hledger-1.30: hledger.info
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 COMMAND [OPTS] [ARGS]'
'hledger 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 1.30.
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 usually reads from (and appends to) a journal file specified
by the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable (defaulting to
'$HOME/.hledger.journal'); or you can specify files with '-f' options.
It can also read timeclock files, timedot files, or any CSV/SSV/TSV file
with a date field.
Here is a small 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::
* Input::
* Commands::
* Options::
* Command line tips::
* Output::
* Environment::
* 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::
* BUGS::
File: hledger.info, Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Next: Input, Prev: Top, Up: Top
1 PART 1: USER INTERFACE
************************
File: hledger.info, Node: Input, Next: Commands, Prev: PART 1 USER INTERFACE, Up: Top
2 Input
*******
hledger reads one or more data files, each time you run it. You can
specify a file with '-f', like so
$ hledger -f FILE print
Files are most often in hledger's journal format, with the '.journal'
file extension ('.hledger' or '.j' also work); these files describe
transactions, like an accounting general journal.
When no file is specified, hledger looks for '.hledger.journal' in
your home directory.
But most people prefer to keep financial files in a dedicated folder,
perhaps with version control. Also, starting a new journal file each
year is common (it's not required, but helps keep things fast and
organised). So we usually configure a different journal file, by
setting the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable, to something like
'~/finance/2023.journal'. For more about how to do that on your system,
see Common tasks > Setting LEDGER_FILE.
* Menu:
* Data formats::
* Standard input::
* Multiple files::
* Strict mode::
File: hledger.info, Node: Data formats, Next: Standard input, Up: Input
2.1 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' CSV/SSV/TSV/character-separated '.csv' '.ssv' '.tsv'
values, for data import '.csv.rules'
'.ssv.rules'
'.tsv.rules'
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
File: hledger.info, Node: Standard input, Next: Multiple files, Prev: Data formats, Up: Input
2.2 Standard input
==================
The file name '-' means standard input:
$ cat FILE | hledger -f- print
If reading non-journal data in this way, you'll need to add a file
format prefix, like:
$ echo 'i 2009/13/1 08:00:00' | hledger print -f timeclock:-
File: hledger.info, Node: Multiple files, Next: Strict mode, Prev: Standard input, Up: Input
2.3 Multiple files
==================
You can specify multiple '-f' options, to read multiple files as one big
journal. When doing this, note that certain features (described below)
will be affected:
* Balance assertions will not see the effect of transactions in
previous files. (Usually this doesn't matter as each file will set
the corresponding opening balances.)
* Some directives will not affect previous or subsequent files.
If needed, you can work around these by using a single parent file
which includes the others, or concatenating the files into one, eg: 'cat
a.journal b.journal | hledger -f- CMD'.
File: hledger.info, Node: Strict mode, Prev: Multiple files, Up: Input
2.4 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: Options, Prev: Input, Up: Top
3 Commands
**********
hledger provides various subcommands for getting things done. Most of
these commands do not change the journal file; they just read it and
output a report. A few commands assist with adding data and file
management.
To show the commands list, run 'hledger' with no arguments. The
commands are described in detail in PART 4: COMMANDS, below.
To use a particular command, run 'hledger CMD [CMDOPTS] [CMDARGS]',
* CMD is the full command name, or its standard abbreviation shown in
the commands list, or any unambiguous prefix of the name.
* CMDOPTS are command-specific options, if any. Command-specific
options must be written after the command name. Eg: 'hledger print
-x'.
* CMDARGS are additional arguments to the command, if any. Most
hledger commands accept arguments representing a query, to limit
the data in some way. Eg: 'hledger reg assets:checking'.
To list a command's options, arguments, and documentation in the
terminal, run 'hledger CMD -h'. Eg: 'hledger bal -h'.
* Menu:
* Add-on commands::
File: hledger.info, Node: Add-on commands, Up: Commands
3.1 Add-on commands
===================
In addition to the built-in commands, you can install _add-on commands_:
programs or scripts named "hledger-SOMETHING", which will also appear in
hledger's commands list. If you used the hledger-install script, you
will have several add-ons installed already. Some more can be found in
hledger's bin/ directory, documented at
https://hledger.org/scripts.html.
More precisely, add-on commands are programs or scripts in your
shell's PATH, whose name starts with "hledger-" and ends with no
extension or a recognised extension (".bat", ".com", ".exe", ".hs",
".js", ".lhs", ".lua", ".php", ".pl", ".py", ".rb", ".rkt", or ".sh"),
and (on unix and mac) which has executable permission for the current
user.
You can run add-on commands using hledger, much like built-in
commands: 'hledger ADDONCMD [-- ADDONCMDOPTS] [ADDONCMDARGS]'. But note
the double hyphen argument, required before add-on-specific options.
Eg: 'hledger ui -- --watch' or 'hledger web -- --serve'. If this causes
difficulty, you can always run the add-on directly, without using
'hledger': 'hledger-ui --watch' or 'hledger-web --serve'.
File: hledger.info, Node: Options, Next: Command line tips, Prev: Commands, Up: Top
4 Options
*********
Run 'hledger -h' to see general command line help, and general options
which are common to most hledger commands. These options can be written
anywhere on the command line. They can be grouped into help, input, and
reporting options:
* Menu:
* General help options::
* General input options::
* General reporting options::
File: hledger.info, Node: General help options, Next: General input options, Up: Options
4.1 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)
File: hledger.info, Node: General input options, Next: General reporting options, Prev: General help options, Up: Options
4.2 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)
File: hledger.info, Node: General reporting options, Prev: General input options, Up: Options
4.3 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-equity'
infer conversion equity postings from costs
'--infer-costs'
infer costs from conversion equity postings
'--infer-market-prices'
use costs as additional market prices, as if they were P directives
'--forecast'
generate transactions from periodic rules, between the latest
recorded txn and 6 months from today, or during the specified
PERIOD (= is required). Auto posting rules will be applied to
these transactions as well. Also, in hledger-ui make future-dated
transactions visible.
'--auto'
generate extra postings by applying auto posting rules to all txns
(not just forecast txns)
'--verbose-tags'
add visible tags indicating transactions or postings which have
been generated/modified
'--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 line tips, Next: Output, Prev: Options, Up: Top
5 Command line tips
*******************
Here are some details useful to know about for hledger command lines
(and elsewhere). Feel free to skip this section until you need it.
* Menu:
* Special characters::
* Unicode characters::
* Regular expressions::
* Argument files::
File: hledger.info, Node: Special characters, Next: Unicode characters, Up: Command line tips
5.1 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
5.1.1 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
5.1.2 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
5.1.3 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
5.1.4 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: Command line tips
5.2 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, Next: Argument files, Prev: Unicode characters, Up: Command line tips
5.3 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: Argument files, Prev: Regular expressions, Up: Command line tips
5.4 Argument files
==================
You can save a set of command line options and arguments in a file, and
then reuse them by writing '@FILENAME' as a command line argument. Eg:
'hledger bal @foo.args'.
Inside the argument file, each line should contain just one option or
argument. Don't use spaces except inside quotes (or you'll see a
confusing error); write '=' (or nothing) between a flag and its
argument. For the special characters mentioned above, use one less
level of quoting than you would at the command prompt.
File: hledger.info, Node: Output, Next: Environment, Prev: Command line tips, 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: Environment, Next: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Prev: Output, Up: Top
7 Environment
*************
These environment variables affect hledger:
*COLUMNS* This is normally set by your terminal; some hledger
commands ('register') will format their output to this width. If not
set, they will try to use the available terminal width.
*LEDGER_FILE* The main journal file to use when not specified with
'-f/--file'. Default: '$HOME/.hledger.journal'.
*NO_COLOR* If this environment variable is set (with any value),
hledger will not use ANSI color codes in terminal output, unless
overridden by an explicit '--color/--colour' option.
File: hledger.info, Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Next: Journal, Prev: Environment, Up: Top
8 PART 2: DATA FORMATS
**********************
File: hledger.info, Node: Journal, Next: CSV, Prev: PART 2 DATA FORMATS, Up: Top
9 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::
* Auto postings::
* Other syntax::
File: hledger.info, Node: Journal cheatsheet, Next: About journal format, Up: Journal
9.1 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"
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
9.2 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 compatible with most of Ledger's journal
format, but not all of it. The differences and interoperation tips are
described at hledger and Ledger. With some care, and by avoiding
incompatible features, you can keep your hledger journal readable by
Ledger and vice versa. This can useful eg for comparing the behaviour
of one app against the other.
