular transaction to the end of the report - period (--forecast) - - o or, during a specified period (--forecast=PERIODEXPR) - - o possibly further restricted by a period specified in the periodic - transaction rule - - o and always restricted within the bounds of the report period - - o --budget generates budget goal transactions - - o throughout the report period - - o possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic transac- - tion rule. - - Data layout - The --layout option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity - amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can - also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has - four possible values: - - o --layout=wide[,WIDTH]: commodities are shown on a single line, - optionally elided to WIDTH - - o --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line - - o --layout=bare: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts are - bare numbers - - o --layout=tidy: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, - with one row per data value - - Here are the --layout modes supported by each output format; note only - CSV output supports all of them: - - - - txt csv html json sql - ------------------------------------- - wide Y Y Y - tall Y Y Y - bare Y Y Y - tidy Y - - Examples: - - o Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT - - o Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some com- - modities will be hidden: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++=========================================================================================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. - - o Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in - each column), and account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++================================================== - Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- - || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD - || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT - || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD - || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA - || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT - - o Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each commod- - ity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare - Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: - - || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total - ==================++============================================= - Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - ------------------++--------------------------------------------- - || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 - || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 - || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 - || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 - || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 - - o Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing - data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare - "account","commodity","balance" - "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" - "total","GLD","70.00" - "total","ITOT","17.00" - "total","USD","5120.50" - "total","VEA","36.00" - "total","VHT","294.00" - - o Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable has - its own column and each row represents a single data point. See - https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy- - data.html for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other soft- - ware to consume. Here's how it looks: - - $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy - "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" - "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" - - Useful balance reports - Some frequently used balance options/reports are: - - o bal -M revenues expenses - Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the incomes- - tatement command. - - o bal -M -H assets liabilities - Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also - available as the balancesheet command. - - o bal -M -H assets liabilities equity - Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. - Also available as the balancesheetequity command. - - o bal -M assets not:receivable - Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the - cashflow command. - - Also: - - o bal -M expenses -2 -SA - Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average - amount. - - o bal -M --budget expenses - Show monthly expenses and budget goals. - - o bal -M --valuechange investments - Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. - - o bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA - [--invert] - Show top gainers [or losers] last week - - balancesheet - (bs) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- - ances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use the - balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive - sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash or Liability - type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it - shows top-level accounts named asset or liability (case insensitive, - plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger balancesheet - Balance Sheet - - Assets: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - -------------------- - $-1 - - Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - $1 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities, but with - smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign - flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - balancesheetequity - (bse) - - This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- - ances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown with - normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or - Equity type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, - it shows top-level accounts named asset, liability or equity (case - insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger balancesheetequity - Balance Sheet With Equity - - Assets: - $-2 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-3 cash - -------------------- - $-2 - - Liabilities: - $1 liabilities:debts - -------------------- - $1 - - Equity: - $1 equity:owner - -------------------- - $1 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity, but with - smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with their - sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - cashflow - (cf) - - This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and - outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. - Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional finan- - cial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Cash type (see account - types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts - - o under a top-level account named asset (case insensitive, plural - allowed) - - o whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving. - - More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular - expression: - - ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$) - - and their subaccounts. - - An example cashflow report: - - $ hledger cashflow - Cashflow Statement - - Cash flows: - $-1 assets - $1 bank:saving - $-2 cash - -------------------- - $-1 - - Total: - -------------------- - $-1 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment - not:receivable, but with smarter account detection. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - check - Check for various kinds of errors in your data. - - hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent - problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you - can use this check command to run them on demand, with no output and a - zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as - argument(s). - - Some examples: - - hledger check # basic checks - hledger check -s # basic + strict checks - hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks - - If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to - run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. - - Here are the checks currently available: - - Basic checks - These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger com- - mands, including check: - - o parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed - - o balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced, inferring - missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting commodities - using costs or automatically-inferred costs - - o assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. - (This check can be disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.) - - Strict checks - These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag - is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to - check: - - o accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared - - o commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared - - o balancednoautoconversion - transactions are balanced, possibly using - explicit costs but not inferred ones - - Other checks - These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to - check. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, - therefore optional: - - o ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file - - o payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared - - o recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions have a bal- - ance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting - - o tags - all tags used by transactions have been declared - - o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique - - Custom checks - A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: - - o hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward - slash) exist as file paths - - o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are - passing - - You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. See: - Cookbook -> Scripting. - - More about specific checks - hledger check recentassertions will complain if any balance-asserted - account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its lat- - est posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are regu- - larly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances - against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of - data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion - requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be - true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that - case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the man- - ual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest - assertions against real-world balances. - - close - close [--retain | --migrate | --open] [QUERY] - - By default: prints a transaction that zeroes out ("closes") all - accounts, transferring their balances to an equity account. Query - arguments can be added to override the accounts selection. Three other - modes are supported: - - --retain: prints a transaction closing revenue and expense balances. - This is traditionally done by businesses at the end of each accounting - period; it is less necessary in personal and computer-based accounting, - but it can help balance the accounting equation A=L+E. - - --migrate: prints a transaction to close asset, liability and most - equity balances, and another transaction to re-open them. This can be - useful when starting a new file (for performance or data protection). - Adding the closing transaction to the old file allows old and new files - to be combined. - - --open: as above, but prints just the opening transaction. This can be - useful for starting a new file, leaving the old file unchanged. Simi- - lar to Ledger's equity command. - - You can change the equity account name with --close-acct ACCT. It - defaults to equity:retained earnings with --retain, or equity:open- - ing/closing balances otherwise. - - You can change the transaction description(s) with --close-desc 'DESC' - and --open-desc 'DESC'. It defaults to retain earnings with --retain, - or closing balances and opening balances otherwise. - - Just one posting to the equity account will be used by default, with an - implicit amount. - - With --x/--explicit the amount will be shown explicitly, and if it - involves multiple commodities, a separate posting will be generated for - each commodity. - - With --interleaved, each equity posting is shown next to the corre- - sponding source/destination posting. - - The default closing date is yesterday or the journal's end date, which- - ever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end date; - the last day of the report period will be the closing date. Eg -e 2022 - means "close on 2022-12-31". - - The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, - whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end - date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the - report period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on - 2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing - date. - - close and costs - With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings - for each cost. (This currently the best way to view investment assets, - showing lots and cost bases.) If you have many currency conversion or - investment transactions, it can generate very large journal entries. - - close and balance assertions - Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have - been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if - there is an opening transaction). - - These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them temporar- - ily with -I, or remove them if you prefer. - - You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness - (-C, -R, status:), or generating postings (--auto), with this command, - since the balance assertions would depend on these. - - Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the - balance assertions: - - 2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 - - To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary - account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two single- - day transactions: - - ; in 2022.journal: - 2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january - expenses:food 5 - equity:pending -5 - - ; in 2023.journal: - 2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared - equity:pending 5 = 0 - assets:bank:checking -5 - - Example: retain earnings - Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, - appending the generated transaction to the journal: - - $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal - - Now 2022's income statement will show only zeroes. To see it again, - exclude the retain transaction. Eg: - - $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' - - Example: migrate balances to a new file - Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on - 2023-01-01: - - $ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 - # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal - # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal - - Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced - accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that - case, try adding --infer-equity.) To see it again, exclude the closing - transaction. Eg: - - $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' - - Example: excluding closing/opening transactions - When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening - transactions cause some noise in reports like print and register. You - can exclude them as shown above, but not:desc:... could be fragile, and - also you will need to avoid excluding the very first opening transac- - tion, which can be awkward. Here is a way to do it, using tags: add - clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except the - first, like this: - - ; 2021.journal - 2021-06-01 first opening balances - ... - 2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 - ... - - ; 2022.journal - 2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 - ... - 2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 - ... - - ; 2023.journal - 2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 - ... - - Now, assuming a combined journal like: - - ; all.journal - include 2021.journal - include 2022.journal - include 2023.journal - - The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. To - show a clean multi-year checking register: - - $ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen - - And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end bal- - ance sheet: - - $ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 - - codes - List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. - - This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the - order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional - value written in parentheses between the date and description, often - used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. - - Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes - will not be shown by default. With the -E/--empty flag, they will be - printed as blank lines. - - You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. - - Examples: - - 2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket - Food $5.00 - Checking - - 2022/1/2 (124) Post Office - Postage $8.32 - Checking - - 2022/1/3 Supermarket - Food $11.23 - Checking - - 2022/1/4 (126) Post Office - Postage $3.21 - Checking - - $ hledger codes - 123 - 124 - 126 - - $ hledger codes -E - 123 - 124 - - 126 - - commodities - List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. - - descriptions - List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions, - in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of trans- - actions. - - Example: - - $ hledger descriptions - Store Name - Gas Station | Petrol - Person A - - diff - Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It - shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in - the other. - - More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file, - it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the - same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) - Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when mul- - tiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry. - - This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from - your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree about - the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to - find out the cause. - - Examples: - - $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro - These transactions are in the first file only: - - 2014/01/01 Opening Balances - assets:bank:giro EUR ... - ... - equity:opening balances EUR -... - - These transactions are in the second file only: - - files - List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only - file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. - - help - Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with info, man, or a - pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. - TOPIC can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case - insensitive. Eg: commands, print, forecast, journal, amount, "auto - postings". - - This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger version. - It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal to a web - browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are - not installed on your system. - - By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH (preferring info - since the hledger manual is large). You can select a particular viewer - with the -i, -m, or -p flags. - - Examples - - $ hledger help --help # show how the help command works - $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER - $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - - import - Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them - to the journal. Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that - would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' trans- - actions as imported, without actually importing any. - - This command may append new transactions to the main journal file - (which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not - changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the - journal file (see also add). - - Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an out- - put file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing data - will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, so - to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run - hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv. - - Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the most - common import source, and these docs focus on that case. - - Deduplication - As a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions. - This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather - "ignore transactions that have been seen before". This is intended for - when you are periodically importing foreign data which may contain - already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day you download bank - CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely run hledger import - bank.csv and only new transactions will be imported. (import is idem- - potent.) - - Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with - unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming - that: - - 1. new items always have the newest dates - - 2. item dates do not change across reads - - 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order - across reads. - - These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true - enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but - violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if - you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to - be the ones affected). - - hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by sav- - ing a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when read- - ing finance/bank.csv, it will look for and update the finance/.lat- - est.bank.csv state file. The format is simple: one or more lines con- - taining the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have pro- - cessed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on that - date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files yourself. - But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making all - transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a cer- - tain date. - - Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by - print --new, but this is less often used. - - Import testing - With --dry-run, the transactions that will be imported are printed to - the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output - is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse - it. Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not - categorised: - - $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown - - or (live updating): - - $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' - - Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently possi- - ble for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the actual - import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving them out - of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To prevent this, - do a --dry-run first and fix any problems before the real import. - - Importing balance assignments - Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit - (like hledger print -x). This means that any balance assignments in - imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see - the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with - balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances - and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting - amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: - - $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE - - (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, - please test it and send a pull request.) - - Commodity display styles - Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity - styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. - - incomestatement - (is) - - This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and - expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal - positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. - - This report shows accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type - (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows - top-level accounts named revenue or income or expense (case insensi- - tive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. - - Example: - - $ hledger incomestatement - Income Statement - - Revenues: - $-2 income - $-1 gifts - $-1 salary - -------------------- - $-2 - - Expenses: - $2 expenses - $1 food - $1 supplies - -------------------- - $2 - - Total: - -------------------- - 0 - - This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- - ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. - It is similar to hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses, but with - smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their - sign flipped. - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- - mental) json. - - notes - List the unique notes that appear in transactions. - - This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in - alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transac- - tions. The note is the part of the transaction description after a | - character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - Example: - - $ hledger notes - Petrol - Snacks - - payees - List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. - - This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared - with payee directives (--declared), used in transaction descriptions - (--used), or both (the default). - - The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | - character (or if there is no |, the whole description). - - You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This - implies --used. - - Example: - - $ hledger payees - Store Name - Gas Station - Person A - - prices - Print market price directives from the journal. With --infer-market- - prices, generate additional market prices from costs. With --infer- - reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting known prices. - Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are displayed with - their full precision. - - print - Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. - - The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the - journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date). - - Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg the - placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their deci- - mal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one alter- - ation: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) - - Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across - all transactions). - - Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. - This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it - to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the - directives and file-level comments. - - Eg: - - $ hledger print - 2008/01/01 income - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary $-1 - - 2008/06/01 gift - assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts $-1 - - 2008/06/02 save - assets:bank:saving $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - 2008/06/03 * eat & shop - expenses:food $1 - expenses:supplies $1 - assets:cash $-2 - - 2008/12/31 * pay off - liabilities:debts $1 - assets:bank:checking $-1 - - print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can process - it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for certain - kinds of search, eg: - - # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. - # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. - $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food - - There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable: - - o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or bal- - ance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. - - o Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. - - o Account aliases can generate bad account names. - - Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is pre- - served. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will - not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but not - written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the - -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can be - useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and - robust against data entry errors. -x is also implied by using any of - -B,-V,-X,--value. - - Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount - (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit - amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, keeping - the output parseable. - - With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are converted to cost using that - price. This can be used for troubleshooting. - - With -m DESC/--match=DESC, print does a fuzzy search for one recent - transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should - contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, - no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be non- - zero. - - With --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a pre- - vious run. This uses the same deduplication system as the import com- - mand. (See import's docs for details.) - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) - json and sql. - - Here's an example of print's CSV output: - - $ hledger print -Ocsv - "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" - "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" - "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" - "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" - "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" - "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" - "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" - "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" - "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" - "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" - - o There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's - fields repeated. - - o The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to - the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions are - reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a different - order, etc.) - - o The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" - (numeric quantity) fields. - - o The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" col- - umn, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the account- - ing sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and zero or - greater amounts under debit.) - - register - (reg) - - Show postings and their running total. - - The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in - date order, with their running total or running historical balance. - (See also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a - specific account.) - - register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity - amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity). - - It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to - see that account's activity: - - $ hledger register checking - 2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 - 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 - 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 - 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. - - For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first - 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause - visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to - ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the - --align-all flag. - - The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior - postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see - only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: - - $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical - 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 - 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 - 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 - - The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed. - - The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead - of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for - the whole report period). This flag implies --empty (see below). It - is affected by --historical. It works best when showing just one - account and one commodity. - - The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the transactions of - the postings which would normally be shown. - - The --invert flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used on - an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative num- - bers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account - together with the related account: - - $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking - - With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per - interval, aggregating the postings to each account: - - $ hledger register --monthly income - 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 - 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - - Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are - not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them: - - $ hledger register --monthly income -E - 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 - 2008/02 0 $-1 - 2008/03 0 $-1 - 2008/04 0 $-1 - 2008/05 0 $-1 - 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 - 2008/07 0 $-2 - 2008/08 0 $-2 - 2008/09 0 $-2 - 2008/10 0 $-2 - 2008/11 0 $-2 - 2008/12 0 $-2 - - Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth - option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: - - $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h - 2008/01 assets $1 $1 - 2008/06 assets $-1 0 - 2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 - - Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these - will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of - intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full - length and comparable to the others in the report. - - With -m DESC/--match=DESC, register does a fuzzy search for one recent - posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should contain - at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, no post- - ing will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. - - Custom register output - register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. - You can override this by setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not - a bash shell variable) or by using the --width/-w option. - - The description and account columns normally share the space equally - (about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a - description width as part of --width's argument, comma-separated: - --width W,D . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in --help): - - <--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> - date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) - DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA - - and some examples: - - $ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) - $ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 - $ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable - $ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) - $ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 - $ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 - - This command also supports the output destination and output format - options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) - json. - - rewrite - Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. - For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print - --auto. - - This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It reads - the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds - one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. The - posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transac- - tion's first posting amount. - - Examples: - - $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' - $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' - $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger - - rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: - - = ^income amt:<0 date:2017 - (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income - (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery - - Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the - two spaces between account and amount. - - More: - - $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... - $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' - $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' - - Argument for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction - with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can - use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a - factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount - includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new - commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's com- - modity. - - Re-write rules in a file - During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transac- - tions" found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this - operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. - - $ rewrite-rules.journal - - Make contents look like this: - - = ^income - (liabilities:tax) *.33 - - = expenses:gifts - budget:gifts *-1 - assets:budget *1 - - Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in trans- - actions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you want to - match the posting to add new ones. - - $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - This is something similar to the commands pipeline: - - $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ - | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ - --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ - > rewritten-tidy-output.journal - - It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in - journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added post- - ings. - - Diff output format - To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may - find useful output in form of unified diff. - - $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' - - Output might look like: - - --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal - +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal - @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ - 2008/01/01 income - - assets:bank:checking $1 - + assets:bank:checking $1 - income:salary - + (liabilities:tax) 0 - @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ - 2008/06/01 gift - - assets:bank:checking $1 - + assets:bank:checking $1 - income:gifts - + (liabilities:tax) 0 - - If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions contain- - ing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that multiple - files might be update according to list of input files specified via - --file options and include directives inside of these files. - - Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output - from hledger print. - - See also: - - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 - - rewrite vs. print --auto - This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same - thing, but with these differences: - - o with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all other - files. print --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect - only child files. - - o rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are - printed. print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed. - - o rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. - print --auto applies rules specified in the journal. - - roi - Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return - on your investments. - - At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an - account name) to select your investment(s) with --inv, and another - query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl. - - If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, - or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl - could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match - any of your accounts). - - This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return - (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for - the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before - display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. - - Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate - --cost or --value flags (see VALUATION). - - Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: - - o Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR). - Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of investment - becomes negative at some point in time. - - o Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of - Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or con- - verges too slowly. - - Examples: - - o Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: - https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest- - ing/roi-unrealised.ledger - - o Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html - - Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl - Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries could have - several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). - - To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, - you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): - - $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' - - If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra - level of nested quoting, eg: - - $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" - - Semantics of --inv and --pnl - Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are related - to your investment. Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored. - - In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match --inv to be - "investment postings" and other postings (not matching --inv) will be - sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI - needs to know which part of the investment value is your contributions - and which is due to the return on investment. - - o "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling - assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and - any other commodity. Example: - - 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil - assets:cash -$100 - investment:snake oil - - 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil - assets:cash $10 - investment:snake oil = 0 - - o "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: - - 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value - investment:snake oil = $57 - equity:unrealized profit or loss - - All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they - match --pnl query. Changes in value of your investment due to "profit - and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment - return. - - Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized, then postings - in the example below would be classifed as: - - 2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 - assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - investment:snake oil ; investment posting - - 2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 - equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting - snake oil ; investment posting - - 2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 - equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting - cash -$100 ; cash flow posting - snake oil $50 ; investment posting - - IRR and TWR explained - "ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was com- - puted as a difference between current value of investment and its ini- - tial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. - - However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where invest- - ments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate of - growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need differ- - ent ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements two of - them: IRR and TWR. - - Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of - return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. - Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains - would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percent- - age of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your invest- - ment, you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same - rate of return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each - period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a - way that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment is - expected to generate. - - As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that you - personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the - postings that match the query in the--inv argument and NOT match the - query in the--pnl argument. - - If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as - transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unreal- - ized gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to - compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate - of return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or - close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. - - In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net - present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present - value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This - could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done - discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger - should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel. - - Second way to compute rate of return that roi command implements is - called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also - break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, - out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period - and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR - are quite different. - - TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where in- - flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment - and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change - in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of - your investment. - - References: - - o Explanation of rate of return - - o Explanation of IRR - - o Explanation of TWR - - o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations - of both metrics - - stats - Show journal and performance statistics. - - The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, - or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report - for each report period. - - At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and number - of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate and - will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger version, - haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of interest. The - stats command's run time is similar to that of a single-column balance - report. - - Example: - - $ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal - Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal - Included files : - Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) - Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) - Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) - Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) - Payees/descriptions : 1000 - Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) - Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) - Market prices : 1000 (A) - - Run time : 0.12 s - Throughput : 8342 txns/s - - This command supports the -o/--output-file option (but not -O/--output- - format selection). - - tags - List the tags used in the journal, or their values. - - This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on trans- - actions, postings, or account declarations. - - With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular expres- - sion (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. - - With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this - query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, - desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions - and their accounts. - - With the --values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed - instead. With -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown. - - With --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, - with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are - always shown first.) - - Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings - also acquire tags from their account and transaction, transactions also - acquire tags from their postings. - - test - Run built-in unit tests. - - This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, - printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will - be non-zero. - - This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to - sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All - tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report - as a bug! - - This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- - (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with - ANSI colour codes disabled: - - $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never - - For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- - --help currently doesn't show them). - - -PART 5: COMMON TASKS - Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with - hledger. - - Getting help - Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: - - $ hledger # show available commands - $ hledger --help # show common options - $ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation - - You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by - using the help command. Eg: - - $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) - $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual - $ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command - - To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit - https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion ar- - chives can be found at https://hledger.org/support. - - Constructing command lines - hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it - simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges - described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: - - o command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to put - common options there too: hledger CMD OPTS ARGS) - - o running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing - (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS) - - o enclose "problematic" args in single quotes - - o if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metachar- - acters from the shell - - o to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add --debug=2. - - Starting a journal file - hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, - $HOME/.hledger.journal by default: - - $ hledger stats - The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. - Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. - Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. - - You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. - It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control, - and to start a new file each year. So you could do something like - this: - - $ mkdir ~/finance - $ cd ~/finance - $ git init - Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ - $ touch 2020.journal - $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc - $ source ~/.bashrc - $ hledger stats - Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Included files : - Transactions span : to (0 days) - Last transaction : none - Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) - Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) - Payees/descriptions : 0 - Accounts : 0 (depth 0) - Commodities : 0 () - Market prices : 0 () - - Setting opening balances - Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some - real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit - cards..). - - To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or - two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a - recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can - always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg - going back to january 1st. - - Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the bal- - ances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: - - o The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry - like this: - - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 - assets:cash $100 = $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances - - These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at - the end of the previous day. - - The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means - "cleared & confirmed". - - The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll - be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. - - The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error - checking. - - o The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a - similar transaction: - - $ hledger add - Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal - Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. - Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. - An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. - An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. - If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. - To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. - To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. - Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 - Description: * opening balances - Account 1: assets:bank:checking - Amount 1: $1000 - Account 2: assets:bank:savings - Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 - Account 3: assets:cash - Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 - Account 4: liabilities:creditcard - Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 - Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances - Amount 5 [$-3050]: - Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: - Saved. - Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) - Date [2020-01-01]: . - - If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit - the journal. Eg: - - $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal - - Recording transactions - As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using - one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the - hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to - convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. - - Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual - and hledger.org for more ideas: - - 2020/1/10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - - 2020.1.12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - - 2020-01-15 paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - Reconciling - Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported bal- - ances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your - bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the - real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not - made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) - frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let - it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and dis- - crepancies. - - A typical workflow: - - 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what - hledger reports (hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to - remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the - already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful - (hledger reg cash). If you can't find the error, add an adjustment - transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain - the missing $2, it could be: - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare today's - (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal check- - ing -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the - missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to - the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the trans- - action history and running balance from your bank with the one - reported by hledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you - generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank's - clearing dates. - - 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. - - Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live- - updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --reg- - ister checking -C - - After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled - transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track - that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, - insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck - - If you're using version control, this can be another good time to com- - mit: - - $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal - - Reporting - Here are some basic reports. - - Show all transactions: - - $ hledger print - 2020-01-01 * opening balances - assets:bank:checking $1000 - assets:bank:savings $2000 - assets:cash $100 - liabilities:creditcard $-50 - equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 - - 2020-01-10 * gift received - assets:cash $20 - income:gifts - - 2020-01-12 * farmers market - expenses:food $13 - assets:cash - - 2020-01-15 * paycheck - income:salary - assets:bank:checking $1000 - - 2020-01-16 * adjust cash - assets:cash $-2 = $105 - expenses:misc - - Show account names, and their hierarchy: - - $ hledger accounts --tree - assets - bank - checking - savings - cash - equity - opening/closing balances - expenses - food - misc - income - gifts - salary - liabilities - creditcard - - Show all account totals: - - $ hledger balance - $4105 assets - $4000 bank - $2000 checking - $2000 savings - $105 cash - $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances - $15 expenses - $13 food - $2 misc - $-1020 income - $-20 gifts - $-1000 salary - $-50 liabilities:creditcard - -------------------- - 0 - - Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to - depth 2: - - $ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 - $4000 assets:bank - $105 assets:cash - $-50 liabilities:creditcard - -------------------- - $4055 - - Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple - balance sheet: - - $ hledger bs -2 - Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-16 - ========================++============ - Assets || - ------------------------++------------ - assets:bank || $4000 - assets:cash || $105 - ------------------------++------------ - || $4105 - ========================++============ - Liabilities || - ------------------------++------------ - liabilities:creditcard || $50 - ------------------------++------------ - || $50 - ========================++============ - Net: || $4055 - - The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use bse for a - full balance sheet with equity.) - - Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: - - hledger is - Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - - || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 - ===============++======================= - Revenues || - ---------------++----------------------- - income:gifts || $20 - income:salary || $1000 - ---------------++----------------------- - || $1020 - ===============++======================= - Expenses || - ---------------++----------------------- - expenses:food || $13 - expenses:misc || $2 - ---------------++----------------------- - || $15 - ===============++======================= - Net: || $1005 - - The final total is your net income during this period. - - Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: - - $ hledger register cash - 2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 - 2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 - 2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 - 2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 - - Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: - - $ hledger activity -W - 2019-12-30 ***** - 2020-01-06 **** - 2020-01-13 **** - - Migrating to a new file - At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new - file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, - and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the - close command. - - If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file. - - - -REPORTING BUGS - Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger chat or - hledger mail list) - - -AUTHORS - Simon Michael and contributors. - See http://hledger.org/CREDITS.html - - -COPYRIGHT - Copyright 2007-2023 Simon Michael and contributors. - - -LICENSE - Released under GNU GPL v3 or later. - - -SEE ALSO - hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), ledger(1) - - - -hledger-1.29.1 March 2023 HLEDGER(1) + This manual is for hledger's command line interface, version 1.29.2. + It also describes the common options, file formats and concepts used by + all hledger programs. It might accidentally teach you some bookkeep- + ing/accounting as well! You don't need to know everything in here to + use hledger productively, but when you have a question about function- + ality, this doc should answer it. It is detailed, so do skip ahead or + skim when needed. You can read it on hledger.org, or as an info manual + or man page on your system. You can also get it from hledger itself + with + hledger --man, hledger --info or hledger help [TOPIC]. + + The main function of the hledger CLI is to read plain text files + describing financial transactions, crunch the numbers, and print a use- + ful report on the terminal (or save it as HTML, CSV, JSON or SQL). + Many reports are available, as subcommands. hledger will also detect + other hledger-* executables as extra subcommands. + + hledger reads data from one or more files in journal, timeclock, time- + dot, or CSV format. The default file is .hledger.journal in your home + directory; this can be overridden with one or more -f FILE options, or + the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. hledger CLI can also read from + stdin with -f-; more on that below. + + Here is a small but valid hledger journal file describing one transac- + tion: + + 2015-10-16 bought food + expenses:food $10 + assets:cash + + Transactions are dated movements of money (etc.) between two or more + accounts: bank accounts, your wallet, revenue/expense categories, peo- + ple, etc. You can choose any account names you wish, using : to indi- + cate subaccounts. There must be at least two spaces between account + name and amount. Positive amounts are inflow to that account (debit), + negatives are outflow from it (credit). (Some reports show revenue, + liability and equity account balances as negative numbers as a result; + this is normal.) + + hledger's add command can help you add transactions, or you can install + other data entry UIs like hledger-web or hledger-iadd. For more exten- + sive/efficient changes, use a text editor: Emacs + ledger-mode, VIM + + vim-ledger, or VS Code + hledger-vscode are some good choices (see + https://hledger.org/editors.html). + + To get started, run hledger add and follow the prompts, or save some + entries like the above in $HOME/.hledger.journal, then try commands + like: + hledger print -x + hledger aregister assets + hledger balance + hledger balancesheet + hledger incomestatement. + Run hledger to list the commands. See also the "Starting a journal + file" and "Setting opening balances" sections in PART 5: COMMON TASKS. + +PART 1: USER INTERFACE +Options + General options + To see general usage help, including general options which are sup- + ported by most hledger commands, run hledger -h. + + General help options: + + -h --help + show general or COMMAND help + + --man show general or COMMAND user manual with man + + --info show general or COMMAND user manual with info + + --version + show general or ADDONCMD version + + --debug[=N] + show debug output (levels 1-9, default: 1) + + General input options: + + -f FILE --file=FILE + use a different input file. For stdin, use - (default: + $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal) + + --rules-file=RULESFILE + Conversion rules file to use when reading CSV (default: + FILE.rules) + + --separator=CHAR + Field separator to expect when reading CSV (default: ',') + + --alias=OLD=NEW + rename accounts named OLD to NEW + + --anon anonymize accounts and payees + + --pivot FIELDNAME + use some other field or tag for the account name + + -I --ignore-assertions + disable balance assertion checks (note: does not disable balance + assignments) + + -s --strict + do extra error checking (check that all posted accounts are + declared) + + General reporting options: + + -b --begin=DATE + include postings/txns on or after this date (will be adjusted to + preceding subperiod start when using a report interval) + + -e --end=DATE + include postings/txns before this date (will be adjusted to fol- + lowing subperiod end when using a report interval) + + -D --daily + multiperiod/multicolumn report by day + + -W --weekly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by week + + -M --monthly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by month + + -Q --quarterly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by quarter + + -Y --yearly + multiperiod/multicolumn report by year + + -p --period=PERIODEXP + set start date, end date, and/or reporting interval all at once + using period expressions syntax + + --date2 + match the secondary date instead (see command help for other + effects) + + --today=DATE + override today's date (affects relative smart dates, for + tests/examples) + + -U --unmarked + include only unmarked postings/txns (can combine with -P or -C) + + -P --pending + include only pending postings/txns + + -C --cleared + include only cleared postings/txns + + -R --real + include only non-virtual postings + + -NUM --depth=NUM + hide/aggregate accounts or postings more than NUM levels deep + + -E --empty + show items with zero amount, normally hidden (and vice-versa in + hledger-ui/hledger-web) + + -B --cost + convert amounts to their cost/selling amount at transaction time + + -V --market + convert amounts to their market value in default valuation com- + modities + + -X --exchange=COMM + convert amounts to their market value in commodity COMM + + --value + convert amounts to cost or market value, more flexibly than + -B/-V/-X + + --infer-market-prices + use transaction prices (recorded with @ or @@) as additional + market prices, as if they were P directives + + --auto apply automated posting rules to modify transactions. + + --forecast + generate future transactions from periodic transaction rules, + for the next 6 months or till report end date. In hledger-ui, + also make ordinary future transactions visible. + + --commodity-style + Override the commodity style in the output for the specified + commodity. For example 'EUR1.000,00'. + + --color=WHEN (or --colour=WHEN) + Should color-supporting commands use ANSI color codes in text + output. 'auto' (default): whenever stdout seems to be a color- + supporting terminal. 'always' or 'yes': always, useful eg when + piping output into 'less -R'. 'never' or 'no': never. A + NO_COLOR environment variable overrides this. + + --pretty[=WHEN] + Show prettier output, e.g. using unicode box-drawing charac- + ters. Accepts 'yes' (the default) or 'no' ('y', 'n', 'always', + 'never' also work). If you provide an argument you must use + '=', e.g. '--pretty=yes'. + + When a reporting option appears more than once in the command line, the + last one takes precedence. + + Some reporting options can also be written as query arguments. + + Command options + To see options for a particular command, including command-specific + options, run: hledger COMMAND -h. + + Command-specific options must be written after the command name, eg: + hledger print -x. + + Additionally, if the command is an add-on, you may need to put its + options after a double-hyphen, eg: hledger ui -- --watch. Or, you can + run the add-on executable directly: hledger-ui --watch. + + Command arguments + Most hledger commands accept arguments after the command name, which + are often a query, filtering the data in some way. + + You can save a set of command line options/arguments in a file, and + then reuse them by writing @FILENAME as a command line argument. Eg: + hledger bal @foo.args. (To prevent this, eg if you have an argument + that begins with a literal @, precede it with --, eg: hledger bal -- + @ARG). + + Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or + argument. Avoid the use of spaces, except inside quotes (or you'll see + a confusing error). Between a flag and its argument, use = (or noth- + ing). Bad: + + assets depth:2 + -X USD + + Good: + + assets + depth:2 + -X=USD + + For special characters (see below), use one less level of quoting than + you would at the command prompt. Bad: + + -X"$" + + Good: + + -X$ + + See also: Save frequently used options. + + Special characters + Single escaping (shell metacharacters) + In shell command lines, characters significant to your shell - such as + spaces, <, >, (, ), |, $ and \ - should be "shell-escaped" if you want + hledger to see them. This is done by enclosing them in single or dou- + ble quotes, or by writing a backslash before them. Eg to match an + account name containing a space: + + $ hledger register 'credit card' + + or: + + $ hledger register credit\ card + + Windows users should keep in mind that cmd treats single quote as a + regular character, so you should be using double quotes exclusively. + PowerShell treats both single and double quotes as quotes. + + Double escaping (regular expression metacharacters) + Characters significant in regular expressions (described below) - such + as ., ^, $, [, ], (, ), |, and \ - may need to be "regex-escaped" if + you don't want them to be interpreted by hledger's regular expression + engine. This is done by writing backslashes before them, but since + backslash is typically also a shell metacharacter, both shell-escaping + and regex-escaping will be needed. Eg to match a literal $ sign while + using the bash shell: + + $ hledger balance cur:'\$' + + or: + + $ hledger balance cur:\\$ + + Triple escaping (for add-on commands) + When you use hledger to run an external add-on command (described + below), one level of shell-escaping is lost from any options or argu- + ments intended for by the add-on command, so those need an extra level + of shell-escaping. Eg to match a literal $ sign while using the bash + shell and running an add-on command (ui): + + $ hledger ui cur:'\\$' + + or: + + $ hledger ui cur:\\\\$ + + If you wondered why four backslashes, perhaps this helps: + + + unescaped: $ + escaped: \$ + double-escaped: \\$ + triple-escaped: \\\\$ + + Or, you can avoid the extra escaping by running the add-on executable + directly: + + $ hledger-ui cur:\\$ + + Less escaping + Options and arguments are sometimes used in places other than the shell + command line, where shell-escaping is not needed, so there you should + use one less level of escaping. Those places include: + + o an @argumentfile + + o hledger-ui's filter field + + o hledger-web's search form + + o GHCI's prompt (used by developers). + + Unicode characters + hledger is expected to handle non-ascii characters correctly: + + o they should be parsed correctly in input files and on the command + line, by all hledger tools (add, iadd, hledger-web's search/add/edit + forms, etc.) + + o they should be displayed correctly by all hledger tools, and on- + screen alignment should be preserved. + + This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips: + + o A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can + decode the characters being used. In bash, you can set a locale like + this: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. There are some more details in Trou- + bleshooting. This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit + on encountering a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled pro- + grams). + + o your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..) + must support unicode + + o the terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode + glyphs + + o the terminal should be configured to display wide characters as dou- + ble width (for report alignment) + + o on Windows, for best results you should run hledger in the same kind + of environment in which it was built. Eg hledger built in the stan- + dard CMD.EXE environment (like the binaries on our download page) + might show display problems when run in a cygwin or msys terminal, + and vice versa. (See eg #961). + + Regular expressions + hledger uses regular expressions in a number of places: + + o query terms, on the command line and in the hledger-web search form: + REGEX, desc:REGEX, cur:REGEX, tag:...=REGEX + + o CSV rules conditional blocks: if REGEX ... + + o account alias directive and --alias option: alias /REGEX/ = REPLACE- + MENT, --alias /REGEX/=REPLACEMENT + + hledger's regular expressions come from the regex-tdfa library. If + they're not doing what you expect, it's important to know exactly what + they support: + + 1. they are case insensitive + + 2. they are infix matching (they do not need to match the entire thing + being matched) + + 3. they are POSIX ERE (extended regular expressions) + + 4. they also support GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, \>) + + 5. they do not support backreferences; if you write \1, it will match + the digit 1. Except when doing text replacement, eg in account + aliases, where backreferences can be used in the replacement string + to reference capturing groups in the search regexp. + + 6. they do not support mode modifiers ((?s)), character classes (\w, + \d), or anything else not mentioned above. + + Some things to note: + + o In the alias directive and --alias option, regular expressions must + be enclosed in forward slashes (/REGEX/). Elsewhere in hledger, + these are not required. + + o In queries, to match a regular expression metacharacter like $ as a + literal character, prepend a backslash. Eg to search for amounts + with the dollar sign in hledger-web, write cur:\$. + + o On the command line, some metacharacters like $ have a special mean- + ing to the shell and so must be escaped at least once more. See Spe- + cial characters. + +Environment + LEDGER_FILE The journal file path when not specified with -f. + + On unix computers, the default value is: ~/.hledger.journal. + + A more typical value is something like ~/finance/YYYY.journal, where + ~/finance is a version-controlled finance directory and YYYY is the + current year. Or, ~/finance/current.journal, where current.journal is + a symbolic link to YYYY.journal. + + The usual way to set this permanently is to add a command to one of + your shell's startup files (eg ~/.profile): + + export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/current.journal` + + On some Mac computers, there is a more thorough way to set environment + variables, that will also affect applications started from the GUI (eg, + Emacs started from a dock icon): In ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist, add an + entry like: + + { + "LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/current.journal" + } + + For this to take effect you might need to killall Dock, or reboot. + + On Windows computers, the default value is probably C:\Users\YOUR- + NAME\.hledger.journal. You can change this by running a command like + this in a powershell window (let us know if you need to be an Adminis- + trator, and if this persists across a reboot): + + > setx LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\MyUserName\finance\2021.journal" + + Or, change it in settings: see https://www.java.com/en/down- + load/help/path.html. + + COLUMNS The screen width used by the register command. Default: the + full terminal width. + + NO_COLOR If this variable exists with any value, hledger will not use + ANSI color codes in terminal output. This is overriden by the + --color/--colour option. + +Input + hledger reads transactions from one or more data files. The default + data file is $HOME/.hledger.journal (or on Windows, something like + C:\Users\YOURNAME\.hledger.journal). + + You can override this with the $LEDGER_FILE environment variable: + + $ setenv LEDGER_FILE ~/finance/2016.journal + $ hledger stats + + or with one or more -f/--file options: + + $ hledger -f /some/file -f another_file stats + + The file name - means standard input: + + $ cat some.journal | hledger -f- + + Data formats + Usually the data file is in hledger's journal format, but it can be in + any of the supported file formats, which currently are: + + + Reader: Reads: Used for file exten- + sions: + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- + journal hledger journal files and some Ledger .journal .j .hledger + journals, for transactions .ledger + time- timeclock files, for precise time log- .timeclock + clock ging + timedot timedot files, for approximate time .timedot + logging + csv comma/semicolon/tab/other-separated .csv .ssv .tsv + values, for data import + + These formats are described in more detail below. + + hledger detects the format automatically based on the file extensions + shown above. If it can't recognise the file extension, it assumes + journal format. So for non-journal files, it's important to use a + recognised file extension, so as to either read successfully or to show + relevant error messages. + + You can also force a specific reader/format by prefixing the file path + with the format and a colon. Eg, to read a .dat file as csv format: + + $ hledger -f csv:/some/csv-file.dat stats + + Or to read stdin (-) as timeclock format: + + $ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -ftimeclock:- + + Multiple files + You can specify multiple -f options, to read multiple files as one big + journal. There are some limitations with this: + + o most directives do not affect sibling files + + o balance assertions will not see any account balances from previous + files + + If you need either of those things, you can + + o use a single parent file which includes the others + + o or concatenate the files into one before reading, eg: cat a.journal + b.journal | hledger -f- CMD. + + Strict mode + hledger checks input files for valid data. By default, the most impor- + tant errors are detected, while still accepting easy journal files + without a lot of declarations: + + o Are the input files parseable, with valid syntax ? + + o Are all transactions balanced ? + + o Do all balance assertions pass ? + + With the -s/--strict flag, additional checks are performed: + + o Are all accounts posted to, declared with an account directive ? + (Account error checking) + + o Are all commodities declared with a commodity directive ? (Commodity + error checking) + + o Are all commodity conversions declared explicitly ? + + You can use the check command to run individual checks -- the ones + listed above and some more. + +Commands + hledger provides a number of built-in subcommands (described below). + Most of these read your data without changing it, and display a report. + A few assist with data entry and management. + + Run hledger with no arguments to list the commands available, and + hledger CMD to run a command. CMD can be the full command name, or its + standard abbreviation shown in the commands list, or any unambiguous + prefix of the name. Eg: hledger bal. + + Add-on commands + Add-on commands are extra subcommands provided by programs or scripts + in your PATH + + o whose name starts with hledger- + + o whose name ends with a recognised file extension: .bat,.com,.exe, + .hs,.lhs,.pl,.py,.rb,.rkt,.sh or none + + o and (on unix, mac) which are executable by the current user. + + Addons can be written in any language, but haskell scripts or programs + have a big advantage: they can use hledger's library code, for command- + line options, parsing and reporting. + + Several add-on commands are installed by the hledger-install script. + See https://hledger.org/scripts.html for more details. + + Note in a hledger command line, add-on command flags must have a double + dash (--) preceding them. Eg you must write: + + $ hledger web -- --serve + + and not: + + $ hledger web --serve + + (because the --serve flag belongs to hledger-web, not hledger). + + The -h/--help and --version flags don't require --. + + If you have any trouble with this, remember you can always run the add- + on program directly, eg: + + $ hledger-web --serve + +Output + Output destination + hledger commands send their output to the terminal by default. You can + of course redirect this, eg into a file, using standard shell syntax: + + $ hledger print > foo.txt + + Some commands (print, register, stats, the balance commands) also pro- + vide the -o/--output-file option, which does the same thing without + needing the shell. Eg: + + $ hledger print -o foo.txt + $ hledger print -o - # write to stdout (the default) + + Output format + Some commands offer other kinds of output, not just text on the termi- + nal. Here are those commands and the formats currently supported: + + + - txt csv html json sql + -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + aregister Y Y Y Y + balance Y 1 Y 1 Y 1,2 Y + balancesheet Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + balancesheetequity Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + cashflow Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + incomestatement Y 1 Y 1 Y 1 Y + print Y Y Y Y + register Y Y Y + + o 1 Also affected by the balance commands' --layout option. + + o 2 balance does not support html output without a report interval or + with --budget. + + The output format is selected by the -O/--output-format=FMT option: + + $ hledger print -O csv # print CSV on stdout + + or by the filename extension of an output file specified with the + -o/--output-file=FILE.FMT option: + + $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.csv # write CSV to foo.csv + + The -O option can be combined with -o to override the file extension, + if needed: + + $ hledger balancesheet -o foo.txt -O csv # write CSV to foo.txt + + Some notes about the various output formats: + + CSV output + o In CSV output, digit group marks (such as thousands separators) are + disabled automatically. + + HTML output + o HTML output can be styled by an optional hledger.css file in the same + directory. + + JSON output + o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + o Our JSON is rather large and verbose, since it is a faithful repre- + sentation of hledger's internal data types. To understand the JSON, + read the Haskell type definitions, which are mostly in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/hledger- + lib/Hledger/Data/Types.hs. + + o hledger represents quantities as Decimal values storing up to 255 + significant digits, eg for repeating decimals. Such numbers can + arise in practice (from automatically-calculated transaction prices), + and would break most JSON consumers. So in JSON, we show quantities + as simple Numbers with at most 10 decimal places. We don't limit the + number of integer digits, but that part is under your control. We + hope this approach will not cause problems in practice; if you find + otherwise, please let us know. (Cf #1195) + + SQL output + o This is not yet much used; real-world feedback is welcome. + + o SQL output is expected to work at least with SQLite, MySQL and Post- + gres. + + o For SQLite, it will be more useful if you modify the generated id + field to be a PRIMARY KEY. Eg: + + $ hledger print -O sql | sed 's/id serial/id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL/g' | ... + + o SQL output is structured with the expectations that statements will + be executed in the empty database. If you already have tables cre- + ated via SQL output of hledger, you would probably want to either + clear tables of existing data (via delete or truncate SQL statements) + or drop tables completely as otherwise your postings will be duped. + + Commodity styles + When displaying amounts, hledger infers a standard display style for + each commodity/currency, as described below in Commodity display style. + + If needed, this can be overridden by a -c/--commodity-style option + (except for cost amounts and amounts displayed by the print command, + which are always displayed with all decimal digits). For example, the + following will force dollar amounts to be displayed as shown: + + $ hledger print -c '$1.000,0' + + This option can repeated to set the display style for multiple commodi- + ties/currencies. Its argument is as described in the commodity direc- + tive. + + Colour + In terminal output, some commands can produce colour when the terminal + supports it: + + o if the --color/--colour option is given a value of yes or always (or + no or never), colour will (or will not) be used; + + o otherwise, if the NO_COLOR environment variable is set, colour will + not be used; + + o otherwise, colour will be used if the output (terminal or file) sup- + ports it. + + Box-drawing + In terminal output, you can enable unicode box-drawing characters to + render prettier tables: + + o if the --pretty option is given a value of yes or always (or no or + never), unicode characters will (or will not) be used; + + o otherwise, unicode characters will not be used. + + Paging + When showing long output in the terminal, hledger will try to use the + pager specified by the PAGER environment variable, or less, or more. + (A pager is a helper program that shows one page at a time rather than + scrolling everything off screen). Currently it does this only for help + output, not for reports; specifically, + + o when listing commands, with hledger + + o when showing help with hledger [CMD] --help, + + o when viewing manuals with hledger help or hledger --man. + + Note the pager is expected to handle ANSI codes, which hledger uses eg + for bold emphasis. For the common pager less (and its more compatibil- + ity mode), we add R to the LESS and MORE environment variables to make + this work. If you use a different pager, you might need to configure + it similarly, to avoid seeing junk on screen (let us know). Otherwise, + you can set the NO_COLOR environment variable to 1 to disable all ANSI + output (see Colour). + + Debug output + We intend hledger to be relatively easy to troubleshoot, introspect and + develop. You can add --debug[=N] to any hledger command line to see + additional debug output. N ranges from 1 (least output, the default) + to 9 (maximum output). Typically you would start with 1 and increase + until you are seeing enough. Debug output goes to stderr, and is not + affected by -o/--output-file (unless you redirect stderr to stdout, eg: + 2>&1). It will be interleaved with normal output, which can help + reveal when parts of the code are evaluated. To capture debug output + in a log file instead, you can usually redirect stderr, eg: + + hledger bal --debug=3 2>hledger.log + +Limitations + The need to precede add-on command options with -- when invoked from + hledger is awkward. + + When input data contains non-ascii characters, a suitable system locale + must be configured (or there will be an unhelpful error). Eg on POSIX, + set LANG to something other than C. + + In a Microsoft Windows CMD window, non-ascii characters and colours are + not supported. + + On Windows, non-ascii characters may not display correctly when running + a hledger built in CMD in MSYS/CYGWIN, or vice-versa. + + In a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window, the tab key is not supported in hledger + add. + + Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax is supported. See hledger and + Ledger > Differences > journal format. + + On large data files, hledger is slower and uses more memory than + Ledger. + +Troubleshooting + Here are some issues you might encounter when you run hledger (and + remember you can also seek help from the IRC channel, mail list or bug + tracker): + + Successfully installed, but "No command 'hledger' found" + stack and cabal install binaries into a special directory, which should + be added to your PATH environment variable. Eg on unix-like systems, + that is ~/.local/bin and ~/.cabal/bin respectively. + + I set a custom LEDGER_FILE, but hledger is still using the default file + LEDGER_FILE should be a real environment variable, not just a shell + variable. The command env | grep LEDGER_FILE should show it. You may + need to use export. Here's an explanation. + + Getting errors like "Illegal byte sequence" or "Invalid or incomplete + multibyte or wide character" or "commitAndReleaseBuffer: invalid argu- + ment (invalid character)" + Programs compiled with GHC (hledger, haskell build tools, etc.) need + to have a UTF-8-aware locale configured in the environment, otherwise + they will fail with these kinds of errors when they encounter non-ascii + characters. + + To fix it, set the LANG environment variable to some locale which sup- + ports UTF-8. The locale you choose must be installed on your system. + + Here's an example of setting LANG temporarily, on Ubuntu GNU/Linux: + + $ file my.journal + my.journal: UTF-8 Unicode text # the file is UTF8-encoded + $ echo $LANG + C # LANG is set to the default locale, which does not support UTF8 + $ locale -a # which locales are installed ? + C + en_US.utf8 # here's a UTF8-aware one we can use + POSIX + $ LANG=en_US.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print # ensure it is used for this command + + If available, C.UTF-8 will also work. If your preferred locale isn't + listed by locale -a, you might need to install it. Eg on + Ubuntu/Debian: + + $ apt-get install language-pack-fr + $ locale -a + C + en_US.utf8 + fr_BE.utf8 + fr_CA.utf8 + fr_CH.utf8 + fr_FR.utf8 + fr_LU.utf8 + POSIX + $ LANG=fr_FR.utf8 hledger -f my.journal print + + Here's how you could set it permanently, if you use a bash shell: + + $ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.bash_profile + $ bash --login + + Exact spelling and capitalisation may be important. Note the differ- + ence on MacOS (UTF-8, not utf8). Some platforms (eg ubuntu) allow + variant spellings, but others (eg macos) require it to be exact: + + $ locale -a | grep -iE en_us.*utf + en_US.UTF-8 + $ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 hledger -f my.journal print + +PART 2: DATA FORMATS +Journal + hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal. Here's + a cheatsheet/mini-tutorial, or you can skip ahead to About journal for- + mat. + + Journal cheatsheet + # Here is the main syntax of hledger's journal format + # (omitting extra Ledger compatibility syntax). + # hledger journals contain comments, directives, and transactions, in any order: + + ############################################################################### + # 1. Comment lines are for notes or temporarily disabling things. + # They begin with #, ;, or a line containing the word "comment". + + # hash comment line + ; semicolon comment line + comment + These lines + are commented. + end comment + + # Some but not all hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, + # from ; (semicolon) to end of line. + + ############################################################################### + # 2. Directives modify parsing or reports in some way. + # They begin with a word or letter (or symbol). + + account actifs ; type:A, declare an account that is an Asset. 