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
9.3 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
9.4 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
9.5 Dates
=========
* Menu:
* Simple dates::
* Posting dates::
File: hledger.info, Node: Simple dates, Next: Posting dates, Up: Dates
9.5.1 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
9.5.2 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
9.6 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
9.7 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
9.8 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
9.8.1 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
9.9 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
9.10 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
9.11 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
9.12 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
9.12.1 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
9.12.2 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
9.12.3 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
9.12.4 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
9.12.5 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
9.13 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.
Note that the cost normally should be a positive amount, though it's
not required to be. This can be a little confusing, see discussion at
-infer-market-prices: market prices from transactions.
* Menu:
* Other cost/lot notations::
File: hledger.info, Node: Other cost/lot notations, Up: Costs
9.13.1 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
9.14 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
9.14.1 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
9.14.2 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
9.14.3 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
9.14.4 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
9.14.5 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
9.14.6 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
9.14.7 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
9.14.8 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
9.14.9 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
9.15 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
9.16 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
9.16.1 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
9.17 Directives
===============
Besides transactions, there is something else you can put in a 'journal'
file: directives. These are declarations, beginning with a keyword,
that modify hledger's behaviour. Some directives can have more specific
subdirectives, indented below them. hledger's directives are similar to
Ledger's in many cases, but there are also many differences. Directives
are not required, but can be useful. Here are the main directives:
purpose directive
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*READING DATA:*
Rewrite account names 'alias'
Comment out sections of the file 'comment'
Declare file's decimal mark, to help 'decimal-mark'
parse amounts accurately
Include other data files 'include'
*GENERATING DATA:*
Generate recurring transactions or '~'
budget goals
Generate extra postings on existing '='
transactions
*CHECKING FOR ERRORS:*
Define valid entities to provide more 'account', 'commodity',
error checking 'payee', 'tag'
*REPORTING:*
Declare accounts' type and display 'account'
order
Declare commodity display styles 'commodity'
Declare market prices 'P'
* Menu:
* Directives and multiple files::
* Directive effects::
File: hledger.info, Node: Directives and multiple files, Next: Directive effects, Up: Directives
9.17.1 Directives and multiple files
------------------------------------
Directives vary in their scope, ie which journal entries and which input
files they affect. Most often, a directive will affect the following
entries and included files if any, until the end of the current file -
and no further. You might find this inconvenient! For example, 'alias'
directives do not affect parent or sibling files. But there are usually
workarounds; for example, put 'alias' directives in your top-most file,
before including other files.
The restriction, though it may be annoying at first, is in a good
cause; it allows reports to be stable and deterministic, independent of
the order of input. Without it, reports could show different numbers
depending on the order of -f options, or the positions of include
directives in your files.
File: hledger.info, Node: Directive effects, Prev: Directives and multiple files, Up: Directives
9.17.2 Directive effects
------------------------
Here are all hledger's directives, with their effects and scope
summarised - nine main directives, plus four others which we consider
non-essential:
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: account directive, Next: alias directive, Prev: Directives, Up: Journal
9.18 '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
9.18.1 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
9.18.2 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
9.18.3 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
9.18.4 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
9.18.5 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
9.19 '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
9.19.1 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
9.19.2 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
9.19.3 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
9.19.4 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
2023-01-01 ; 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
2023-01-01 ; 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
9.19.5 '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
9.19.6 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
9.19.7 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
9.20 '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
9.20.1 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
9.21 '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
9.22 '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/2023*.md'.
File: hledger.info, Node: P directive, Next: payee directive, Prev: include directive, Up: Journal
9.23 '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
9.24 '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
9.25 '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: Auto postings, Prev: tag directive, Up: Journal
9.26 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 2023/01', which is equivalent to '~ every 10th
day of month from 2023/01/01', 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
9.26.1 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
9.26.2 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
9.26.3 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 2023"
; ||
; vv
~ every 2 months in 2023, 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: Auto postings, Next: Other syntax, Prev: Periodic transactions, Up: Journal
9.27 Auto postings
==================
The '=' directive declares a rule for generating temporary extra
postings on transactions. Wherever the rule matches an existing
posting, it can add one or more companion postings below that one,
optionally influenced by the matched posting's amount. This can be
useful for generating tax postings with a standard percentage, for
example.
Note that depending on generated data is not ideal for financial
records (it's less portable, less future-proof, less auditable by
others, and less robust, since other features like balance assertions
will depend on using or not using '--auto').
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::
File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and multiple files, Up: Auto postings
9.27.1 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).
* Menu:
* Auto postings and dates::
* Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions::
* Auto posting tags::
* Auto postings on forecast transactions only::
File: hledger.info, Node: Auto postings and dates, Next: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings and multiple files
9.27.1.1 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 and multiple files
9.27.1.2 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, Next: Auto postings on forecast transactions only, Prev: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions, Up: Auto postings and multiple files
9.27.1.3 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: Auto postings on forecast transactions only, Prev: Auto posting tags, Up: Auto postings and multiple files
9.27.1.4 Auto postings on forecast transactions only
....................................................
Tip: you can can make auto postings that will apply to forecast
transactions but not recorded transactions, by adding
'tag:_generated-transaction' to their QUERY. This can be useful when
generating new journal entries to be saved in the journal.
File: hledger.info, Node: Other syntax, Prev: Auto postings, Up: Journal
9.28 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:
* 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: Balance assignments, Next: Bracketed posting dates, Up: Other syntax
9.28.1 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
9.28.1.1 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
9.28.2 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
9.28.3 '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
9.28.4 '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
9.28.5 '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
9.28.6 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
9.28.7 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
9.28.8 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
9.28.9 Virtual postings
-----------------------
A posting with parentheses around the account name ('(some:account)') is
called a _unbalanced virtual posting_. Such postings do not participate
in transaction balancing. (And if you write them without an amount, a
zero amount is always inferred.) These can occasionally be convenient
for special circumstances, but they violate double entry bookkeeping and
make your data less portable across applications, so many people avoid
using them at all.
A posting with brackets around the account name ('[some:account]') is
called a _balanced virtual posting_. The balanced virtual postings in a
transaction must add up to zero, just like ordinary postings, but
separately from them. These are not part of double entry bookkeeping
either, but they are at least balanced. An example:
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
Ordinary 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.
File: hledger.info, Node: Other Ledger directives, Prev: Virtual postings, Up: Other syntax
9.28.10 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
10 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::
* source::
* 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: source, Up: CSV
10.1 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.)
*'source'* optionally declare which file to read data
from
*'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: source, Next: separator, Prev: CSV rules cheatsheet, Up: CSV
10.2 'source'
=============
If you tell hledger to read a csv file with '-f foo.csv', it will look
for rules in 'foo.csv.rules'. Or, you can tell it to read the rules
file, with '-f foo.csv.rules', and it will look for data in 'foo.csv'
(since 1.30).
These are mostly equivalent, but the second method provides some
extra features. For one, the data file can be missing, without causing
an error; it is just considered empty. And, you can specify a different
data file by adding a "source" rule:
source ./Checking1.csv
If you specify just a file name with no path, hledger will look for
it in your system's downloads directory ('~/Downloads', currently):
source Checking1.csv
And if you specify a glob pattern, hledger will read the most recent
of the matched files (useful with repeated downloads):
source Checking1*.csv
See also "Working with CSV > Reading files specified by rule".
File: hledger.info, Node: separator, Next: skip, Prev: source, Up: CSV
10.3 '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
10.4 '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. You'll need this whenever your CSV data contains header lines.
Note, empty and blank lines are skipped automatically, so you don't need
to count those.
'skip' has a second meaning: it can be used inside if blocks
(described below), to skip one or more records whenever the condition is
true. Records skipped in this way are ignored, except they are still
required to be valid CSV.
File: hledger.info, Node: date-format, Next: timezone, Prev: skip, Up: CSV
10.5 '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
10.6 '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
10.7 '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
10.8 '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
10.9 '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
10.10 '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
10.11 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
10.12 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
10.12.1 date field
------------------
Assigning to 'date' sets the transaction date.
File: hledger.info, Node: date2 field, Next: status field, Prev: date field, Up: Field names
10.12.2 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
10.12.3 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
10.12.4 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
10.12.5 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
10.12.6 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
10.12.7 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
10.12.8 amount field
--------------------
Amount setting can get a bit complex. Assigning to 'amount' is
sufficient for simple transactions, but there are four field name
variants you can use for different situations:
* *'amountN' sets a specific posting's amount from one CSV field or
arbitrary value.*
Assigning to 'amountN' sets the amount of the Nth posting - and
also causes that posting to be generated. N is most often 1 or 2
but can go up to 99, potentially generating a 99-posting
transaction. (Posting numbers don't have to be consecutive; higher
posting numbers can sometimes be useful with conditional rules, to
ensure a certain ordering of postings.)
* *'amountN-in/-out' sets a specific posting's amount from two CSV
fields.*
When the amount is provided as two CSV fields - "Debit"/"Credit",
"Deposit"/"Withdrawal", "Money In"/"Money Out" or similar - assign
those fields to 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out' respectively (or
possibly the other way round, depending on signs). This will set
the Nth posting's amount to whichever of the two CSV field values
is non-zero. Some notes:
* Don't mix 'amountN' and 'amountN-in'/'-out'. When you have
one CSV amount field, use 'amountN'. When you have two CSV
amount fields, use 'amountN-in'/'amountN-out'.
* 'amountN-in' and 'amountN-out' are always used together, as a
pair. Assign to both of them.
* They do not generate two separate postings; rather, they
generate the Nth posting's single amount, from the value found
in one or other of the two CSV fields.
* In each record, at least one of the two CSV fields must
contain a zero amount or be empty.
* hledger assumes the two CSV fields contain unsigned numbers,
and it will automatically negate the -out amount.
* This variant can be convenient, but it doesn't handle every
two-amount-field situation; if you need more flexibility, use
an 'if' rule (see "Setting amounts" below).
The other two variants are older and considered legacy syntax, but
can still be convenient sometimes:
* *'amount' sets posting 1 and 2's amounts from one CSV field or
value.*
Assigning to 'amount', with no posting number,
* sets posting 1's amount (like 'amount1')
* sets posting 2's amount to the same amount but with opposite
sign; and also converts it to cost if it has a cost price
* can be overridden by 'amount1' and/or 'amount2' assignments.
(This helps with incremental migration of old rules files to
the newer syntax.)
* *'amount-in/-out' sets posting 1 and 2's amounts from two CSV
fields.*
Assigning 'amount-in' and 'amount-out', with no posting numbers, to
two CSV fields reads whichever of the two values is non-zero as the
amount, and then sets the first two posting amounts as above.
We recommend using only one of these variants within a rules file,
rather than mixing them. And remember that a 'fields' list can also do
assignments, so eg naming a CSV field "amount" counts as an assignment
to 'amount'; if you don't want that, call it something else, like
"amount_".
In addition to this section, please see also the tips beginning at
"Working with CSV > Setting amounts" below.
File: hledger.info, Node: currency field, Next: balance field, Prev: amount field, Up: Field names
10.12.9 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
10.12.10 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
10.13 '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
10.14 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:
2023-01-01; "Acme, Inc."; 1,000
the regex would see, and try to match, this modified record text:
2023-01-01,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
10.15 '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,...
<empty line>
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,
2023/01/12.*Plumbing LLC,expenses:house:upkeep,emergency plumbing call-out
File: hledger.info, Node: balance-type, Next: include, Prev: if table, Up: CSV
10.16 '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
10.17 '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
10.18 Working with CSV
======================
Some tips:
* Menu:
* Rapid feedback::
* Valid CSV::
* File Extension::
* Reading CSV from standard input::
* Reading multiple CSV files::
* Reading files specified by rule::
* 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
10.18.1 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
10.18.2 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
10.18.3 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
10.18.4 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: Reading files specified by rule, Prev: Reading CSV from standard input, Up: Working with CSV
10.18.5 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: Reading files specified by rule, Next: Valid transactions, Prev: Reading multiple CSV files, Up: Working with CSV
10.18.6 Reading files specified by rule
---------------------------------------
Instead of specifying a CSV file in the command line, you can specify a
rules file, as in 'hledger -f foo.csv.rules CMD'. By default this will
read data from foo.csv in the same directory, but you can add a source
rule to specify a different data file, perhaps located in your web
browser's download directory.
This feature was added in hledger 1.30, so you won't see it in most
CSV rules examples. But it helps remove some of the busywork of
managing CSV downloads. Most of your financial institutions's default
CSV filenames are different and can be recognised by a glob pattern. So
you can put a rule like 'source Checking1*.csv' in
foo-checking.csv.rules, and then periodically follow a workflow like:
1. Download CSV from Foo's website, using your browser's defaults
2. Run 'hledger import foo-checking.csv.rules' to import any new
transactions
After import, you can: discard the CSV, or leave it where it is for a
while, or move it into your archives, as you prefer. If you do nothing,
next time your browser will save something like Checking1-2.csv, and
hledger will use that because of the '*' wild card and because it is the
most recent.
File: hledger.info, Node: Valid transactions, Next: Deduplicating importing, Prev: Reading files specified by rule, Up: Working with CSV
10.18.7 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
10.18.8 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
10.18.9 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
10.18.10 Amount signs
---------------------
There is some special handling making it easier to parse and to reverse
amount signs. (This only works for whole amounts, not for cost amounts
such as COST in 'amount1 AMT @ COST'):
* *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 '""'.
It's not possible (without preprocessing the CSV) to set an amount to
its absolute value, ie discard its sign.
File: hledger.info, Node: Setting currency/commodity, Next: Amount decimal places, Prev: Amount signs, Up: Working with CSV
10.18.11 Setting currency/commodity
-----------------------------------
If the currency/commodity symbol is included in the CSV's amount
field(s):
2023-01-01,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
2023-01-01 foo
expenses:unknown $123.00
income:unknown $-123.00
If the currency is provided as a separate CSV field:
2023-01-01,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
2023-01-01 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
2023-01-01 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
10.18.12 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
10.18.13 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
10.18.14 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
10.18.15 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
10.19 CSV rules examples
========================
* Menu:
* Bank of Ireland::
* Coinbase::
* Amazon::
* Paypal::
File: hledger.info, Node: Bank of Ireland, Next: Coinbase, Up: CSV rules examples
10.19.1 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
10.19.2 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
10.19.3 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
10.19.4 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
11 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 optional description after 2 spaces ; optional comment, tags:
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 2 spaces ; optional comment, tags:
(some account) 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
12 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:
2023-05-01
hom:errands .... .... ; two hours
fos:hledger:timedot .. ; half an hour
per:admin:finance
hledger reads this as a transaction on this day with three
(unbalanced) postings, where each dot represents "0.25". No commodity
is assumed, but normally we interpret it as hours, with each dot
representing a quarter-hour. It's convenient, though not required, to
group the dots in fours for easy reading.
$ hledger -f a.timedot print # .timedot file extension (or timedot: prefix) is required
2023-05-01 *
(hom:errands) 2.00 ; two hours
(fos:hledger:timedot) 0.50 ; half an hour
(per:admin:finance) 0
A transaction begins with a non-indented *simple date* (Y-M-D, Y/M/D,
or Y.M.D). It can optionally be preceded by one or more stars and a
space, for Emacs org mode compatibility. It can optionally be followed
on the same line by a transaction description, and/or a transaction
comment following a semicolon.
After the date line are zero or more time postings, consisting of:
* an *account name* - any hledger-style account name, optionally
hierarchical, optionally indented.
* *two or more spaces* - a field separator, required if there is an
amount (as in journal format).
* an optional *timedot amount* - dots representing quarter hours, or
a number representing hours, optionally with a unit suffix.
* an optional *posting comment* following a semicolon.
Timedot amounts can be:
* *dots*: zero or more period characters ('.'), each representing
0.25. Spaces are ignored and can be used for grouping. Eg: '....
..'
* or a *number*. Eg: '1.5'
* or a *number immediately followed by a unit symbol* 's', 'm', 'h',
'd', 'w', 'mo', or 'y'. These are interpreted as seconds, minutes,
hours, days weeks, months or years, and converted to hours,
assuming:
'60s' = '1m', '60m' = '1h', '24h' = '1d', '7d' = '1w', '30d' =
'1mo', '365d' = '1y'. Eg '90m' is parsed as '1.5'.