2+ spaces before ;. + account passifs ; type:L, declare an account that is a Liability, and so on.. (ALERX) + alias chkg = assets:checking + commodity $0.00 + decimal-mark . + include /dev/null + payee Whole Foods + P 2022-01-01 AAAA $1.40 + ~ monthly budget goals ; <- 2+ spaces between period expression and description + expenses:food $400 + expenses:home $1000 + budgeted + + ############################################################################### + # 3. Transactions are what it's all about; they are dated events, + # usually describing movements of money. + # They begin with a date. + + # DATE DESCRIPTION ; This is a transaction comment. + # ACCOUNT NAME 1 AMOUNT1 ; <- posting 1. This is a posting comment. + # ACCOUNT NAME 2 AMOUNT2 ; <- posting 2. Postings must be indented. + # ; ^^ At least 2 spaces between account and amount. + # ... ; Any number of postings is allowed. The amounts must balance (sum to 0). + + 2022-01-01 opening balances are declared this way + assets:checking $1000 ; Account names can be anything. lower case is easy to type. + assets:savings $1000 ; assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses are common. + assets:cash:wallet $100 ; : indicates subaccounts. + liabilities:credit card $-200 ; liabilities, equity, revenues balances are usually negative. + equity ; One amount can be left blank; $-1900 is inferred here. + + 2022-04-15 * (#12345) pay taxes + ; There can be a ! or * after the date meaning "pending" or "cleared". + ; There can be a transaction code (text in parentheses) after the date/status. + ; Amounts' sign represents direction of flow, or credit/debit: + assets:checking $-500 ; minus means removed from this account (credit) + expenses:tax:us:2021 $500 ; plus means added to this account (debit) + ; revenue/expense categories are also "accounts" + + Kv + 2022-01-01 ; The description is optional. + ; Any currency/commodity symbols are allowed, on either side. + assets:cash:wallet GBP -10 + expenses:clothing GBP 10 + assets:gringotts -10 gold + assets:pouch 10 gold + revenues:gifts -2 "Liquorice Wands" ; Complex symbols + assets:bag 2 "Liquorice Wands" ; must be double-quoted. + + 2022-01-01 Cost in another commodity can be noted with @ or @@ + assets:investments 2.0 AAAA @ $1.50 ; @ means per-unit cost + assets:investments 3.0 AAAA @@ $4 ; @@ means total cost + assets:checking $-7.00 + + 2022-01-02 assert balances + ; Balances can be asserted for extra error checking, in any transaction. + assets:investments 0 AAAA = 5.0 AAAA + assets:pouch 0 gold = 10 gold + assets:savings $0 = $1000 + + 1999-12-31 Ordering transactions by date is recommended but not required. + ; Postings are not required. + + 2022.01.01 These date + 2022/1/1 formats are + 12/31 also allowed (but consistent YYYY-MM-DD is recommended). + + About journal format + hledger's usual data source is a plain text file containing journal + entries in hledger journal format. This file represents a standard + accounting general journal. I use file names ending in .journal, but + that's not required. The journal file contains a number of transaction + entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between + two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger + and humans. + + hledger's journal format is a compatible subset, mostly, of ledger's + journal format, so hledger can work with compatible ledger journal + files as well. It's safe, and encouraged, to run both hledger and + ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get- + ting. + + You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use + the add or web or import commands to create and update it. + + Many users, though, edit the journal file with a text editor, and track + changes with a version control system such as git. Editor addons such + as ledger-mode or hledger-mode for Emacs, vim-ledger for Vim, and + hledger-vscode for Visual Studio Code, make this easier, adding colour, + formatting, tab completion, and useful commands. See Editor configura- + tion at hledger.org for the full list. + + Here's a description of each part of the file format (and hledger's + data model). + + A hledger journal file can contain three kinds of thing: file comments, + transactions, and/or directives (counting periodic transaction rules + and auto posting rules as directives). + + Comments + Lines in the journal will be ignored if they begin with a hash (#) or a + semicolon (;). (See also Other syntax.) hledger will also ignore + regions beginning with a comment line and ending with an end comment + line (or file end). Here's a suggestion for choosing between them: + + o # for top-level notes + + o ; for commenting out things temporarily + + o comment for quickly commenting large regions (remember it's there, or + you might get confused) + + Eg: + + # a comment line + ; another commentline + comment + A multi-line comment block, + continuing until "end comment" directive + or the end of the current file. + end comment + + Some hledger entries can have same-line comments attached to them, from + ; (semicolon) to end of line. See Transaction comments, Posting com- + ments, and Account comments below. + + Transactions + Transactions are the main unit of information in a journal file. They + represent events, typically a movement of some quantity of commodities + between two or more named accounts. + + Each transaction is recorded as a journal entry, beginning with a sim- + ple date in column 0. This can be followed by any of the following + optional fields, separated by spaces: + + o a status character (empty, !, or *) + + o a code (any short number or text, enclosed in parentheses) + + o a description (any remaining text until end of line or a semicolon) + + o a comment (any remaining text following a semicolon until end of + line, and any following indented lines beginning with a semicolon) + + o 0 or more indented posting lines, describing what was transferred and + the accounts involved (indented comment lines are also allowed, but + not blank lines or non-indented lines). + + Here's a simple journal file containing one transaction: + + 2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + Dates + Simple dates + Dates in the journal file use simple dates format: YYYY-MM-DD or + YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, with leading zeros optional. The year may be + omitted, in which case it will be inferred from the context: the cur- + rent transaction, the default year set with a Y directive, or the cur- + rent date when the command is run. Some examples: 2010-01-31, + 2010/01/31, 2010.1.31, 1/31. + + (The UI also accepts simple dates, as well as the more flexible smart + dates documented in the hledger manual.) + + Posting dates + You can give individual postings a different date from their parent + transaction, by adding a posting comment containing a tag (see below) + like date:DATE. This is probably the best way to control posting dates + precisely. Eg in this example the expense should appear in May + reports, and the deduction from checking should be reported on 6/1 for + easy bank reconciliation: + + 2015/5/30 + expenses:food $10 ; food purchased on saturday 5/30 + assets:checking ; bank cleared it on monday, date:6/1 + + $ hledger -f t.j register food + 2015-05-30 expenses:food $10 $10 + + $ hledger -f t.j register checking + 2015-06-01 assets:checking $-10 $-10 + + DATE should be a simple date; if the year is not specified it will use + the year of the transaction's date. + The date: tag must have a valid simple date value if it is present, eg + a date: tag with no value is not allowed. + + Status + Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can have a + status mark, which is a single character before the transaction + description or posting account name, separated from it by a space, + indicating one of three statuses: + + + mark status + ------------------ + unmarked + ! pending + * cleared + + When reporting, you can filter by status with the -U/--unmarked, + -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or the status:, status:!, and + status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui. + + Note, in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state + is called "uncleared". As of hledger 1.3 we have renamed it to + unmarked for clarity. + + To replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend- + ing, combine -U and -P. + + Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for reconciling with + real-world accounts. Some editor modes provide highlighting and short- + cuts for working with status. Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can toggle + transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c. + + What "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you. + Here's one suggestion: + + + status meaning + -------------------------------------------------------------------------- + uncleared recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review + pending tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil- + iation) + cleared complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor- + rect + + With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at your + bank, -U to see things which will probably hit your bank soon (like + uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your + finances. + + Code + After the status mark, but before the description, you can optionally + write a transaction "code", enclosed in parentheses. This is a good + place to record a check number, or some other important transaction id + or reference number. + + Description + A transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date + and status mark (or until a comment begins). Sometimes called the + "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you + wish, or left blank. Transaction descriptions can be queried, unlike + comments. + + Payee and note + You can optionally include a | (pipe) character in descriptions to sub- + divide the description into separate fields for payee/payer name on the + left (up to the first |) and an additional note field on the right + (after the first |). This may be worthwhile if you need to do more + precise querying and pivoting by payee or by note. + + Transaction comments + Text following ;, after a transaction description, and/or on indented + lines immediately below it, form comments for that transaction. They + are reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain + tags, which are not ignored. + + 2012-01-01 something ; a transaction comment + ; a second line of transaction comment + expenses 1 + assets + + Postings + A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of some amount + from, an account. Each posting line begins with at least one space or + tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by: + + o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space + + o (required) an account name (any text, optionally containing single + spaces, until end of line or a double space) + + o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount. + + Positive amounts are being added to the account, negative amounts are + being removed. + + The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero. As a con- + venience, one amount may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to + balance the transaction. + + Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter between account name + and amount. This makes it easy to write account names containing spa- + ces. But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before the + amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name. + + Account names + Accounts are the main way of categorising things in hledger. As in + Double Entry Bookkeeping, they can represent real world accounts (such + as a bank account), or more abstract categories such as "money borrowed + from Frank" or "money spent on electricity". + + You can use any account names you like, but we usually start with the + traditional accounting categories, which in english are assets, liabil- + ities, equity, revenues, expenses. (You might see these referred to as + A, L, E, R, X for short.) + + For more precise reporting, we usually divide the top level accounts + into more detailed subaccounts, by writing a full colon between account + name parts. For example, from the account names assets:bank:checking + and expenses:food, hledger will infer this hierarchy of five accounts: + + assets + assets:bank + assets:bank:checking + expenses + expenses:food + + Shown as an outline, the hierarchical tree structure is more clear: + + assets + bank + checking + expenses + food + + hledger reports can summarise the account tree to any depth, so you can + go as deep as you like with subcategories, but keeping your account + names relatively simple may be best when starting out. + + Account names may be capitalised or not; they may contain letters, num- + bers, symbols, or single spaces. Note, when an account name and an + amount are written on the same line, they must be separated by two or + more spaces (or tabs). + + Parentheses or brackets enclosing the full account name indicate vir- + tual postings, described below. Parentheses or brackets internal to + the account name have no special meaning. + + Account names can be altered temporarily or permanently by account + aliases. + + Amounts + After the account name, there is usually an amount. (Important: + between account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.) + + hledger's amount format is flexible, supporting several international + formats. Here are some examples. Amounts have a number (the "quan- + tity"): + + 1 + + ..and usually a currency symbol or commodity name (more on this below), + to the left or right of the quantity, with or without a separating + space: + + $1 + 4000 AAPL + 3 "green apples" + + Amounts can be preceded by a minus sign (or a plus sign, though plus is + the default), The sign can be written before or after a left-side com- + modity symbol: + + -$1 + $-1 + + One or more spaces between the sign and the number are acceptable when + parsing (but they won't be displayed in output): + + + $1 + $- 1 + + Scientific E notation is allowed: + + 1E-6 + EUR 1E3 + + Decimal marks, digit group marks + A decimal mark can be written as a period or a comma: + + 1.23 + 1,23456780000009 + + In the integer part of the quantity (left of the decimal mark), groups + of digits can optionally be separated by a digit group mark - a space, + comma, or period (different from the decimal mark): + + $1,000,000.00 + EUR 2.000.000,00 + INR 9,99,99,999.00 + 1 000 000.9455 + + Note, a number containing a single digit group mark and no decimal mark + is ambiguous. Are these digit group marks or decimal marks ? + + 1,000 + 1.000 + + If you don't tell it otherwise, hledger will assume both of the above + are decimal marks, parsing both numbers as 1. + + To prevent confusing parsing mistakes and undetected typos, especially + if your data contains digit group marks (eg, thousands separators), we + recommend explicitly declaring the decimal mark character in each jour- + nal file, using a directive at the top of the file. The decimal-mark + directive is best, otherwise commodity directives will also work. + These are described below. + + Commodity + Amounts in hledger have both a "quantity", which is a signed decimal + number, and a "commodity", which is a currency symbol, stock ticker, or + any word or phrase describing something you are tracking. + + If the commodity name contains non-letters (spaces, numbers, or punctu- + ation), you must always write it inside double quotes ("green apples", + "ABC123"). + + If you write just a bare number, that too will have a commodity, with + name ""; we call that the "no-symbol commodity". + + Actually, hledger combines these single-commodity amounts into more + powerful multi-commodity amounts, which are what it works with most of + the time. A multi-commodity amount could be, eg: 1 USD, 2 EUR, 3.456 + TSLA. In practice, you will only see multi-commodity amounts in + hledger's output; you can't write them directly in the journal file. + + (If you are writing scripts or working with hledger's internals, these + are the Amount and MixedAmount types.) + + Directives influencing number parsing and display + You can add decimal-mark and commodity directives to the journal, to + declare and control these things more explicitly and precisely. These + are described below, but here's a quick example: + + # the decimal mark character used by all amounts in this file (all commodities) + decimal-mark . + + # display styles for the $, EUR, INR and no-symbol commodities: + commodity $1,000.00 + commodity EUR 1.000,00 + commodity INR 9,99,99,999.00 + commodity 1 000 000.9455 + + + Commodity display style + For the amounts in each commodity, hledger chooses a consistent display + style to use in most reports. (Exceptions: price amounts, and all + amounts displayed by the print command, are displayed with all of their + decimal digits visible.) + + A commodity's display style is inferred as follows. + + First, if a default commodity is declared with D, this commodity and + its style is applied to any no-symbol amounts in the journal. + + Then each commodity's style is inferred from one of the following, in + order of preference: + + o The commodity directive for that commodity (including the no-symbol + commodity), if any. + + o The amounts in that commodity seen in the journal's transactions. + (Posting amounts only; prices and periodic or auto rules are ignored, + currently.) + + o The built-in fallback style, which looks like this: $1000.00. (Sym- + bol on the left, period decimal mark, two decimal places.) + + A style is inferred from journal amounts as follows: + + o Use the general style (decimal mark, symbol placement) of the first + amount + + o Use the first-seen digit group style (digit group mark, digit group + sizes), if any + + o Use the maximum number of decimal places of all. + + Cost amounts don't affect the commodity display style directly, but + occasionally they can do so indirectly (eg when a posting's amount is + inferred using a cost). If you find this causing problems, use a com- + modity directive to fix the display style. + + To summarise: each commodity's amounts will be normalised to (a) the + style declared by a commodity directive, or (b) the style of the first + posting amount in the journal, with the first-seen digit group style + and the maximum-seen number of decimal places. So if your reports are + showing amounts in a way you don't like, eg with too many decimal + places, use a commodity directive. Some examples: + + # declare euro, dollar, bitcoin and no-symbol commodities and set their + # input number formats and output display styles: + commodity EUR 1.000, + commodity $1000.00 + commodity 1000.00000000 BTC + commodity 1 000. + + The inferred commodity style can be overridden by supplying a command + line option. + + Rounding + Amounts are stored internally as decimal numbers with up to 255 decimal + places, and displayed with the number of decimal places specified by + the commodity display style. Note, hledger uses banker's rounding: it + rounds to the nearest even number, eg 0.5 displayed with zero decimal + places is "0"). + + + Costs + After a posting amount, you can note its cost (when buying) or selling + price (when selling) in another commodity, by writing either @ UNIT- + PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE after it. This indicates a conversion transac- + tion, where one commodity is exchanged for another. + + (You might also see this called "transaction price" in hledger docs, + discussions, or code; that term was directionally neutral and reminded + that it is a price specific to a transaction, but we now just call it + "cost", with the understanding that the transaction could be a purchase + or a sale.) + + Costs are usually written explicitly with @ or @@, but can also be + inferred automatically for simple multi-commodity transactions. Note, + if costs are inferred, the order of postings is significant; the first + posting will have a cost attached, in the commodity of the second. + + As an example, here are several ways to record purchases of a foreign + currency in hledger, using the cost notation either explicitly or + implicitly: + + 1. Write the price per unit, as @ UNITPRICE after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars ; balancing amount is -$135.00 + + 2. Write the total price, as @@ TOTALPRICE after the amount: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 @@ $135 ; one hundred euros purchased at $135 for the lot + assets:dollars + + 3. Specify amounts for all postings, using exactly two commodities, and + let hledger infer the price that balances the transaction. Note the + effect of posting order: the price is added to first posting, making + it EUR100 @@ $135, as in example 2: + + 2009/1/1 + assets:euros EUR100 ; one hundred euros purchased + assets:dollars $-135 ; for $135 + + Amounts can be converted to cost at report time using the -B/--cost + flag; this is discussed more in the COST REPORTING section. + + Other cost/lot notations + A slight digression for Ledger and Beancount users. Ledger has a num- + ber of cost/lot-related notations: + + o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST + + o expresses a conversion rate, as in hledger + + o when buying, also creates a lot than can be selected at selling + time + + o (@) UNITCOST and (@@) TOTALCOST (virtual cost) + + o like the above, but also means "this cost was exceptional, don't + use it when inferring market prices". + + Currently, hledger treats the above like @ and @@; the parentheses are + ignored. + + o {=FIXEDUNITCOST} and {{=FIXEDTOTALCOST}} (fixed price) + + o when buying, means "this cost is also the fixed price, don't let it + fluctuate in value reports" + + o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} (lot price) + + o can be used identically to @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST, also cre- + ates a lot + + o when selling, combined with @ ..., specifies an investment lot by + its cost basis; does not check if that lot is present + + o and related: [YYYY/MM/DD] (lot date) + + o when buying, attaches this acquisition date to the lot + + o when selling, selects a lot by its acquisition date + + o (SOME TEXT) (lot note) + + o when buying, attaches this note to the lot + + o when selling, selects a lot by its note + + Currently, hledger accepts any or all of the above in any order after + the posting amount, but ignores them. (This can break transaction bal- + ancing.) + + For Beancount users, the notation and behaviour is different: + + o @ UNITCOST and @@ TOTALCOST + + o expresses a cost without creating a lot, as in hledger + + o when buying (augmenting) or selling (reducing) a lot, combined with + {...}: documents the cost/selling price (not used for transaction + balancing) + + o {UNITCOST} and {{TOTALCOST}} + + o when buying (augmenting), expresses the cost for transaction bal- + ancing, and also creates a lot with this cost basis attached + + o when selling (reducing), + + o selects a lot by its cost basis + + o raises an error if that lot is not present or can not be selected + unambiguously (depending on booking method configured) + + o expresses the selling price for transaction balancing + + Currently, hledger accepts the {UNITCOST}/{{TOTALCOST}} notation but + ignores it. + + o variations: {}, {YYYY-MM-DD}, {"LABEL"}, {UNITCOST, "LABEL"}, {UNIT- + COST, YYYY-MM-DD, "LABEL"} etc. + + Currently, hledger rejects these. + + Balance assertions + hledger supports Ledger-style balance assertions in journal files. + These look like, for example, = EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's + amount. Eg here we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a + and b after each posting: + + 2013/1/1 + a $1 =$1 + b =$-1 + + 2013/1/2 + a $1 =$2 + b $-1 =$-2 + + After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions + and report an error if any of them fail. Balance assertions can pro- + tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled balances while + cleaning up old entries. You can disable them temporarily with the + -I/--ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful for troubleshooting or + for reading Ledger files. (Note: this flag currently does not disable + balance assignments, described below). + + Assertions and ordering + hledger sorts an account's postings and assertions first by date and + then (for postings on the same day) by parse order. Note this is dif- + ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order. (Also, + Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of repeated post- + ings to the same account within a transaction.) + + So, hledger balance assertions keep working if you reorder differently- + dated transactions within the journal. But if you reorder same-dated + transactions or postings, assertions might break and require updating. + This order dependence does bring an advantage: precise control over the + order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can assert intra- + day balances. + + Assertions and multiple included files + Multiple files included with the include directive are processed as if + concatenated into one file, preserving their order and the posting + order within each file. It means that balance assertions in later + files will see balance from earlier files. + + And if you have multiple postings to an account on the same day, split + across multiple files, and you want to assert the account's balance on + that day, you'll need to put the assertion in the right file - the last + one in the sequence, probably. + + Assertions and multiple -f files + Unlike include, when multiple files are specified on the command line + with multiple -f/--file options, balance assertions will not see bal- + ance from earlier files. This can be useful when you do not want prob- + lems in earlier files to disrupt valid assertions in later files. + + If you do want assertions to see balance from earlier files, use + include, or concatenate the files temporarily. + + Assertions and commodities + The asserted balance must be a simple single-commodity amount, and in + fact the assertion checks only this commodity's balance within the + (possibly multi-commodity) account balance. This is how assertions + work in Ledger also. We could call this a "partial" balance assertion. + + To assert the balance of more than one commodity in an account, you can + write multiple postings, each asserting one commodity's balance. + + You can make a stronger "total" balance assertion by writing a double + equals sign (== EXPECTEDBALANCE). This asserts that there are no other + commodities in the account besides the asserted one (or at least, that + their balance is 0). + + 2013/1/1 + a $1 + a 1EUR + b $-1 + c -1EUR + + 2013/1/2 ; These assertions succeed + a 0 = $1 + a 0 = 1EUR + b 0 == $-1 + c 0 == -1EUR + + 2013/1/3 ; This assertion fails as 'a' also contains 1EUR + a 0 == $1 + + It's not yet possible to make a complete assertion about a balance that + has multiple commodities. One workaround is to isolate each commodity + into its own subaccount: + + 2013/1/1 + a:usd $1 + a:euro 1EUR + b + + 2013/1/2 + a 0 == 0 + a:usd 0 == $1 + a:euro 0 == 1EUR + + Assertions and prices + Balance assertions ignore costs, and should normally be written without + one: + + 2019/1/1 + (a) $1 @ EUR1 = $1 + + We do allow prices to be written there, however, and print shows them, + even though they don't affect whether the assertion passes or fails. + This is for backward compatibility (hledger's close command used to + generate balance assertions with prices), and because balance assign- + ments do use them (see below). + + Assertions and subaccounts + The balance assertions above (= and ==) do not count the balance from + subaccounts; they check the account's exclusive balance only. You can + assert the balance including subaccounts by writing =* or ==*, eg: + + 2019/1/1 + equity:opening balances + checking:a 5 + checking:b 5 + checking 1 ==* 11 + + Assertions and virtual postings + Balance assertions always consider both real and virtual postings; they + are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query. + + Assertions and auto postings + Balance assertions are affected by the --auto flag, which generates + auto postings, which can alter account balances. Because auto postings + are optional in hledger, accounts affected by them effectively have two + balances. But balance assertions can only test one or the other of + these. So to avoid making fragile assertions, either: + + o assert the balance calculated with --auto, and always use --auto with + that file + + o or assert the balance calculated without --auto, and never use --auto + with that file + + o or avoid balance assertions on accounts affected by auto postings (or + avoid auto postings entirely). + + Assertions and precision + Balance assertions compare the exactly calculated amounts, which are + not always what is shown by reports. Eg a commodity directive may + limit the display precision, but this will not affect balance asser- + tions. Balance assertion failure messages show exact amounts. + + Posting comments + Text following ;, at the end of a posting line, and/or on indented + lines immediately below it, form comments for that posting. They are + reproduced by print but otherwise ignored, except they may contain + tags, which are not ignored. + + 2012-01-01 + expenses 1 ; a comment for posting 1 + assets + ; a comment for posting 2 + ; a second comment line for posting 2 + + Tags + Tags are a way to add extra labels or labelled data to transactions, + postings, or accounts, which you can then search or pivot on. + + They are written as a word (optionally hyphenated) immediately followed + by a full colon, in a transaction or posting or account directive's + comment. (This is an exception to the usual rule that things in com- + ments are ignored.) Eg, here four different tags are recorded: one on + the checking account, two on the transaction, and one on the expenses + posting: + + account assets:checking ; accounttag: + + 2017/1/16 bought groceries ; transactiontag-1: + ; transactiontag-2: + assets:checking $-1 + expenses:food $1 ; postingtag: + + Postings also inherit tags from their transaction and their account. + And transactions also acquire tags from their postings (and postings' + accounts). So in the example above, the expenses posting effectively + has all four tags (by inheriting from account and transaction), and the + transaction also has all four tags (by acquiring from the expenses + posting). + + You can list tag names with hledger tags [NAMEREGEX], or match by tag + name with a tag:NAMEREGEX query. + + Tag values + Tags can have a value, which is any text after the colon up until a + comma or end of line (with surrounding whitespace removed). Note this + means that hledger tag values can not contain commas. Eg in the fol- + lowing posting, the three tags' values are "value 1", "value 2", and "" + (empty) respectively: + + expenses:food $10 ; foo, tag1: value 1 , tag2:value 2, bar tag3: , baz + + Note that tags can be repeated, and are additive rather than overrid- + ing: when the same tag name is seen again with a new value, the new + name:value pair is added to the tags. (It is not possible to override + a tag's value or remove a tag.) + + You can list a tag's values with hledger tags TAGNAME --values, or + match by tag value with a tag:NAMEREGEX=VALUEREGEX query. + + Directives + A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special keyword, + that influences how the journal is processed, how things are displayed, + and so on. hledger's directives are based on (a subset of) Ledger's, + but there are many differences, and also some differences between + hledger versions. Here are some more definitions: + + o subdirective - Some directives support subdirectives, written + indented below the parent directive. + + o decimal mark - The character to interpret as a decimal mark (period + or comma) when parsing amounts of a commodity. + + o display style - How to display amounts of a commodity in output: sym- + bol side and spacing, digit groups, decimal mark, and number of deci- + mal places. + + Directives are not required when starting out with hledger, but you + will probably want to add some as your needs grow. Here some key + directives for particular needs: + + + purpose directives + -------------------------------------------------------------------------- + READING DATA: + Declare file's decimal mark to help parse decimal-mark + amounts accurately + Rewrite account names alias + Comment out sections of the data comment + Include extra data files include + GENERATING DATA: + Generate recurring transactions or budget ~ + goals + Generate extra postings on transactions = + CHECKING FOR ERRORS: + Define valid entities to provide more error account, commodity, payee + checking + REPORTING: + Declare accounts' type and display order account + Declare commodity display styles commodity + Declare market prices P + + Directive effects + And here is what each directive does, and which files and journal + entries (transactions) it affects: + + + direc- what it does ends + tive at + file + end? + -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + account Declares an account, for checking all entries in all files; and N + its display order and type. Subdirectives: any text, ignored. + alias Rewrites account names, in following entries until end of cur- Y + rent file or end aliases. Command line equivalent: --alias + comment Ignores part of the journal file, until end of current file or Y + end comment. + commod- Declares up to four things: 1. a commodity symbol, for checking N,Y,N,N + ity all amounts in all files 2. the decimal mark for parsing + amounts of this commodity, in the following entries until end of + current file (if there is no decimal-mark directive) 3. and the + display style for amounts of this commodity 4. which is also + the precision to use for balanced-transaction checking in this + commodity. Takes precedence over D. Subdirectives: format + (Ledger-compatible syntax). Command line equivalent: -c/--com- + modity-style + deci- Declares the decimal mark, for parsing amounts of all commodi- Y + mal- ties in following entries until next decimal-mark or end of cur- + mark rent file. Included files can override. Takes precedence over + commodity and D. + include Includes entries and directives from another file, as if they N + were written inline. Command line alternative: multiple + -f/--file + payee Declares a payee name, for checking all entries in all files. N + P Declares the market price of a commodity on some date, for value N + reports. + ~ Declares a periodic transaction rule that generates future N + (tilde) transactions with --forecast and budget goals with balance + --budget. + Other + syntax: + apply Prepends a common parent account to all account names, in fol- Y + account lowing entries until end of current file or end apply account. + D Sets a default commodity to use for no-symbol amounts;and, if Y,Y,N,N + there is no commodity directive for this commodity: its decimal + mark, balancing precision, and display style, as above. + Y Sets a default year to use for any yearless dates, in following Y + entries until end of current file. + + + + = Declares an auto posting rule that generates extra postings on partly + (equals) matched transactions with --auto, in current, parent, and child + files (but not sibling files, see #1212). + Other Other directives from Ledger's file format are accepted but + Ledger ignored. + direc- + tives + + Directives and multiple files + If you use multiple -f/--file options, or the include directive, + hledger will process multiple input files. But directives which affect + input typically have effect only until the end of the file in which + they occur (and on any included files in that region). + + This may seem inconvenient, but it's intentional; it makes reports sta- + ble and deterministic, independent of the order of input. Otherwise + you could see different numbers if you happened to write -f options in + a different order, or if you moved includes around while cleaning up + your files. + + It can be surprising though; for example, it means that alias direc- + tives do not affect parent or sibling files (see below). + + account directive + account directives can be used to declare accounts (ie, the places that + amounts are transferred from and to). Though not required, these dec- + larations can provide several benefits: + + o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer- + ence. + + o In strict mode, they restrict which accounts may be posted to by + transactions, which helps detect typos. + + o They control account display order in reports, allowing non-alpha- + betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses). + + o They help with account name completion (in hledger add, hledger-web, + hledger-iadd, ledger-mode, etc.) + + o They can store additional account information as comments, or as tags + which can be used to filter or pivot reports. + + o They can help hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability, + equity, revenue, expense), affecting reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement. + + They are written as the word account followed by a hledger-style + account name, eg: + + account assets:bank:checking + + Note, however, that accounts declared in account directives are not + allowed to have surrounding brackets and parentheses, unlike accounts + used in postings. So the following journal will not parse: + + account (assets:bank:checking) + + Account comments + Text following two or more spaces and ; at the end of an account direc- + tive line, and/or following ; on indented lines immediately below it, + form comments for that account. They are ignored except they may con- + tain tags, which are not ignored. + + The two-space requirement for same-line account comments is because ; + is allowed in account names. + + account assets:bank:checking ; same-line comment, at least 2 spaces before the semicolon + ; next-line comment + ; some tags - type:A, acctnum:12345 + + Account subdirectives + Ledger-style indented subdirectives are also accepted, but currently + ignored: + + account assets:bank:checking + format subdirective is ignored + + Account error checking + By default, accounts need not be declared; they come into existence + when a posting references them. This is convenient, but it means + hledger can't warn you when you mis-spell an account name in the jour- + nal. Usually you'll find that error later, as an extra account in bal- + ance reports, or an incorrect balance when reconciling. + + In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report + an error if any transaction uses an account name that has not been + declared by an account directive. Some notes: + + o The declaration is case-sensitive; transactions must use the correct + account name capitalisation. + + o The account directive's scope is "whole file and below" (see direc- + tives). This means it affects all of the current file, and any files + it includes, but not parent or sibling files. The position of + account directives within the file does not matter, though it's usual + to put them at the top. + + o Accounts can only be declared in journal files, but will affect + included files of all types. + + o It's currently not possible to declare "all possible subaccounts" + with a wildcard; every account posted to must be declared. + + Account display order + The order in which account directives are written influences the order + in which accounts appear in reports, hledger-ui, hledger-web etc. By + default accounts appear in alphabetical order, but if you add these + account directives to the journal file: + + account assets + account liabilities + account equity + account revenues + account expenses + + those accounts will be displayed in declaration order: + + $ hledger accounts -1 + assets + liabilities + equity + revenues + expenses + + Any undeclared accounts are displayed last, in alphabetical order. + + Sorting is done at each level of the account tree, within each group of + sibling accounts under the same parent. And currently, this directive: + + account other:zoo + + would influence the position of zoo among other's subaccounts, but not + the position of other among the top-level accounts. This means: + + o you will sometimes declare parent accounts (eg account other above) + that you don't intend to post to, just to customize their display + order + + o sibling accounts stay together (you couldn't display x:y in between + a:b and a:c). + + Account types + hledger knows that accounts come in several types: assets, liabilities, + expenses and so on. This enables easy reports like balancesheet and + incomestatement, and filtering by account type with the type: query. + + As a convenience, hledger will detect these account types automatically + if you are using common english-language top-level account names + (described below). But generally we recommend you declare types + explicitly, by adding a type: tag to your top-level account directives. + Subaccounts will inherit the type of their parent. The tag's value + should be one of the five main account types: + + o A or Asset (things you own) + + o L or Liability (things you owe) + + o E or Equity (investment/ownership; balanced counterpart of assets & + liabilities) + + o R or Revenue (what you received money from, AKA income; technically + part of Equity) + + o X or Expense (what you spend money on; technically part of Equity) + + or, it can be (these are used less often): + + o C or Cash (a subtype of Asset, indicating liquid assets for the cash- + flow report) + + o V or Conversion (a subtype of Equity, for conversions (see COST + REPORTING).) + + Here is a typical set of account type declarations: + + account assets ; type: A + account liabilities ; type: L + account equity ; type: E + account revenues ; type: R + account expenses ; type: X + + account assets:bank ; type: C + account assets:cash ; type: C + + account equity:conversion ; type: V + + Here are some tips for working with account types. + + o The rules for inferring types from account names are as follows. + These are just a convenience that sometimes help new users get going; + if they don't work for you, just ignore them and declare your account + types. See also Regular expressions. + + If account's name contains this (CI) regular expression: | its type is: + --------------------------------------------------------------------|------------- + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|current)(:|$) | Cash + ^assets?(:|$) | Asset + ^(debts?|liabilit(y|ies))(:|$) | Liability + ^equity:(trad(e|ing)|conversion)s?(:|$) | Conversion + ^equity(:|$) | Equity + ^(income|revenue)s?(:|$) | Revenue + ^expenses?