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, one or more '*''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
postings with zero amount. Note hledger's register 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
** 2023-01-01
*** adm:time .
*** adm:finance .
* 2023 Work Diary
** Q1
*** 2023-02-29
**** 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
13 PART 3: REPORTING CONCEPTS
*****************************
File: hledger.info, Node: Time periods, Next: Depth, Prev: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS, Up: Top
14 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
14.1 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
14.2 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
14.3 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
14.4 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
14.5 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
14.5.1 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
14.5.2 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
14.5.3 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
15 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
16 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:202312- 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
16.1 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, 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
16.2 Combining query terms
==========================
When given multiple space-separated 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.
We also support more complex boolean queries with the 'expr:' prefix.
This allows one to combine queries using one of three operators: AND,
OR, and NOT, where NOT is different syntax for 'not:'.
Examples of such queries are:
* Match transactions with 'cool' in the description AND with the 'A'
tag
'expr:"desc:cool AND tag:A"'
* Match transactions NOT to the 'expenses:food' account OR with the
'A' tag
'expr:"NOT expenses:food OR tag:A"'
* Match transactions NOT involving the 'expenses:food' account OR
with the 'A' tag AND involving the 'expenses:drink' account. (the
AND is implicitly added by space-separation, following the rules
above)
'expr:"expenses:food OR (tag:A expenses:drink)"'
File: hledger.info, Node: Queries and command options, Next: Queries and valuation, Prev: Combining query terms, Up: Queries
16.3 Queries and command options
================================
Some queries can also be expressed as command-line options: 'depth:2' is
equivalent to '--depth 2', 'date:2023' is equivalent to '-p 2023', 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
16.4 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
16.5 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
16.6 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
17 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
18 Generating data
******************
hledger has several features for generating data, such as:
* Periodic transaction rules can generate single or repeating
transactions following a template. These are usually dated in the
future, eg to help with forecasting. They are activated by the
'--forecast' option.
* The balance command's '--budget' option uses these same periodic
rules to generate goals for the budget report.
* Auto posting rules can generate extra postings on certain matched
transactions. They are always applied to forecast transactions;
with the '--auto' flag they are applied to transactions recorded in
the journal as well.
* The '--infer-equity' flag infers missing conversion equity postings
from @/@@ costs. And the inverse '--infer-costs' flag infers
missing @/@@ costs from conversion equity postings.
Generated data of this kind is temporary, existing only at report
time. But you can see it in the output of 'hledger print', and you can
save that to your journal, in effect converting it from temporary
generated data to permanent recorded data. This could be useful as a
data entry aid.
If you are wondering what data is being generated and why, add the
'--verbose-tags' flag. In 'hledger print' output you will see extra
tags like 'generated-transaction', 'generated-posting', and 'modified'
on generated/modified data. Also, even without '--verbose-tags',
generated data always has equivalen hidden tags (with an underscore
prefix), so eg you could match generated transactions with
'tag:_generated-transaction'.
File: hledger.info, Node: Forecasting, Next: Budgeting, Prev: Generating data, Up: Top
19 Forecasting
**************
Forecasting, or speculative future reporting, can be useful for
estimating future balances, or for exploring different future scenarios.
The simplest and most flexible way to do it with hledger is to
manually record a bunch of future-dated transactions. You could keep
these in a separate 'future.journal' and include that with '-f' only
when you want to see them.
* Menu:
* --forecast::
* Inspecting forecast transactions::
* Forecast reports::
* Forecast tags::
* Forecast period in detail::
* Forecast troubleshooting::
File: hledger.info, Node: --forecast, Next: Inspecting forecast transactions, Up: Forecasting
19.1 -forecast
==============
There is another way: with the '--forecast' option, hledger can generate
temporary "forecast transactions" for reporting purposes, according to
periodic transaction rules defined in the journal. Each rule can
generate multiple recurring transactions, so by changing one rule you
can change many forecasted transactions. (These same rules can also
generate budget goals, described in Budgeting.)
Forecast transactions usually start after ordinary transactions end.
By default, they begin after your latest-dated ordinary transaction, or
today, whichever is later, and they end six months from today. (The
exact rules are a little more complicated, and are given below.)
This is the "forecast period", which need not be the same as the
report period. You can override it - eg to forecast farther into the
future, or to force forecast transactions to overlap your ordinary
transactions - by giving the -forecast option a period expression
argument, like '--forecast=..2099' or '--forecast=2023-02-15..'. Note
that the '=' is required.
File: hledger.info, Node: Inspecting forecast transactions, Next: Forecast reports, Prev: --forecast, Up: Forecasting
19.2 Inspecting forecast transactions
=====================================
'print' is the best command for inspecting and troubleshooting forecast
transactions. Eg:
~ monthly from 2022-12-20 rent
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
$ hledger print --forecast --today=2023/4/21
2023-05-20 rent
; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
2023-06-20 rent
; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
2023-07-20 rent
; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
2023-08-20 rent
; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
2023-09-20 rent
; generated-transaction: ~ monthly from 2022-12-20
assets:bank:checking
expenses:rent $1000
Here there are no ordinary transactions, so the forecasted
transactions begin on the first occurence after today's date. (You
won't normally use '--today'; it's just to make these examples
reproducible.)
File: hledger.info, Node: Forecast reports, Next: Forecast tags, Prev: Inspecting forecast transactions, Up: Forecasting
19.3 Forecast reports
=====================
Forecast transactions affect all reports, as you would expect. Eg:
$ hledger areg rent --forecast --today=2023/4/21
Transactions in expenses:rent and subaccounts:
2023-05-20 rent as:ba:checking $1000 $1000
2023-06-20 rent as:ba:checking $1000 $2000
2023-07-20 rent as:ba:checking $1000 $3000
2023-08-20 rent as:ba:checking $1000 $4000
2023-09-20 rent as:ba:checking $1000 $5000
$ hledger bal -M expenses --forecast --today=2023/4/21
Balance changes in 2023-05-01..2023-09-30:
|| May Jun Jul Aug Sep
===============++===================================
expenses:rent || $1000 $1000 $1000 $1000 $1000
---------------++-----------------------------------
|| $1000 $1000 $1000 $1000 $1000
File: hledger.info, Node: Forecast tags, Next: Forecast period in detail, Prev: Forecast reports, Up: Forecasting
19.4 Forecast tags
==================
Forecast transactions generated by -forecast have a hidden tag,
'_generated-transaction'. So if you ever need to match forecast
transactions, you could use 'tag:_generated-transaction' (or just
'tag:generated') in a query.
For troubleshooting, you can add the '--verbose-tags' flag. Then,
visible 'generated-transaction' tags will be added also, so you can view
them with the 'print' command. Their value indicates which periodic
rule was responsible.
File: hledger.info, Node: Forecast period in detail, Next: Forecast troubleshooting, Prev: Forecast tags, Up: Forecasting
19.5 Forecast period, in detail
===============================
Forecast start/end dates are chosen so as to do something useful by
default in almost all situations, while also being flexible. Here are
(with luck) the exact rules, to help with troubleshooting:
The forecast period starts on:
* the later of
* the start date in the periodic transaction rule
* the start date in '--forecast''s argument
* otherwise (if those are not available): the later of
* the report start date specified with '-b'/'-p'/'date:'
* the day after the latest ordinary transaction in the journal
* otherwise (if none of these are available): today.
The forecast period ends on:
* the earlier of
* the end date in the periodic transaction rule
* the end date in '--forecast''s argument
* otherwise: the report end date specified with '-e'/'-p'/'date:'
* otherwise: 180 days (~6 months) from today.
File: hledger.info, Node: Forecast troubleshooting, Prev: Forecast period in detail, Up: Forecasting
19.6 Forecast troubleshooting
=============================
When -forecast is not doing what you expect, one of these tips should
help:
* Remember to use the '--forecast' option.
* Remember to have at least one periodic transaction rule in your
journal.
* Test with 'print --forecast'.
* Check for typos or too-restrictive start/end dates in your periodic
transaction rule.
* Leave at least 2 spaces between the rule's period expression and
description fields.
* Check for future-dated ordinary transactions suppressing forecasted
transactions.
* Try setting explicit report start and/or end dates with '-b', '-e',
'-p' or 'date:'
* Try adding the '-E' flag to encourage display of empty periods/zero
transactions.
* Try setting explicit forecast start and/or end dates with
'--forecast=START..END'
* Consult Forecast period, in detail, above.
* Check inside the engine: add '--debug=2' (eg).
File: hledger.info, Node: Budgeting, Next: Cost reporting, Prev: Forecasting, Up: Top
20 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.
You can generate budget goals and forecast transactions at the same
time, from the same or different periodic transaction rules: 'hledger
bal -M --budget --forecast ...'
See also: Budgeting and Forecasting.
File: hledger.info, Node: Cost reporting, Next: Valuation, Prev: Budgeting, Up: Top
21 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
21.1 -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
21.2 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
21.3 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
21.4 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
21.5 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
21.6 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
21.6.1 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
21.6.2 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
21.6.3 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
21.6.4 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
21.7 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
22 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
22.1 -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
22.2 -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
22.3 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
22.4 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
22.5 -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
22.6 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
22.7 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
22.8 -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
22.9 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
22.10 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
22.11 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
23 PART 4: COMMANDS
*******************
* Menu:
* Commands overview::
* accounts::
* activity::
* add::
* aregister::
* balance::
* balancesheet::
* balancesheetequity::
* cashflow::
* check::
* close::
* codes::
* commodities::
* demo::
* 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
23.1 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
23.1.1 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
23.1.2 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
23.1.3 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
23.1.4 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
23.1.5 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
23.1.6 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
23.1.7 HELP
-----------
* help - show the hledger manual with info/man/pager
* demo - show small hledger demos in the terminal
File: hledger.info, Node: ADD-ONS, Prev: HELP, Up: Commands overview
23.1.8 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
23.2 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
23.3 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
23.4 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]: <CTRL-D> $
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
23.5 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
23.5.1 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
23.6 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
23.6.1 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')
* or postings count ('--count')
..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
23.6.2 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
23.6.3 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
23.6.4 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
23.6.5 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
23.6.6 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
23.6.7 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
23.6.8 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
23.6.9 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
23.6.10 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
23.6.11 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
23.6.12 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
23.6.13 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 take time and
experimentation to get familiar with all the 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
23.6.13.1 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)
* '--count' : show the count of postings
File: hledger.info, Node: Accumulation type, Next: Valuation type, Prev: Calculation type, Up: Balance report types
23.6.13.2 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
23.6.13.3 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
23.6.13.4 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
23.6.14 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.
Currently:
* Accounts with budget goals during the report period, and their
parents, are shown.
* Their subaccounts are not shown (regardless of the depth setting).
* Accounts without budget goals, if any, are aggregated and shown as
"<unbudgeted>".
* Amounts are always inclusive (subaccount-including), even in list
mode.
* After each actual amount, the corresponding goal amount and
percentage of goal reached are also shown, in square brackets.
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
23.6.14.1 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
==============++============
<unbudgeted> || $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
23.6.14.2 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
23.6.14.3 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
23.6.14.4 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
23.6.15 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
23.6.16 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
23.7 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
23.8 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
--------------------
$1
Total:
--------------------
0
This command is a higher-level variant of the 'balance' command, and
supports many of that command's features, such as multi-period reports.
It is similar to 'hledger balance -H assets liabilities equity', but
with smarter account detection, and liabilities/equity displayed with
their sign flipped.
This command also supports the output destination and output format
options The output formats supported are 'txt', 'csv', 'html', and
(experimental) 'json'.
File: hledger.info, Node: cashflow, Next: check, Prev: balancesheetequity, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS
23.9 cashflow
=============
(cf)
This command displays a cashflow statement, showing the inflows and
outflows affecting "cash" (ie, liquid, easily convertible) assets.
Amounts are shown with normal positive sign, as in conventional
financial statements.
This report shows accounts declared with the 'Cash' type (see account
types). Or if no such accounts are declared, it shows accounts
* under a top-level account named 'asset' (case insensitive, plural
allowed)
* whose name contains some variation of 'cash', 'bank', 'checking' or
'saving'.
More precisely: all accounts matching this case insensitive regular
expression:
'^assets?(:.+)?:(cash|bank|che(ck|que?)(ing)?|savings?|currentcash)(:|$)'
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
23.10 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
23.10.1 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
23.10.2 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
23.10.3 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
23.10.4 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
23.10.5 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
23.11 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).
* the closing/opening dates can be changed with '-e DATE' (a report
end date)
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
with '-e'. The last day of the report period will be the closing date,
eg '-e 2024' means "close on 2023-12-31". 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
23.11.1 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
23.11.2 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
23.11.3 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
23.11.4 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
23.12 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: demo, Prev: codes, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS
23.13 commodities
=================
List all commodity/currency symbols used or declared in the journal.
File: hledger.info, Node: demo, Next: descriptions, Prev: commodities, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS
23.14 demo
==========
Play demos of hledger usage in the terminal, if asciinema is installed.
Run this command with no argument to list the demos. To play a demo,
write its number or a prefix or substring of its title. Tips:
Make your terminal window large enough to see the demo clearly.
Use the -s/-speed SPEED option to set your preferred playback speed,
eg '-s4' to play at 4x original speed or '-s.5' to play at half speed.
The default speed is 2x.
Other asciinema options can be added following a double dash, eg '--
-i.1' to limit pauses or '-- -h' to list asciinema's other options.
During playback, several keys are available: SPACE to pause/unpause,
. to step forward (while paused), CTRL-c quit.
Examples:
$ hledger demo # list available demos
$ hledger demo 1 # play the first demo at default speed (2x)
$ hledger demo install -s4 # play the "install" demo at 4x speed
File: hledger.info, Node: descriptions, Next: diff, Prev: demo, Up: PART 4 COMMANDS
23.15 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
23.16 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
23.17 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
23.18 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
23.19 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
23.19.1 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
23.19.2 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
23.19.3 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
23.19.4 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
23.20 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
23.21 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
23.22 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
23.23 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
23.24 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
23.25 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
23.25.1 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
23.26 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
23.26.1 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
23.26.2 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
23.26.3 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
23.27 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
23.27.1 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
23.27.2 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
23.27.3 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
23.28 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
23.29 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
23.30 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, Next: BUGS, Prev: PART 4 COMMANDS, Up: Top
24 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 LEDGER_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
24.1 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
24.2 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 LEDGER_FILE, Prev: Constructing command lines, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.3 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 (see below). 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 2023.journal
$ echo "export LEDGER_FILE=$HOME/finance/2023.journal" >> ~/.profile
$ source ~/.profile
$ hledger stats
Main file : /Users/simon/finance/2023.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 LEDGER_FILE, Next: Setting opening balances, Prev: Starting a journal file, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.4 Setting LEDGER_FILE
========================
How to set 'LEDGER_FILE' permanently depends on your setup:
On unix and mac, running these commands in the terminal will work for
many people; adapt as needed:
$ echo 'export LEDGER_FILE=~/finance/2023.journal` >> ~/.profile
$ source ~/.profile
When correctly configured, in a new terminal window 'env | grep
LEDGER_FILE' will show your file, and so will 'hledger files'.
On mac, this additional step might be helpful for GUI applications
(like Emacs started from the dock): add an entry to
'~/.MacOSX/environment.plist' like
{
"LEDGER_FILE" : "~/finance/2023.journal"
}
and then run 'killall Dock' in a terminal window (or restart the
machine).
On Windows, see https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html, or
try running these commands in a powershell window (let us know if it
persists across a reboot, and if you need to be an Administrator):
> CD
> MKDIR finance
> SETX LEDGER_FILE "C:\Users\USERNAME\finance\2023.journal"
File: hledger.info, Node: Setting opening balances, Next: Recording transactions, Prev: Setting LEDGER_FILE, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.5 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:
2023-01-01 * 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/2023.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 [2023-02-07]: 2023-01-01
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): .
2023-01-01 * 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 [2023-01-01]: .
If you're using version control, this could be a good time to commit
the journal. Eg:
$ git commit -m 'initial balances' 2023.journal
File: hledger.info, Node: Recording transactions, Next: Reconciling, Prev: Setting opening balances, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.6 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:
2023/1/10 * gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2023.1.12 * farmers market
expenses:food $13
assets:cash
2023-01-15 paycheck
income:salary
assets:bank:checking $1000
File: hledger.info, Node: Reconciling, Next: Reporting, Prev: Recording transactions, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.7 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:
2023-01-16 * 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 '2023-01-15' and 'paycheck'
If you're using version control, this can be another good time to
commit:
$ git commit -m 'txns' 2023.journal
File: hledger.info, Node: Reporting, Next: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reconciling, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.8 Reporting
==============
Here are some basic reports.