(:|$) | Expense + + o If you declare any account types, it's a good idea to declare an + account for all of the account types, because a mixture of declared + and name-inferred types can disrupt certain reports. + + o Certain uses of account aliases can disrupt account types. See + Rewriting accounts > Aliases and account types. + + o As mentioned above, subaccounts will inherit a type from their parent + account. More precisely, an account's type is decided by the first + of these that exists: + + 1. A type: declaration for this account. + + 2. A type: declaration in the parent accounts above it, preferring + the nearest. + + 3. An account type inferred from this account's name. + + 4. An account type inferred from a parent account's name, preferring + the nearest parent. + + 5. Otherwise, it will have no type. + + o For troubleshooting, you can list accounts and their types with: + + $ hledger accounts --types [ACCTPAT] [-DEPTH] [type:TYPECODES] + + alias directive + You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or + parts of them, before generating reports. This can be useful for: + + o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier + data entry and a less verbose journal + + o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts + + o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy + + o combining two accounts into one, eg to see their sum or difference on + one line + + o customising reports + + Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives. They + do not affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger- + web. + + Account aliases are very powerful. They are generally easy to use cor- + rectly, but you can also generate invalid account names with them; more + on this below. + + See also Rewrite account names. + + Basic aliases + To set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file. + This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or its + included files (but note: not sibling or parent files). The spaces + around the = are optional: + + alias OLD = NEW + + Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line. This + affects all entries. It's useful for trying out aliases interactively. + + OLD and NEW are case sensitive full account names. hledger will + replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one. Sub- + accounts are also affected. Eg: + + alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking + ; rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a" + + Regex aliases + There is also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression, + indicated by wrapping the pattern in forward slashes. (This is the + only place where hledger requires forward slashes around a regular + expression.) + + Eg: + + alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT + + or: + + $ hledger --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT' ... + + Any part of an account name matched by REGEX will be replaced by + REPLACEMENT. REGEX is case-insensitive as usual. + + If you need to match a forward slash, escape it with a backslash, eg + /\/=:. + + If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be referenced + by the usual backslash and number in REPLACEMENT: + + alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+):(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3 + ; rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to "assets:wells fargo checking" + + REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command line, to end of + option argument), so it can contain trailing whitespace. + + Combining aliases + You can define as many aliases as you like, using journal directives + and/or command line options. + + Recursive aliases - where an account name is rewritten by one alias, + then by another alias, and so on - are allowed. Each alias sees the + effect of previously applied aliases. + + In such cases it can be important to understand which aliases will be + applied and in which order. For (each account name in) each journal + entry, we apply: + + 1. alias directives preceding the journal entry, most recently parsed + first (ie, reading upward from the journal entry, bottom to top) + + 2. --alias options, in the order they appeared on the command line + (left to right). + + In other words, for (an account name in) a given journal entry: + + o the nearest alias declaration before/above the entry is applied first + + o the next alias before/above that will be be applied next, and so on + + o aliases defined after/below the entry do not affect it. + + This gives nearby aliases precedence over distant ones, and helps pro- + vide semantic stability - aliases will keep working the same way inde- + pendent of which files are being read and in which order. + + In case of trouble, adding --debug=6 to the command line will show + which aliases are being applied when. + + Aliases and multiple files + As explained at Directives and multiple files, alias directives do not + affect parent or sibling files. Eg in this command, + + hledger -f a.aliases -f b.journal + + account aliases defined in a.aliases will not affect b.journal. + Including the aliases doesn't work either: + + include a.aliases + + 2020-01-01 ; not affected by a.aliases + foo 1 + bar + + This means that account aliases should usually be declared at the start + of your top-most file, like this: + + alias foo=Foo + alias bar=Bar + + 2020-01-01 ; affected by aliases above + foo 1 + bar + + include c.journal ; also affected + + end aliases directive + You can clear (forget) all currently defined aliases (seen in the jour- + nal so far, or defined on the command line) with this directive: + + end aliases + + Aliases can generate bad account names + Be aware that account aliases can produce malformed account names, + which could cause confusing reports or invalid print output. For exam- + ple, you could erase all account names: + + 2021-01-01 + a:aa 1 + b + + $ hledger print --alias '/.*/=' + 2021-01-01 + 1 + + The above print output is not a valid journal. Or you could insert an + illegal double space, causing print output that would give a different + journal when reparsed: + + 2021-01-01 + old 1 + other + + $ hledger print --alias old="new USD" | hledger -f- print + 2021-01-01 + new USD 1 + other + + Aliases and account types + If an account with a type declaration (see Declaring accounts > Account + types) is renamed by an alias, normally the account type remains in + effect. + + However, renaming in a way that reshapes the account tree (eg renaming + parent accounts but not their children, or vice versa) could prevent + child accounts from inheriting the account type of their parents. + + Secondly, if an account's type is being inferred from its name, renam- + ing it by an alias could prevent or alter that. + + If you are using account aliases and the type: query is not matching + accounts as you expect, try troubleshooting with the accounts command, + eg something like: + + $ hledger accounts --alias assets=bassetts type:a + + commodity directive + You can use commodity directives to declare your commodities. In fact + the commodity directive performs several functions at once: + + 1. It declares commodities which may be used in the journal. This can + optionally be enforced, providing useful error checking. (Cf Com- + modity error checking) + + 2. It declares which decimal mark character (period or comma), to + expect when parsing input - useful to disambiguate international + number formats in your data. Without this, hledger will parse both + 1,000 and 1.000 as 1. (Cf Amounts) + + 3. It declares how to render the commodity's amounts when displaying + output - the decimal mark, any digit group marks, the number of dec- + imal places, symbol placement and so on. (Cf Commodity display + style) + + You will run into one of the problems solved by commodity directives + sooner or later, so we recommend using them, for robust and predictable + parsing and display. + + Generally you should put them at the top of your journal file (since + for function 2, they affect only following amounts, cf #793). + + A commodity directive is just the word commodity followed by a sample + amount, like this: + + ;commodity SAMPLEAMOUNT + + commodity $1000.00 + commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA ; optional same-line comment + + It may also be written on multiple lines, and use the format subdirec- + tive, as in Ledger. Note in this case the commodity symbol appears + twice; it must be the same in both places: + + ;commodity SYMBOL + ; format SAMPLEAMOUNT + + ; display indian rupees with currency name on the left, + ; thousands, lakhs and crores comma-separated, + ; period as decimal point, and two decimal places. + commodity INR + format INR 1,00,00,000.00 + + Other indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + Remember that if the commodity symbol contains spaces, numbers, or + punctuation, it must be enclosed in double quotes (cf Commodity). + + The amount's quantity does not matter; only the format is significant. + It must include a decimal mark - either a period or a comma - followed + by 0 or more decimal digits. + + A few more examples: + + # number formats for $, EUR, INR and the no-symbol commodity: + commodity $1,000.00 + commodity EUR 1.000,00 + commodity INR 9,99,99,999.0 + commodity 1 000 000. + + Note hledger normally uses banker's rounding, so 0.5 displayed with + zero decimal digits is "0". (More at Commodity display style.) + + Even in the presence of commodity directives, the commodity display + style can still be overridden by supplying a command line option. + + Commodity error checking + In strict mode, enabled with the -s/--strict flag, hledger will report + an error if a commodity symbol is used that has not been declared by a + commodity directive. This works similarly to account error checking, + see the notes there for more details. + + Note, this disallows amounts without a commodity symbol, because cur- + rently it's not possible (?) to declare the "no-symbol" commodity with + a directive. This is one exception for convenience: zero amounts are + always allowed to have no commodity symbol. + + decimal-mark directive + You can use a decimal-mark directive - usually one per file, at the top + of the file - to declare which character represents a decimal mark when + parsing amounts in this file. It can look like + + decimal-mark . + + or + + decimal-mark , + + This prevents any ambiguity when parsing numbers in the file, so we + recommend it, especially if the file contains digit group marks (eg + thousands separators). + + include directive + You can pull in the content of additional files by writing an include + directive, like this: + + include FILEPATH + + Only journal files can include, and only journal, timeclock or timedot + files can be included (not CSV files, currently). + + If the file path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the + current file's folder. + + A tilde means home directory, eg: include ~/main.journal. + + The path may contain glob patterns to match multiple files, eg: include + *.journal. + + There is limited support for recursive wildcards: **/ (the slash is + required) matches 0 or more subdirectories. It's not super convenient + since you have to avoid include cycles and including directories, but + this can be done, eg: include */**/*.journal. + + The path may also be prefixed to force a specific file format, overrid- + ing the file extension (as described in hledger.1 -> Input files): + include timedot:~/notes/2020*.md. + + P directive + The P directive declares a market price, which is a conversion rate + between two commodities on a certain date. This allows value reports + to convert amounts of one commodity to their value in another, on or + after that date. These prices are often obtained from a stock + exchange, cryptocurrency exchange, the or foreign exchange market. + + The format is: + + P DATE COMMODITY1SYMBOL COMMODITY2AMOUNT + + DATE is a simple date, COMMODITY1SYMBOL is the symbol of the commodity + being priced, and COMMODITY2AMOUNT is the amount (symbol and quantity) + of commodity 2 that one unit of commodity 1 is worth on this date. + Examples: + + # one euro was worth $1.35 from 2009-01-01 onward: + P 2009-01-01 EUR $1.35 + + # and $1.40 from 2010-01-01 onward: + P 2010-01-01 EUR $1.40 + + The -V, -X and --value flags use these market prices to show amount + values in another commodity. See Valuation. + + + payee directive + payee PAYEE NAME + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of payees which may + appear in transaction descriptions. The "payees" check will report an + error if any transaction refers to a payee that has not been declared. + Eg: + + payee Whole Foods + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + tag directive + tag TAGNAME + + This directive can be used to declare a limited set of tag names + allowed in tags. TAGNAME should be a valid tag name (no spaces). Eg: + + tag item-id + + Any indented subdirectives are currently ignored. + + The "tags" check will report an error if any undeclared tag name is + used. It is quite easy to accidentally create a tag through normal use + of colons in comments(#comments]; if you want to prevent this, you can + declare and check your tags . + + Periodic transactions + The ~ directive declares recurring transactions. Such directives allow + hledger to generate temporary future transactions (visible in reports, + not in the journal file) to help with forecasting or budgeting. + + Periodic transactions can be a little tricky, so before you use them, + read this whole section, or at least these tips: + + 1. Two spaces accidentally added or omitted will cause you trouble - + read about this below. + + 2. For troubleshooting, show the generated transactions with hledger + print --forecast tag:generated or hledger register --forecast + tag:generated. + + 3. Forecasted transactions will begin only after the last non-fore- + casted transaction's date. + + 4. Forecasted transactions will end 6 months from today, by default. + See below for the exact start/end rules. + + 5. period expressions can be tricky. Their documentation needs + improvement, but is worth studying. + + 6. Some period expressions with a repeating interval must begin on a + natural boundary of that interval. Eg in weekly from DATE, DATE + must be a monday. ~ weekly from 2019/10/1 (a tuesday) will give an + error. + + 7. Other period expressions with an interval are automatically expanded + to cover a whole number of that interval. (This is done to improve + reports, but it also affects periodic transactions. Yes, it's a bit + inconsistent with the above.) Eg: ~ every 10th day of month from + 2020/01, which is equivalent to ~ every 10th day of month from + 2020/01/01, will be adjusted to start on 2019/12/10. + + Periodic rule syntax + A periodic transaction rule looks like a normal journal entry, with the + date replaced by a tilde (~) followed by a period expression (mnemonic: + ~ looks like a recurring sine wave.): + + # every first of month + ~ monthly + expenses:rent $2000 + assets:bank:checking + + # every 15th of month in 2023's first quarter: + ~ monthly from 2023-04-15 to 2023-06-16 + expenses:utilities $400 + assets:bank:checking + + The period expression is the same syntax used for specifying multi- + period reports, just interpreted differently; there, it specifies + report periods; here it specifies recurrence dates (the periods' start + dates). + + Periodic rules and relative dates + Partial or relative dates (like 12/31, 25, tomorrow, last week, next + quarter) are usually not recommended in periodic rules, since the + results will change as time passes. If used, they will be interpreted + relative to, in order of preference: + + 1. the first day of the default year specified by a recent Y directive + + 2. or the date specified with --today + + 3. or the date on which you are running the report. + + They will not be affected at all by report period or forecast period + dates. + + Two spaces between period expression and description! + If the period expression is followed by a transaction description, + these must be separated by two or more spaces. This helps hledger know + where the period expression ends, so that descriptions can not acciden- + tally alter their meaning, as in this example: + + ; 2 or more spaces needed here, so the period is not understood as "every 2 months in 2020" + ; || + ; vv + ~ every 2 months in 2020, we will review + assets:bank:checking $1500 + income:acme inc + + So, + + o Do write two spaces between your period expression and your transac- + tion description, if any. + + o Don't accidentally write two spaces in the middle of your period + expression. + + Other syntax + hledger journal format supports quite a few other features, mainly to + make interoperating with or converting from Ledger easier. Note some + of the features below are powerful and can be useful in special cases, + but in general, features in this section are considered less important + or even not recommended for most users. Downsides are mentioned to + help you decide if you want to use them. + + Auto postings + The = directive declares a rule for automatically adding temporary + extra postings (visible in reports, not in the journal file) to all + transactions matched by a certain query, when you use the --auto flag. + + Downsides: depending on generated data for your reports makes your + financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy + in an audit. Also, because the feature is optional, other features + like balance assertions can break depending on whether it is on or off. + + An auto posting rule looks a bit like a transaction: + + = QUERY + ACCOUNT AMOUNT + ... + ACCOUNT [AMOUNT] + + except the first line is an equals sign (mnemonic: = suggests match- + ing), followed by a query (which matches existing postings), and each + "posting" line describes a posting to be generated, and the posting + amounts can be: + + o a normal amount with a commodity symbol, eg $2. This will be used + as-is. + + o a number, eg 2. The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post- + ing will be added to this. + + o a numeric multiplier, eg *2 (a star followed by a number N). The + matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied + by N. + + o a multiplier with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and + symbol S). The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and + its commodity symbol will be replaced with S. + + Any query term containing spaces must be enclosed in single or double + quotes, as on the command line. Eg, note the quotes around the second + query term below: + + = expenses:groceries 'expenses:dining out' + (budget:funds:dining out) *-1 + + Some examples: + + ; every time I buy food, schedule a dollar donation + = expenses:food + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + + ; when I buy a gift, also deduct that amount from a budget envelope subaccount + = expenses:gifts + assets:checking:gifts *-1 + assets:checking *1 + + 2017/12/1 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + + 2017/12/14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + + $ hledger print --auto + 2017-12-01 + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking + (liabilities:charity) $-1 + + 2017-12-14 + expenses:gifts $20 + assets:checking + assets:checking:gifts -$20 + assets:checking $20 + + Auto postings and multiple files + An auto posting rule can affect any transaction in the current file, or + in any parent file or child file. Note, currently it will not affect + sibling files (when multiple -f/--file are used - see #1212). + + Auto postings and dates + A posting date (or secondary date) in the matched posting, or (taking + precedence) a posting date in the auto posting rule itself, will also + be used in the generated posting. + + Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance asser- + tions + Currently, auto postings are added: + + o after missing amounts are inferred, and transactions are checked for + balancedness, + + o but before balance assertions are checked. + + Note this means that journal entries must be balanced both before and + after auto postings are added. This changed in hledger 1.12+; see #893 + for background. + + This also means that you cannot have more than one auto-posting with a + missing amount applied to a given transaction, as it will be unable to + infer amounts. + + Auto posting tags + Automated postings will have some extra tags: + + o generated-posting:= QUERY - shows this was generated by an auto post- + ing rule, and the query + + o _generated-posting:= QUERY - a hidden tag, which does not appear in + hledger's output. This can be used to match postings generated "just + now", rather than generated in the past and saved to the journal. + + Also, any transaction that has been changed by auto posting rules will + have these tags added: + + o modified: - this transaction was modified + + o _modified: - a hidden tag not appearing in the comment; this transac- + tion was modified "just now". + + Balance assignments + Ledger-style balance assignments are also supported. These are like + balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of the + equals sign; instead it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy + the assertion. This can be a convenience during data entry, eg when + setting opening balances: + + ; starting a new journal, set asset account balances + 2016/1/1 opening balances + assets:checking = $409.32 + assets:savings = $735.24 + assets:cash = $42 + equity:opening balances + + or when adjusting a balance to reality: + + ; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense + 2016/1/15 + assets:cash = $0 + expenses:misc + + The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity + at that point (which depends on the previously-dated postings of the + commodity to that account since the last balance assertion or assign- + ment). + + Downsides: using balance assignments makes your journal less explicit; + to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger or do the cal- + culations yourself, instead of just reading it. Also balance assign- + ments' forcing of balances can hide errors. These things make your + financial data less portable, less future-proof, and less trustworthy + in an audit. + + Balance assignments and prices + A cost in a balance assignment will cause the calculated amount to have + that price attached: + + 2019/1/1 + (a) = $1 @ EUR2 + + $ hledger print --explicit + 2019-01-01 + (a) $1 @ EUR2 = $1 @ EUR2 + + Bracketed posting dates + For setting posting dates and secondary posting dates, Ledger's brack- + eted date syntax is also supported: [DATE], [DATE=DATE2] or [=DATE2] in + posting comments. hledger will attempt to parse any square-bracketed + sequence of the 0123456789/-.= characters in this way. With this syn- + tax, DATE infers its year from the transaction and DATE2 infers its + year from DATE. + + Downsides: another syntax to learn, redundant with hledger's + date:/date2: tags, and confusingly similar to Ledger's lot date syntax. + + D directive + D AMOUNT + + This directive sets a default commodity, to be used for any subsequent + commodityless amounts (ie, plain numbers) seen while parsing the jour- + nal. This effect lasts until the next D directive, or the end of the + journal. + + For compatibility/historical reasons, D also acts like a commodity + directive (setting the commodity's decimal mark for parsing and display + style for output). So its argument is not just a commodity symbol, but + a full amount demonstrating the style. The amount must include a deci- + mal mark (either period or comma). Eg: + + ; commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars + ; (and displayed with the dollar sign on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places) + D $1,000.00 + + 1/1 + a 5 ; <- commodity-less amount, parsed as $5 and displayed as $5.00 + b + + Interactions with other directives: + + For setting a commodity's display style, a commodity directive has + highest priority, then a D directive. + + For detecting a commodity's decimal mark during parsing, decimal-mark + has highest priority, then commodity, then D. + + For checking commodity symbols with the check command, a commodity + directive is required (hledger check commodities ignores D directives). + + Downsides: omitting commodity symbols makes your financial data less + explicit, less portable, and less trustworthy in an audit. It is usu- + ally an unsustainable shortcut; sooner or later you will want to track + multiple commodities. D is overloaded with functions redundant with + commodity and decimal-mark. And it works differently from Ledger's D. + + apply account directive + This directive sets a default parent account, which will be prepended + to all accounts in following entries, until an end apply account direc- + tive or end of current file. Eg: + + apply account home + + 2010/1/1 + food $10 + cash + + end apply account + + is equivalent to: + + 2010/01/01 + home:food $10 + home:cash $-10 + + account directives are also affected, and so is any included content. + + Account names entered via hledger add or hledger-web are not affected. + + Account aliases, if any, are applied after the parent account is + prepended. + + Downsides: this can make your financial data less explicit, less porta- + ble, and less trustworthy in an audit. + + Y directive + Y YEAR + + or (deprecated backward-compatible forms): + + year YEAR apply year YEAR + + The space is optional. This sets a default year to be used for subse- + quent dates which don't specify a year. Eg: + + Y2009 ; set default year to 2009 + + 12/15 ; equivalent to 2009/12/15 + expenses 1 + assets + + year 2010 ; change default year to 2010 + + 2009/1/30 ; specifies the year, not affected + expenses 1 + assets + + 1/31 ; equivalent to 2010/1/31 + expenses 1 + assets + + Downsides: omitting the year (from primary transaction dates, at least) + makes your financial data less explicit, less portable, and less trust- + worthy in an audit. Such dates can get separated from their corre- + sponding Y directive, eg when evaluating a region of the journal in + your editor. A missing Y directive makes reports dependent on today's + date. + + Secondary dates + A secondary date is written after the primary date, following an equals + sign. If the year is omitted, the primary date's year is assumed. + When running reports, the primary (left) date is used by default, but + with the --date2 flag (or --aux-date or --effective), the secondary + (right) date will be used instead. + + The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow a + consistent rule. Eg "primary = the bank's clearing date, secondary = + date the transaction was initiated, if different". + + Downsides: makes your financial data more complicated, less portable, + and less trustworthy in an audit. Keeping the meaning of the two dates + consistent requires discipline, and you have to remember which report- + ing mode is appropriate for a given report. Posting dates are simpler + and better. + + Star comments + Lines beginning with * (star/asterisk) are also comment lines. This + feature allows Emacs users to insert org headings in their journal, + allowing them to fold/unfold/navigate it like an outline when viewed + with org mode. + + Downsides: another, unconventional comment syntax to learn. Decreases + your journal's portability. And switching to Emacs org mode just for + folding/unfolding meant losing the benefits of ledger mode; nowadays + you can add outshine mode to ledger mode to get folding without losing + ledger mode's features. + + Valuation expressions + Ledger allows a valuation function or value to be written in double + parentheses after an amount. hledger ignores these. + + Virtual postings + A posting with parentheses around the account name is called a virtual + posting or unbalanced posting, which means it is exempt from the usual + rule that a transaction's postings must balance add up to zero. + + This is not part of double entry bookkeeping, so you might choose to + avoid this feature. Or you can use it sparingly for certain special + cases where it can be convenient. Eg, you could set opening balances + without using a balancing equity account: + + 2022-01-01 opening balances + (assets:checking) $1000 + (assets:savings) $2000 + + A posting with brackets around the account name is called a balanced + virtual posting. The balanced virtual postings in a transaction must + add up to zero (separately from other postings). Eg: + + 2022-01-01 buy food with cash, update budget envelope subaccounts, & something else + assets:cash $-10 ; <- these balance each other + expenses:food $7 ; <- + expenses:food $3 ; <- + [assets:checking:budget:food] $-10 ; <- and these balance each other + [assets:checking:available] $10 ; <- + (something:else) $5 ; <- this is not required to balance + + Postings whose account names are neither parenthesised nor bracketed + are called real postings. You can exclude virtual postings from + reports with the -R/--real flag or a real:1 query. + + Downsides: violates double entry bookkeeping, can be used to avoid fig- + uring out correct entries, makes your financial data less portable and + less trustworthy in an audit. + + Other Ledger directives + These other Ledger directives are currently accepted but ignored. This + allows hledger to read more Ledger files, but be aware that hledger's + reports may differ from Ledger's if you use these. + + apply fixed COMM AMT + apply tag TAG + assert EXPR + bucket / A ACCT + capture ACCT REGEX + check EXPR + define VAR=EXPR + end apply fixed + end apply tag + end apply year + end tag + eval / expr EXPR + python + PYTHONCODE + tag NAME + value EXPR + --command-line-flags + + See also https://hledger.org/ledger.html for a detailed hledger/Ledger + syntax comparison. + + +CSV + hledger can read CSV files (Character Separated Value - usually comma, + semicolon, or tab) containing dated records, automatically converting + each record into a transaction. + + (To learn about writing CSV, see CSV output.) + + For best error messages when reading CSV/TSV/SSV files, make sure they + have a corresponding .csv, .tsv or .ssv file extension or use a hledger + file prefix (see File Extension below). + + Each CSV file must be described by a corresponding rules file. + This contains rules describing the CSV data (header line, fields lay- + out, date format etc.), how to construct hledger transactions from it, + and how to categorise transactions based on description or other + attributes. + + By default hledger looks for a rules file named like the CSV file with + an extra .rules extension, in the same directory. Eg when asked to + read foo/FILE.csv, hledger looks for foo/FILE.csv.rules. You can spec- + ify a different rules file with the --rules-file option. If no rules + file is found, hledger will create a sample rules file, which you'll + need to adjust. + + At minimum, the rules file must identify the date and amount fields, + and often it also specifies the date format and how many header lines + there are. Here's a simple CSV file and a rules file for it: + + Date, Description, Id, Amount + 12/11/2019, Foo, 123, 10.23 + + # basic.csv.rules + skip 1 + fields date, description, , amount + date-format %d/%m/%Y + + $ hledger print -f basic.csv + 2019-11-12 Foo + expenses:unknown 10.23 + income:unknown -10.23 + + There's an introductory Importing CSV data tutorial on hledger.org, and + more CSV rules examples below, and a larger collection at + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/examples/csv. + + CSV rules cheatsheet + The following kinds of rule can appear in the rules file, in any order. + (Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; or * are ignored.) + + + separator declare the field separator, instead of rely- + ing on file extension + skip skip one or more header lines at start of file + date-format declare how to parse CSV dates/date-times + timezone declare the time zone of ambiguous CSV date- + times + newest-first improve txn order when: there are multiple + records, newest first, all with the same date + + + intra-day-reversed improve txn order when: same-day txns are in + opposite order to the overall file + decimal-mark declare the decimal mark used in CSV amounts, + when ambiguous + fields list name CSV fields for easy reference, and + optionally assign their values to hledger + fields + Field assignment assign a CSV value or interpolated text value + to a hledger field + if block conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + or skip a record or end (skip rest of file) + if table conditionally assign values to hledger fields, + using compact syntax + balance-type select which type of balance asser- + tions/assignments to generate + include inline another CSV rules file + + Working with CSV tips can be found below, including How CSV rules are + evaluated. + + separator + You can use the separator rule to read other kinds of character-sepa- + rated data. The argument is any single separator character, or the + words tab or space (case insensitive). Eg, for comma-separated values + (CSV): + + separator , + + or for semicolon-separated values (SSV): + + separator ; + + or for tab-separated values (TSV): + + separator TAB + + If the input file has a .csv, .ssv or .tsv file extension (or a csv:, + ssv:, tsv: prefix), the appropriate separator will be inferred automat- + ically, and you won't need this rule. + + skip + skip N + + The word skip followed by a number (or no number, meaning 1) tells + hledger to ignore this many non-empty lines at the start of the input + data. (Empty/blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need + to count those.) You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains + header lines. Header lines skipped in this way are ignored, and not + parsed as CSV. + + skip can also be used inside if blocks (described below), to skip indi- + vidual data records. Note records skipped in this way are still + required to be valid CSV, even though otherwise ignored. + + date-format + date-format DATEFMT + + This is a helper for the date (and date2) fields. If your CSV dates + are not formatted like YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY.MM.DD, you'll + need to add a date-format rule describing them with a strptime-style + date parsing pattern - see https://hackage.haskell.org/pack- + age/time/docs/Data-Time-Format.html#v:formatTime. The pattern must + parse the CSV date value completely. Some examples: + + # MM/DD/YY + date-format %m/%d/%y + + # D/M/YYYY + # The - makes leading zeros optional. + date-format %-d/%-m/%Y + + # YYYY-Mmm-DD + date-format %Y-%h-%d + + # M/D/YYYY HH:MM AM some other junk + # Note the time and junk must be fully parsed, though only the date is used. + date-format %-m/%-d/%Y %l:%M %p some other junk + + timezone + timezone TIMEZONE + + When CSV contains date-times that are implicitly in some time zone + other than yours, but containing no explicit time zone information, you + can use this rule to declare the CSV's native time zone, which helps + prevent off-by-one dates. + + When the CSV date-times do contain time zone information, you don't + need this rule; instead, use %Z in date-format (or %z, %EZ, %Ez; see + the formatTime link above). + + In either of these cases, hledger will do a time-zone-aware conversion, + localising the CSV date-times to your current system time zone. If you + prefer to localise to some other time zone, eg for reproducibility, you + can (on unix at least) set the output timezone with the TZ environment + variable, eg: + + $ TZ=-1000 hledger print -f foo.csv # or TZ=-1000 hledger import foo.csv + + timezone currently does not understand timezone names, except "UTC", + "GMT", "EST", "EDT", "CST", "CDT", "MST", "MDT", "PST", or "PDT". For + others, use numeric format: +HHMM or -HHMM. + + newest-first + hledger tries to ensure that the generated transactions will be ordered + chronologically, including intra-day transactions. Usually it can + auto-detect how the CSV records are ordered. But if it encounters CSV + where all records are on the same date, it assumes that the records are + oldest first. If in fact the CSV's records are normally newest first, + like: + + 2022-10-01, txn 3... + 2022-10-01, txn 2... + 2022-10-01, txn 1... + + you can add the newest-first rule to help hledger generate the transac- + tions in correct order. + + # same-day CSV records are newest first + newest-first + + intra-day-reversed + CSV records for each day are sometimes ordered in reverse compared to + the overall date order. Eg, here dates are newest first, but the + transactions on each date are oldest first: + + 2022-10-02, txn 3... + 2022-10-02, txn 4... + 2022-10-01, txn 1... + 2022-10-01, txn 2... + + In this situation, add the intra-day-reversed rule, and hledger will + compensate, improving the order of transactions. + + # transactions within each day are reversed with respect to the overall date order + intra-day-reversed + + decimal-mark + decimal-mark . + + or: + + decimal-mark , + + hledger automatically accepts either period or comma as a decimal mark + when parsing numbers (cf Amounts). However if any numbers in the CSV + contain digit group marks, such as thousand-separating commas, you + should declare the decimal mark explicitly with this rule, to avoid + misparsed numbers. + + fields list + fields FIELDNAME1, FIELDNAME2, ... + + A fields list (the word fields followed by comma-separated field names) + is optional, but convenient. It does two things: + + 1. It names the CSV field in each column. This can be convenient if + you are referencing them in other rules, so you can say %SomeField + instead of remembering %13. + + 2. Whenever you use one of the special hledger field names (described + below), it assigns the CSV value in this position to that hledger + field. This is the quickest way to populate hledger's fields and + build a transaction. + + Here's an example that says "use the 1st, 2nd and 4th fields as the + transaction's date, description and amount; name the last two fields + for later reference; and ignore the others": + + fields date, description, , amount, , , somefield, anotherfield + + In a fields list, the separator is always comma; it is unrelated to the + CSV file's separator. Also: + + o There must be least two items in the list (at least one comma). + + o Field names may not contain spaces. Spaces before/after field names + are optional. + + o Field names may contain _ (underscore) or - (hyphen). + + o Fields you don't care about can be given a dummy name or an empty + name. + + If the CSV contains column headings, it's convenient to use these for + your field names, suitably modified (eg lower-cased with spaces + replaced by underscores). + + Sometimes you may want to alter a CSV field name to avoid assigning to + a hledger field with the same name. Eg you could call the CSV's "bal- + ance" field balance_ to avoid directly setting hledger's balance field + (and generating a balance assertion). + + Field assignment + HLEDGERFIELD FIELDVALUE + + Field assignments are the more flexible way to assign CSV values to + hledger fields. They can be used instead of or in addition to a fields + list (see above). + + To assign a value to a hledger field, write the field name (any of the + standard hledger field/pseudo-field names, defined below), a space, + followed by a text value on the same line. This text value may inter- + polate CSV fields, referenced by their 1-based position in the CSV + record (%N), or by the name they were given in the fields list (%CSV- + FIELD). + + Some examples: + + # set the amount to the 4th CSV field, with " USD" appended + amount %4 USD + + # combine three fields to make a comment, containing note: and date: tags + comment note: %somefield - %anotherfield, date: %1 + + Tips: + + o Interpolation strips outer whitespace (so a CSV value like " 1 " + becomes 1 when interpolated) (#1051). + + o Interpolations always refer to a CSV field - you can't interpolate a + hledger field. (See Referencing other fields below). + + Field names + Note the two kinds of field names mentioned here, and used only in + hledger CSV rules files: + + 1. CSV field names (CSVFIELD in these docs): you can optionally name + the CSV columns for easy reference (since hledger doesn't yet auto- + matically recognise column headings in a CSV file), by writing arbi- + trary names in a fields list, eg: + + fields When, What, Some_Id, Net, Total, Foo, Bar + + 2. Special hledger field names (HLEDGERFIELD in these docs): you must + set at least some of these to generate the hledger transaction from + a CSV record, by writing them as the left hand side of a field + assignment, eg: + + date %When + code %Some_Id + description %What + comment %Foo %Bar + amount1 $ %Total + + or directly in a fields list: + + fields date, description, code, , amount1, Foo, Bar + currency $ + comment %Foo %Bar + + Here are all the special hledger field names available, and what hap- + pens when you assign values to them: + + date field + Assigning to date sets the transaction date. + + date2 field + date2 sets the transaction's secondary date, if any. + + status field + status sets the transaction's status, if any. + + code field + code sets the transaction's code, if any. + + description field + description sets the transaction's description, if any. + + comment field + comment sets the transaction's comment, if any. + + commentN, where N is a number, sets the Nth posting's comment. + + You can assign multi-line comments by writing literal \n in the code. + A comment starting with \n will begin on a new line. + + Comments can contain tags, as usual. + + account field + Assigning to accountN, where N is 1 to 99, sets the account name of the + Nth posting, and causes that posting to be generated. + + Most often there are two postings, so you'll want to set account1 and + account2. Typically account1 is associated with the CSV file, and is + set once with a top-level assignment, while account2 is set based on + each transaction's description, in conditional rules. + + If a posting's account name is left unset but its amount is set (see + below), a default account name will be chosen (like "expenses:unknown" + or "income:unknown"). + + amount field + There are several "amount" field name variants, useful for different + situations: + + o amountN sets the amount of the Nth posting, and causes that posting + to be generated. By assigning to amount1, amount2, ... etc. you + can generate up to 99 postings. Posting numbers don't have to be + consecutive; in certain situations using a high number might be help- + ful to influence the layout of postings. + + o amountN-in and amountN-out should be used instead, as a pair, when + and only when the amount must be obtained from two CSV fields. Eg + when the CSV has separate Debit and Credit fields instead of a single + Amount field. Note: + + o Don't think "-in is for the first posting and -out is for the sec- + ond posting" - that's not correct. Think: "amountN-in and amountN- + out together detect the amount for posting N, by inspecting two CSV + fields at once." + + o hledger assumes both CSV fields are unsigned, and will automati- + cally negate the -out value. + + o It also expects that at least one of the values is empty or zero, + so it knows which one to ignore. If that's not the case you'll + need an if rule (see Setting amounts below). + + o amount, with no posting number (and similarly, amount-in and amount- + out with no number) are an older syntax. We keep them for backwards + compatibility, and because they have special behaviour that is some- + times convenient: + + o They set the amount of posting 1 and (negated) the amount of post- + ing 2. + + o Posting 2's amount will be converted to cost if it has a cost + price. + + o Any of the newer rules for posting 1 or 2 (like amount1, or + amount2-in and amount2-out) will take precedence. This allows + incrementally migrating old rules files to the new syntax. + + There's more to say about amount-setting that doesn't fit here; please + see also "Setting amounts" below. + + currency field + currency sets a currency symbol, to be prepended to all postings' + amounts. You can use this if the CSV amounts do not have a currency + symbol, eg if it is in a separate column. + + currencyN prepends a currency symbol to just the Nth posting's amount. + + balance field + balanceN sets a balance assertion amount (or if the posting amount is + left empty, a balance assignment) on posting N. + + balance is a compatibility spelling for hledger <1.17; it is equivalent + to balance1. + + You can adjust the type of assertion/assignment with the balance-type + rule (see below). + + See Tips below for more about setting amounts and currency. + + if block + Rules can be applied conditionally, depending on patterns in the CSV + data. This allows flexibility; in particular, it is how you can cate- + gorise transactions, selecting an appropriate account name based on + their description (for example). There are two ways to write condi- + tional rules: "if blocks", described here, and "if tables", described + below. + + An if block is the word if and one or more "matcher" expressions (can + be a word or phrase), one per line, starting either on the same or next + line; followed by one or more indented rules. Eg, + + if MATCHER + RULE + + or + + if + MATCHER + MATCHER + MATCHER + RULE + RULE + + If any of the matchers succeeds, all of the indented rules will be + applied. They are usually field assignments, but the following special + rules may also be used within an if block: + + o skip - skips the matched CSV record (generating no transaction from + it) + + o end - skips the rest of the current CSV file. + + Some examples: + + # if the record contains "groceries", set account2 to "expenses:groceries" + if groceries + account2 expenses:groceries + + # if the record contains any of these phrases, set account2 and a transaction comment as shown + if + monthly service fee + atm transaction fee + banking thru software + account2 expenses:business:banking + comment XXX deductible ? check it + + # if an empty record is seen (assuming five fields), ignore the rest of the CSV file + if ,,,, + end + + Matchers + There are two kinds: + + 1. A record matcher is a word or single-line text fragment or regular + expression (REGEX), which hledger will try to match case-insensi- + tively anywhere within the CSV record. + Eg: whole foods + + 2. A field matcher is preceded with a percent sign and CSV field name + (%CSVFIELD REGEX). hledger will try to match these just within the + named CSV field. + Eg: %date 2023 + + The regular expression is (as usual in hledger) a POSIX extended regu- + lar expression, that also supports GNU word boundaries (\b, \B, \<, + \>), and nothing else. If you have trouble, see "Regular expressions" + in the hledger manual (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#regular-expres- + sions). + + With record matchers, it's important to know that the record matched is + not the original CSV record, but a modified one: separators will be + converted to commas, and enclosing double quotes (but not enclosing + whitespace) are removed. So for example, when reading an SSV file, if + the original record was: + + 2020-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000 + + the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text: + + 2020-01-01,Acme, Inc., 1,000 + + When an if block has multiple matchers, they are combined as follows: + + o By default they are OR'd (any one of them can match) + + o When a matcher is preceded by ampersand (&) it will be AND'ed with + the previous matcher (both of them must match). + + There's not yet an easy syntax to negate a matcher. + + if table + "if tables" are an alternative to if blocks; they can express many + matchers and field assignments in a more compact tabular format, like + this: + + if,HLEDGERFIELD1,HLEDGERFIELD2,... + MATCHERA,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + MATCHERB,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + MATCHERC,VALUE1,VALUE2,... + + + The first character after if is taken to be the separator for the rest + of the table. It should be a non-alphanumeric character like , or | + that does not appear anywhere else in the table. (Note: it is unre- + lated to the CSV file's separator.) Whitespace can be used in the + matcher lines for readability, but not in the if line currently. The + table must be terminated by an empty line (or end of file). Each line + must contain the same number of separators; empty values are allowed. + + The above means: try all of the matchers; whenever a matcher succeeds, + assign all of the values on that line to the corresponding hledger + fields; later lines can overrider earlier ones. It is equivalent to + this sequence of if blocks: + + if MATCHERA + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + if MATCHERB + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + if MATCHERC + HLEDGERFIELD1 VALUE1 + HLEDGERFIELD2 VALUE2 + ... + + Example: + + if,account2,comment + atm transaction fee,expenses:business:banking,deductible? check it + %description groceries,expenses:groceries, + 2020/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out + + balance-type + Balance assertions generated by assigning to balanceN are of the simple + = type by default, which is a single-commodity, subaccount-excluding + assertion. You may find the subaccount-including variants more useful, + eg if you have created some virtual subaccounts of checking to help + with budgeting. You can select a different type of assertion with the + balance-type rule: + + # balance assertions will consider all commodities and all subaccounts + balance-type ==* + + Here are the balance assertion types for quick reference: + + = single commodity, exclude subaccounts + =* single commodity, include subaccounts + == multi commodity, exclude subaccounts + ==* multi commodity, include subaccounts + + include + include RULESFILE + + This includes the contents of another CSV rules file at this point. + RULESFILE is an absolute file path or a path relative to the current + file's directory. This can be useful for sharing common rules between + several rules files, eg: + + # someaccount.csv.rules + + ## someaccount-specific rules + fields date,description,amount + account1 assets:someaccount + account2 expenses:misc + + ## common rules + include categorisation.rules + + Working with CSV + Some tips: + + Rapid feedback + It's a good idea to get rapid feedback while creating/troubleshooting + CSV rules. Here's a good way, using entr from eradman.com/entrproject: + + $ ls foo.