Show all transactions:
$ hledger print
2023-01-01 * opening balances
assets:bank:checking $1000
assets:bank:savings $2000
assets:cash $100
liabilities:creditcard $-50
equity:opening/closing balances $-3050
2023-01-10 * gift received
assets:cash $20
income:gifts
2023-01-12 * farmers market
expenses:food $13
assets:cash
2023-01-15 * paycheck
income:salary
assets:bank:checking $1000
2023-01-16 * 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 2023-01-16
|| 2023-01-16
========================++============
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 2023-01-01-2023-01-16
|| 2023-01-01-2023-01-16
===============++=======================
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
2023-01-01 opening balances assets:cash $100 $100
2023-01-10 gift received assets:cash $20 $120
2023-01-12 farmers market assets:cash $-13 $107
2023-01-16 adjust cash assets:cash $-2 $105
Show weekly posting counts as a bar chart:
$ hledger activity -W
2019-12-30 *****
2023-01-06 ****
2023-01-13 ****
File: hledger.info, Node: Migrating to a new file, Prev: Reporting, Up: PART 5 COMMON TASKS
24.9 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.
File: hledger.info, Node: BUGS, Prev: PART 5 COMMON TASKS, Up: Top
25 BUGS
*******
We welcome bug reports in the hledger issue tracker (shortcut:
http://bugs.hledger.org), or on the #hledger chat or hledger mail list
(https://hledger.org/support).
Some known issues and limitations:
The need to precede add-on command options with '--' when invoked
from hledger is awkward. (See Command options, Constructing command
lines.)
A UTF-8-aware system locale must be configured to work with non-ascii
data. (See Unicode characters, Troubleshooting.)
On Microsoft Windows, depending whether you are running in a CMD
window or a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window and how you installed hledger,
non-ascii characters and colours may not be supported, and the tab key
may not be supported by 'hledger add'. (Running in a WSL window should
resolve these.)
When processing large data files, hledger uses more memory than
Ledger.
* Menu:
* Troubleshooting::
File: hledger.info, Node: Troubleshooting, Up: BUGS
25.1 Troubleshooting
====================
Here are some common issues you might encounter when you run hledger,
and how to resolve them (and remember also you can usually get quick
Support):
*PATH issues: I get an error like "No command 'hledger' found"*
Depending how you installed hledger, the executables may not be in your
shell's PATH. Eg on unix systems, stack installs hledger in
'~/.local/bin' and cabal installs it in '~/.cabal/bin'. You may need to
add one of these directories to your shell's PATH, and/or open a new
terminal window.
*LEDGER_FILE issues: I configured LEDGER_FILE but hledger is not
using it*
* 'LEDGER_FILE' should be a real environment variable, not just a
shell variable. Eg on unix, the command 'env | grep LEDGER_FILE'
should show it. You may need to use 'export' (see
https://stackoverflow.com/a/7411509).
* You may need to force your shell to see the new configuration. A
simple way is to close your terminal window and open a new one.
*LANG issues: I get 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
the system locale to be UTF-8-aware, or they will fail when they
encounter non-ascii characters. To fix it, set the LANG environment
variable to a locale which supports UTF-8 and which is installed on your
system.
On unix, 'locale -a' lists the installed locales. Look for one which
mentions 'utf8', 'UTF-8' or similar. Some examples: 'C.UTF-8',
'en_US.utf-8', 'fr_FR.utf8'. If necessary, use your system package
manager to install one. Then select it by setting the 'LANG'
environment variable. Note, exact spelling and capitalisation of the
locale name may be important: Here's one common way to configure this
permanently for your shell:
$ echo "export LANG=en_US.utf8" >>~/.profile
# close and re-open terminal window
*COMPATIBILITY ISSUES: hledger gives an error with my Ledger file*
Not all of Ledger's journal file syntax or feature set is supported.
See hledger and Ledger for full details.
Tag Table:
Node: Top210
Node: PART 1 USER INTERFACE3779
Ref: #part-1-user-interface3918
Node: Input3918
Ref: #input4028
Node: Data formats4977
Ref: #data-formats5090
Node: Standard input6523
Ref: #standard-input6663
Node: Multiple files6890
Ref: #multiple-files7029
Node: Strict mode7627
Ref: #strict-mode7737
Node: Commands8461
Ref: #commands8563
Node: Add-on commands9630
Ref: #add-on-commands9732
Node: Options10848
Ref: #options10960
Node: General help options11288
Ref: #general-help-options11434
Node: General input options11716
Ref: #general-input-options11898
Node: General reporting options12600
Ref: #general-reporting-options12761
Node: Command line tips16151
Ref: #command-line-tips16281
Node: Special characters16518
Ref: #special-characters16665
Node: Single escaping shell metacharacters16828
Ref: #single-escaping-shell-metacharacters17069
Node: Double escaping regular expression metacharacters17672
Ref: #double-escaping-regular-expression-metacharacters17983
Node: Triple escaping for add-on commands18509
Ref: #triple-escaping-for-add-on-commands18769
Node: Less escaping19413
Ref: #less-escaping19567
Node: Unicode characters19891
Ref: #unicode-characters20066
Node: Regular expressions21478
Ref: #regular-expressions21651
Node: Argument files23395
Ref: #argument-files23531
Node: Output24028
Ref: #output24140
Node: Output destination24267
Ref: #output-destination24398
Node: Output format24823
Ref: #output-format24969
Node: CSV output26507
Ref: #csv-output26623
Node: HTML output26726
Ref: #html-output26864
Node: JSON output26958
Ref: #json-output27096
Node: SQL output28018
Ref: #sql-output28134
Node: Commodity styles28869
Ref: #commodity-styles29009
Node: Colour29608
Ref: #colour29726
Node: Box-drawing30130
Ref: #box-drawing30248
Node: Paging30538
Ref: #paging30652
Node: Debug output31605
Ref: #debug-output31711
Node: Environment32374
Ref: #environment32498
Node: PART 2 DATA FORMATS33042
Ref: #part-2-data-formats33185
Node: Journal33185
Ref: #journal33294
Node: Journal cheatsheet33951
Ref: #journal-cheatsheet34090
Node: About journal format38075
Ref: #about-journal-format38235
Node: Comments39851
Ref: #comments39981
Node: Transactions40797
Ref: #transactions40920
Node: Dates41934
Ref: #dates42041
Node: Simple dates42086
Ref: #simple-dates42202
Node: Posting dates42702
Ref: #posting-dates42820
Node: Status43789
Ref: #status43890
Node: Code45598
Ref: #code45701
Node: Description45933
Ref: #description46064
Node: Payee and note46384
Ref: #payee-and-note46490
Node: Transaction comments46825
Ref: #transaction-comments46978
Node: Postings47341
Ref: #postings47474
Node: Account names48469
Ref: #account-names48599
Node: Amounts50273
Ref: #amounts50388
Node: Decimal marks digit group marks51373
Ref: #decimal-marks-digit-group-marks51548
Node: Commodity52562
Ref: #commodity52749
Node: Directives influencing number parsing and display53701
Ref: #directives-influencing-number-parsing-and-display53960
Node: Commodity display style54412
Ref: #commodity-display-style54618
Node: Rounding56787
Ref: #rounding56905
Node: Costs57204
Ref: #costs57320
Node: Other cost/lot notations59518
Ref: #other-costlot-notations59650
Node: Balance assertions62239
Ref: #balance-assertions62390
Node: Assertions and ordering63473
Ref: #assertions-and-ordering63662
Node: Assertions and multiple included files64362
Ref: #assertions-and-multiple-included-files64622
Node: Assertions and multiple -f files65122
Ref: #assertions-and-multiple--f-files65373
Node: Assertions and commodities65770
Ref: #assertions-and-commodities65992
Node: Assertions and prices67172
Ref: #assertions-and-prices67378
Node: Assertions and subaccounts67805
Ref: #assertions-and-subaccounts68026
Node: Assertions and virtual postings68350
Ref: #assertions-and-virtual-postings68588
Node: Assertions and auto postings68720
Ref: #assertions-and-auto-postings68950
Node: Assertions and precision69595
Ref: #assertions-and-precision69777
Node: Posting comments70044
Ref: #posting-comments70190
Node: Tags70567
Ref: #tags70681
Node: Tag values71874
Ref: #tag-values71963
Node: Directives72722
Ref: #directives72849
Node: Directives and multiple files74179
Ref: #directives-and-multiple-files74357
Node: Directive effects75124
Ref: #directive-effects75278
Node: account directive78291
Ref: #account-directive78447
Node: Account comments79845
Ref: #account-comments79995
Node: Account subdirectives80503
Ref: #account-subdirectives80694
Node: Account error checking80836
Ref: #account-error-checking81034
Node: Account display order82223
Ref: #account-display-order82411
Node: Account types83512
Ref: #account-types83653
Node: alias directive87280
Ref: #alias-directive87441
Node: Basic aliases88491
Ref: #basic-aliases88622
Node: Regex aliases89366
Ref: #regex-aliases89523
Node: Combining aliases90413
Ref: #combining-aliases90591
Node: Aliases and multiple files91867
Ref: #aliases-and-multiple-files92071
Node: end aliases directive92650
Ref: #end-aliases-directive92869
Node: Aliases can generate bad account names93018
Ref: #aliases-can-generate-bad-account-names93266
Node: Aliases and account types93851
Ref: #aliases-and-account-types94043
Node: commodity directive94739
Ref: #commodity-directive94913
Node: Commodity error checking97487
Ref: #commodity-error-checking97633
Node: decimal-mark directive98148
Ref: #decimal-mark-directive98330
Node: include directive98727
Ref: #include-directive98891
Node: P directive99815
Ref: #p-directive99960
Node: payee directive100843
Ref: #payee-directive100992
Node: tag directive101308
Ref: #tag-directive101463
Node: Periodic transactions101931
Ref: #periodic-transactions102096
Node: Periodic rule syntax103802
Ref: #periodic-rule-syntax103980
Node: Periodic rules and relative dates104625
Ref: #periodic-rules-and-relative-dates104891
Node: Two spaces between period expression and description!105402
Ref: #two-spaces-between-period-expression-and-description105679
Node: Auto postings106363
Ref: #auto-postings106511
Node: Auto postings and multiple files108948
Ref: #auto-postings-and-multiple-files109112
Node: Auto postings and dates109513
Ref: #auto-postings-and-dates109761
Node: Auto postings and transaction balancing / inferred amounts / balance assertions109936
Ref: #auto-postings-and-transaction-balancing-inferred-amounts-balance-assertions110292
Node: Auto posting tags110795
Ref: #auto-posting-tags111077
Node: Auto postings on forecast transactions only111713
Ref: #auto-postings-on-forecast-transactions-only111959
Node: Other syntax112206
Ref: #other-syntax112322
Node: Balance assignments112949
Ref: #balance-assignments113105
Node: Balance assignments and prices114435
Ref: #balance-assignments-and-prices114603
Node: Bracketed posting dates114814
Ref: #bracketed-posting-dates114998
Node: D directive115512
Ref: #d-directive115680
Node: apply account directive117280
Ref: #apply-account-directive117460
Node: Y directive118147
Ref: #y-directive118307
Node: Secondary dates119135
Ref: #secondary-dates119289
Node: Star comments120103
Ref: #star-comments120263
Node: Valuation expressions120795
Ref: #valuation-expressions120972
Node: Virtual postings121094
Ref: #virtual-postings121271
Node: Other Ledger directives122708
Ref: #other-ledger-directives122871
Node: CSV123437
Ref: #csv123530
Node: CSV rules cheatsheet125610
Ref: #csv-rules-cheatsheet125739
Node: source127537
Ref: #source127660
Node: separator128540
Ref: #separator128653
Node: skip129193
Ref: #skip129301
Node: date-format129845
Ref: #date-format129966
Node: timezone130690
Ref: #timezone130813
Node: newest-first131818
Ref: #newest-first131956
Node: intra-day-reversed132534
Ref: #intra-day-reversed132688
Node: decimal-mark133181
Ref: #decimal-mark133322
Node: fields list133661
Ref: #fields-list133800
Node: Field assignment135471
Ref: #field-assignment135615
Node: Field names136642
Ref: #field-names136773
Node: date field137976
Ref: #date-field138094
Node: date2 field138142
Ref: #date2-field138283
Node: status field138339
Ref: #status-field138482
Node: code field138531
Ref: #code-field138676
Node: description field138721
Ref: #description-field138881
Node: comment field138940
Ref: #comment-field139095
Node: account field139388
Ref: #account-field139538
Node: amount field140108
Ref: #amount-field140257
Node: currency field143633
Ref: #currency-field143786
Node: balance field144043
Ref: #balance-field144175
Node: if block144547
Ref: #if-block144668
Node: Matchers146076
Ref: #matchers146190
Node: if table147672
Ref: #if-table147794
Node: balance-type149216
Ref: #balance-type149345
Node: include150045
Ref: #include150172
Node: Working with CSV150616
Ref: #working-with-csv150763
Node: Rapid feedback151170
Ref: #rapid-feedback151303
Node: Valid CSV151755
Ref: #valid-csv151901
Node: File Extension152633
Ref: #file-extension152806
Node: Reading CSV from standard input153370
Ref: #reading-csv-from-standard-input153594
Node: Reading multiple CSV files153758
Ref: #reading-multiple-csv-files153989
Node: Reading files specified by rule154230
Ref: #reading-files-specified-by-rule154458
Node: Valid transactions155629
Ref: #valid-transactions155828
Node: Deduplicating importing156456
Ref: #deduplicating-importing156651
Node: Setting amounts157687
Ref: #setting-amounts157858
Node: Amount signs160323
Ref: #amount-signs160493
Node: Setting currency/commodity161390
Ref: #setting-currencycommodity161594
Node: Amount decimal places162768
Ref: #amount-decimal-places162974
Node: Referencing other fields163286
Ref: #referencing-other-fields163499
Node: How CSV rules are evaluated164396
Ref: #how-csv-rules-are-evaluated164613
Node: Well factored rules166066
Ref: #well-factored-rules166234
Node: CSV rules examples166558
Ref: #csv-rules-examples166693
Node: Bank of Ireland166758
Ref: #bank-of-ireland166895
Node: Coinbase168357
Ref: #coinbase168495
Node: Amazon169542
Ref: #amazon169667
Node: Paypal171386
Ref: #paypal171494
Node: Timeclock179138
Ref: #timeclock179243
Node: Timedot181421
Ref: #timedot181544
Node: PART 3 REPORTING CONCEPTS186413
Ref: #part-3-reporting-concepts186577
Node: Time periods186577
Ref: #time-periods186711
Node: Report start & end date186829
Ref: #report-start-end-date186981
Node: Smart dates188640
Ref: #smart-dates188793
Node: Report intervals190661
Ref: #report-intervals190816
Node: Date adjustment191234
Ref: #date-adjustment191394
Node: Period expressions192245
Ref: #period-expressions192386
Node: Period expressions with a report interval194150
Ref: #period-expressions-with-a-report-interval194384
Node: More complex report intervals194598
Ref: #more-complex-report-intervals194843
Node: Multiple weekday intervals196644
Ref: #multiple-weekday-intervals196833
Node: Depth197655
Ref: #depth197757
Node: Queries198053
Ref: #queries198155
Node: Query types199064
Ref: #query-types199185
Node: Combining query terms202359
Ref: #combining-query-terms202536
Node: Queries and command options203804
Ref: #queries-and-command-options204003
Node: Queries and valuation204252
Ref: #queries-and-valuation204447
Node: Querying with account aliases204676
Ref: #querying-with-account-aliases204887
Node: Querying with cost or value205017
Ref: #querying-with-cost-or-value205194
Node: Pivoting205495
Ref: #pivoting205609
Node: Generating data207067
Ref: #generating-data207199
Node: Forecasting208782
Ref: #forecasting208907
Node: --forecast209438
Ref: #forecast209569
Node: Inspecting forecast transactions210615
Ref: #inspecting-forecast-transactions210817