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ----; hledger -f foo.csv print desc:SOMEDESC' + + A desc: query (eg) is used to select just one, or a few, transactions + of interest. "bash -c" is used to run multiple commands, so we can + echo a separator each time the command re-runs, making it easier to + read the output. + + Valid CSV + Note that hledger will only accept valid CSV conforming to RFC 4180, + and equivalent SSV and TSV formats (like RFC 4180 but with semicolon or + tab as separators). This means, eg: + + o Values may be enclosed in double quotes, or not. Enclosing in single + quotes is not allowed. (Eg 'A','B' is rejected.) + + o When values are enclosed in double quotes, spaces outside the quotes + are not allowed. (Eg "A", "B" is rejected.) + + o When values are not enclosed in quotes, they may not contain double + quotes. (Eg A"A, B is rejected.) + + If your CSV/SSV/TSV is not valid in this sense, you'll need to trans- + form it before reading with hledger. Try using sed, or a more permis- + sive CSV parser like python's csv lib. + + File Extension + To help hledger choose the CSV file reader and show the right error + messages (and choose the right field separator character by default), + it's best if CSV/SSV/TSV files are named with a .csv, .ssv or .tsv + filename extension. (More about this at Data formats.) + + When reading files with the "wrong" extension, you can ensure the CSV + reader (and the default field separator) by prefixing the file path + with csv:, ssv: or tsv:: Eg: + + $ hledger -f ssv:foo.dat print + + You can also override the default field separator with a separator rule + if needed. + + Reading CSV from standard input + You'll need the file format prefix when reading CSV from stdin also, + since hledger assumes journal format by default. Eg: + + $ cat foo.dat | hledger -f ssv:- print + + Reading multiple CSV files + If you use multiple -f options to read multiple CSV files at once, + hledger will look for a correspondingly-named rules file for each CSV + file. But if you use the --rules-file option, that rules file will be + used for all the CSV files. + + Valid transactions + After reading a CSV file, hledger post-processes and validates the gen- + erated journal entries as it would for a journal file - balancing them, + applying balance assignments, and canonicalising amount styles. Any + errors at this stage will be reported in the usual way, displaying the + problem entry. + + There is one exception: balance assertions, if you have generated them, + will not be checked, since normally these will work only when the CSV + data is part of the main journal. If you do need to check balance + assertions generated from CSV right away, pipe into another hledger: + + $ hledger -f file.csv print | hledger -f- print + + Deduplicating, importing + When you download a CSV file periodically, eg to get your latest bank + transactions, the new file may overlap with the old one, containing + some of the same records. + + The import command will (a) detect the new transactions, and (b) append + just those transactions to your main journal. It is idempotent, so you + don't have to remember how many times you ran it or with which version + of the CSV. (It keeps state in a hidden .latest.FILE.csv file.) This + is the easiest way to import CSV data. Eg: + + # download the latest CSV files, then run this command. + # Note, no -f flags needed here. + $ hledger import *.csv [--dry] + + This method works for most CSV files. (Where records have a stable + chronological order, and new records appear only at the new end.) + + A number of other tools and workflows, hledger-specific and otherwise, + exist for converting, deduplicating, classifying and managing CSV data. + See: + + o https://hledger.org/cookbook.html#setups-and-workflows + + o https://plaintextaccounting.org -> data import/conversion + + Setting amounts + Continuing from amount field above, here are more tips on handling var- + ious amount-setting situations: + + 1. If the amount is in a single CSV field: + + a. If its sign indicates direction of flow: + Assign it to amountN, to set the Nth posting's amount. N is usu- + ally 1 or 2 but can go up to 99. + + b. If another field indicates direction of flow: + Use one or more conditional rules to set the appropriate amount + sign. Eg: + + # assume a withdrawal unless Type contains "deposit": + amount1 -%Amount + if %Type deposit + amount1 %Amount + + 2. If the amount is in one of two CSV fields (eg Debit and Credit): + + a. If both fields are unsigned: + Assign the fields to amountN-in and amountN-out. This sets posting + N's amount to whichever of these has a non-zero value. If it's the + -out value, the amount will be negated. + + b. If either field is signed: + Use a conditional rule to flip the sign when needed. Eg below, the + -out value already has a minus sign so we undo hledger's automatic + negating by negating once more (but only if the field is non-empty, + so that we don't leave a minus sign by itself): + + fields date, description, amount1-in, amount1-out + if %amount1-out [1-9] + amount1-out -%amount1-out + + c. If both fields can contain a non-zero value (or both can be + empty): + The -in/-out rules normally choose the value which is non-zero/non- + empty. Some value pairs can be ambiguous, such as 1 and none. For + such cases, use conditional rules to help select the amount. Eg, + to handle the above you could select the value containing non-zero + digits: + + fields date, description, in, out + if %in [1-9] + amount1 %in + if %out [1-9] + amount1 %out + + 3. If you want posting 2's amount converted to cost: + Use the unnumbered amount (or amount-in and amount-out) syntax. + + 4. If the CSV has only balance amounts, not transaction amounts: + Assign to balanceN, to set a balance assignment on the Nth posting, + causing the posting's amount to be calculated automatically. balance + with no number is equivalent to balance1. In this situation hledger is + more likely to guess the wrong default account name, so you may need to + set that explicitly. + + Amount signs + There is some special handling for amount signs, to simplify parsing + and sign-flipping: + + o If an amount value begins with a plus sign: + that will be removed: +AMT becomes AMT + + o If an amount value is parenthesised: + it will be de-parenthesised and sign-flipped: (AMT) becomes -AMT + + o If an amount value has two minus signs (or two sets of parentheses, + or a minus sign and parentheses): + they cancel out and will be removed: --AMT or -(AMT) becomes AMT + + o If an amount value contains just a sign (or just a set of parenthe- + ses): + that is removed, making it an empty value. "+" or "-" or "()" becomes + "". + + Setting currency/commodity + If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount + field(s): + + 2020-01-01,foo,$123.00 + + you don't have to do anything special for the commodity symbol, it will + be assigned as part of the amount. Eg: + + fields date,description,amount + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown $123.00 + income:unknown $-123.00 + + If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field: + + 2020-01-01,foo,USD,123.00 + + You can assign that to the currency pseudo-field, which has the special + effect of prepending itself to every amount in the transaction (on the + left, with no separating space): + + fields date,description,currency,amount + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown USD123.00 + income:unknown USD-123.00 + + Or, you can use a field assignment to construct the amount yourself, + with more control. Eg to put the symbol on the right, and separated by + a space: + + fields date,description,cur,amt + amount %amt %cur + + 2020-01-01 foo + expenses:unknown 123.00 USD + income:unknown -123.00 USD + + Note we used a temporary field name (cur) that is not currency - that + would trigger the prepending effect, which we don't want here. + + Amount decimal places + Like amounts in a journal file, the amounts generated by CSV rules like + amount1 influence commodity display styles, such as the number of deci- + mal places displayed in reports. + + The original amounts as written in the CSV file do not affect display + style (because we don't yet reliably know their commodity). + + Referencing other fields + In field assignments, you can interpolate only CSV fields, not hledger + fields. In the example below, there's both a CSV field and a hledger + field named amount1, but %amount1 always means the CSV field, not the + hledger field: + + # Name the third CSV field "amount1" + fields date,description,amount1 + + # Set hledger's amount1 to the CSV amount1 field followed by USD + amount1 %amount1 USD + + # Set comment to the CSV amount1 (not the amount1 assigned above) + comment %amount1 + + Here, since there's no CSV amount1 field, %amount1 will produce a lit- + eral "amount1": + + fields date,description,csvamount + amount1 %csvamount USD + # Can't interpolate amount1 here + comment %amount1 + + When there are multiple field assignments to the same hledger field, + only the last one takes effect. Here, comment's value will be be B, or + C if "something" is matched, but never A: + + comment A + comment B + if something + comment C + + How CSV rules are evaluated + Here's how to think of CSV rules being evaluated (if you really need + to). First, + + o include - all includes are inlined, from top to bottom, depth first. + (At each include point the file is inlined and scanned for further + includes, recursively, before proceeding.) + + Then "global" rules are evaluated, top to bottom. If a rule is + repeated, the last one wins: + + o skip (at top level) + + o date-format + + o newest-first + + o fields - names the CSV fields, optionally sets up initial assignments + to hledger fields + + Then for each CSV record in turn: + + o test all if blocks. If any of them contain a end rule, skip all + remaining CSV records. Otherwise if any of them contain a skip rule, + skip that many CSV records. If there are multiple matched skip + rules, the first one wins. + + o collect all field assignments at top level and in matched if blocks. + When there are multiple assignments for a field, keep only the last + one. + + o compute a value for each hledger field - either the one that was + assigned to it (and interpolate the %CSVFIELD references), or a + default + + o generate a hledger transaction (journal entry) from these values. + + This is all part of the CSV reader, one of several readers hledger can + use to parse input files. When all files have been read successfully, + the transactions are passed as input to whichever hledger command the + user specified. + + + Well factored rules + Some things than can help reduce duplication and complexity in rules + files: + + o Extracting common rules usable with multiple CSV files into a com- + mon.rules, and adding include common.rules to each CSV's rules file. + + o Splitting if blocks into smaller if blocks, extracting the frequently + used parts. + + CSV rules examples + Bank of Ireland + Here's a CSV with two amount fields (Debit and Credit), and a balance + field, which we can use to add balance assertions, which is not neces- + sary but provides extra error checking: + + Date,Details,Debit,Credit,Balance + 07/12/2012,LODGMENT 529898,,10.0,131.21 + 07/12/2012,PAYMENT,5,,126 + + # bankofireland-checking.csv.rules + + # skip the header line + skip + + # name the csv fields, and assign some of them as journal entry fields + fields date, description, amount-out, amount-in, balance + + # We generate balance assertions by assigning to "balance" + # above, but you may sometimes need to remove these because: + # + # - the CSV balance differs from the true balance, + # by up to 0.0000000000005 in my experience + # + # - it is sometimes calculated based on non-chronological ordering, + # eg when multiple transactions clear on the same day + + # date is in UK/Ireland format + date-format %d/%m/%Y + + # set the currency + currency EUR + + # set the base account for all txns + account1 assets:bank:boi:checking + + $ hledger -f bankofireland-checking.csv print + 2012-12-07 LODGMENT 529898 + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR10.0 = EUR131.2 + income:unknown EUR-10.0 + + 2012-12-07 PAYMENT + assets:bank:boi:checking EUR-5.0 = EUR126.0 + expenses:unknown EUR5.0 + + The balance assertions don't raise an error above, because we're read- + ing directly from CSV, but they will be checked if these entries are + imported into a journal file. + + Coinbase + A simple example with some CSV from Coinbase. The spot price is + recorded using cost notation. The legacy amount field name conve- + niently sets amount 2 (posting 2's amount) to the total cost. + + # Timestamp,Transaction Type,Asset,Quantity Transacted,Spot Price Currency,Spot Price at Transaction,Subtotal,Total (inclusive of fees and/or spread),Fees and/or Spread,Notes + # 2021-12-30T06:57:59Z,Receive,USDC,100,GBP,0.740000,"","","","Received 100.00 USDC from an external account" + + # coinbase.csv.rules + skip 1 + fields Timestamp,Transaction_Type,Asset,Quantity_Transacted,Spot_Price_Currency,Spot_Price_at_Transaction,Subtotal,Total,Fees_Spread,Notes + date %Timestamp + date-format %Y-%m-%dT%T%Z + description %Notes + account1 assets:coinbase:cc + amount %Quantity_Transacted %Asset @ %Spot_Price_at_Transaction %Spot_Price_Currency + + $ hledger print -f coinbase.csv + 2021-12-30 Received 100.00 USDC from an external account + assets:coinbase:cc 100 USDC @ 0.740000 GBP + income:unknown -74.000000 GBP + + Amazon + Here we convert amazon.com order history, and use an if block to gener- + ate a third posting if there's a fee. (In practice you'd probably get + this data from your bank instead, but it's an example.) + + "Date","Type","To/From","Name","Status","Amount","Fees","Transaction ID" + "Jul 29, 2012","Payment","To","Foo.","Completed","$20.00","$0.00","16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + "Jul 30, 2012","Payment","To","Adapteva, Inc.","Completed","$25.00","$1.00","17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL" + + # amazon-orders.csv.rules + + # skip one header line + skip 1 + + # name the csv fields, and assign the transaction's date, amount and code. + # Avoided the "status" and "amount" hledger field names to prevent confusion. + fields date, _, toorfrom, name, amzstatus, amzamount, fees, code + + # how to parse the date + date-format %b %-d, %Y + + # combine two fields to make the description + description %toorfrom %name + + # save the status as a tag + comment status:%amzstatus + + # set the base account for all transactions + account1 assets:amazon + # leave amount1 blank so it can balance the other(s). + # I'm assuming amzamount excludes the fees, don't remember + + # set a generic account2 + account2 expenses:misc + amount2 %amzamount + # and maybe refine it further: + #include categorisation.rules + + # add a third posting for fees, but only if they are non-zero. + if %fees [1-9] + account3 expenses:fees + amount3 %fees + + $ hledger -f amazon-orders.csv print + 2012-07-29 (16000000000000DGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Foo. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $20.00 + + 2012-07-30 (17LA58JSKRD4HDGLNJPI1P9B8DKPVHL) To Adapteva, Inc. ; status:Completed + assets:amazon + expenses:misc $25.00 + expenses:fees $1.00 + + Paypal + Here's a real-world rules file for (customised) Paypal CSV, with some + Paypal-specific rules, and a second rules file included: + + "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","Calm Radio","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-6.99","0.00","-6.99","simon@joyful.com","memberships@calmradio.com","60P57143A8206782E","MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month","","I-R8YLY094FJYR","","-6.99","" + "10/01/2019","03:46:20","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","6.99","0.00","6.99","","simon@joyful.com","0TU1544T080463733","","","60P57143A8206782E","","0.00","" + "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","Patreon","PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment","Completed","USD","-7.00","0.00","-7.00","simon@joyful.com","support@patreon.com","2722394R5F586712G","Patreon* Membership","","B-0PG93074E7M86381M","","-7.00","" + "10/01/2019","08:57:01","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","7.00","0.00","7.00","","simon@joyful.com","71854087RG994194F","Patreon* Membership","","2722394R5F586712G","","0.00","" + "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","-2.00","0.00","-2.00","simon@joyful.com","tle@wikimedia.org","K9U43044RY432050M","Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation","","I-R5C3YUS3285L","","-2.00","" + "10/19/2019","03:02:12","PDT","","Bank Deposit to PP Account ","Pending","USD","2.00","0.00","2.00","","simon@joyful.com","3XJ107139A851061F","","","K9U43044RY432050M","","0.00","" + "10/22/2019","05:07:06","PDT","Noble Benefactor","Subscription Payment","Completed","USD","10.00","-0.59","9.41","noble@bene.fac.tor","simon@joyful.com","6L8L1662YP1334033","Joyful Systems","","I-KC9VBGY2GWDB","","9.41","" + + # paypal-custom.csv.rules + + # Tips: + # Export from Activity -> Statements -> Custom -> Activity download + # Suggested transaction type: "Balance affecting" + # Paypal's default fields in 2018 were: + # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Shipping Address","Address Status","Item Title","Item ID","Shipping and Handling Amount","Insurance Amount","Sales Tax","Option 1 Name","Option 1 Value","Option 2 Name","Option 2 Value","Reference Txn ID","Invoice Number","Custom Number","Quantity","Receipt ID","Balance","Address Line 1","Address Line 2/District/Neighborhood","Town/City","State/Province/Region/County/Territory/Prefecture/Republic","Zip/Postal Code","Country","Contact Phone Number","Subject","Note","Country Code","Balance Impact" + # This rules file assumes the following more detailed fields, configured in "Customize report fields": + # "Date","Time","TimeZone","Name","Type","Status","Currency","Gross","Fee","Net","From Email Address","To Email Address","Transaction ID","Item Title","Item ID","Reference Txn ID","Receipt ID","Balance","Note" + + fields date, time, timezone, description_, type, status_, currency, grossamount, feeamount, netamount, fromemail, toemail, code, itemtitle, itemid, referencetxnid, receiptid, balance, note + + skip 1 + + date-format %-m/%-d/%Y + + # ignore some paypal events + if + In Progress + Temporary Hold + Update to + skip + + # add more fields to the description + description %description_ %itemtitle + + # save some other fields as tags + comment itemid:%itemid, fromemail:%fromemail, toemail:%toemail, time:%time, type:%type, status:%status_ + + # convert to short currency symbols + if %currency USD + currency $ + if %currency EUR + currency E + if %currency GBP + currency P + + # generate postings + + # the first posting will be the money leaving/entering my paypal account + # (negative means leaving my account, in all amount fields) + account1 assets:online:paypal + amount1 %netamount + + # the second posting will be money sent to/received from other party + # (account2 is set below) + amount2 -%grossamount + + # if there's a fee, add a third posting for the money taken by paypal. + if %feeamount [1-9] + account3 expenses:banking:paypal + amount3 -%feeamount + comment3 business: + + # choose an account for the second posting + + # override the default account names: + # if the amount is positive, it's income (a debit) + if %grossamount ^[^-] + account2 income:unknown + # if negative, it's an expense (a credit) + if %grossamount ^- + account2 expenses:unknown + + # apply common rules for setting account2 & other tweaks + include common.rules + + # apply some overrides specific to this csv + + # Transfers from/to bank. These are usually marked Pending, + # which can be disregarded in this case. + if + Bank Account + Bank Deposit to PP Account + description %type for %referencetxnid %itemtitle + account2 assets:bank:wf:pchecking + account1 assets:online:paypal + + # Currency conversions + if Currency Conversion + account2 equity:currency conversion + + # common.rules + + if + darcs + noble benefactor + account2 revenues:foss donations:darcshub + comment2 business: + + if + Calm Radio + account2 expenses:online:apps + + if + electronic frontier foundation + Patreon + wikimedia + Advent of Code + account2 expenses:dues + + if Google + account2 expenses:online:apps + description google | music + + $ hledger -f paypal-custom.csv print + 2019-10-01 (60P57143A8206782E) Calm Radio MONTHLY - $1 for the first 2 Months: Me - Order 99309. Item total: $1.00 USD first 2 months, then $6.99 / Month ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:memberships@calmradio.com, time:03:46:20, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-6.99 = $-6.99 + expenses:online:apps $6.99 + + 2019-10-01 (0TU1544T080463733) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 60P57143A8206782E ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:46:20, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $6.99 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-6.99 + + 2019-10-01 (2722394R5F586712G) Patreon Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:support@patreon.com, time:08:57:01, type:PreApproved Payment Bill User Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-7.00 = $-7.00 + expenses:dues $7.00 + + 2019-10-01 (71854087RG994194F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for 2722394R5F586712G Patreon* Membership ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:08:57:01, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $7.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-7.00 + + 2019-10-19 (K9U43044RY432050M) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation ; itemid:, fromemail:simon@joyful.com, toemail:tle@wikimedia.org, time:03:02:12, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $-2.00 = $-2.00 + expenses:dues $2.00 + expenses:banking:paypal ; business: + + 2019-10-19 (3XJ107139A851061F) Bank Deposit to PP Account for K9U43044RY432050M ; itemid:, fromemail:, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:03:02:12, type:Bank Deposit to PP Account, status:Pending + assets:online:paypal $2.00 = $0.00 + assets:bank:wf:pchecking $-2.00 + + 2019-10-22 (6L8L1662YP1334033) Noble Benefactor Joyful Systems ; itemid:, fromemail:noble@bene.fac.tor, toemail:simon@joyful.com, time:05:07:06, type:Subscription Payment, status:Completed + assets:online:paypal $9.41 = $9.41 + revenues:foss donations:darcshub $-10.00 ; business: + expenses:banking:paypal $0.59 ; business: + +Timeclock + The time logging format of timeclock.el, as read by hledger. + + hledger can read time logs in timeclock format. As with Ledger, these + are (a subset of) timeclock.el's format, containing clock-in and clock- + out entries as in the example below. The date is a simple date. The + time format is HH:MM[:SS][+-ZZZZ]. Seconds and timezone are optional. + The timezone, if present, must be four digits and is ignored (currently + the time is always interpreted as a local time). Lines beginning with + # or ; or *, and blank lines, are ignored. + + i 2015/03/30 09:00:00 some:account name optional description after two spaces + o 2015/03/30 09:20:00 + i 2015/03/31 22:21:45 another account + o 2015/04/01 02:00:34 + + hledger treats each clock-in/clock-out pair as a transaction posting + some number of hours to an account. Or if the session spans more than + one day, it is split into several transactions, one for each day. For + the above time log, hledger print generates these journal entries: + + $ hledger -f t.timeclock print + 2015-03-30 * optional description after two spaces + (some:account name) 0.33h + + 2015-03-31 * 22:21-23:59 + (another account) 1.64h + + 2015-04-01 * 00:00-02:00 + (another account) 2.01h + + Here is a sample.timeclock to download and some queries to try: + + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock balance # current time balances + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p 2009/3 # sessions in march 2009 + $ hledger -f sample.timeclock register -p weekly --depth 1 --empty # time summary by week + + To generate time logs, ie to clock in and clock out, you could: + + o use emacs and the built-in timeclock.el, or the extended timeclock- + x.el and perhaps the extras in ledgerutils.el + + o at the command line, use these bash aliases: shell alias ti="echo + i `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` \$* >>$TIMELOG" alias to="echo o + `date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` >>$TIMELOG" + + o or use the old ti and to scripts in the ledger 2.x repository. These + rely on a "timeclock" executable which I think is just the ledger 2 + executable renamed. + + +Timedot + timedot format is hledger's human-friendly time logging format. Com- + pared to timeclock format, it is + + o convenient for quick, approximate, and retroactive time logging + + o readable: you can see at a glance where time was spent. + + A timedot file contains a series of day entries, which might look like + this: + + 2021-08-04 + hom:errands .... .... + fos:hledger:timedot .. ; docs + per:admin:finance + + hledger reads this as three time transactions on this day, with each + dot representing a quarter-hour spent: + + $ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension activates the timedot reader + 2021-08-04 * + (hom:errands) 2.00 + + 2021-08-04 * + (fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 + + 2021-08-04 * + (per:admin:finance) 0 + + A day entry begins with a date line: + + o a non-indented simple date (Y-M-D, Y/M/D, or Y.M.D). + + Optionally this can be followed on the same line by + + o a common transaction description for this day + + o a common transaction comment for this day, after a semicolon (;). + + After the date line are zero or more optionally-indented time transac- + tion lines, consisting of: + + o an account name - any word or phrase, usually a hledger-style account + name. + + o two or more spaces - a field separator, required if there is an + amount (as in journal format). + + o a timedot amount - dots representing quarter hours, or a number rep- + resenting hours. + + o an optional comment beginning with semicolon. This is ignored. + + In more detail, timedot amounts can be: + + o dots: zero or more period characters, each representing one quarter- + hour. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. Eg: .... .. + + o a number, representing hours. Eg: 1.5 + + o a number immediately followed by a unit symbol s, m, h, d, w, mo, or + y, representing seconds, minutes, hours, days weeks, months or years. + Eg 1.5h or 90m. The following equivalencies are assumed: + 60s = 1m, 60m = 1h, 24h = 1d, 7d = 1w, 30d = 1mo, 365d = 1y. (This + unit will not be visible in the generated transaction amount, which is + always in hours.) + + There is some added flexibility to help with keeping time log data in + the same file as your notes, todo lists, etc.: + + o Blank lines and lines beginning with # or ; are ignored. + + o Before the first date line, lines beginning with * are ignored. From + the first date line onward, a sequence of *'s followed by a space at + beginning of lines (ie, the headline prefix used by Emacs Org mode) + is ignored. This means the time log can be kept under an Org head- + line, and date lines or time transaction lines can be Org headlines. + + o Lines not ending with a double-space and amount are parsed as trans- + actions with zero amount. (Most hledger reports hide these by + default; add -E to see them.) + + More examples: + + # on this day, 6h was spent on client work, 1.5h on haskell FOSS work, etc. + 2016/2/1 + inc:client1 .... .... .... .... .... .... + fos:haskell .... .. + biz:research . + + 2016/2/2 + inc:client1 .... .... + biz:research . + + 2016/2/3 + inc:client1 4 + fos:hledger 3 + biz:research 1 + + * Time log + ** 2020-01-01 + *** adm:time . + *** adm:finance . + + * 2020 Work Diary + ** Q1 + *** 2020-02-29 + **** DONE + 0700 yoga + **** UNPLANNED + **** BEGUN + hom:chores + cleaning ... + water plants + outdoor - one full watering can + indoor - light watering + **** TODO + adm:planning: trip + *** LATER + + Reporting: + + $ hledger -f a.timedot print date:2016/2/2 + 2016-02-02 * + (inc:client1) 2.00 + + 2016-02-02 * + (biz:research) 0.25 + + $ hledger -f a.timedot bal --daily --tree + Balance changes in 2016-02-01-2016-02-03: + + || 2016-02-01d 2016-02-02d 2016-02-03d + ============++======================================== + biz || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + research || 0.25 0.25 1.00 + fos || 1.50 0 3.00 + haskell || 1.50 0 0 + hledger || 0 0 3.00 + inc || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + client1 || 6.00 2.00 4.00 + ------------++---------------------------------------- + || 7.75 2.25 8.00 + + Using period instead of colon as account name separator: + + 2016/2/4 + fos.hledger.timedot 4 + fos.ledger .. + + $ hledger -f a.timedot --alias /\\./=: bal --tree + 4.50 fos + 4.00 hledger:timedot + 0.50 ledger + -------------------- + 4.50 + + A sample.timedot file. + +PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS +Time periods + Report start & end date + By default, most hledger reports will show the full span of time repre- + sented by the journal. The report start date will be the earliest + transaction or posting date, and the report end date will be the latest + transaction, posting, or market price date. + + Often you will want to see a shorter time span, such as the current + month. You can specify a start and/or end date using -b/--begin, + -e/--end, -p/--period or a date: query (described below). All of these + accept the smart date syntax (below). + + Some notes: + + o End dates are exclusive, as in Ledger, so you should write the date + after the last day you want to see in the report. + + o As noted in reporting options: among start/end dates specified with + options, the last (i.e. right-most) option takes precedence. + + o The effective report start and end dates are the intersection of the + start/end dates from options and that from date: queries. That is, + date:2019-01 date:2019 -p'2000 to 2030' yields January 2019, the + smallest common time span. + + o In some cases a report interval will adjust start/end dates to fall + on interval boundaries (see below). + + Examples: + + + -b 2016/3/17 begin on St. Patrick's day 2016 + -e 12/1 end at the start of december 1st of the current year + (11/30 will be the last date included) + -b thismonth all transactions on or after the 1st of the current month + -p thismonth all transactions in the current month + date:2016/3/17.. the above written as queries instead (.. can also be + replaced with -) + date:..12/1 + date:thismonth.. + date:thismonth + + Smart dates + hledger's user interfaces accept a "smart date" syntax for added conve- + nience. Smart dates optionally can be relative to today's date, be + written with english words, and have less-significant parts omitted + (missing parts are inferred as 1). Some examples: + + + 2004/10/1, 2004-01-01, exact date, several separators allowed. Year + 2004.9.1 is 4+ digits, month is 1-12, day is 1-31 + 2004 start of year + 2004/10 start of month + 10/1 month and day in current year + 21 day in current month + october, oct start of month in current year + yesterday, today, tomor- -1, 0, 1 days from today + row + last/this/next -1, 0, 1 periods from the current period + day/week/month/quar- + ter/year + in n n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years + n n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years ahead + n -n periods from the current period + days/weeks/months/quar- + ters/years ago + 20181201 8 digit YYYYMMDD with valid year month and day + + 201812 6 digit YYYYMM with valid year and month + + Some counterexamples - malformed digit sequences might give surprising + results: + + + 201813 6 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 6-digit year + 20181301 8 digits with an invalid month is parsed as start of + 8-digit year + 20181232 8 digits with an invalid day gives an error + 201801012 9+ digits beginning with a valid YYYYMMDD gives an error + + "Today's date" can be overridden with the --today option, in case it's + needed for testing or for recreating old reports. (Except for periodic + transaction rules, which are not affected by --today.) + + Report intervals + A report interval can be specified so that reports like register, bal- + ance or activity become multi-period, showing each subperiod as a sepa- + rate row or column. + + The following standard intervals can be enabled with command-line + flags: + + o -D/--daily + + o -W/--weekly + + o -M/--monthly + + o -Q/--quarterly + + o -Y/--yearly + + More complex intervals can be specified using -p/--period, described + below. + + Date adjustment + When there is a report interval (other than daily), report start/end + dates which have been inferred, eg from the journal, are automatically + adjusted to natural period boundaries. This is convenient for produc- + ing simple periodic reports. More precisely: + + o an inferred start date will be adjusted earlier if needed to fall on + a natural period boundary + + o an inferred end date will be adjusted later if needed to make the + last period the same length as the others. + + By contrast, start/end dates which have been specified explicitly, with + -b, -e, -p or date:, will not be adjusted (since hledger 1.29). This + makes it possible to specify non-standard report periods, but it also + means that if you are specifying a start date, you should pick one + that's on a period boundary if you want to see simple report period + headings. + + Period expressions + The -p/--period option specifies a period expression, which is a com- + pact way of expressing a start date, end date, and/or report interval. + + Here's a period expression with a start and end date (specifying the + first quarter of 2009): + + + -p "from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" + + Several keywords like "from" and "to" are supported for readability; + these are optional. "to" can also be written as ".." or "-". The spa- + ces are also optional, as long as you don't run two dates together. So + the following are equivalent to the above: + + + -p "2009/1/1 2009/4/1" + -p2009/1/1to2009/4/1 + -p2009/1/1..2009/4/1 + + Dates are smart dates, so if the current year is 2009, these are also + equivalent to the above: + + + -p "1/1 4/1" + -p "jan-apr" + -p "this year to 4/1" + + If you specify only one date, the missing start or end date will be the + earliest or latest transaction date in the journal: + + + -p "from 2009/1/1" everything after january + 1, 2009 + -p "since 2009/1" the same, since is a syn- + onym + -p "from 2009" the same + -p "to 2009" everything before january + 1, 2009 + + You can also specify a period by writing a single partial or full date: + + + -p "2009" the year 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to 2010/1/1" + -p "2009/1" the month of january 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/2/1" + -p "2009/1/1" the first day of 2009; equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/1/2" + + or by using the "Q" quarter-year syntax (case insensitive): + + + -p "2009Q1" first quarter of 2009, equivalent to "2009/1/1 to + 2009/4/1" + -p "q4" fourth quarter of the current year + + Period expressions with a report interval + A period expression can also begin with a report interval, separated + from the start/end dates (if any) by a space or the word in: + + + -p "weekly from 2009/1/1 to 2009/4/1" + -p "monthly in 2008" + -p "quarterly" + + More complex report intervals + Some more complex intervals can be specified within period expressions, + such as: + + o biweekly (every two weeks) + + o fortnightly + + o bimonthly (every two months) + + o every day|week|month|quarter|year + + o every N days|weeks|months|quarters|years + + Weekly on a custom day: + + o every Nth day of week (th, nd, rd, or st are all accepted after the + number) + + o every WEEKDAYNAME (full or three-letter english weekday name, case + insensitive) + + Monthly on a custom day: + + o every Nth day [of month] + + o every Nth WEEKDAYNAME [of month] + + Yearly on a custom day: + + o every MM/DD [of year] (month number and day of month number) + + o every MONTHNAME DDth [of year] (full or three-letter english month + name, case insensitive, and day of month number) + + o every DDth MONTHNAME [of year] (equivalent to the above) + + Examples: + + + -p "bimonthly from 2008" + -p "every 2 weeks" + -p "every 5 months from + 2009/03" + -p "every 2nd day of week" periods will go from Tue to Tue + -p "every Tue" same + -p "every 15th day" period boundaries will be on 15th of each + month + -p "every 2nd Monday" period boundaries will be on second Monday + of each month + -p "every 11/05" yearly periods with boundaries on 5th of + November + -p "every 5th November" same + -p "every Nov 5th" same + + Show historical balances at end of the 15th day of each month (N is an + end date, exclusive as always): + + $ hledger balance -H -p "every 16th day" + + Group postings from the start of wednesday to end of the following + tuesday (N is both (inclusive) start date and (exclusive) end date): + + $ hledger register checking -p "every 3rd day of week" + + Multiple weekday intervals + This special form is also supported: + + o every WEEKDAYNAME,WEEKDAYNAME,... (full or three-letter english week- + day names, case insensitive) + + Also, weekday and weekendday are shorthand for mon,tue,wed,thu,fri and + sat,sun. + + This is mainly intended for use with --forecast, to generate periodic + transactions on arbitrary days of the week. It may be less useful with + -p, since it divides each week into subperiods of unequal length, which + is unusual. (Related: #1632) + + Examples: + + + -p "every dates will be Mon, Wed, Fri; periods will be Mon- + mon,wed,fri" Tue, Wed-Thu, Fri-Sun + -p "every weekday" dates will be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri; periods will + be Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri-Sun + -p "every weekend- dates will be Sat, Sun; periods will be Sat, Sun-Fri + day" + +Depth + With the --depth NUM option (short form: -NUM), reports will show + accounts only to the specified depth, hiding deeper subaccounts. Use + this when you want a summary with less detail. This flag has the same + effect as a depth: query argument: depth:2, --depth=2 or -2 are equiva- + lent. + +Queries + One of hledger's strengths is being able to quickly report on a precise + subset of your data. Most hledger commands accept optional query argu- + ments to restrict their scope. The syntax is as follows: + + o Zero or more space-separated query terms. These are most often + account name substrings: + + utilities food:groceries + + o Terms with spaces or other special characters should be enclosed in + quotes: + + "personal care" + + o Regular expressions are also supported: + + "^expenses\b" "accounts (payable|receivable)" + + o Add a query type prefix to match other parts of the data: + + date:202012- desc:amazon cur:USD amt:">100" status: + + o Add a not: prefix to negate a term: + + not:cur:USD + + Query types + Here are the types of query term available. Remember these can also be + prefixed with not: to convert them into a negative match. + + acct:REGEX, REGEX + Match account names containing this (case insensitive) regular expres- + sion. This is the default query type when there is no prefix, and reg- + ular expression syntax is typically not needed, so usually we just + write an account name substring, like expenses or food. + + amt:N, amt:N, amt:>=N + Match postings with a single-commodity amount equal to, less than, or + greater than N. (Postings with multi-commodity amounts are not tested + and will always match.) The comparison has two modes: if N is preceded + by a + or - sign (or is 0), the two signed numbers are compared. Oth- + erwise, the absolute magnitudes are compared, ignoring sign. + + code:REGEX + Match by transaction code (eg check number). + + cur:REGEX + Match postings or transactions including any amounts whose cur- + rency/commodity symbol is fully matched by REGEX. (For a partial + match, use .*REGEX.*). Note, to match special characters which are + regex-significant, you need to escape them with \. And for characters + which are significant to your shell you may need one more level of + escaping. So eg to match the dollar sign: + hledger print cur:\\$. + + desc:REGEX + Match transaction descriptions. + + date:PERIODEXPR + Match dates (or with the --date2 flag, secondary dates) within the + specified period. PERIODEXPR is a period expression with no report + interval. Examples: + date:2016, date:thismonth, date:2/1-2/15, date:2021-07-27..nextquarter. + + date2:PERIODEXPR + Match secondary dates within the specified period (independent of the + --date2 flag). + + depth:N + Match (or display, depending on command) accounts at or above this + depth. + + note:REGEX + Match transaction notes (the part of the description right of |, or the + whole description if there's no |). + + payee:REGEX + Match transaction payee/payer names (the part of the description left + of |, or the whole description if there's no |). + + real:, real:0 + Match real or virtual postings respectively. + + status:, status:!, status:* + Match unmarked, pending, or cleared transactions respectively. + + type:TYPECODES + Match by account type (see Declaring accounts > Account types). TYPE- + CODES is one or more of the single-letter account type codes ALERXCV, + case insensitive. Note type:A and type:E will also match their respec- + tive subtypes C (Cash) and V (Conversion). Certain kinds of account + alias can disrupt account types, see Rewriting accounts > Aliases and + account types. + + tag:REGEX[=REGEX] + Match by tag name, and optionally also by tag value. (To match only by + value, use tag:.=REGEX.) + + When querying by tag, note that: + + o Accounts also inherit the tags of their parent accounts + + o Postings also inherit the tags of their account and their transaction + + o Transactions also acquire the tags of their postings. + + (inacct:ACCTNAME + A special query term used automatically in hledger-web only: tells + hledger-web to show the transaction register for an account.) + + Combining query terms + When given multiple query terms, most commands select things which + match: + + o any of the description terms AND + + o any of the account terms AND + + o any of the status terms AND + + o all the other terms. + + The print command is a little different, showing transactions which: + + o match any of the description terms AND + + o have any postings matching any of the positive account terms AND + + o have no postings matching any of the negative account terms AND + + o match all the other terms. + + Although these fixed rules are enough for many needs, we do not support + full boolean expressions (#203), (and you should not write AND or OR in + your queries). This makes certain queries hard to express, but here + are some tricks that can help: + + 1. Use a doubled not: prefix. Eg, to print only the food expenses paid + with cash: + + $ hledger print food not:not:cash + + 2. Or pre-filter the transactions with print, piping the result into a + second hledger command (with balance assertions disabled): + + $ hledger print cash | hledger -f- -I balance food + + Queries and command options + Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: depth:2 is + equivalent to --depth 2, date:2020 is equivalent to -p 2020, etc. When + you mix command options and query arguments, generally the resulting + query is their intersection. + + Queries and valuation + When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value + reports, cur: and amt: match the old commodity symbol and the old + amount quantity, not the new ones (except in hledger 1.22.0 where it's + reversed, see #1625). + + Querying with account aliases + When account names are rewritten with --alias or alias, note that acct: + will match either the old or the new account name. + + Querying with cost or value + When amounts are converted to other commodities in cost or value + reports, note that cur: matches the new commodity symbol, and not the + old one, and amt: matches the new quantity, and not the old one. Note: + this changed in hledger 1.22, previously it was the reverse, see the + discussion at #1625. + +Pivoting + Normally, hledger groups and sums amounts within each account. The + --pivot FIELD option substitutes some other transaction field for + account names, causing amounts to be grouped and summed by that field's + value instead. FIELD can be any of the transaction fields status, + code, description, payee, note, or a tag name. When pivoting on a tag + and a posting has multiple values of that tag, only the first value is + displayed. Values containing colon:separated:parts will be displayed + hierarchically, like account names. + + Some examples: + + 2016/02/16 Yearly Dues Payment + assets:bank account 2 EUR + income:dues -2 EUR ; member: John Doe + + Normal balance report showing account names: + + $ hledger balance + 2 EUR assets:bank account + -2 EUR income:dues + -------------------- + 0 + + Pivoted balance report, using member: tag values instead: + + $ hledger balance --pivot member + 2 EUR + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + 0 + + One way to show only amounts with a member: value (using a query): + + $ hledger balance --pivot member tag:member=. + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + -2 EUR + + Another way (the acct: query matches against the pivoted "account + name"): + + $ hledger balance --pivot member acct:. + -2 EUR John Doe + -------------------- + -2 EUR + +Generating data + Two features for generating transient data (visible only at report + time) are built in to hledger's journal format: + + o Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain transac- + tions. They are activated by the --auto flag. + + o Periodic transaction rules can generate repeating transactions, usu- + ally dated in the future, to help with forecasting or budgeting. + They are activated by the --forecast or balance --budget options, + described next. + +Forecasting + The --forecast flag activates any periodic transaction rules in the + journal. These will generate temporary additional transactions, usu- + ally recurring and in the future, which will appear in all reports. + hledger print --forecast is a good way to see them. + + This can be useful for estimating balances into the future, perhaps + experimenting with different scenarios. + + It could also be useful for scripted data entry: you could describe + recurring transactions, and every so often copy the output of print + --forecast into the journal. + + The generated transactions will have an extra tag, like generated- + transaction:~ PERIODICEXPR, indicating which periodic rule generated + them. There is also a similar, hidden tag, named _generated-transac- + tion:, which you can use to reliably match transactions generated "just + now" (rather than printed in the past). + + The forecast transactions are generated within a forecast period, which + is independent of the report period. (Forecast period sets the bounds + for generated transactions, report period controls which transactions + are reported.) The forecast period begins on: + + o the start date provided within --forecast's argument, if any + + o otherwise, the later of + + o the report start date, if specified (with -b/-p/date:) + + o the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal, if + any + + o otherwise today. + + It ends on: + + o the end date provided within --forecast's argument, if any + + o otherwise, the report end date, if specified (with -e/-p/date:) + + o otherwise 180 days (6 months) from today. + + Note, this means that ordinary transactions will suppress periodic + transactions, by default; the periodic transactions will not start + until after the last ordinary transaction. This is usually convenient, + but you can get around it in two ways: + + o If you need to record some transactions in the future, make them + periodic transactions (with a single occurrence, eg: ~ YYYY-MM-DD) + rather than ordinary transactions. That way they won't suppress + other periodic transactions. + + o Or give --forecast a period expression argument. A forecast period + specified this way can overlap ordinary transactions, and need not be + in the future. Some things to note: + + o You must use = between flag and argument; a space won't work. + + o The period expression can specify the forecast period's start date, + end date, or both. See also Report start & end date. + + o The period expression should not specify a report interval. (Each + periodic transaction rule specifies its own interval.) + + Some examples: --forecast=202001-202004, --forecast=jan-, --fore- + cast=2021. + +Budgeting + With the balance command's --budget report, each periodic transaction + rule generates recurring budget goals in specified accounts, and goals + and actual performance can be compared. See the balance command's doc + below. + + See also: Budgeting and Forecasting. + +Cost reporting + This section is about recording the cost of things, in transactions + where one commodity is exchanged for another. Eg an exchange of cur- + rency, or a stock purchase or sale. First, a quick glossary: + + o Conversion - an exchange of one currency or commodity for another. + Eg a foreign currency exchange, or a purchase or sale of stock or + cryptocurrency. + + o Conversion transaction - a transaction involving one or more conver- + sions. + + o Conversion rate - the cost per unit of one commodity in the other, ie + the exchange rate. + + o Cost - how much of one commodity was paid to acquire the other. And + more generally, in hledger docs: the amount exchanged in the "sec- + ondary" commodity (usually your base currency), whether in a purchase + or a sale, and whether expressed per unit or in total. Also, the + "@/@@ PRICE" notation used to represent this. + + -B: Convert to cost + As discussed in JOURNAL > Costs, when recording a transaction you can + also record the amount's cost in another commodity, by adding @ UNIT- + PRICE or @@ TOTALPRICE. + + Then you can see a report with amounts converted to cost, by adding the + -B/--cost flag. (Mnemonic: "B" from "cost Basis", as in Ledger). Eg: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars is exchanged for.. + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 ; one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + + $ hledger bal -N + $-135 assets:dollars + EUR100 assets:euros + $ hledger bal -N -B + $-135 assets:dollars + $135 assets:euros # <- the euros' cost + + Notes: + + -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a cost is inferred: the + inferred price will be in the commodity of the last amount. So if + example 3's postings are reversed, while the transaction is equivalent, + -B shows something different: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 ; 135 dollars sold + assets:euros EUR100 ; for 100 euros + + $ hledger bal -N -B + EUR-100 assets:dollars # <- the dollars' selling price + EUR100 assets:euros + + The @/@@ cost notation is convenient, but has some drawbacks: it does + not truly balance the transaction, so it disrupts the accounting equa- + tion and tends to causes a non-zero total in balance reports. + + Equity conversion postings + By contrast, conventional double entry bookkeeping (DEB) uses a differ- + ent notation: an extra pair of equity postings to balance conversion + transactions. In this style, the above entry might be written: + + 2022-01-01 one hundred euros purchased at $1.35 each + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + This style is more correct, but it's also more verbose and makes cost + reporting more difficult for PTA tools. + + Happily, current hledger can read either notation, or convert one to + the other when needed, so you can use the one you prefer. + + You can even use cost notation and equivalent conversion postings at + the same time, for clarity. hledger will ignore the redundancy. But + be sure the cost and conversion posting amounts match, or you'll see a + not-so-clear transaction balancing error message. + + Inferring equity postings from cost + With --infer-equity, hledger detects transactions written with PTA cost + notation and adds equity conversion postings to them: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars -$135 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 + + $ hledger print --infer-equity + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + assets:euros EUR100 @ $1.35 + equity:conversion:$-EUR:EUR EUR-100 ; generated-posting: + equity:conversion:$-EUR:$ $135.00 ; generated-posting: + + The conversion account names can be changed with the conversion account + type declaration. + + --infer-equity is useful when when transactions have been recorded + using cost notation, to help preserve the accounting equation and bal- + ance reports' zero total, or to produce more conventional journal + entries for sharing with non-PTA-users. + + Inferring cost from equity postings + The reverse operation is possible using --infer-costs, which detects + transactions written with equity conversion postings and adds cost + notation to them: + + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + $ hledger print --infer-costs + 2022-01-01 + assets:dollars $-135 @@ EUR100 + equity:conversion $135 + equity:conversion EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + --infer-costs is useful when combined with -B/--cost, allowing cost + reporting even when transactions have been recorded using equity post- + ings: + + $ hledger print --infer-costs -B + 2009-01-01 + assets:dollars EUR-100 + assets:euros EUR100 + + Notes: + + For --infer-costs to work, an exchange must consist of four postings: + + 1. two non-equity postings + + 2. two equity postings, next to one another + + 3. the equity accounts must be declared, with account type V/Conversion + (or if they are not declared, they must be named equity:conversion, + equity:trade, equity:trading or subaccounts of these) + + 4. the equity postings' amounts must exactly match the non-equity post- + ings' amounts. + + Multiple such exchanges can coexist within a single transaction. + + When inferring cost, the order of postings matters: the cost is added + to the first of the non-equity postings involved in the exchange, in + the commodity of the last non-equity posting involved in the exchange. + If you don't want to write your postings in the required order, you can + use explicit cost notation instead. + + --infer-equity and --infer-costs can be used together, if you have a + mixture of both notations in your journal. + + When to infer cost/equity + Inferring equity postings or costs is still fairly new, so not enabled + by default. We're not sure yet if that should change. Here are two + suggestions to try, experience reports welcome: + + 1. When you use -B, always use --infer-costs as well. Eg: hledger bal + -B --infer-costs + + 2. Always run hledger with both flags enabled. Eg: alias hl="hledger + --infer-equity --infer-costs" + + How to record conversions + Essentially there are four ways to record a conversion transaction in + hledger. Here are all of them, with pros and cons. + + Conversion with implicit cost + Let's assume 100 EUR is converted to 120 USD. You can just record the + outflow (100 EUR) and inflow (120 USD) in the appropriate asset + account: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + assets:cash 120 USD + + hledger will assume this transaction is balanced, inferring that the + conversion rate must be 1 EUR = 1.20 USD. You can see the inferred + rate by using hledger print -x. + + Pro: + + o Concise, easy + + Con: + + o Less error checking - typos in amounts or commodity symbols may not + be detected + + o Conversion rate is not clear + + o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity + flag + + You can prevent accidental implicit conversions due to a mistyped com- + modity symbol, by using hledger check commodities. + + You can prevent implicit conversions entirely, by using hledger check + balancednoautoconversion, or -s/--strict. + + Conversion with explicit cost + You can add the conversion rate using @ notation: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Now hledger will check that 100 * 1.20 = 120, and would report an error + otherwise. + + Pro: + + o Still concise + + o Makes the conversion rate clear + + o Provides more error checking + + Con: + + o Disturbs the accounting equation, unless you add the --infer-equity + flag + + Conversion with equity postings + In strict double entry bookkeeping, the above transaction is not bal- + anced in EUR or in USD, since some EUR disappears, and some USD + appears. This violates the accounting equation (A+L+E=0), and prevents + reports like balancesheetequity from showing a zero total. + + The proper way to make it balance is to add a balancing posting for + each commodity, using an equity account: + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + o Preserves the accounting equation + + o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + + o Standard, works in any double entry accounting system + + Con: + + o More verbose + + o Conversion rate is not obvious + + o Cost reporting requires adding the --infer-costs flag + + Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost + Here both equity postings and @ notation are used together. + + 2021-01-01 + assets:cash -100 EUR @ 1.20 USD + equity:conversion 100 EUR + equity:conversion -120 USD + assets:cash 120 USD + + Pro: + + o Preserves the accounting equation + + o Keeps track of conversions and related gains/losses in one place + + o Makes the conversion rate clear + + o Provides more error checking + + Con: + + o Most verbose + + o Not compatible with ledger + + Cost tips + o Recording the cost/conversion rate explicitly is good because it + makes that clear and helps detect errors. + + o Recording equity postings is good because it is correct bookkeeping + and preserves the accounting equation. + + o Combining these is possible. + + o When you want to see the cost (or sale proceeds) of things, use -B + (short form of --cost). + + o If you use conversion postings without cost notation, add --infer- + costs also. + + o If you use cost notation without conversion postings, and you want to + see a balanced balance sheet or print correct journal entries, use + --infer-equity. + + o Conversion to cost is performed before valuation (described next). + +Valuation + Instead of reporting amounts in their original commodity, hledger can + convert them to cost/sale amount (using the conversion rate recorded in + the transaction), and/or to market value (using some market price on a + certain date). This is controlled by the --value=TYPE[,COMMODITY] + option, which will be described below. We also provide the simpler -V + and -X COMMODITY options, and often one of these is all you need: + + -V: Value + The -V/--market flag converts amounts to market value in their default + valuation commodity, using the market prices in effect on the valuation + date(s), if any. More on these in a minute. + + -X: Value in specified commodity + The -X/--exchange=COMM option is like -V, except you tell it which cur- + rency you want to convert to, and it tries to convert everything to + that. + + Valuation date + Since market prices can change from day to day, market value reports + have a valuation date (or more than one), which determines which market + prices will be used. + + For single period reports, if an explicit report end date is specified, + that will be used as the valuation date; otherwise the valuation date + is the journal's end date. + + For multiperiod reports, each column/period is valued on the last day + of the period, by default. + + Finding market price + To convert a commodity A to its market value in another commodity B, + hledger looks for a suitable market price (exchange rate) as follows, + in this order of preference : + + 1. A declared market price or inferred market price: A's latest market + price in B on or before the valuation date as declared by a P direc- + tive, or (with the --infer-market-prices flag) inferred from costs. + + 2. A reverse market price: the inverse of a declared or inferred market + price from B to A. + + 3. A forward chain of market prices: a synthetic price formed by com- + bining the shortest chain of "forward" (only 1 above) market prices, + leading from A to B. + + 4. Any chain of market prices: a chain of any market prices, including + both forward and reverse prices (1 and 2 above), leading from A to + B. + + There is a limit to the length of these price chains; if hledger + reaches that length without finding a complete chain or exhausting all + possibilities, it will give up (with a "gave up" message visible in + --debug=2 output). That limit is currently 1000. + + Amounts for which no suitable market price can be found, are not con- + verted. + + --infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions + Normally, market value in hledger is fully controlled by, and requires, + P directives in your journal. Since adding and updating those can be a + chore, and since transactions usually take place at close to market + value, why not use the recorded costs as additional market prices (as + Ledger does) ? Adding the --infer-market-prices flag to -V, -X or + --value enables this. + + So for example, hledger bs -V --infer-market-prices will get market + prices both from P directives and from transactions. If both occur on + the same day, the P directive takes precedence. + + There is a downside: value reports can sometimes be affected in confus- + ing/undesired ways by your journal entries. If this happens to you, + read all of this Valuation section carefully, and try adding --debug or + --debug=2 to troubleshoot. + + --infer-market-prices can infer market prices from: + + o multicommodity transactions with explicit prices (@/@@) + + o multicommodity transactions with implicit prices (no @, two commodi- + ties, unbalanced). (With these, the order of postings matters. + hledger print -x can be useful for troubleshooting.) + + o multicommodity transactions with equity postings, if cost is inferred + with --infer-costs. + + There is a limitation (bug) currently: when a valuation commodity is + not specified, prices inferred with --infer-market-prices do not help + select a default valuation commodity, as P prices would. So conversion + might not happen because no valuation commodity was detected (--debug=2 + will show this). To be safe, specify the valuation commmodity, eg: + + o -X EUR --infer-market-prices, not -V --infer-market-prices + + o --value=then,EUR --infer-market-prices, not --value=then --infer-mar- + ket-prices + + Signed costs and market prices can be confusing. For reference, here + is the current behaviour, since hledger 1.25. (If you think it should + work differently, see #1870.) + + 2022-01-01 Positive Unit prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @ A 1 + + 2022-01-01 Positive Total prices + a A 1 + b B -1 @@ A 1 + + + 2022-01-02 Negative unit prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @ A -1 + + 2022-01-02 Negative total prices + a A 1 + b B 1 @@ A -1 + + + 2022-01-03 Double Negative unit prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @ A -1 + + 2022-01-03 Double Negative total prices + a A -1 + b B -1 @@ A -1 + + All of the transactions above are considered balanced (and on each day, + the two transactions are considered equivalent). Here are the market + prices inferred for B: + + $ hledger -f- --infer-market-prices prices + P 2022-01-01 B A 1 + P 2022-01-01 B A 1.0 + P 2022-01-02 B A -1 + P 2022-01-02 B A -1.0 + P 2022-01-03 B A -1 + P 2022-01-03 B A -1.0 + + Valuation commodity + When you specify a valuation commodity (-X COMM or --value TYPE,COMM): + hledger will convert all amounts to COMM, wherever it can find a suit- + able market price (including by reversing or chaining prices). + + When you leave the valuation commodity unspecified (-V or --value + TYPE): + For each commodity A, hledger picks a default valuation commodity as + follows, in this order of preference: + + 1. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on + or before valuation date. + + 2. The price commodity from the latest P-declared market price for A on + any date. (Allows conversion to proceed when there are inferred + prices before the valuation date.) + + 3. If there are no P directives at all (any commodity or date) and the + --infer-market-prices flag is used: the price commodity from the + latest transaction-inferred price for A on or before valuation date. + + This means: + + o If you have P directives, they determine which commodities -V will + convert, and to what. + + o If you have no P directives, and use the --infer-market-prices flag, + costs determine it. + + Amounts for which no valuation commodity can be found are not con- + verted. + + Simple valuation examples + Here are some quick examples of -V: + + ; one euro is worth this many dollars from nov 1 + P 2016/11/01 EUR $1.10 + + ; purchase some euros on nov 3 + 2016/11/3 + assets:euros EUR100 + assets:checking + + ; the euro is worth fewer dollars by dec 21 + P 2016/12/21 EUR $1.03 + + How many euros do I have ? + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros + EUR100 assets:euros + + What are they worth at end of nov 3 ? + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V -e 2016/11/4 + $110.00 assets:euros + + What are they worth after 2016/12/21 ? (no report end date specified, + defaults to today) + + $ hledger -f t.j bal -N euros -V + $103.00 assets:euros + + --value: Flexible valuation + -V and -X are special cases of the more general --value option: + + --value=TYPE[,COMM] TYPE is then, end, now or YYYY-MM-DD. + COMM is an optional commodity symbol. + Shows amounts converted to: + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at posting dates + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at period end(s) + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using current market prices + - default valuation commodity (or COMM) using market prices at some date + + The TYPE part selects cost or value and valuation date: + + --value=then + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity, using market prices on each posting's date. + + --value=end + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity, using market prices on the last day of the report period + (or if unspecified, the journal's end date); or in multiperiod + reports, market prices on the last day of each subperiod. + + --value=now + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity using current market prices (as of when report is gener- + ated). + + --value=YYYY-MM-DD + Convert amounts to their value in the default valuation commod- + ity using market prices on this date. + + To select a different valuation commodity, add the optional ,COMM part: + a comma, then the target commodity's symbol. Eg: --value=now,EUR. + hledger will do its best to convert amounts to this commodity, deducing + market prices as described above. + + More valuation examples + Here are some examples showing the effect of --value, as seen with + print: + + P 2000-01-01 A 1 B + P 2000-02-01 A 2 B + P 2000-03-01 A 3 B + P 2000-04-01 A 4 B + + 2000-01-01 + (a) 1 A @ 5 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 1 A @ 6 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 1 A @ 7 B + + Show the cost of each posting: + + $ hledger -f- print --cost + 2000-01-01 + (a) 5 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 6 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 7 B + + Show the value as of the last day of the report period (2000-02-29): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=end date:2000/01-2000/03 + 2000-01-01 + (a) 2 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 2 B + + With no report period specified, that shows the value as of the last + day of the journal (2000-03-01): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=end + 2000-01-01 + (a) 3 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 3 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 3 B + + Show the current value (the 2000-04-01 price is still in effect today): + + $ hledger -f- print --value=now + 2000-01-01 + (a) 4 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 4 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 4 B + + Show the value on 2000/01/15: + + $ hledger -f- print --value=2000-01-15 + 2000-01-01 + (a) 1 B + + 2000-02-01 + (a) 1 B + + 2000-03-01 + (a) 1 B + + You may need to explicitly set a commodity's display style, when + reverse prices are used. Eg this output might be surprising: + + P 2000-01-01 A 2B + + 2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + + $ hledger print -x -X A + 2000-01-01 + a 0 + b 0 + + Explanation: because there's no amount or commodity directive specify- + ing a display style for A, 0.5A gets the default style, which shows no + decimal digits. Because the displayed amount looks like zero, the com- + modity symbol and minus sign are not displayed either. Adding a com- + modity directive sets a more useful display style for A: + + P 2000-01-01 A 2B + commodity 0.00A + + 2000-01-01 + a 1B + b + + $ hledger print -X A + 2000-01-01 + a 0.50A + b -0.50A + + Interaction of valuation and queries + When matching postings based on queries in the presence of valuation, + the following happens. + + 1. The query is separated into two parts: + + 1. the currency (cur:) or amount (amt:). + + 2. all other parts. + + 2. The postings are matched to the currency and amount queries based on + pre-valued amounts. + + 3. Valuation is applied to the postings. + + 4. The postings are matched to the other parts of the query based on + post-valued amounts. + + See: 1625 + + Effect of valuation on reports + Here is a reference for how valuation is supposed to affect each part + of hledger's reports (and a glossary). (It's wide, you'll have to + scroll sideways.) It may be useful when troubleshooting. If you find + problems, please report them, ideally with a reproducible example. + Related: #329, #1083. + + + Report -B, --cost -V, -X --value=then --value=end --value=DATE, + type --value=now + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + print + posting cost value at value at posting value at value at + amounts report end date report or DATE/today + or today journal end + balance unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged unchanged + asser- + tions/assign- + ments + + register + starting bal- cost value at valued at day value at value at + ance (-H) report or each historical report or DATE/today + journal end posting was made journal end + starting bal- cost value at day valued at day value at day value at + ance (-H) before each historical before DATE/today + with report report or posting was made report or + interval journal journal + start start + posting cost value at value at posting value at value at + amounts report or date report or DATE/today + journal end journal end + summary post- summarised value at sum of postings value at value at + ing amounts cost period ends in interval, val- period ends DATE/today + with report ued at interval + interval start + + running sum/average sum/average sum/average of sum/average sum/average + total/average of displayed of displayed displayed values of displayed of displayed + values values values values + + balance (bs, + bse, cf, is) + balance sums of value at value at posting value at value at + changes costs report end date report or DATE/today of + or today of journal end sums of post- + sums of of sums of ings + postings postings + budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance + amounts changes changes changes ances changes + (--budget) + grand total sum of dis- sum of dis- sum of displayed sum of dis- sum of dis- + played val- played val- valued played val- played values + ues ues ues + + balance (bs, + bse, cf, is) + with report + interval + starting bal- sums of value at sums of values of value at sums of post- + ances (-H) costs of report start postings before report start ings before + postings of sums of report start at of sums of report start + before all postings respective post- all postings + report start before ing dates before + report start report start + balance sums of same as sums of values of balance value at + changes (bal, costs of --value=end postings in change in DATE/today of + is, bs postings in period at respec- each period, sums of post- + --change, cf period tive posting valued at ings + --change) dates period ends + end balances sums of same as sums of values of period end value at + (bal -H, is costs of --value=end postings from balances, DATE/today of + --H, bs, cf) postings before period valued at sums of post- + from before start to period period ends ings + report start end at respective + to period posting dates + end + budget like balance like balance like balance like bal- like balance + amounts changes/end changes/end changes/end bal- ances changes/end + (--budget) balances balances ances balances + row totals, sums, aver- sums, aver- sums, averages of sums, aver- sums, aver- + row averages ages of dis- ages of dis- displayed values ages of dis- ages of dis- + (-T, -A) played val- played val- played val- played values + ues ues ues + column totals sums of dis- sums of dis- sums of displayed sums of dis- sums of dis- + played val- played val- values played val- played values + ues ues ues + grand total, sum, average sum, average sum, average of sum, average sum, average + grand average of column of column column totals of column of column + totals totals totals totals + + + --cumulative is omitted to save space, it works like -H but with a zero + starting balance. + + Glossary: + + cost calculated using price(s) recorded in the transaction(s). + + value market value using available market price declarations, or the + unchanged amount if no conversion rate can be found. + + report start + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise today. + + report or journal start + the first day of the report period specified with -b or -p or + date:, otherwise the earliest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. + + report end + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or + date:, otherwise today. + + report or journal end + the last day of the report period specified with -e or -p or + date:, otherwise the latest transaction date in the journal, + otherwise today. + + report interval + a flag (-D/-W/-M/-Q/-Y) or period expression that activates the + report's multi-period mode (whether showing one or many subperi- + ods). + +PART 4: COMMANDS + Commands overview + Here are the built-in commands: + + DATA ENTRY + These data entry commands are the only ones which can modify your jour- + nal file. + + o add - add transactions using terminal prompts + + o import - add new transactions from other files, eg CSV files + + DATA CREATION + o close - generate balance-zeroing/restoring transactions + + o rewrite - generate auto postings, like print --auto + + DATA MANAGEMENT + o check - check for various kinds of error in the data + + o diff - compare account transactions in two journal files + + REPORTS, FINANCIAL + o aregister (areg) - show transactions in a particular account + + o balancesheet (bs) - show assets, liabilities and net worth + + o balancesheetequity (bse) - show assets, liabilities and equity + + o cashflow (cf) - show changes in liquid assets + + o incomestatement (is) - show revenues and expenses + + REPORTS, VERSATILE + o balance (bal) - show balance changes, end balances, budgets, gains.. + + o print - show transactions or export journal data + + o register (reg) - show postings in one or more accounts & running + total + + o roi - show return on investments + + REPORTS, BASIC + o accounts - show account names + + o activity - show bar charts of posting counts per period + + o codes - show transaction codes + + o commodities - show commodity/currency symbols + + o descriptions - show transaction descriptions + + o files - show input file paths + + o notes - show note parts of transaction descriptions + + o payees - show payee parts of transaction descriptions + + o prices - show market prices + + o stats - show journal statistics + + o tags - show tag names + + o test - run self tests + + HELP + o help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager + + + ADD-ONS + And here are some typical add-on commands. Some of these are installed + by the hledger-install script. If installed, they will appear in + hledger's commands list: + + o ui - run hledger's terminal UI + + o web - run hledger's web UI + + o iadd - add transactions using a TUI (currently hard to build) + + o interest - generate interest transactions + + o stockquotes - download market prices from AlphaVantage + + o Scripts and add-ons - check-fancyassertions, edit, fifo, git, move, + pijul, plot, and more.. + + Next, each command is described in detail, in alphabetical order. + + accounts + Show account names. + + This command lists account names. By default it shows all known + accounts, either used in transactions or declared with account direc- + tives. + + With query arguments, only matched account names and account names ref- + erenced by matched postings are shown. + + Or it can show just the used accounts (--used/-u), the declared + accounts (--declared/-d), the accounts declared but not used + (--unused), the accounts used but not declared (--undeclared), or the + first account matched by an account name pattern, if any (--find). + + It shows a flat list by default. With --tree, it uses indentation to + show the account hierarchy. In flat mode you can add --drop N to omit + the first few account name components. Account names can be depth- + clipped with depth:N or --depth N or -N. + + With --types, it also shows each account's type, if it's known. (See + Declaring accounts > Account types.) + + With --positions, it also shows the file and line number of each + account's declaration, if any, and the account's overall declaration + order; these may be useful when troubleshooting account display order. + + With --directives, it adds the account keyword, showing valid account + directives which can be pasted into a journal file. This is useful + together with --undeclared when updating your account declarations to + satisfy hledger check accounts. + + The --find flag can be used to look up a single account name, in the + same way that the aregister command does. It returns the alphanumeri- + cally-first matched account name, or if none can be found, it fails + with a non-zero exit code. + + Examples: + + $ hledger accounts + assets:bank:checking + assets:bank:saving + assets:cash + expenses:food + expenses:supplies + income:gifts + income:salary + liabilities:debts + + $ hledger accounts --undeclared --directives >> $LEDGER_FILE + $ hledger check accounts + + activity + Show an ascii barchart of posting counts per interval. + + The activity command displays an ascii histogram showing transaction + counts by day, week, month or other reporting interval (by day is the + default). With query arguments, it counts only matched transactions. + + Examples: + + $ hledger activity --quarterly + 2008-01-01 ** + 2008-04-01 ******* + 2008-07-01 + 2008-10-01 ** + + add + Prompt for transactions and add them to the journal. Any arguments + will be used as default inputs for the first N prompts. + + Many hledger users edit their journals directly with a text editor, or + generate them from CSV. For more interactive data entry, there is the + add command, which prompts interactively on the console for new trans- + actions, and appends them to the main journal file (which should be in + journal format). Existing transactions are not changed. This is one + of the few hledger commands that writes to the journal file (see also + import). + + To use it, just run hledger add and follow the prompts. You can add as + many transactions as you like; when you are finished, enter . or press + control-d or control-c to exit. + + Features: + + o add tries to provide useful defaults, using the most similar (by + description) recent transaction (filtered by the query, if any) as a + template. + + o You can also set the initial defaults with command line arguments. + + o Readline-style edit keys can be used during data entry. + + o The tab key will auto-complete whenever possible - accounts, pay- + ees/descriptions, dates (yesterday, today, tomorrow). If the input + area is empty, it will insert the default value. + + o If the journal defines a default commodity, it will be added to any + bare numbers entered. + + o A parenthesised transaction code may be entered following a date. + + o Comments and tags may be entered following a description or amount. + + o If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + + o Input prompts are displayed in a different colour when the terminal + supports it. + + Example (see https://hledger.org/add.html for a detailed tutorial): + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /src/hledger/examples/sample.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2015/05/22]: + Description: supermarket + Account 1: expenses:food + Amount 1: $10 + Account 2: assets:checking + Amount 2 [$-10.0]: + Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2015/05/22 supermarket + expenses:food $10 + assets:checking $-10.0 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2015/05/22]: $ + + On Microsoft Windows, the add command makes sure that no part of the + file path ends with a period, as that would cause problems (#1056). + + aregister + (areg) + + Show the transactions and running historical balance of a single + account, with each transaction displayed as one line. + + aregister shows the overall transactions affecting a particular account + (and any subaccounts). Each report line represents one transaction in + this account. Transactions before the report start date are always + included in the running balance (--historical mode is always on). + + This is a more "real world", bank-like view than the register command + (which shows individual postings, possibly from multiple accounts, not + necessarily in historical mode). As a quick rule of thumb: - use areg- + ister for reviewing and reconciling real-world asset/liability accounts + - use register for reviewing detailed revenues/expenses. + + aregister requires one argument: the account to report on. You can + write either the full account name, or a case-insensitive regular + expression which will select the alphabetically first matched account. + + When there are multiple matches, the alphabetically-first choice can be + surprising; eg if you have assets:per:checking 1 and assets:biz:check- + ing 2 accounts, hledger areg checking would select assets:biz:checking + 2. It's just a convenience to save typing, so if in doubt, write the + full account name, or a distinctive substring that matches uniquely. + + Transactions involving subaccounts of this account will also be shown. + aregister ignores depth limits, so its final total will always match a + balance report with similar arguments. + + Any additional arguments form a query which will filter the transac- + tions shown. Note some queries will disturb the running balance, caus- + ing it to be different from the account's real-world running balance. + + An example: this shows the transactions and historical running balance + during july, in the first account whose name contains "checking": + + $ hledger areg checking date:jul + + Each aregister line item shows: + + o the transaction's date (or the relevant posting's date if different, + see below) + + o the names of all the other account(s) involved in this transaction + (probably abbreviated) + + o the total change to this account's balance from this transaction + + o the account's historical running balance after this transaction. + + Transactions making a net change of zero are not shown by default; add + the -E/--empty flag to show them. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first + 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause + visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to + ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the + --align-all flag. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options. The output formats supported are txt, csv, and json. + + aregister and custom posting dates + Transactions whose date is outside the report period can still be + shown, if they have a posting to this account dated inside the report + period. (And in this case it's the posting date that is shown.) This + ensures that aregister can show an accurate historical running balance, + matching the one shown by register -H with the same arguments. + + To filter strictly by transaction date instead, add the --txn-dates + flag. If you use this flag and some of your postings have custom + dates, it's probably best to assume the running balance is wrong. + + balance + (bal) + + Show accounts and their balances. + + balance is one of hledger's oldest and most versatile commands, for + listing account balances, balance changes, values, value changes and + more, during one time period or many. Generally it shows a table, with + rows representing accounts, and columns representing periods. + + Note there are some higher-level variants of the balance command with + convenient defaults, which can be simpler to use: balancesheet, bal- + ancesheetequity, cashflow and incomestatement. When you need more con- + trol, then use balance. + + balance features + Here's a quick overview of the balance command's features, followed by + more detailed descriptions and examples. Many of these work with the + higher-level commands as well. + + balance can show.. + + o accounts as a list (-l) or a tree (-t) + + o optionally depth-limited (-[1-9]) + + o sorted by declaration order and name, or by amount + + ..and their.. + + o balance changes (the default) + + o or actual and planned balance changes (--budget) + + o or value of balance changes (-V) + + o or change of balance values (--valuechange) + + o or unrealised capital gain/loss (--gain) + + ..in.. + + o one time period (the whole journal period by default) + + o or multiple periods (-D, -W, -M, -Q, -Y, -p INTERVAL) + + ..either.. + + o per period (the default) + + o or accumulated since report start date (--cumulative) + + o or accumulated since account creation (--historical/-H) + + ..possibly converted to.. + + o cost (--value=cost[,COMM]/--cost/-B) + + o or market value, as of transaction dates (--value=then[,COMM]) + + o or at period ends (--value=end[,COMM]) + + o or now (--value=now) + + o or at some other date (--value=YYYY-MM-DD) + + ..with.. + + o totals (-T), averages (-A), percentages (-%), inverted sign + (--invert) + + o rows and columns swapped (--transpose) + + o another field used as account name (--pivot) + + o custom-formatted line items (single-period reports only) (--format) + + o commodities displayed on the same line or multiple lines (--layout) + + This command supports the output destination and output format options, + with output formats txt, csv, json, and (multi-period reports only:) + html. In txt output in a colour-supporting terminal, negative amounts + are shown in red. + + The --related/-r flag shows the balance of the other postings in the + transactions of the postings which would normally be shown. + + Simple balance report + With no arguments, balance shows a list of all accounts and their + change of balance - ie, the sum of posting amounts, both inflows and + outflows - during the entire period of the journal. ("Simple" here + means just one column of numbers, covering a single period. You can + also have multi-period reports, described later.) + + For real-world accounts, these numbers will normally be their end bal- + ance at the end of the journal period; more on this below. + + Accounts are sorted by declaration order if any, and then alphabeti- + cally by account name. For instance (using examples/sample.journal): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + Accounts with a zero balance (and no non-zero subaccounts, in tree mode + - see below) are hidden by default. Use -E/--empty to show them + (revealing assets:bank:checking here): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal -E + 0 assets:bank:checking + $1 assets:bank:saving + $-2 assets:cash + $1 expenses:food + $1 expenses:supplies + $-1 income:gifts + $-1 income:salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + The total of the amounts displayed is shown as the last line, unless + -N/--no-total is used. + + Balance report line format + For single-period balance reports displayed in the terminal (only), you + can use --format FMT to customise the format and content of each line. + Eg: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance --format "%20(account) %12(total)" + assets $-1 + bank:saving $1 + cash $-2 + expenses $2 + food $1 + supplies $1 + income $-2 + gifts $-1 + salary $-1 + liabilities:debts $1 + --------------------------------- + 0 + + The FMT format string specifies the formatting applied to each + account/balance pair. It may contain any suitable text, with data + fields interpolated like so: + + %[MIN][.MAX](FIELDNAME) + + o MIN pads with spaces to at least this width (optional) + + o MAX truncates at this width (optional) + + o FIELDNAME must be enclosed in parentheses, and can be one of: + + o depth_spacer - a number of spaces equal to the account's depth, or + if MIN is specified, MIN * depth spaces. + + o account - the account's name + + o total - the account's balance/posted total, right justified + + Also, FMT can begin with an optional prefix to control how multi-com- + modity amounts are rendered: + + o %_ - render on multiple lines, bottom-aligned (the default) + + o %^ - render on multiple lines, top-aligned + + o %, - render on one line, comma-separated + + There are some quirks. Eg in one-line mode, %(depth_spacer) has no + effect, instead %(account) has indentation built in. Experimentation + may be needed to get pleasing results. + + Some example formats: + + o %(total) - the account's total + + o %-20.20(account) - the account's name, left justified, padded to 20 + characters and clipped at 20 characters + + o %,%-50(account) %25(total) - account name padded to 50 characters, + total padded to 20 characters, with multiple commodities rendered on + one line + + o %20(total) %2(depth_spacer)%-(account) - the default format for the + single-column balance report + + Filtered balance report + You can show fewer accounts, a different time period, totals from + cleared transactions only, etc. by using query arguments or options to + limit the postings being matched. Eg: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --cleared assets date:200806 + $-2 assets:cash + -------------------- + $-2 + + List or tree mode + By default, or with -l/--flat, accounts are shown as a flat list with + their full names visible, as in the examples above. + + With -t/--tree, the account hierarchy is shown, with subaccounts' + "leaf" names indented below their parent: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + 0 + + Notes: + + o "Boring" accounts are combined with their subaccount for more compact + output, unless --no-elide is used. Boring accounts have no balance + of their own and just one subaccount (eg assets:bank and liabilities + above). + + o All balances shown are "inclusive", ie including the balances from + all subaccounts. Note this means some repetition in the output, + which requires explanation when sharing reports with non-plaintextac- + counting-users. A tree mode report's final total is the sum of the + top-level balances shown, not of all the balances shown. + + o Each group of sibling accounts (ie, under a common parent) is sorted + separately. + + Depth limiting + With a depth:NUM query, or --depth NUM option, or just -NUM (eg: -3) + balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth, hiding + the deeper subaccounts. This can be useful for getting an overview + without too much detail. + + Account balances at the depth limit always include the balances from + any deeper subaccounts (even in list mode). Eg, limiting to depth 1: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal balance -1 + $-1 assets + $2 expenses + $-2 income + $1 liabilities + -------------------- + 0 + + Dropping top-level accounts + You can also hide one or more top-level account name parts, using + --drop NUM. This can be useful for hiding repetitive top-level account + names: + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal expenses --drop 1 + $1 food + $1 supplies + -------------------- + $2 + + + Showing declared accounts + With --declared, accounts which have been declared with an account + directive will be included in the balance report, even if they have no + transactions. (Since they will have a zero balance, you will also need + -E/--empty to see them.) + + More precisely, leaf declared accounts (with no subaccounts) will be + included, since those are usually the more useful in reports. + + The idea of this is to be able to see a useful "complete" balance + report, even when you don't have transactions in all of your declared + accounts yet. + + Sorting by amount + With -S/--sort-amount, accounts with the largest (most positive) bal- + ances are shown first. Eg: hledger bal expenses -MAS shows your big- + gest averaged monthly expenses first. When more than one commodity is + present, they will be sorted by the alphabetically earliest commodity + first, and then by subsequent commodities (if an amount is missing a + commodity, it is treated as 0). + + Revenues and liability balances are typically negative, however, so -S + shows these in reverse order. To work around this, you can add + --invert to flip the signs. (Or, use one of the higher-level reports, + which flip the sign automatically. Eg: hledger incomestatement -MAS). + + + Percentages + With -%/--percent, balance reports show each account's value expressed + as a percentage of the (column) total. + + Note it is not useful to calculate percentages if the amounts in a col- + umn have mixed signs. In this case, make a separate report for each + sign, eg: + + $ hledger bal -% amt:`>0` + $ hledger bal -% amt:`<0` + + Similarly, if the amounts in a column have mixed commodities, convert + them to one commodity with -B, -V, -X or --value, or make a separate + report for each commodity: + + $ hledger bal -% cur:\\$ + $ hledger bal -% cur:EUR + + Multi-period balance report + With a report interval (set by the -D/--daily, -W/--weekly, + -M/--monthly, -Q/--quarterly, -Y/--yearly, or -p/--period flag), bal- + ance shows a tabular report, with columns representing successive time + periods (and a title): + + $ hledger -f examples/sample.journal bal --quarterly income expenses -E + Balance changes in 2008: + + || 2008q1 2008q2 2008q3 2008q4 + ===================++================================= + expenses:food || 0 $1 0 0 + expenses:supplies || 0 $1 0 0 + income:gifts || 0 $-1 0 0 + income:salary || $-1 0 0 0 + -------------------++--------------------------------- + || $-1 $1 0 0 + + Notes: + + o The report's start/end dates will be expanded, if necessary, to fully + encompass the displayed subperiods (so that the first and last subpe- + riods have the same duration as the others). + + o Leading and trailing periods (columns) containing all zeroes are not + shown, unless -E/--empty is used. + + o Accounts (rows) containing all zeroes are not shown, unless + -E/--empty is used. + + o Amounts with many commodities are shown in abbreviated form, unless + --no-elide is used. (experimental) + + o Average and/or total columns can be added with the -A/--average and + -T/--row-total flags. + + o The --transpose flag can be used to exchange rows and columns. + + o The --pivot FIELD option causes a different transaction field to be + used as "account name". See PIVOTING. + + Multi-period reports with many periods can be too wide for easy viewing + in the terminal. Here are some ways to handle that: + + o Hide the totals row with -N/--no-total + + o Convert to a single currency with -V + + o Maximize the terminal window + + o Reduce the terminal's font size + + o View with a pager like less, eg: hledger bal -D --color=yes | less + -RS + + o Output as CSV and use a CSV viewer like visidata (hledger bal -D -O + csv | vd -f csv), Emacs' csv-mode (M-x csv-mode, C-c C-a), or a + spreadsheet (hledger bal -D -o a.csv && open a.csv) + + o Output as HTML and view with a browser: hledger bal -D -o a.html && + open a.html + + Balance change, end balance + It's important to be clear on the meaning of the numbers shown in bal- + ance reports. Here is some terminology we use: + + A balance change is the net amount added to, or removed from, an + account during some period. + + An end balance is the amount accumulated in an account as of some date + (and some time, but hledger doesn't store that; assume end of day in + your timezone). It is the sum of previous balance changes. + + We call it a historical end balance if it includes all balance changes + since the account was created. For a real world account, this means it + will match the "historical record", eg the balances reported in your + bank statements or bank web UI. (If they are correct!) + + In general, balance changes are what you want to see when reviewing + revenues and expenses, and historical end balances are what you want to + see when reviewing or reconciling asset, liability and equity accounts. + + balance shows balance changes by default. To see accurate historical + end balances: + + 1. Initialise account starting balances with an "opening balances" + transaction (a transfer from equity to the account), unless the + journal covers the account's full lifetime. + + 2. Include all of of the account's prior postings in the report, by not + specifying a report start date, or by using the -H/--historical + flag. (-H causes report start date to be ignored when summing post- + ings.) + + Balance report types + The balance command is quite flexible; here is the full detail on how + to control what it reports. If the following seems complicated, don't + worry - this is for advanced reporting, and it does typically take some + time and experimentation to get clear on all these report modes. + + There are three important option groups: + + hledger balance [CALCULATIONTYPE] [ACCUMULATIONTYPE] [VALUATIONTYPE] + ... + + Calculation type + The basic calculation to perform for each table cell. It is one of: + + o --sum : sum the posting amounts (default) + + o --budget : sum the amounts, but also show the budget goal amount (for + each account/period) + + o --valuechange : show the change in period-end historical balance val- + ues (caused by deposits, withdrawals, and/or market price fluctua- + tions) + + o --gain : show the unrealised capital gain/loss, (the current valued + balance minus each amount's original cost) + + Accumulation type + How amounts should accumulate across report periods. Another way to + say it: which time period's postings should contribute to each cell's + calculation. It is one of: + + o --change : calculate with postings from column start to column end, + ie "just this column". Typically used to see revenues/expenses. + (default for balance, incomestatement) + + o --cumulative : calculate with postings from report start to column + end, ie "previous columns plus this column". Typically used to show + changes accumulated since the report's start date. Not often used. + + o --historical/-H : calculate with postings from journal start to col- + umn end, ie "all postings from before report start date until this + column's end". Typically used to see historical end balances of + assets/liabilities/equity. (default for balancesheet, balancesheete- + quity, cashflow) + + Valuation type + Which kind of value or cost conversion should be applied, if any, + before displaying the report. It is one of: + + o no valuation type : don't convert to cost or value (default) + + o --value=cost[,COMM] : convert amounts to cost (then optionally to + some other commodity) + + o --value=then[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on transaction + dates + + o --value=end[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on period end + date(s) + (default with --valuechange, --gain) + + o --value=now[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on today's date + + o --value=YYYY-MM-DD[,COMM] : convert amounts to market value on + another date + + or one of the equivalent simpler flags: + + o -B/--cost : like --value=cost (though, note --cost and --value are + independent options which can both be used at once) + + o -V/--market : like --value=end + + o -X COMM/--exchange COMM : like --value=end,COMM + + See Cost reporting and Valuation for more about these. + + Combining balance report types + Most combinations of these options should produce reasonable reports, + but if you find any that seem wrong or misleading, let us know. The + following restrictions are applied: + + o --valuechange implies --value=end + + o --valuechange makes --change the default when used with the bal- + ancesheet/balancesheetequity commands + + o --cumulative or --historical disables --row-total/-T + + For reference, here is what the combinations of accumulation and valua- + tion show: + + + Valua- no valuation --value= then --value= end --value= YYYY- + tion:> MM-DD /now + Accumu- + lation:v + ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + --change change in period sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + date market val- value of change change in + ues in period in period period + --cumu- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + lative report start to date market val- value of change change from + period end ues from report from report report start + start to period start to period to period end + end end + --his- change from sum of posting- period-end DATE-value of + torical journal start to date market val- value of change change from + /-H period end (his- ues from journal from journal journal start + torical end bal- start to period start to period to period end + ance) end end + + Budget report + The --budget report type activates extra columns showing any budget + goals for each account and period. The budget goals are defined by + periodic transactions. This is useful for comparing planned and actual + income, expenses, time usage, etc. + + For example, you can take average monthly expenses in the common + expense categories to construct a minimal monthly budget: + + ;; Budget + ~ monthly + income $2000 + expenses:food $400 + expenses:bus $50 + expenses:movies $30 + assets:bank:checking + + ;; Two months worth of expenses + 2017-11-01 + income $1950 + expenses:food $396 + expenses:bus $49 + expenses:movies $30 + expenses:supplies $20 + assets:bank:checking + + 2017-12-01 + income $2100 + expenses:food $412 + expenses:bus $53 + expenses:gifts $100 + assets:bank:checking + + You can now see a monthly budget report: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + This is different from a normal balance report in several ways: + + o Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, + by default. + + o In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, budget + goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage. (Note: bud- + get goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.) + + o All parent accounts are always shown, even in list mode. Eg assets, + assets:bank, and expenses above. + + o Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even + in list mode. + + This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up! Eg + above, the expenses actual amount includes the gifts and supplies + transactions, but the expenses:gifts and expenses:supplies accounts are + not shown, as they have no budget amounts declared. + + This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the + -E/--empty flag, which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted + ones, giving the full picture. Eg: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget --empty + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $565 [ 118% of $480] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $53 [ 106% of $50] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $412 [ 103% of $400] + expenses:gifts || 0 $100 + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] 0 [ 0% of $30] + expenses:supplies || $20 0 + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $2100 [ 105% of $2000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + You can roll over unspent budgets to next period with --cumulative: + + $ hledger balance -M --budget --cumulative + Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31: + + || Nov Dec + ======================++==================================================== + assets || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [ 99% of $-2480] $-5110 [ 103% of $-4960] + expenses || $495 [ 103% of $480] $1060 [ 110% of $960] + expenses:bus || $49 [ 98% of $50] $102 [ 102% of $100] + expenses:food || $396 [ 99% of $400] $808 [ 101% of $800] + expenses:movies || $30 [ 100% of $30] $30 [ 50% of $60] + income || $1950 [ 98% of $2000] $4050 [ 101% of $4000] + ----------------------++---------------------------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] 0 [ 0] + + It's common to limit budgets/budget reports to just expenses + + hledger bal -M --budget expenses + + or just revenues and expenses (eg, using account types): + + hledger bal -M --budget type:rx + + It's also common to limit or convert them to a single currency + (cur:COMM or -X COMM [--infer-market-prices]). If showing multiple + currencies, --layout bare or --layout tall can help. + + For more examples and notes, see Budgeting. + + Budget report start date + This might be a bug, but for now: when making budget reports, it's a + good idea to explicitly set the report's start date to the first day of + a reporting period, because a periodic rule like ~ monthly generates + its transactions on the 1st of each month, and if your journal has no + regular transactions on the 1st, the default report start date could + exclude that budget goal, which can be a little surprising. Eg here + the default report period is just the day of 2020-01-15: + + ~ monthly in 2020 + (expenses:food) $500 + + 2020-01-15 + expenses:food $400 + assets:checking + + $ hledger bal expenses --budget + Budget performance in 2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-15 + ==============++============ + || $400 + --------------++------------ + || $400 + + To avoid this, specify the budget report's period, or at least the + start date, with -b/-e/-p/date:, to ensure it includes the budget goal + transactions (periodic transactions) that you want. Eg, adding -b + 2020/1/1 to the above: + + $ hledger bal expenses --budget -b 2020/1/1 + Budget performance in 2020-01-01..2020-01-15: + + || 2020-01-01..2020-01-15 + ===============++======================== + expenses:food || $400 [80% of $500] + ---------------++------------------------ + || $400 [80% of $500] + + Budgets and subaccounts + You can add budgets to any account in your account hierarchy. If you + have budgets on both parent account and some of its children, then bud- + get(s) of the child account(s) would be added to the budget of their + parent, much like account balances behave. + + In the most simple case this means that once you add a budget to any + account, all its parents would have budget as well. + + To illustrate this, consider the following budget: + + ~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + With this, monthly budget for electronics is defined to be $100 and + budget for personal expenses is an additional $1000, which implicitly + means that budget for both expenses:personal and expenses is $1100. + + Transactions in expenses:personal:electronics will be counted both + towards its $100 budget and $1100 of expenses:personal , and transac- + tions in any other subaccount of expenses:personal would be counted + towards only towards the budget of expenses:personal. + + For example, let's consider these transactions: + + ~ monthly from 2019/01 + expenses:personal $1,000.00 + expenses:personal:electronics $100.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/01 Google home hub + expenses:personal:electronics $90.00 + liabilities $-90.00 + + 2019/01/02 Phone screen protector + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades $10.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/02 Weekly train ticket + expenses:personal:train tickets $153.00 + liabilities + + 2019/01/03 Flowers + expenses:personal $30.00 + liabilities + + As you can see, we have transactions in expenses:personal:electron- + ics:upgrades and expenses:personal:train tickets, and since both of + these accounts are without explicitly defined budget, these transac- + tions would be counted towards budgets of expenses:personal:electronics + and expenses:personal accordingly: + + $ hledger balance --budget -M + Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan + ===============================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] + -------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + And with --empty, we can get a better picture of budget allocation and + consumption: + + $ hledger balance --budget -M --empty + Budget performance in 2019/01: + + || Jan + ========================================++=============================== + expenses || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal || $283.00 [ 26% of $1100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics || $100.00 [ 100% of $100.00] + expenses:personal:electronics:upgrades || $10.00 + expenses:personal:train tickets || $153.00 + liabilities || $-283.00 [ 26% of $-1100.00] + ----------------------------------------++------------------------------- + || 0 [ 0] + + Selecting budget goals + The budget report evaluates periodic transaction rules to generate spe- + cial "goal transactions", which generate the goal amounts for each + account in each report subperiod. When troubleshooting, you can use + print --forecast to show these as forecasted transactions: + + $ hledger print --forecast=BUDGETREPORTPERIOD tag:generated + + By default, the budget report uses all available periodic transaction + rules to generate goals. This includes rules with a different report + interval from your report. Eg if you have daily, weekly and monthly + periodic rules, all of these will contribute to the goals in a monthly + budget report. + + You can select a subset of periodic rules by providing an argument to + the --budget flag. --budget=DESCPAT will match all periodic rules + whose description contains DESCPAT, a case-insensitive substring (not a + regular expression or query). This means you can give your periodic + rules descriptions (remember that two spaces are needed), and then + select from multiple budgets defined in your journal. + + Budget vs forecast + hledger --forecast ... and hledger balance --budget ... are separate + features, though both of them use the periodic transaction rules + defined in the journal, and both of them generate temporary transac- + tions for reporting purposes ("forecast transactions" and "budget goal + transactions", respectively). You can use both features at the same + time if you want. Here are some differences between them, as of + hledger 1.29: + + CLI: + + o --forecast is a general hledger option, usable with any command + + o --budget is a balance command option, usable only with that command. + + Visibility of generated transactions: + + o forecast transactions are visible in any report, like ordinary trans- + actions + + o budget goal transactions are invisible except for the goal amounts + they produce in --budget reports. + + Periodic transaction rules: + + o --forecast uses all available periodic transaction rules + + o --budget uses all periodic rules (--budget) or a selected subset + (--budget=DESCPAT) + + Period of generated transactions: + + o --forecast generates forecast transactions + + o from after the last regular transaction to the end of the report + period (--forecast) + + o or, during a specified period (--forecast=PERIODEXPR) + + o possibly further restricted by a period specified in the periodic + transaction rule + + o and always restricted within the bounds of the report period + + o --budget generates budget goal transactions + + o throughout the report period + + o possibly restricted by a period specified in the periodic transac- + tion rule. + + Data layout + The --layout option affects how balance reports show multi-commodity + amounts and commodity symbols, which can improve readability. It can + also normalise the data for easy consumption by other programs. It has + four possible values: + + o --layout=wide[,WIDTH]: commodities are shown on a single line, + optionally elided to WIDTH + + o --layout=tall: each commodity is shown on a separate line + + o --layout=bare: commodity symbols are in their own column, amounts are + bare numbers + + o --layout=tidy: data is normalised to easily-consumed "tidy" form, + with one row per data value + + Here are the --layout modes supported by each output format; note only + CSV output supports all of them: + + + - txt csv html json sql + ------------------------------------- + wide Y Y Y + tall Y Y Y + bare Y Y Y + tidy Y + + Examples: + + o Wide layout. With many commodities, reports can be very wide: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++==================================================================================================================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 12.00 VEA, 106.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, -98.12 USD, 10.00 VEA, 18.00 VHT -11.00 ITOT, 4881.44 USD, 14.00 VEA, 170.00 VHT 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 5120.50 USD, 36.00 VEA, 294.00 VHT + + o Limited wide layout. A width limit reduces the width, but some com- + modities will be hidden: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=wide,32 + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++=========================================================================================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + ------------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT, 337.18 USD, 2 more.. 70.00 GLD, 18.00 ITOT, 3 more.. -11.00 ITOT, 3 more.. 70.00 GLD, 17.00 ITOT, 3 more.. + + o Tall layout. Each commodity gets a new line (may be different in + each column), and account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=tall + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++================================================== + Assets:US:ETrade || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + Assets:US:ETrade || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + Assets:US:ETrade || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + Assets:US:ETrade || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + Assets:US:ETrade || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + ------------------++-------------------------------------------------- + || 10.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD -11.00 ITOT 70.00 GLD + || 337.18 USD 18.00 ITOT 4881.44 USD 17.00 ITOT + || 12.00 VEA -98.12 USD 14.00 VEA 5120.50 USD + || 106.00 VHT 10.00 VEA 170.00 VHT 36.00 VEA + || 18.00 VHT 294.00 VHT + + o Bare layout. Commodity symbols are kept in one column, each commod- + ity gets its own report row, account names are repeated: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -T -Y --layout=bare + Balance changes in 2012-01-01..2014-12-31: + + || Commodity 2012 2013 2014 Total + ==================++============================================= + Assets:US:ETrade || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + Assets:US:ETrade || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + Assets:US:ETrade || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + ------------------++--------------------------------------------- + || GLD 0 70.00 0 70.00 + || ITOT 10.00 18.00 -11.00 17.00 + || USD 337.18 -98.12 4881.44 5120.50 + || VEA 12.00 10.00 14.00 36.00 + || VHT 106.00 18.00 170.00 294.00 + + o Bare layout also affects CSV output, which is useful for producing + data that is easier to consume, eg for making charts: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -O csv --layout=bare + "account","commodity","balance" + "Assets:US:ETrade","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","ITOT","17.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","USD","5120.50" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VEA","36.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","VHT","294.00" + "total","GLD","70.00" + "total","ITOT","17.00" + "total","USD","5120.50" + "total","VEA","36.00" + "total","VHT","294.00" + + o Tidy layout produces normalised "tidy data", where every variable has + its own column and each row represents a single data point. See + https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tidyr/vignettes/tidy- + data.html for more. This is the easiest kind of data for other soft- + ware to consume. Here's how it looks: + + $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layout=tidy + "account","period","start_date","end_date","commodity","value" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","ITOT","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","USD","337.18" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VEA","12.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2012","2012-01-01","2012-12-31","VHT","106.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","GLD","70.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","ITOT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","USD","-98.12" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VEA","10.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2013","2013-01-01","2013-12-31","VHT","18.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","GLD","0" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","ITOT","-11.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","USD","4881.44" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VEA","14.00" + "Assets:US:ETrade","2014","2014-01-01","2014-12-31","VHT","170.00" + + Useful balance reports + Some frequently used balance options/reports are: + + o bal -M revenues expenses + Show revenues/expenses in each month. Also available as the incomes- + tatement command. + + o bal -M -H assets liabilities + Show historical asset/liability balances at each month end. Also + available as the balancesheet command. + + o bal -M -H assets liabilities equity + Show historical asset/liability/equity balances at each month end. + Also available as the balancesheetequity command. + + o bal -M assets not:receivable + Show changes to liquid assets in each month. Also available as the + cashflow command. + + Also: + + o bal -M expenses -2 -SA + Show monthly expenses summarised to depth 2 and sorted by average + amount. + + o bal -M --budget expenses + Show monthly expenses and budget goals. + + o bal -M --valuechange investments + Show monthly change in market value of investment assets. + + o bal investments --valuechange -D date:lastweek amt:'>1000' -STA + [--invert] + Show top gainers [or losers] last week + + balancesheet + (bs) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- + ances of asset and liability accounts. (To see equity as well, use the + balancesheetequity command.) Amounts are shown with normal positive + sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash or Liability + type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it + shows top-level accounts named asset or liability (case insensitive, + plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger balancesheet + Balance Sheet + + Assets: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + -------------------- + $-1 + + Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + $1 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities, but with + smarter account detection, and liabilities displayed with their sign + flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + balancesheetequity + (bse) + + This command displays a balance sheet, showing historical ending bal- + ances of asset, liability and equity accounts. Amounts are shown with + normal positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Asset, Cash, Liability or + Equity type (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, + it shows top-level accounts named asset, liability or equity (case + insensitive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger balancesheetequity + Balance Sheet With Equity + + Assets: + $-2 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-3 cash + -------------------- + $-2 + + Liabilities: + $1 liabilities:debts + -------------------- + $1 + + Equity: + $1 equity:owner + -------------------- + $1 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity, but with + smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with their + sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + cashflow + (cf) + + This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and + outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets. + Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional finan- + cial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Cash type (see account + types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts + + o under a top-level account named asset (case insensitive, plural + allowed) + + o whose name contains some variation of cash, bank, checking or saving. + + More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular + expression: + + ^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$) + + and their subaccounts. + + An example cashflow report: + + $ hledger cashflow + Cashflow Statement + + Cash flows: + $-1 assets + $1 bank:saving + $-2 cash + -------------------- + $-1 + + Total: + -------------------- + $-1 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance assets not:fixed not:investment + not:receivable, but with smarter account detection. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + check + Check for various kinds of errors in your data. + + hledger provides a number of built-in error checks to help prevent + problems in your data. Some of these are run automatically; or, you + can use this check command to run them on demand, with no output and a + zero exit code if all is well. Specify their names (or a prefix) as + argument(s). + + Some examples: + + hledger check # basic checks + hledger check -s # basic + strict checks + hledger check ordereddates payees # basic + two other checks + + If you are an Emacs user, you can also configure flycheck-hledger to + run these checks, providing instant feedback as you edit the journal. + + Here are the checks currently available: + + Basic checks + These checks are always run automatically, by (almost) all hledger com- + mands, including check: + + o parseable - data files are well-formed and can be successfully parsed + + o balancedwithautoconversion - all transactions are balanced, inferring + missing amounts where necessary, and possibly converting commodities + using costs or automatically-inferred costs + + o assertions - all balance assertions in the journal are passing. + (This check can be disabled with -I/--ignore-assertions.) + + Strict checks + These additional checks are run when the -s/--strict (strict mode) flag + is used. Or, they can be run by giving their names as arguments to + check: + + o accounts - all account names used by transactions have been declared + + o commodities - all commodity symbols used have been declared + + o balancednoautoconversion - transactions are balanced, possibly using + explicit costs but not inferred ones + + Other checks + These checks can be run only by giving their names as arguments to + check. They are more specialised and not desirable for everyone, + therefore optional: + + o ordereddates - transactions are ordered by date within each file + + o payees - all payees used by transactions have been declared + + o recentassertions - all accounts with balance assertions have a bal- + ance assertion no more than 7 days before their latest posting + + o tags - all tags used by transactions have been declared + + o uniqueleafnames - all account leaf names are unique + + Custom checks + A few more checks are are available as separate add-on commands, in + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/tree/master/bin: + + o hledger-check-tagfiles - all tag values containing / (a forward + slash) exist as file paths + + o hledger-check-fancyassertions - more complex balance assertions are + passing + + You could make similar scripts to perform your own custom checks. See: + Cookbook -> Scripting. + + More about specific checks + hledger check recentassertions will complain if any balance-asserted + account does not have a balance assertion within 7 days before its lat- + est posting. This aims to prevent the situation where you are regu- + larly updating your journal, but forgetting to check your balances + against the real world, then one day must dig back through months of + data to find an error. It assumes that adding a balance assertion + requires/reminds you to check the real-world balance. That may not be + true if you auto-generate balance assertions from bank data; in that + case, I recommend to import transactions uncleared, then use the man- + ual-review-and-mark-cleared phase as a reminder to check the latest + assertions against real-world balances. + + close + (equity) + + Generate transactions which transfer account balances to and/or from + another account (typically equity). This can be useful for migrating + balances to a new journal file, or for merging earnings into equity at + end of accounting period. + + By default, it prints a transaction that zeroes out ALE accounts + (asset, liability, equity accounts; this requires account types to be + configured); or if ACCTQUERY is provided, the accounts matched by that. + + (experimental) + + This command has four main modes, corresponding to the most common use + cases: + + 1. With --close (default), it prints a "closing balances" transaction + that zeroes out ALE (asset, liability, equity) accounts by default + (this requires account types to be inferred or declared); or, the + accounts matched by the provided ACCTQUERY arguments. + + 2. With --open, it prints an opposite "opening balances" transaction + that restores those balances from zero. This is similar to Ledger's + equity command. + + 3. With --migrate, it prints both the closing and opening transactions. + This is the preferred way to migrate balances to a new file: run + hledger close --migrate, add the closing transaction at the end of + the old file, and add the opening transaction at the start of the + new file. The matching closing/opening transactions cancel each + other out, preserving correct balances during multi-file reporting. + + 4. With --retain, it prints a "retain earnings" transaction that trans- + fers RX (revenue and expense) balances to equity:retained earnings. + Businesses traditionally do this at the end of each accounting + period; it is less necessary with computer-based accounting, but it + could still be useful if you want to see the accounting equation + (A=L+E) satisfied. + + In all modes, the defaults can be overridden: + + o the transaction descriptions can be changed with --close-desc=DESC + and --open-desc=DESC + + o the account to transfer to/from can be changed with --close-acct=ACCT + and --open-acct=ACCT + + o the accounts to be closed/opened can be changed with ACCTQUERY + (account query arguments). + + By default just one destination/source posting will be used, with its + amount left implicit. With --x/--explicit, the amount will be shown + explicitly, and if it involves multiple commodities, a separate posting + will be generated for each of them (similar to print -x). + + With --show-costs, any amount costs are shown, with separate postings + for each cost. This is currently the best way to view investment lots. + If you have many currency conversion or investment transactions, it can + generate very large journal entries. + + With --interleaved, each individual transfer is shown with source and + destination postings next to each other. This could be useful for + troubleshooting. + + The default closing date is yesterday, or the journal's end date, + whichever is later. You can change this by specifying a report end + date; (The report start date does not matter.) The last day of the + report period will be the closing date; eg -e 2022 means "close on + 2022-12-31". The opening date is always the day after the closing + date. + + close and balance assertions + Balance assertions will be generated, verifying that the accounts have + been reset to zero (and then restored to their previous balances, if + there is an opening transaction). + + These provide useful error checking, but you can ignore them temporar- + ily with -I, or remove them if you prefer. + + You probably should avoid filtering transactions by status or realness + (-C, -R, status:), or generating postings (--auto), with this command, + since the balance assertions would depend on these. + + Note custom posting dates spanning the file boundary will disrupt the + balance assertions: + + 2023-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + assets:bank:checking -5 ; date: 2023-01-02 + + To solve that you can transfer the money to and from a temporary + account, in effect splitting the multi-day transaction into two single- + day transactions: + + ; in 2022.journal: + 2022-12-30 a purchase made in december, cleared in january + expenses:food 5 + equity:pending -5 + + ; in 2023.journal: + 2023-01-02 last year's transaction cleared + equity:pending 5 = 0 + assets:bank:checking -5 + + Example: retain earnings + Record 2022's revenues/expenses as retained earnings on 2022-12-31, + appending the generated transaction to the journal: + + $ hledger close --retain -f 2022.journal -p 2022 >> 2022.journal + + Note 2022's income statement will now show only zeroes, because rev- + enues and expenses have been moved entirely to equity. To see them + again, you could exclude the retain transaction: + + $ hledger -f 2022.journal is not:desc:'retain earnings' + + Example: migrate balances to a new file + Close assets/liabilities/equity on 2022-12-31 and re-open them on + 2023-01-01: + + $ hledger close --migrate -f 2022.journal -p 2022 + # copy/paste the closing transaction to the end of 2022.journal + # copy/paste the opening transaction to the start of 2023.journal + + Now 2022's balance sheet will show only zeroes, indicating a balanced + accounting equation. (Unless you are using @/@@ notation - in that + case, try adding --infer-equity.) To see the end-of-year balances + again, you could exclude the closing transaction: + + $ hledger -f 2022.journal bs not:desc:'closing balances' + + Example: excluding closing/opening transactions + When combining many files for multi-year reports, the closing/opening + transactions cause some noise in transaction-oriented reports like + print and register. You can exclude them as shown above, but + not:desc:... is not ideal as it depends on consistent descriptions; + also you will want to avoid excluding the very first opening transac- + tion, which could be awkward. Here is one alternative, using tags: + + Add clopen: tags to all opening/closing balances transactions except + the first, like this: + + ; 2021.journal + 2021-06-01 first opening balances + ... + 2021-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2022 + ... + + ; 2022.journal + 2022-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2022 + ... + 2022-12-31 closing balances ; clopen:2023 + ... + + ; 2023.journal + 2023-01-01 opening balances ; clopen:2023 + ... + + Now, assuming a combined journal like: + + ; all.journal + include 2021.journal + include 2022.journal + include 2023.journal + + The clopen: tag can exclude all but the first opening transaction. To + show a clean multi-year checking register: + + $ hledger -f all.journal areg checking not:tag:clopen + + And the year values allow more precision. To show 2022's year-end bal- + ance sheet: + + $ hledger -f all.journal bs -e2023 not:tag:clopen=2023 + + codes + List the codes seen in transactions, in the order parsed. + + This command prints the value of each transaction's code field, in the + order transactions were parsed. The transaction code is an optional + value written in parentheses between the date and description, often + used to store a cheque number, order number or similar. + + Transactions aren't required to have a code, and missing or empty codes + will not be shown by default. With the -E/--empty flag, they will be + printed as blank lines. + + You can add a query to select a subset of transactions. + + Examples: + + 2022/1/1 (123) Supermarket + Food $5.00 + Checking + + 2022/1/2 (124) Post Office + Postage $8.32 + Checking + + 2022/1/3 Supermarket + Food $11.23 + Checking + + 2022/1/4 (126) Post Office + Postage $3.21 + Checking + + $ hledger codes + 123 + 124 + 126 + + $ hledger codes -E + 123 + 124 + + 126 + + commodities + List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal. + + descriptions + List the unique descriptions that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique descriptions that appear in transactions, + in alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of trans- + actions. + + Example: + + $ hledger descriptions + Store Name + Gas Station | Petrol + Person A + + diff + Compares a particular account's transactions in two input files. It + shows any transactions to this account which are in one file but not in + the other. + + More precisely, for each posting affecting this account in either file, + it looks for a corresponding posting in the other file which posts the + same amount to the same account (ignoring date, description, etc.) + Since postings not transactions are compared, this also works when mul- + tiple bank transactions have been combined into a single journal entry. + + This is useful eg if you have downloaded an account's transactions from + your bank (eg as CSV data). When hledger and your bank disagree about + the account balance, you can compare the bank data with your journal to + find out the cause. + + Examples: + + $ hledger diff -f $LEDGER_FILE -f bank.csv assets:bank:giro + These transactions are in the first file only: + + 2014/01/01 Opening Balances + assets:bank:giro EUR ... + ... + equity:opening balances EUR -... + + These transactions are in the second file only: + + files + List all files included in the journal. With a REGEX argument, only + file names matching the regular expression (case sensitive) are shown. + + help + Show the hledger user manual in the terminal, with info, man, or a + pager. With a TOPIC argument, open it at that topic if possible. + TOPIC can be any heading in the manual, or a heading prefix, case + insensitive. Eg: commands, print, forecast, journal, amount, "auto + postings". + + This command shows the hledger manual built in to your hledger version. + It can be useful when offline, or when you prefer the terminal to a web + browser, or when the appropriate hledger manual or viewing tools are + not installed on your system. + + By default it chooses the best viewer found in $PATH, trying (in this + order): info, man, $PAGER, less, more. You can force the use of info, + man, or a pager with the -i, -m, or -p flags, If no viewer can be + found, or the command is run non-interactively, it just prints the man- + ual to stdout. + + If using info, note that version 6 or greater is needed for TOPIC + lookup. If you are on mac you will likely have info 4.8, and should + consider installing a newer version, eg with brew install texinfo + (#1770). + + Examples + + $ hledger help --help # show how the help command works + $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER + $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual + $ hledger help -m journal # show it with man, even if info is installed + + import + Read new transactions added to each FILE since last run, and add them + to the journal. Or with --dry-run, just print the transactions that + would be added. Or with --catchup, just mark all of the FILEs' trans- + actions as imported, without actually importing any. + + This command may append new transactions to the main journal file + (which should be in journal format). Existing transactions are not + changed. This is one of the few hledger commands that writes to the + journal file (see also add). + + Unlike other hledger commands, with import the journal file is an out- + put file, and will be modified, though only by appending (existing data + will not be changed). The input files are specified as arguments, so + to import one or more CSV files to your main journal, you will run + hledger import bank.csv or perhaps hledger import *.csv. + + Note you can import from any file format, though CSV files are the most + common import source, and these docs focus on that case. + + Deduplication + As a convenience import does deduplication while reading transactions. + This does not mean "ignore transactions that look the same", but rather + "ignore transactions that have been seen before". This is intended for + when you are periodically importing foreign data which may contain + already-imported transactions. So eg, if every day you download bank + CSV files containing redundant data, you can safely run hledger import + bank.csv and only new transactions will be imported. (import is idem- + potent.) + + Since the items being read (CSV records, eg) often do not come with + unique identifiers, hledger detects new transactions by date, assuming + that: + + 1. new items always have the newest dates + + 2. item dates do not change across reads + + 3. and items with the same date remain in the same relative order + across reads. + + These are often true of CSV files representing transactions, or true + enough so that it works pretty well in practice. 1 is important, but + violations of 2 and 3 amongst the old transactions won't matter (and if + you import often, the new transactions will be few, so less likely to + be the ones affected). + + hledger remembers the latest date processed in each input file by sav- + ing a hidden ".latest" state file in the same directory. Eg when read- + ing finance/bank.csv, it will look for and update the finance/.lat- + est.bank.csv state file. The format is simple: one or more lines con- + taining the same ISO-format date (YYYY-MM-DD), meaning "I have pro- + cessed transactions up to this date, and this many of them on that + date." Normally you won't see or manipulate these state files yourself. + But if needed, you can delete them to reset the state (making all + transactions "new"), or you can construct them to "catch up" to a cer- + tain date. + + Note deduplication (and updating of state files) can also be done by + print --new, but this is less often used. + + Import testing + With --dry-run, the transactions that will be imported are printed to + the terminal, without updating your journal or state files. The output + is valid journal format, like the print command, so you can re-parse + it. Eg, to see any importable transactions which CSV rules have not + categorised: + + $ hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown + + or (live updating): + + $ ls bank.csv* | entr bash -c 'echo ====; hledger import --dry bank.csv | hledger -f- -I print unknown' + + Note: when importing from multiple files at once, it's currently possi- + ble for some .latest files to be updated successfully, while the actual + import fails because of a problem in one of the files, leaving them out + of sync (and causing some transactions to be missed). To prevent this, + do a --dry-run first and fix any problems before the real import. + + Importing balance assignments + Entries added by import will have their posting amounts made explicit + (like hledger print -x). This means that any balance assignments in + imported files must be evaluated; but, imported files don't get to see + the main file's account balances. As a result, importing entries with + balance assignments (eg from an institution that provides only balances + and not posting amounts) will probably generate incorrect posting + amounts. To avoid this problem, use print instead of import: + + $ hledger print IMPORTFILE [--new] >> $LEDGER_FILE + + (If you think import should leave amounts implicit like print does, + please test it and send a pull request.) + + Commodity display styles + Imported amounts will be formatted according to the canonical commodity + styles (declared or inferred) in the main journal file. + + incomestatement + (is) + + This command displays an income statement, showing revenues and + expenses during one or more periods. Amounts are shown with normal + positive sign, as in conventional financial statements. + + This report shows accounts declared with the Revenue or Expense type + (see account types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows + top-level accounts named revenue or income or expense (case insensi- + tive, plurals allowed) and their subaccounts. + + Example: + + $ hledger incomestatement + Income Statement + + Revenues: + $-2 income + $-1 gifts + $-1 salary + -------------------- + $-2 + + Expenses: + $2 expenses + $1 food + $1 supplies + -------------------- + $2 + + Total: + -------------------- + 0 + + This command is a higher-level variant of the balance command, and sup- + ports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports. + It is similar to hledger balance '(revenues|income)' expenses, but with + smarter account detection, and revenues/income displayed with their + sign flipped. + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, html, and (experi- + mental) json. + + notes + List the unique notes that appear in transactions. + + This command lists the unique notes that appear in transactions, in + alphabetic order. You can add a query to select a subset of transac- + tions. The note is the part of the transaction description after a | + character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + Example: + + $ hledger notes + Petrol + Snacks + + payees + List the unique payee/payer names that appear in transactions. + + This command lists unique payee/payer names which have been declared + with payee directives (--declared), used in transaction descriptions + (--used), or both (the default). + + The payee/payer is the part of the transaction description before a | + character (or if there is no |, the whole description). + + You can add query arguments to select a subset of transactions. This + implies --used. + + Example: + + $ hledger payees + Store Name + Gas Station + Person A + + prices + Print market price directives from the journal. With --infer-market- + prices, generate additional market prices from costs. With --infer- + reverse-prices, also generate market prices by inverting known prices. + Prices can be filtered by a query. Price amounts are displayed with + their full precision. + + print + Show transaction journal entries, sorted by date. + + The print command displays full journal entries (transactions) from the + journal file, sorted by date (or with --date2, by secondary date). + + Amounts are shown mostly normalised to commodity display style, eg the + placement of commodity symbols will be consistent. All of their deci- + mal places are shown, as in the original journal entry (with one alter- + ation: in some cases trailing zeroes are added.) + + Amounts are shown right-aligned within each transaction (but not across + all transactions). + + Directives and inter-transaction comments are not shown, currently. + This means the print command is somewhat lossy, and if you are using it + to reformat your journal you should take care to also copy over the + directives and file-level comments. + + Eg: + + $ hledger print + 2008/01/01 income + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary $-1 + + 2008/06/01 gift + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts $-1 + + 2008/06/02 save + assets:bank:saving $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + 2008/06/03 * eat & shop + expenses:food $1 + expenses:supplies $1 + assets:cash $-2 + + 2008/12/31 * pay off + liabilities:debts $1 + assets:bank:checking $-1 + + print's output is usually a valid hledger journal, and you can process + it again with a second hledger command. This can be useful for certain + kinds of search, eg: + + # Show running total of food expenses paid from cash. + # -f- reads from stdin. -I/--ignore-assertions is sometimes needed. + $ hledger print assets:cash | hledger -f- -I reg expenses:food + + There are some situations where print's output can become unparseable: + + o Valuation affects posting amounts but not balance assertion or bal- + ance assignment amounts, potentially causing those to fail. + + o Auto postings can generate postings with too many missing amounts. + + o Account aliases can generate bad account names. + + Normally, the journal entry's explicit or implicit amount style is pre- + served. For example, when an amount is omitted in the journal, it will + not appear in the output. Similarly, when a cost is implied but not + written, it will not appear in the output. You can use the + -x/--explicit flag to make all amounts and costs explicit, which can be + useful for troubleshooting or for making your journal more readable and + robust against data entry errors. -x is also implied by using any of + -B,-V,-X,--value. + + Note, -x/--explicit will cause postings with a multi-commodity amount + (these can arise when a multi-commodity transaction has an implicit + amount) to be split into multiple single-commodity postings, keeping + the output parseable. + + With -B/--cost, amounts with costs are converted to cost using that + price. This can be used for troubleshooting. + + With -m DESC/--match=DESC, print does a fuzzy search for one recent + transaction whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should + contain at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, + no transaction will be shown and the program exit code will be non- + zero. + + With --new, hledger prints only transactions it has not seen on a pre- + vious run. This uses the same deduplication system as the import com- + mand. (See import's docs for details.) + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) + json and sql. + + Here's an example of print's CSV output: + + $ hledger print -Ocsv + "txnidx","date","date2","status","code","description","comment","account","amount","commodity","credit","debit","posting-status","posting-comment" + "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" + "1","2008/01/01","","","","income","","income:salary","-1","$","1","","","" + "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","assets:bank:checking","1","$","","1","","" + "2","2008/06/01","","","","gift","","income:gifts","-1","$","1","","","" + "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:saving","1","$","","1","","" + "3","2008/06/02","","","","save","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:food","1","$","","1","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","expenses:supplies","1","$","","1","","" + "4","2008/06/03","","*","","eat & shop","","assets:cash","-2","$","2","","","" + "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","liabilities:debts","1","$","","1","","" + "5","2008/12/31","","*","","pay off","","assets:bank:checking","-1","$","1","","","" + + o There is one CSV record per posting, with the parent transaction's + fields repeated. + + o The "txnidx" (transaction index) field shows which postings belong to + the same transaction. (This number might change if transactions are + reordered within the file, files are parsed/included in a different + order, etc.) + + o The amount is separated into "commodity" (the symbol) and "amount" + (numeric quantity) fields. + + o The numeric amount is repeated in either the "credit" or "debit" col- + umn, for convenience. (Those names are not accurate in the account- + ing sense; it just puts negative amounts under credit and zero or + greater amounts under debit.) + + register + (reg) + + Show postings and their running total. + + The register command displays matched postings, across all accounts, in + date order, with their running total or running historical balance. + (See also the aregister command, which shows matched transactions in a + specific account.) + + register normally shows line per posting, but note that multi-commodity + amounts will occupy multiple lines (one line per commodity). + + It is typically used with a query selecting a particular account, to + see that account's activity: + + $ hledger register checking + 2008/01/01 income assets:bank:checking $1 $1 + 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 + 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 + 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + With --date2, it shows and sorts by secondary date instead. + + For performance reasons, column widths are chosen based on the first + 1000 lines; this means unusually wide values in later lines can cause + visual discontinuities as column widths are adjusted. If you want to + ensure perfect alignment, at the cost of more time and memory, use the + --align-all flag. + + The --historical/-H flag adds the balance from any undisplayed prior + postings to the running total. This is useful when you want to see + only recent activity, with a historically accurate running balance: + + $ hledger register checking -b 2008/6 --historical + 2008/06/01 gift assets:bank:checking $1 $2 + 2008/06/02 save assets:bank:checking $-1 $1 + 2008/12/31 pay off assets:bank:checking $-1 0 + + The --depth option limits the amount of sub-account detail displayed. + + The --average/-A flag shows the running average posting amount instead + of the running total (so, the final number displayed is the average for + the whole report period). This flag implies --empty (see below). It + is affected by --historical. It works best when showing just one + account and one commodity. + + The --related/-r flag shows the other postings in the transactions of + the postings which would normally be shown. + + The --invert flag negates all amounts. For example, it can be used on + an income account where amounts are normally displayed as negative num- + bers. It's also useful to show postings on the checking account + together with the related account: + + $ hledger register --related --invert assets:checking + + With a reporting interval, register shows summary postings, one per + interval, aggregating the postings to each account: + + $ hledger register --monthly income + 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 + 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + + Periods with no activity, and summary postings with a zero amount, are + not shown by default; use the --empty/-E flag to see them: + + $ hledger register --monthly income -E + 2008/01 income:salary $-1 $-1 + 2008/02 0 $-1 + 2008/03 0 $-1 + 2008/04 0 $-1 + 2008/05 0 $-1 + 2008/06 income:gifts $-1 $-2 + 2008/07 0 $-2 + 2008/08 0 $-2 + 2008/09 0 $-2 + 2008/10 0 $-2 + 2008/11 0 $-2 + 2008/12 0 $-2 + + Often, you'll want to see just one line per interval. The --depth + option helps with this, causing subaccounts to be aggregated: + + $ hledger register --monthly assets --depth 1h + 2008/01 assets $1 $1 + 2008/06 assets $-1 0 + 2008/12 assets $-1 $-1 + + Note when using report intervals, if you specify start/end dates these + will be adjusted outward if necessary to contain a whole number of + intervals. This ensures that the first and last intervals are full + length and comparable to the others in the report. + + With -m DESC/--match=DESC, register does a fuzzy search for one recent + posting whose description is most similar to DESC. DESC should contain + at least two characters. If there is no similar-enough match, no post- + ing will be shown and the program exit code will be non-zero. + + Custom register output + register uses the full terminal width by default, except on windows. + You can override this by setting the COLUMNS environment variable (not + a bash shell variable) or by using the --width/-w option. + + The description and account columns normally share the space equally + (about half of (width - 40) each). You can adjust this by adding a + description width as part of --width's argument, comma-separated: + --width W,D . Here's a diagram (won't display correctly in --help): + + <--------------------------------- width (W) ----------------------------------> + date (10) description (D) account (W-41-D) amount (12) balance (12) + DDDDDDDDDD dddddddddddddddddddd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA + + and some examples: + + $ hledger reg # use terminal width (or 80 on windows) + $ hledger reg -w 100 # use width 100 + $ COLUMNS=100 hledger reg # set with one-time environment variable + $ export COLUMNS=100; hledger reg # set till session end (or window resize) + $ hledger reg -w 100,40 # set overall width 100, description width 40 + $ hledger reg -w $COLUMNS,40 # use terminal width, & description width 40 + + This command also supports the output destination and output format + options The output formats supported are txt, csv, and (experimental) + json. + + rewrite + Print all transactions, rewriting the postings of matched transactions. + For now the only rewrite available is adding new postings, like print + --auto. + + This is a start at a generic rewriter of transaction entries. It reads + the default journal and prints the transactions, like print, but adds + one or more specified postings to any transactions matching QUERY. The + posting amounts can be fixed, or a multiplier of the existing transac- + tion's first posting amount. + + Examples: + + $ hledger-rewrite.hs ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33 ; income tax' --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) $100' + $ hledger-rewrite.hs expenses:gifts --add-posting '(reserve:gifts) *-1"' + $ hledger-rewrite.hs -f rewrites.hledger + + rewrites.hledger may consist of entries like: + + = ^income amt:<0 date:2017 + (liabilities:tax) *0.33 ; tax on income + (reserve:grocery) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + (reserve:) *0.25 ; reserve 25% for grocery + + Note the single quotes to protect the dollar sign from bash, and the + two spaces between account and amount. + + More: + + $ hledger rewrite -- [QUERY] --add-posting "ACCT AMTEXPR" ... + $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + $ hledger rewrite -- expenses:gifts --add-posting '(budget:gifts) *-1"' + $ hledger rewrite -- ^income --add-posting '(budget:foreign currency) *0.25 JPY; diversify' + + Argument for --add-posting option is a usual posting of transaction + with an exception for amount specification. More precisely, you can + use '*' (star symbol) before the amount to indicate that that this is a + factor for an amount of original matched posting. If the amount + includes a commodity name, the new posting amount will be in the new + commodity; otherwise, it will be in the matched posting amount's com- + modity. + + Re-write rules in a file + During the run this tool will execute so called "Automated Transac- + tions" found in any journal it process. I.e instead of specifying this + operations in command line you can put them in a journal file. + + $ rewrite-rules.journal + + Make contents look like this: + + = ^income + (liabilities:tax) *.33 + + = expenses:gifts + budget:gifts *-1 + assets:budget *1 + + Note that '=' (equality symbol) that is used instead of date in trans- + actions you usually write. It indicates the query by which you want to + match the posting to add new ones. + + $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal -f rewrite-rules.journal > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + This is something similar to the commands pipeline: + + $ hledger rewrite -- -f input.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' \ + | hledger rewrite -- -f - expenses:gifts --add-posting 'budget:gifts *-1' \ + --add-posting 'assets:budget *1' \ + > rewritten-tidy-output.journal + + It is important to understand that relative order of such entries in + journal is important. You can re-use result of previously added post- + ings. + + Diff output format + To use this tool for batch modification of your journal files you may + find useful output in form of unified diff. + + $ hledger rewrite -- --diff -f examples/sample.journal '^income' --add-posting '(liabilities:tax) *.33' + + Output might look like: + + --- /tmp/examples/sample.journal + +++ /tmp/examples/sample.journal + @@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ + 2008/01/01 income + - assets:bank:checking $1 + + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:salary + + (liabilities:tax) 0 + @@ -22,3 +23,4 @@ + 2008/06/01 gift + - assets:bank:checking $1 + + assets:bank:checking $1 + income:gifts + + (liabilities:tax) 0 + + If you'll pass this through patch tool you'll get transactions contain- + ing the posting that matches your query be updated. Note that multiple + files might be update according to list of input files specified via + --file options and include directives inside of these files. + + Be careful. Whole transaction being re-formatted in a style of output + from hledger print. + + See also: + + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues/99 + + rewrite vs. print --auto + This command predates print --auto, and currently does much the same + thing, but with these differences: + + o with multiple files, rewrite lets rules in any file affect all other + files. print --auto uses standard directive scoping; rules affect + only child files. + + o rewrite's query limits which transactions can be rewritten; all are + printed. print --auto's query limits which transactions are printed. + + o rewrite applies rules specified on command line or in the journal. + print --auto applies rules specified in the journal. + + roi + Shows the time-weighted (TWR) and money-weighted (IRR) rate of return + on your investments. + + At a minimum, you need to supply a query (which could be just an + account name) to select your investment(s) with --inv, and another + query to identify your profit and loss transactions with --pnl. + + If you do not record changes in the value of your investment manually, + or do not require computation of time-weighted return (TWR), --pnl + could be an empty query (--pnl "" or --pnl STR where STR does not match + any of your accounts). + + This command will compute and display the internalized rate of return + (IRR) and time-weighted rate of return (TWR) for your investments for + the time period requested. Both rates of return are annualized before + display, regardless of the length of reporting interval. + + Price directives will be taken into account if you supply appropriate + --cost or --value flags (see VALUATION). + + Note, in some cases this report can fail, for these reasons: + + o Error (NotBracketed): No solution for Internal Rate of Return (IRR). + Possible causes: IRR is huge (>1000000%), balance of investment + becomes negative at some point in time. + + o Error (SearchFailed): Failed to find solution for Internal Rate of + Return (IRR). Either search does not converge to a solution, or con- + verges too slowly. + + Examples: + + o Using roi to compute total return of investment in stocks: + https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/blob/master/examples/invest- + ing/roi-unrealised.ledger + + o Cookbook > Return on Investment: https://hledger.org/roi.html + + Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl + Note that --inv and --pnl's argument is a query, and queries could have + several space-separated terms (see QUERIES). + + To indicate that all search terms form single command-line argument, + you will need to put them in quotes (see Special characters): + + $ hledger roi --inv 'term1 term2 term3 ...' + + If any query terms contain spaces themselves, you will need an extra + level of nested quoting, eg: + + $ hledger roi --inv="'Assets:Test 1'" --pnl="'Equity:Unrealized Profit and Loss'" + + Semantics of --inv and --pnl + Query supplied to --inv has to match all transactions that are related + to your investment. Transactions not matching --inv will be ignored. + + In these transactions, ROI will conside postings that match --inv to be + "investment postings" and other postings (not matching --inv) will be + sorted into two categories: "cash flow" and "profit and loss", as ROI + needs to know which part of the investment value is your contributions + and which is due to the return on investment. + + o "Cash flow" is depositing or withdrawing money, buying or selling + assets, or otherwise converting between your investment commodity and + any other commodity. Example: + + 2019-01-01 Investing in Snake Oil + assets:cash -$100 + investment:snake oil + + 2020-01-01 Selling my Snake Oil + assets:cash $10 + investment:snake oil = 0 + + o "Profit and loss" is change in the value of your investment: + + 2019-06-01 Snake Oil falls in value + investment:snake oil = $57 + equity:unrealized profit or loss + + All non-investment postings are assumed to be "cash flow", unless they + match --pnl query. Changes in value of your investment due to "profit + and loss" postings will be considered as part of your investment + return. + + Example: if you use --inv snake --pnl equity:unrealized, then postings + in the example below would be classifed as: + + 2019-01-01 Snake Oil #1 + assets:cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + investment:snake oil ; investment posting + + 2019-03-01 Snake Oil #2 + equity:unrealized pnl -$100 ; profit and loss posting + snake oil ; investment posting + + 2019-07-01 Snake Oil #3 + equity:unrealized pnl ; profit and loss posting + cash -$100 ; cash flow posting + snake oil $50 ; investment posting + + IRR and TWR explained + "ROI" stands for "return on investment". Traditionally this was com- + puted as a difference between current value of investment and its ini- + tial value, expressed in percentage of the initial value. + + However, this approach is only practical in simple cases, where invest- + ments receives no in-flows or out-flows of money, and where rate of + growth is fixed over time. For more complex scenarios you need differ- + ent ways to compute rate of return, and this command implements two of + them: IRR and TWR. + + Internal rate of return, or "IRR" (also called "money-weighted rate of + return") takes into account effects of in-flows and out-flows. + Naively, if you are withdrawing from your investment, your future gains + would be smaller (in absolute numbers), and will be a smaller percent- + age of your initial investment, and if you are adding to your invest- + ment, you will receive bigger absolute gains (but probably at the same + rate of return). IRR is a way to compute rate of return for each + period between in-flow or out-flow of money, and then combine them in a + way that gives you a compound annual rate of return that investment is + expected to generate. + + As mentioned before, in-flows and out-flows would be any cash that you + personally put in or withdraw, and for the "roi" command, these are the + postings that match the query in the--inv argument and NOT match the + query in the--pnl argument. + + If you manually record changes in the value of your investment as + transactions that balance them against "profit and loss" (or "unreal- + ized gains") account or use price directives, then in order for IRR to + compute the precise effect of your in-flows and out-flows on the rate + of return, you will need to record the value of your investement on or + close to the days when in- or out-flows occur. + + In technical terms, IRR uses the same approach as computation of net + present value, and tries to find a discount rate that makes net present + value of all the cash flows of your investment to add up to zero. This + could be hard to wrap your head around, especially if you haven't done + discounted cash flow analysis before. Implementation of IRR in hledger + should produce results that match the XIRR formula in Excel. + + Second way to compute rate of return that roi command implements is + called "time-weighted rate of return" or "TWR". Like IRR, it will also + break the history of your investment into periods between in-flows, + out-flows and value changes, to compute rate of return per each period + and then a compound rate of return. However, internal workings of TWR + are quite different. + + TWR represents your investment as an imaginary "unit fund" where in- + flows/ out-flows lead to buying or selling "units" of your investment + and changes in its value change the value of "investment unit". Change + in "unit price" over the reporting period gives you rate of return of + your investment. + + References: + + o Explanation of rate of return + + o Explanation of IRR + + o Explanation of TWR + + o Examples of computing IRR and TWR and discussion of the limitations + of both metrics + + stats + Show journal and performance statistics. + + The stats command displays summary information for the whole journal, + or a matched part of it. With a reporting interval, it shows a report + for each report period. + + At the end, it shows (in the terminal) the overall run time and number + of transactions processed per second. Note these are approximate and + will vary based on machine, current load, data size, hledger version, + haskell lib versions, GHC version.. but they may be of interest. The + stats command's run time is similar to that of a single-column balance + report. + + Example: + + $ hledger stats -f examples/1000x1000x10.journal + Main file : /Users/simon/src/hledger/examples/1000x1000x10.journal + Included files : + Transactions span : 2000-01-01 to 2002-09-27 (1000 days) + Last transaction : 2002-09-26 (6995 days ago) + Transactions : 1000 (1.0 per day) + Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) + Payees/descriptions : 1000 + Accounts : 1000 (depth 10) + Commodities : 26 (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) + Market prices : 1000 (A) + + Run time : 0.12 s + Throughput : 8342 txns/s + + This command supports the -o/--output-file option (but not -O/--output- + format selection). + + tags + List the tags used in the journal, or their values. + + This command lists the tag names used in the journal, whether on trans- + actions, postings, or account declarations. + + With a TAGREGEX argument, only tag names matching this regular expres- + sion (case insensitive, infix matched) are shown. + + With QUERY arguments, only transactions and accounts matching this + query are considered. If the query involves transaction fields (date:, + desc:, amt:, ...), the search is restricted to the matched transactions + and their accounts. + + With the --values flag, the tags' unique non-empty values are listed + instead. With -E/--empty, blank/empty values are also shown. + + With --parsed, tags or values are shown in the order they were parsed, + with duplicates included. (Except, tags from account declarations are + always shown first.) + + Tip: remember, accounts also acquire tags from their parents, postings + also acquire tags from their account and transaction, transactions also + acquire tags from their postings. + + test + Run built-in unit tests. + + This command runs the unit tests built in to hledger and hledger-lib, + printing the results on stdout. If any test fails, the exit code will + be non-zero. + + This is mainly used by hledger developers, but you can also use it to + sanity-check the installed hledger executable on your platform. All + tests are expected to pass - if you ever see a failure, please report + as a bug! + + This command also accepts tasty test runner options, written after a -- + (double hyphen). Eg to run only the tests in Hledger.Data.Amount, with + ANSI colour codes disabled: + + $ hledger test -- -pData.Amount --color=never + + For help on these, see https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty#options (-- + --help currently doesn't show them). + + +PART 5: COMMON TASKS + Here are some quick examples of how to do some basic tasks with + hledger. + + Getting help + Here's how to list commands and view options and command docs: + + $ hledger # show available commands + $ hledger --help # show common options + $ hledger CMD --help # show CMD's options, common options and CMD's documentation + + You can also view your hledger version's manual in several formats by + using the help command. Eg: + + $ hledger help # show the hledger manual with info, man or $PAGER (best available) + $ hledger help journal # show the journal topic in the hledger manual + $ hledger help --help # find out more about the help command + + To view manuals and introductory docs on the web, visit + https://hledger.org. Chat and mail list support and discussion ar- + chives can be found at https://hledger.org/support. + + Constructing command lines + hledger has a flexible command line interface. We strive to keep it + simple and ergonomic, but if you run into one of the sharp edges + described in OPTIONS, here are some tips that might help: + + o command-specific options must go after the command (it's fine to put + common options there too: hledger CMD OPTS ARGS) + + o running add-on executables directly simplifies command line parsing + (hledger-ui OPTS ARGS) + + o enclose "problematic" args in single quotes + + o if needed, also add a backslash to hide regular expression metachar- + acters from the shell + + o to see how a misbehaving command line is being parsed, add --debug=2. + + Starting a journal file + hledger looks for your accounting data in a journal file, + $HOME/.hledger.journal by default: + + $ hledger stats + The hledger journal file "/Users/simon/.hledger.journal" was not found. + Please create it first, eg with "hledger add" or a text editor. + Or, specify an existing journal file with -f or LEDGER_FILE. + + You can override this by setting the LEDGER_FILE environment variable. + It's a good practice to keep this important file under version control, + and to start a new file each year. So you could do something like + this: + + $ mkdir ~/finance + $ cd ~/finance + $ git init + Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/simon/finance/.git/ + $ touch 2020.journal + $ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2020.journal" >> ~/.bashrc + $ source ~/.bashrc + $ hledger stats + Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Included files : + Transactions span : to (0 days) + Last transaction : none + Transactions : 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 30 days: 0 (0.0 per day) + Transactions last 7 days : 0 (0.0 per day) + Payees/descriptions : 0 + Accounts : 0 (depth 0) + Commodities : 0 () + Market prices : 0 () + + Setting opening balances + Pick a starting date for which you can look up the balances of some + real-world assets (bank accounts, wallet..) and liabilities (credit + cards..). + + To avoid a lot of data entry, you may want to start with just one or + two accounts, like your checking account or cash wallet; and pick a + recent starting date, like today or the start of the week. You can + always come back later and add more accounts and older transactions, eg + going back to january 1st. + + Add an opening balances transaction to the journal, declaring the bal- + ances on this date. Here are two ways to do it: + + o The first way: open the journal in any text editor and save an entry + like this: + + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 = $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 = $2000 + assets:cash $100 = $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 = $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances + + These are start-of-day balances, ie whatever was in the account at + the end of the previous day. + + The * after the date is an optional status flag. Here it means + "cleared & confirmed". + + The currency symbols are optional, but usually a good idea as you'll + be dealing with multiple currencies sooner or later. + + The = amounts are optional balance assertions, providing extra error + checking. + + o The second way: run hledger add and follow the prompts to record a + similar transaction: + + $ hledger add + Adding transactions to journal file /Users/simon/finance/2020.journal + Any command line arguments will be used as defaults. + Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults. + An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates. + An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts. + If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward. + To end a transaction, enter . when prompted. + To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c. + Date [2020-02-07]: 2020-01-01 + Description: * opening balances + Account 1: assets:bank:checking + Amount 1: $1000 + Account 2: assets:bank:savings + Amount 2 [$-1000]: $2000 + Account 3: assets:cash + Amount 3 [$-3000]: $100 + Account 4: liabilities:creditcard + Amount 4 [$-3100]: $-50 + Account 5: equity:opening/closing balances + Amount 5 [$-3050]: + Account 6 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): . + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: + Saved. + Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit) + Date [2020-01-01]: . + + If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit + the journal. Eg: + + $ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2020.journal + + Recording transactions + As you spend or receive money, you can record these transactions using + one of the methods above (text editor, hledger add) or by using the + hledger-iadd or hledger-web add-ons, or by using the import command to + convert CSV data downloaded from your bank. + + Here are some simple transactions, see the hledger_journal(5) manual + and hledger.org for more ideas: + + 2020/1/10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + + 2020.1.12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + + 2020-01-15 paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + Reconciling + Periodically you should reconcile - compare your hledger-reported bal- + ances against external sources of truth, like bank statements or your + bank's website - to be sure that your ledger accurately represents the + real-world balances (and, that the real-world institutions have not + made a mistake!). This gets easy and fast with (1) practice and (2) + frequency. If you do it daily, it can take 2-10 minutes. If you let + it pile up, expect it to take longer as you hunt down errors and dis- + crepancies. + + A typical workflow: + + 1. Reconcile cash. Count what's in your wallet. Compare with what + hledger reports (hledger bal cash). If they are different, try to + remember the missing transaction, or look for the error in the + already-recorded transactions. A register report can be helpful + (hledger reg cash). If you can't find the error, add an adjustment + transaction. Eg if you have $105 after the above, and can't explain + the missing $2, it could be: + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + 2. Reconcile checking. Log in to your bank's website. Compare today's + (cleared) balance with hledger's cleared balance (hledger bal check- + ing -C). If they are different, track down the error or record the + missing transaction(s) or add an adjustment transaction, similar to + the above. Unlike the cash case, you can usually compare the trans- + action history and running balance from your bank with the one + reported by hledger reg checking -C. This will be easier if you + generally record transaction dates quite similar to your bank's + clearing dates. + + 3. Repeat for other asset/liability accounts. + + Tip: instead of the register command, use hledger-ui to see a live- + updating register while you edit the journal: hledger-ui --watch --reg- + ister checking -C + + After reconciling, it could be a good time to mark the reconciled + transactions' status as "cleared and confirmed", if you want to track + that, by adding the * marker. Eg in the paycheck transaction above, + insert * between 2020-01-15 and paycheck + + If you're using version control, this can be another good time to com- + mit: + + $ git commit -m 'txns' 2020.journal + + Reporting + Here are some basic reports. + + Show all transactions: + + $ hledger print + 2020-01-01 * opening balances + assets:bank:checking $1000 + assets:bank:savings $2000 + assets:cash $100 + liabilities:creditcard $-50 + equity:opening/closing balances $-3050 + + 2020-01-10 * gift received + assets:cash $20 + income:gifts + + 2020-01-12 * farmers market + expenses:food $13 + assets:cash + + 2020-01-15 * paycheck + income:salary + assets:bank:checking $1000 + + 2020-01-16 * adjust cash + assets:cash $-2 = $105 + expenses:misc + + Show account names, and their hierarchy: + + $ hledger accounts --tree + assets + bank + checking + savings + cash + equity + opening/closing balances + expenses + food + misc + income + gifts + salary + liabilities + creditcard + + Show all account totals: + + $ hledger balance + $4105 assets + $4000 bank + $2000 checking + $2000 savings + $105 cash + $-3050 equity:opening/closing balances + $15 expenses + $13 food + $2 misc + $-1020 income + $-20 gifts + $-1000 salary + $-50 liabilities:creditcard + -------------------- + 0 + + Show only asset and liability balances, as a flat list, limited to + depth 2: + + $ hledger bal assets liabilities -2 + $4000 assets:bank + $105 assets:cash + $-50 liabilities:creditcard + -------------------- + $4055 + + Show the same thing without negative numbers, formatted as a simple + balance sheet: + + $ hledger bs -2 + Balance Sheet 2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-16 + ========================++============ + Assets || + ------------------------++------------ + assets:bank || $4000 + assets:cash || $105 + ------------------------++------------ + || $4105 + ========================++============ + Liabilities || + ------------------------++------------ + liabilities:creditcard || $50 + ------------------------++------------ + || $50 + ========================++============ + Net: || $4055 + + The final total is your "net worth" on the end date. (Or use bse for a + full balance sheet with equity.) + + Show income and expense totals, formatted as an income statement: + + hledger is + Income Statement 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + + || 2020-01-01-2020-01-16 + ===============++======================= + Revenues || + ---------------++----------------------- + income:gifts || $20 + income:salary || $1000 + ---------------++----------------------- + || $1020 + ===============++======================= + Expenses || + ---------------++----------------------- + expenses:food || $13 + expenses:misc || $2 + ---------------++----------------------- + || $15 + ===============++======================= + Net: || $1005 + + The final total is your net income during this period. + + Show transactions affecting your wallet, with running total: + + $ hledger register cash + 2020-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100 + 2020-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120 + 2020-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107 + 2020-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105 + + Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart: + + $ hledger activity -W + 2019-12-30 ***** + 2020-01-06 **** + 2020-01-13 **** + + Migrating to a new file + At the end of the year, you may want to continue your journal in a new + file, so that old transactions don't slow down or clutter your reports, + and to help ensure the integrity of your accounting history. See the + close command. + + If using version control, don't forget to git add the new file. + + + +REPORTING BUGS + Report bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger chat or + hledger mail list) + + +AUTHORS + Simon Michael and contributors. + See http://hledger.org/CREDITS.html + + +COPYRIGHT + Copyright 2007-2023 Simon Michael and contributors. + + +LICENSE + Released under GNU GPL v3 or later. + + +SEE ALSO + hledger(1), hledger-ui(1), hledger-web(1), ledger(1) + + + +hledger-1.29.2 April 2023 HLEDGER(1)