Node: Forecast reports211947
Ref: #forecast-reports212120
Node: Forecast tags213056
Ref: #forecast-tags213216
Node: Forecast period in detail213676
Ref: #forecast-period-in-detail213870
Node: Forecast troubleshooting214764
Ref: #forecast-troubleshooting214932
Node: Budgeting215835
Ref: #budgeting215955
Node: Cost reporting216392
Ref: #cost-reporting216520
Node: -B Convert to cost217627
Ref: #b-convert-to-cost217783
Node: Equity conversion postings219175
Ref: #equity-conversion-postings219389
Node: Inferring equity postings from cost220280
Ref: #inferring-equity-postings-from-cost220529
Node: Inferring cost from equity postings221340
Ref: #inferring-cost-from-equity-postings221588
Node: When to infer cost/equity223355
Ref: #when-to-infer-costequity223573
Node: How to record conversions223969
Ref: #how-to-record-conversions224161
Node: Conversion with implicit cost224452
Ref: #conversion-with-implicit-cost224657
Node: Conversion with explicit cost225534
Ref: #conversion-with-explicit-cost225779
Node: Conversion with equity postings226196
Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings226465
Node: Conversion with equity postings and explicit cost227284
Ref: #conversion-with-equity-postings-and-explicit-cost227551
Node: Cost tips228013
Ref: #cost-tips228139
Node: Valuation228845
Ref: #valuation228969
Node: -V Value229743
Ref: #v-value229869
Node: -X Value in specified commodity230064
Ref: #x-value-in-specified-commodity230259
Node: Valuation date230408
Ref: #valuation-date230579
Node: Finding market price231016
Ref: #finding-market-price231221
Node: --infer-market-prices market prices from transactions232391
Ref: #infer-market-prices-market-prices-from-transactions232667
Node: Valuation commodity235423
Ref: #valuation-commodity235636
Node: Simple valuation examples236849
Ref: #simple-valuation-examples237047
Node: --value Flexible valuation237706
Ref: #value-flexible-valuation237910
Node: More valuation examples239554
Ref: #more-valuation-examples239763
Node: Interaction of valuation and queries241762
Ref: #interaction-of-valuation-and-queries242003
Node: Effect of valuation on reports242475
Ref: #effect-of-valuation-on-reports242672
Node: PART 4 COMMANDS250369
Ref: #part-4-commands250512
Node: Commands overview250891
Ref: #commands-overview251025
Node: DATA ENTRY251204
Ref: #data-entry251328
Node: DATA CREATION251527
Ref: #data-creation251681
Node: DATA MANAGEMENT251799
Ref: #data-management251964
Node: REPORTS FINANCIAL252085
Ref: #reports-financial252260
Node: REPORTS VERSATILE252565
Ref: #reports-versatile252738
Node: REPORTS BASIC252991
Ref: #reports-basic253143
Node: HELP253652
Ref: #help253774
Node: ADD-ONS253884
Ref: #add-ons253990
Node: accounts254569
Ref: #accounts254702
Node: activity256589
Ref: #activity256708
Node: add257082
Ref: #add257192
Node: aregister260003
Ref: #aregister260124
Node: aregister and custom posting dates263012
Ref: #aregister-and-custom-posting-dates263178
Node: balance263730
Ref: #balance263856
Node: balance features264831
Ref: #balance-features264971
Node: Simple balance report266930
Ref: #simple-balance-report267115
Node: Balance report line format268740
Ref: #balance-report-line-format268942
Node: Filtered balance report271100
Ref: #filtered-balance-report271292
Node: List or tree mode271619
Ref: #list-or-tree-mode271787
Node: Depth limiting273132
Ref: #depth-limiting273298
Node: Dropping top-level accounts273899
Ref: #dropping-top-level-accounts274099
Node: Showing declared accounts274409
Ref: #showing-declared-accounts274608
Node: Sorting by amount275139
Ref: #sorting-by-amount275306
Node: Percentages275976
Ref: #percentages276135
Node: Multi-period balance report276683
Ref: #multi-period-balance-report276883
Node: Balance change end balance279158
Ref: #balance-change-end-balance279367
Node: Balance report types280795
Ref: #balance-report-types280976
Node: Calculation type281474
Ref: #calculation-type281629
Node: Accumulation type282178
Ref: #accumulation-type282358
Node: Valuation type283260
Ref: #valuation-type283448
Node: Combining balance report types284443
Ref: #combining-balance-report-types284637
Node: Budget report286475
Ref: #budget-report286627
Node: Budget report start date292281
Ref: #budget-report-start-date292459
Node: Budgets and subaccounts293791
Ref: #budgets-and-subaccounts293998
Node: Selecting budget goals297438
Ref: #selecting-budget-goals297637
Node: Budget vs forecast298672
Ref: #budget-vs-forecast298831
Node: Data layout300461
Ref: #data-layout300611
Node: Useful balance reports308506
Ref: #useful-balance-reports308656
Node: balancesheet309741
Ref: #balancesheet309886
Node: balancesheetequity311206
Ref: #balancesheetequity311364
Node: cashflow312753
Ref: #cashflow312884
Node: check314312
Ref: #check314426
Node: Basic checks315228
Ref: #basic-checks315348
Node: Strict checks315868
Ref: #strict-checks316011
Node: Other checks316434
Ref: #other-checks316576
Node: Custom checks317139
Ref: #custom-checks317296
Node: More about specific checks317713
Ref: #more-about-specific-checks317875
Node: close318603
Ref: #close318714
Node: close and balance assertions322179
Ref: #close-and-balance-assertions322357
Node: Example retain earnings323508
Ref: #example-retain-earnings323725
Node: Example migrate balances to a new file324157
Ref: #example-migrate-balances-to-a-new-file324422
Node: Example excluding closing/opening transactions324998
Ref: #example-excluding-closingopening-transactions325247
Node: codes326465
Ref: #codes326582
Node: commodities327446
Ref: #commodities327574
Node: demo327644
Ref: #demo327765
Node: descriptions328681
Ref: #descriptions328811
Node: diff329102
Ref: #diff329217
Node: files330259
Ref: #files330368
Node: help330509
Ref: #help-1330618
Node: import331991
Ref: #import332114
Node: Deduplication333200
Ref: #deduplication333325
Node: Import testing335219
Ref: #import-testing335384
Node: Importing balance assignments336227
Ref: #importing-balance-assignments336433
Node: Commodity display styles337082
Ref: #commodity-display-styles337255
Node: incomestatement337384
Ref: #incomestatement337526
Node: notes338847
Ref: #notes338969
Node: payees339331
Ref: #payees339446
Node: prices339965
Ref: #prices340080
Node: print340378
Ref: #print340493
Node: register345831
Ref: #register345953
Node: Custom register output350984
Ref: #custom-register-output351115
Node: rewrite352452
Ref: #rewrite352570
Node: Re-write rules in a file354468
Ref: #re-write-rules-in-a-file354631
Node: Diff output format355780
Ref: #diff-output-format355963
Node: rewrite vs print --auto357055
Ref: #rewrite-vs.-print---auto357215
Node: roi357771
Ref: #roi357878
Node: Spaces and special characters in --inv and --pnl359599
Ref: #spaces-and-special-characters-in---inv-and---pnl359839
Node: Semantics of --inv and --pnl360327
Ref: #semantics-of---inv-and---pnl360566
Node: IRR and TWR explained362416
Ref: #irr-and-twr-explained362576
Node: stats365662
Ref: #stats365770
Node: tags367157
Ref: #tags-1367264
Node: test368273
Ref: #test368366
Node: PART 5 COMMON TASKS369108
Ref: #part-5-common-tasks369254
Node: Getting help369552
Ref: #getting-help369693
Node: Constructing command lines370453
Ref: #constructing-command-lines370654
Node: Starting a journal file371311
Ref: #starting-a-journal-file371513
Node: Setting LEDGER_FILE372715
Ref: #setting-ledger_file372907
Node: Setting opening balances373864
Ref: #setting-opening-balances374065
Node: Recording transactions377206
Ref: #recording-transactions377395
Node: Reconciling377951
Ref: #reconciling378103
Node: Reporting380360
Ref: #reporting380509
Node: Migrating to a new file384494
Ref: #migrating-to-a-new-file384651
Node: BUGS384950
Ref: #bugs385040
Node: Troubleshooting385919
Ref: #troubleshooting386019
End Tag Table
Local Variables:
coding: utf-8
End: