
hledger_journal(5)           hledger User Manuals           hledger_journal(5)



NAME
       Journal - hledger's default file format, representing a General Journal

DESCRIPTION
       hledger's usual data source is a plain  text  file  containing  journal
       entries  in  hledger  journal  format.  This file represents a standard
       accounting general journal.  I use file names ending in  .journal,  but
       that's not required.  The journal file contains a number of transaction
       entries, each describing a transfer of money (or any commodity) between
       two or more named accounts, in a simple format readable by both hledger
       and humans.

       hledger's journal format is a compatible subset,  mostly,  of  ledger's
       journal  format,  so  hledger  can  work with compatible ledger journal
       files as well.  It's safe, and encouraged,  to  run  both  hledger  and
       ledger on the same journal file, eg to validate the results you're get-
       ting.

       You can use hledger without learning any more about this file; just use
       the  add  or web commands to create and update it.  Many users, though,
       also edit the  journal  file  directly  with  a  text  editor,  perhaps
       assisted by the helper modes for emacs or vim.

       Here's an example:

              ; A sample journal file. This is a comment.

              2008/01/01 income               ; <- transaction's first line starts in column 0, contains date and description
                  assets:bank:checking  $1    ; <- posting lines start with whitespace, each contains an account name
                  income:salary        $-1    ;    followed by at least two spaces and an amount

              2008/06/01 gift
                  assets:bank:checking  $1    ; <- at least two postings in a transaction
                  income:gifts         $-1    ; <- their amounts must balance to 0

              2008/06/02 save
                  assets:bank:saving    $1
                  assets:bank:checking        ; <- one amount may be omitted; here $-1 is inferred

              2008/06/03 eat & shop           ; <- description can be anything
                  expenses:food         $1
                  expenses:supplies     $1    ; <- this transaction debits two expense accounts
                  assets:cash                 ; <- $-2 inferred

              2008/10/01 take a loan
                  assets:bank:checking  $1
                  liabilities:debts    $-1

              2008/12/31 * pay off            ; <- an optional * or ! after the date means "cleared" (or anything you want)
                  liabilities:debts     $1
                  assets:bank:checking

FILE FORMAT
   Transactions
       Transactions  are  movements  of  some  quantity of commodities between
       named accounts.  Each transaction is represented  by  a  journal  entry
       beginning  with a simple date in column 0.  This can be followed by any
       of the following, separated by spaces:

       o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *)

       o (optional) a transaction code (any short number or text, enclosed  in
         parentheses)

       o (optional) a transaction description (any remaining text until end of
         line or a semicolon)

       o (optional) a transaction comment  (any  remaining  text  following  a
         semicolon until end of line)

       Then  comes zero or more (but usually at least 2) indented lines repre-
       senting...

   Postings
       A posting is an addition of some amount to, or removal of  some  amount
       from,  an account.  Each posting line begins with at least one space or
       tab (2 or 4 spaces is common), followed by:

       o (optional) a status character (empty, !, or *), followed by a space

       o (required) an account name (any text,  optionally  containing  single
         spaces, until end of line or a double space)

       o (optional) two or more spaces or tabs followed by an amount.

       Positive  amounts  are being added to the account, negative amounts are
       being removed.

       The amounts within a transaction must always sum up to zero.  As a con-
       venience,  one  amount  may be left blank; it will be inferred so as to
       balance the transaction.

       Be sure to note the unusual two-space delimiter  between  account  name
       and  amount.  This makes it easy to write account names containing spa-
       ces.  But if you accidentally leave only one space (or tab) before  the
       amount, the amount will be considered part of the account name.

   Dates
   Simple dates
       Within  a journal file, transaction dates use Y/M/D (or Y-M-D or Y.M.D)
       Leading zeros are 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 default year directive,  or  the  current  date
       when  the command is run.  Some examples: 2010/01/31, 1/31, 2010-01-31,
       2010.1.31.

   Secondary dates
       Real-life transactions sometimes involve more than one date  -  eg  the
       date you write a cheque, and the date it clears in your bank.  When you
       want to model this, eg for more  accurate  balances,  you  can  specify
       individual  posting dates, which I recommend.  Or, you can use the sec-
       ondary dates (aka auxiliary/effective  dates)  feature,  supported  for
       compatibility with Ledger.

       A secondary date can be written after the primary date, separated by an
       equals sign.  The primary date, on the left, is used  by  default;  the
       secondary  date,  on the right, is used when the --date2 flag is speci-
       fied (--aux-date or --effective also work).

       The meaning of secondary dates is up to you, but it's best to follow  a
       consistent  rule.   Eg  write  the bank's clearing date as primary, and
       when needed, the date the transaction was initiated as secondary.

       Here's an example.  Note that a secondary date will use the year of the
       primary date if unspecified.

              2010/2/23=2/19 movie ticket
                expenses:cinema                   $10
                assets:checking

              $ hledger register checking
              2010/02/23 movie ticket         assets:checking                $-10         $-10

              $ hledger register checking --date2
              2010/02/19 movie ticket         assets:checking                $-10         $-10

       Secondary  dates require some effort; you must use them consistently in
       your journal entries and remember whether to use or not use the --date2
       flag for your reports.  They are included in hledger for Ledger compat-
       ibility, but posting dates are  a  more  powerful  and  less  confusing
       alternative.

   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.  You can set the secondary date
       similarly, with date2:DATE2.  The date: or  date2:  tags  must  have  a
       valid  simple  date  value  if they are present, eg a date: tag with no
       value is not allowed.

       Ledger's earlier, more compact bracketed date syntax is also supported:
       [DATE],  [DATE=DATE2]  or  [=DATE2].  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.

   Status
       Transactions, or individual postings within a transaction, can  have  a
       status  mark,  which  is  a  single  character  before  the transaction
       description or posting account name, separated  from  it  by  a  space,
       indicating one of three statuses:


       mark     status
       ------------------
                unmarked
       !        pending
       *        cleared

       When  reporting,  you  can  filter  by  status  with the -U/--unmarked,
       -P/--pending, and -C/--cleared flags; or  the  status:,  status:!,  and
       status:* queries; or the U, P, C keys in hledger-ui.

       Note,  in Ledger and in older versions of hledger, the "unmarked" state
       is called "uncleared".  As  of  hledger  1.3  we  have  renamed  it  to
       unmarked for clarity.

       To  replicate Ledger and old hledger's behaviour of also matching pend-
       ing, combine -U and -P.

       Status marks are optional, but can be helpful eg for  reconciling  with
       real-world accounts.  Some editor modes provide highlighting and short-
       cuts for working with status.  Eg in Emacs ledger-mode, you can  toggle
       transaction status with C-c C-e, or posting status with C-c C-c.

       What  "uncleared", "pending", and "cleared" actually mean is up to you.
       Here's one suggestion:


       status       meaning
       --------------------------------------------------------------------------
       uncleared    recorded but not yet reconciled; needs review
       pending      tentatively reconciled (if needed, eg during a big reconcil-
                    iation)
       cleared      complete, reconciled as far as possible, and considered cor-
                    rect

       With this scheme, you would use -PC to see the current balance at  your
       bank,  -U  to  see  things which will probably hit your bank soon (like
       uncashed checks), and no flags to see the most up-to-date state of your
       finances.

   Description
       A  transaction's description is the rest of the line following the date
       and status mark (or until a  comment  begins).   Sometimes  called  the
       "narration" in traditional bookkeeping, it can be used for whatever you
       wish, or left blank.  Transaction descriptions can be  queried,  unlike
       comments.

   Payee and note
       You  can  optionally  include  a | (pipe) character in a description to
       subdivide it into a payee/payer name on the left and  additional  notes
       on  the  right.   This may be worthwhile if you need to do more precise
       querying and pivoting by payee.

   Account names
       Account names typically have several parts separated by a  full  colon,
       from  which hledger derives a hierarchical chart of accounts.  They can
       be anything you like, but  in  finance  there  are  traditionally  five
       top-level  accounts: assets, liabilities, income, expenses, and equity.

       Account names may contain single  spaces,  eg:  assets:accounts receiv-
       able.   Because  of  this,  they must always be followed by two or more
       spaces (or newline).

       Account names can be aliased.

   Amounts
       After the account name, there is usually an amount.  Important: between
       account name and amount, there must be two or more spaces.

       Amounts  consist of a number and (usually) a currency symbol or commod-
       ity name.  Some examples:

       2.00001
       $1
       4000 AAPL
       3 "green apples"
       -$1,000,000.00
       INR 9,99,99,999.00
       EUR -2.000.000,00
       1 999 999.9455
       EUR 1E3
       1000E-6s

       As you can see, the amount format is somewhat flexible:

       o amounts are a number (the "quantity") and optionally a currency  sym-
         bol/commodity name (the "commodity").

       o the  commodity  is  a  symbol, word, or phrase, on the left or right,
         with or without a separating space.  If the commodity  contains  num-
         bers,  spaces  or  non-word punctuation it must be enclosed in double
         quotes.

       o negative amounts with a commodity on the left can have the minus sign
         before or after it

       o digit  groups  (thousands, or any other grouping) can be separated by
         space or comma or period and should be used as separator between  all
         groups

       o decimal  part  can be separated by comma or period and should be dif-
         ferent from digit groups separator

       o scientific E-notation is allowed.  Be careful  not  to  use  a  digit
         group  separator  character  in scientific notation, as it's not sup-
         ported and it might get mistaken for a decimal point.  (Declaring the
         digit group separator character explicitly with a commodity directive
         will prevent this.)

       You can use any of these  variations  when  recording  data.   However,
       there  is  some  ambiguous  way of representing numbers like $1.000 and
       $1,000 both may mean either one thousand or  one  dollar.   By  default
       hledger  will assume that this is sole delimiter is used only for deci-
       mals.  On the other hand commodity format declared prior to  that  line
       will help to resolve that ambiguity differently:

              commodity $1,000.00

              2017/12/25 New life of Scrooge
                  expenses:gifts  $1,000
                  assets

       Though  journal  may  contain  mixed  styles  to represent amount, when
       hledger displays amounts, it will choose a consistent format  for  each
       commodity.   (Except  for  price amounts, which are always formatted as
       written).  The display format is chosen as follows:

       o if there is a commodity directive specifying the format, that is used

       o otherwise  the  format  is  inferred from the first posting amount in
         that commodity in the journal, and the precision (number  of  decimal
         places) will be the maximum from all posting amounts in that commmod-
         ity

       o or if there are no such amounts in the journal, a default  format  is
         used (like $1000.00).

       Price  amounts  and amounts in D directives usually don't affect amount
       format inference, but in some situations they  can  do  so  indirectly.
       (Eg  when  D's default commodity is applied to a commodity-less amount,
       or when an amountless posting is balanced using a price's commodity, or
       when  -V  is  used.) If you find this causing problems, set the desired
       format with a commodity directive.

   Virtual Postings
       When you parenthesise the account name in a posting,  we  call  that  a
       virtual posting, which means:

       o it is ignored when checking that the transaction is balanced

       o it  is  excluded from reports when the --real/-R flag is used, or the
         real:1 query.

       You could use this, eg, to set an  account's  opening  balance  without
       needing to use the equity:opening balances account:

              1/1 special unbalanced posting to set initial balance
                (assets:checking)   $1000

       When the account name is bracketed, we call it a balanced virtual post-
       ing.  This is like an ordinary virtual posting except the balanced vir-
       tual  postings  in a transaction must balance to 0, like the real post-
       ings (but separately from them).  Balanced virtual  postings  are  also
       excluded by --real/-R or real:1.

              1/1 buy food with cash, and update some budget-tracking subaccounts elsewhere
                expenses:food                   $10
                assets:cash                    $-10
                [assets:checking:available]     $10
                [assets:checking:budget:food]  $-10

       Virtual postings have some legitimate uses, but those are few.  You can
       usually find an equivalent journal entry using real postings, which  is
       more correct and provides better error checking.

   Balance Assertions
       hledger  supports  Ledger-style  balance  assertions  in journal files.
       These look like =EXPECTEDBALANCE following a posting's amount.   Eg  in
       this  example we assert the expected dollar balance in accounts a and b
       after each posting:

              2013/1/1
                a   $1  =$1
                b       =$-1

              2013/1/2
                a   $1  =$2
                b  $-1  =$-2

       After reading a journal file, hledger will check all balance assertions
       and  report  an error if any of them fail.  Balance assertions can pro-
       tect you from, eg, inadvertently disrupting reconciled  balances  while
       cleaning  up  old  entries.   You can disable them temporarily with the
       --ignore-assertions flag, which can be useful  for  troubleshooting  or
       for reading Ledger files.

   Assertions and ordering
       hledger  sorts  an  account's postings and assertions first by date and
       then (for postings on the same day) by parse order.  Note this is  dif-
       ferent from Ledger, which sorts assertions only by parse order.  (Also,
       Ledger assertions do not see the accumulated effect of  repeated  post-
       ings to the same account within a transaction.)

       So,  hledger  balance  assertions  keep  working if you reorder differ-
       ently-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  con-
       trol over the order of postings and assertions within a day, so you can
       assert intra-day balances.

   Assertions and included files
       With included files, things are a little more  complicated.   Including
       preserves  the ordering of postings and assertions.  If you have multi-
       ple postings to an account on the  same  day,  split  across  different
       files,  and  you  also want to assert the account's balance on the same
       day, you'll have to put the assertion in the right file.

   Assertions and multiple -f options
       Balance assertions don't work well across files specified with multiple
       -f options.  Use include or concatenate the files instead.

   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 "par-
       tial" 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 kind of balance assertion, by writing a double
       equals sign (==EXPECTEDBALANCE).   This  "complete"  balance  assertion
       asserts  the absence of other commodities (or, that their balance is 0,
       which to hledger is equivalent.)

              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

   Assertions and subaccounts
       Balance assertions do not count  the  balance  from  subaccounts;  they
       check the posted account's exclusive balance.  For example:

              1/1
                checking:fund   1 = 1  ; post to this subaccount, its balance is now 1
                checking        1 = 1  ; post to the parent account, its exclusive balance is now 1
                equity

       The  balance  report's  flat  mode  shows these exclusive balances more
       clearly:

              $ hledger bal checking --flat
                                 1  checking
                                 1  checking:fund
              --------------------
                                 2

   Assertions and virtual postings
       Balance assertions are checked against all postings, both real and vir-
       tual.  They are not affected by the --real/-R flag or real: query.

   Balance Assignments
       Ledger-style  balance  assignments  are also supported.  These are like
       balance assertions, but with no posting amount on the left side of  the
       equals  sign;  instead  it is calculated automatically so as to satisfy
       the assertion.  This can be a convenience during data  entry,  eg  when
       setting opening balances:

              ; starting a new journal, set asset account balances
              2016/1/1 opening balances
                assets:checking            = $409.32
                assets:savings             = $735.24
                assets:cash                 = $42
                equity:opening balances

       or when adjusting a balance to reality:

              ; no cash left; update balance, record any untracked spending as a generic expense
              2016/1/15
                assets:cash    = $0
                expenses:misc

       The calculated amount depends on the account's balance in the commodity
       at that point (which depends on the previously-dated  postings  of  the
       commodity  to  that account since the last balance assertion or assign-
       ment).  Note that using balance assignments makes your journal a little
       less explicit; to know the exact amount posted, you have to run hledger
       or do the calculations yourself, instead of just reading it.

   Transaction prices
       Within a transaction, you can note an amount's price in another commod-
       ity.   This can be used to document the cost (in a purchase) or selling
       price (in a sale).  For  example,  transaction  prices  are  useful  to
       record  purchases  of  a foreign currency.  Note transaction prices are
       fixed at the time of the transaction, and do not change over time.  See
       also market prices, which represent prevailing exchange rates on a cer-
       tain date.

       There are several ways to record a transaction price:

       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:

                  2009/1/1
                    assets:euros     100          ; one hundred euros purchased
                    assets:dollars  $-135          ; for $135

       (Ledger users: Ledger uses a different syntax for fixed prices, {=UNIT-
       PRICE}, which hledger currently ignores).

       Use the -B/--cost flag to convert amounts to their transaction  price's
       commodity, if any.  (mnemonic: "B" is from "cost Basis", as in Ledger).
       Eg here is how -B affects the balance report for the example above:

              $ hledger bal -N --flat
                             $-135  assets:dollars
                              100  assets:euros
              $ hledger bal -N --flat -B
                             $-135  assets:dollars
                              $135  assets:euros    # <- the euros' cost

       Note -B is sensitive to the order of postings when a transaction  price
       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:

              2009/1/1
                assets:dollars  $-135               ; 135 dollars sold
                assets:euros     100               ; for 100 euros

              $ hledger bal -N --flat -B
                             -100  assets:dollars  # <- the dollars' selling price
                              100  assets:euros

   Comments
       Lines in the journal beginning with a semicolon (;) or hash (#) or star
       (*) are comments, and will be ignored.  (Star comments  cause  org-mode
       nodes  to  be  ignored, allowing emacs users to fold and navigate their
       journals with org-mode or orgstruct-mode.)

       You can attach comments to a transaction  by  writing  them  after  the
       description  and/or  indented  on the following lines (before the post-
       ings).  Similarly, you can attach comments to an individual posting  by
       writing  them  after the amount and/or indented on the following lines.
       Transaction and posting comments must begin with a semicolon (;).

       Some examples:

              # a file comment

              ; also a file comment

              comment
              This is a multiline file comment,
              which continues until a line
              where the "end comment" string
              appears on its own (or end of file).
              end comment

              2012/5/14 something  ; a transaction comment
                  ; the transaction comment, continued
                  posting1  1  ; a comment for posting 1
                  posting2
                  ; a comment for posting 2
                  ; another comment line for posting 2
              ; a file comment (because not indented)

       You can also comment  larger  regions  of  a  file  using  comment  and
       end comment directives.

   Tags
       Tags  are  a  way  to add extra labels or labelled data to postings and
       transactions, which you can then search or pivot on.

       A simple tag is a word (which may contain hyphens) followed by  a  full
       colon, written inside a transaction or posting comment line:

              2017/1/16 bought groceries    ; sometag:

       Tags  can  have  a  value, which is the text after the colon, up to the
       next comma or end of line, with leading/trailing whitespace removed:

                  expenses:food    $10   ; a-posting-tag: the tag value

       Note this means hledger's tag values can not  contain  commas  or  new-
       lines.  Ending at commas means you can write multiple short tags on one
       line, comma separated:

                  assets:checking       ; a comment containing tag1:, tag2: some value ...

       Here,

       o "a comment containing" is just comment text, not a tag

       o "tag1" is a tag with no value

       o "tag2" is another tag, whose value is "some value ..."

       Tags in a transaction comment affect the transaction  and  all  of  its
       postings,  while  tags  in  a posting comment affect only that posting.
       For example,  the  following  transaction  has  three  tags  (A,  TAG2,
       third-tag) and the posting has four (those plus posting-tag):

              1/1 a transaction  ; A:, TAG2:
                  ; third-tag: a third transaction tag, <- with a value
                  (a)  $1  ; posting-tag:

       Tags  are  like  Ledger's metadata feature, except hledger's tag values
       are simple strings.

   Directives
       A directive is a line in the journal beginning with a special  keyword,
       that influences how the journal is processed.  hledger's directives are
       based on a subset of Ledger's, but there are many differences (and also
       some differences between hledger versions).

       Directives' behaviour and interactions can get a little bit complex, so
       here is a table summarising the  directives  and  their  effects,  with
       links to more detailed docs.


       direc-          end                 subdi-    purpose                        can affect  (as  of
       tive            directive           rec-                                     2018/06)
                                           tives
       -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       account                             any       document   account    names,   all entries in  all
                                           text      declare account types & dis-   files,   before  or
                                                     play order                     after
       alias           end aliases                   rewrite account names          following
                                                                                    inline/included
                                                                                    entries  until  end
                                                                                    of current file  or
                                                                                    end directive
       apply account   end apply account             prepend  a  common parent to   following
                                                     account names                  inline/included
                                                                                    entries  until  end
                                                                                    of  current file or
                                                                                    end directive
       comment         end comment                   ignore part of journal         following
                                                                                    inline/included
                                                                                    entries  until  end
                                                                                    of  current file or
                                                                                    end directive
       commodity                           format    declare a commodity and  its   number    notation:
                                                     number  notation  &  display   following   entries
                                                     style                          in  that  commodity
                                                                                    in  all files; dis-
                                                                                    play style: amounts
                                                                                    of  that  commodity
                                                                                    in reports












       D                                             declare a commodity,  number   commodity: all com-
                                                     notation & display style for   modityless  entries
                                                     commodityless amounts          in all files;  num-
                                                                                    ber  notation: fol-
                                                                                    lowing   commodity-
                                                                                    less   entries  and
                                                                                    entries   in   that
                                                                                    commodity   in  all
                                                                                    files;      display
                                                                                    style:  amounts  of
                                                                                    that  commodity  in
                                                                                    reports
       include                                       include   entries/directives   what  the  included
                                                     from another file              directives affect
       P                                             declare a market price for a   amounts   of   that
                                                     commodity                      commodity        in
                                                                                    reports, when -V is
                                                                                    used
       Y                                             declare  a year for yearless   following
                                                     dates                          inline/included
                                                                                    entries  until  end
                                                                                    of current file

       And some definitions:


       subdirec-   optional indented directive line immediately following a par-
       tive        ent directive
       number      how to interpret numbers when parsing  journal  entries  (the
       notation    identity  of  the  decimal  separator character).  (Currently
                   each commodity can have its own notation, even  in  the  same
                   file.)
       display     how to display amounts of a commodity in reports (symbol side
       style       and spacing, digit groups, decimal separator, decimal places)
       directive   which entries and (when there are multiple files) which files
       scope       are affected by a directive

       As you can see, directives vary in which journal entries and files they
       affect,  and  whether  they  are  focussed on input (parsing) or output
       (reports).  Some directives have multiple effects.

       If you have a journal made up of multiple files, or  pass  multiple  -f
       options  on  the  command line, note that directives which affect input
       typically last only until the end of their defining  file.   This  pro-
       vides more simplicity and predictability, eg reports are not changed by
       writing file options in a different order.  It  can  be  surprising  at
       times though.

   Comment blocks
       A  line  containing just comment starts a commented region of the file,
       and a line containing just end comment (or the end of the current file)
       ends it.  See also comments.

   Including other files
       You  can  pull in the content of additional files by writing an include
       directive, like this:

              include path/to/file.journal

       If the path does not begin with a slash, it is relative to the  current
       file.   The  include  file  path may contain common glob patterns (e.g.
       *).

       The include directive can only  be  used  in  journal  files.   It  can
       include journal, timeclock or timedot files, but not CSV files.

   Default year
       You  can set a default year to be used for subsequent dates which don't
       specify a year.  This is a line beginning with Y followed by the  year.
       Eg:

              Y2009      ; set default year to 2009

              12/15      ; equivalent to 2009/12/15
                expenses  1
                assets

              Y2010      ; 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

   Declaring commodities
       The  commodity  directive declares commodities which may be used in the
       journal (though currently we do not enforce this).  It may  be  written
       on a single line, like this:

              ; commodity EXAMPLEAMOUNT

              ; display AAAA amounts with the symbol on the right, space-separated,
              ; using period as decimal point, with four decimal places, and
              ; separating thousands with comma.
              commodity 1,000.0000 AAAA

       or  on  multiple  lines, using the "format" subdirective.  In this case
       the commodity symbol appears twice and  should  be  the  same  in  both
       places:

              ; commodity SYMBOL
              ;   format EXAMPLEAMOUNT

              ; 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 9,99,99,999.00

       Commodity  directives  have  a second purpose: they define the standard
       display format for amounts in the commodity.  Normally the display for-
       mat  is  inferred  from journal entries, but this can be unpredictable;
       declaring it with a commodity  directive  overrides  this  and  removes
       ambiguity.   Towards  this  end,  amounts  in commodity directives must
       always be written with a decimal point (a period or comma, followed  by
       0 or more decimal digits).

   Default commodity
       The  D  directive  sets a default commodity (and display format), to be
       used for amounts without a commodity symbol (ie, plain numbers).  (Note
       this  differs from Ledger's default commodity directive.) The commodity
       and display format will be applied  to  all  subsequent  commodity-less
       amounts, or until the next D directive.

              # commodity-less amounts should be treated as dollars
              # (and displayed with symbol on the left, thousands separators and two decimal places)
              D $1,000.00

              1/1
                a     5    ; <- commodity-less amount, becomes $1
                b

       As with the commodity directive, the amount must always be written with
       a decimal point.

   Market prices
       The P directive declares a market price,  which  is  an  exchange  rate
       between two commodities on a certain date.  (In Ledger, they are called
       "historical prices".) These are often obtained from a  stock  exchange,
       cryptocurrency exchange, or the foreign exchange market.

       Here is the format:

              P DATE COMMODITYA COMMODITYBAMOUNT

       o DATE is a simple date

       o COMMODITYA is the symbol of the commodity being priced

       o COMMODITYBAMOUNT  is an amount (symbol and quantity) in a second com-
         modity, giving the price in commodity B of one unit of commodity A.

       These two market price directives say that one euro was worth  1.35  US
       dollars during 2009, and $1.40 from 2010 onward:

              P 2009/1/1  $1.35
              P 2010/1/1  $1.40

       The  -V/--value flag can be used to convert reported amounts to another
       commodity using these prices.

   Declaring accounts
       account directives can be used to pre-declare  some  or  all  accounts.
       Though not required, they can provide several benefits:

       o They can document your intended chart of accounts, providing a refer-
         ence.

       o They can store extra information  about  accounts  (account  numbers,
         notes, etc.)

       o They  can  help  hledger know your accounts' types (asset, liability,
         equity, revenue, expense), useful for reports like  balancesheet  and
         incomestatement.

       o They  control  account  display order in reports, allowing non-alpha-
         betic sorting (eg Revenues to appear above Expenses).

       o They  help  with  account  name  completion  in  the   add   command,
         hledger-iadd, hledger-web, ledger-mode etc.

       Here is the full syntax:

              account ACCTNAME  [ACCTTYPE]
                [COMMENTS]

       The simplest form just declares a hledger-style account name, eg:

              account assets:bank:checking

   Account types
       hledger  recognises  five  types  of account: asset, liability, equity,
       revenue, expense.  This is useful for certain accounting-aware reports,
       in particular balancesheet, incomestatement and cashflow.

       If you name your top-level accounts with some variation of assets, lia-
       bilities/debts, equity, revenues/income, or expenses, their  types  are
       detected automatically.

       More  generally, you can declare an account's type by adding one of the
       letters ALERX to its account directive, separated from the account name
       by two or more spaces.  Eg:

              account assets       A
              account liabilities  L
              account equity       E
              account revenues     R
              account expenses     X

       Note:  if  you  ever  override the types of those auto-detected english
       account names mentioned above, you might need to  help  the  reports  a
       bit:

              ; make "liabilities" not have the liability type, who knows why
              account liabilities   E

              ; better ensure some other account has the liability type,
              ; otherwise balancesheet would still show "liabilities" under Liabilities
              account -             L

       )

   Account comments
       An  account  directive  can  also  have  indented comments on following
       lines, eg:

              account assets:bank:checking
                ; acctno:12345
                ; a comment

       We also allow (and ignore) Ledger-style subdirectives, with no  leading
       semicolon, for compatibility.

       Tags  in account comments, like acctno above, currently have no effect.

   Account display order
       Account directives also set the order in which accounts  are  displayed
       in  reports,  the  hledger-ui accounts screen, the hledger-web sidebar,
       etc.  Normally accounts are listed in alphabetical order,  but  if  you
       have eg these account directives in the journal:

              account assets
              account liabilities
              account equity
              account revenues
              account expenses

       you'll  see  those accounts listed in declaration order, not alphabeti-
       cally:

              $ hledger accounts -1
              assets
              liabilities
              equity
              revenues
              expenses

       Undeclared accounts, if any, are displayed last, in alphabetical order.

       Note  that  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).

   Rewriting accounts
       You can define account alias rules which rewrite your account names, or
       parts of them, before generating reports.  This can be useful for:

       o expanding shorthand account names to their full form, allowing easier
         data entry and a less verbose journal

       o adapting old journals to your current chart of accounts

       o experimenting with new account organisations, like a new hierarchy or
         combining two accounts into one

       o customising reports

       Account aliases also rewrite account names in account directives.  They
       do  not  affect  account  names  being  entered  via  hledger  add   or
       hledger-web.

       See also Cookbook: Rewrite account names.

   Basic aliases
       To  set an account alias, use the alias directive in your journal file.
       This affects all subsequent journal entries in the current file or  its
       included files.  The spaces around the = are optional:

              alias OLD = NEW

       Or, you can use the --alias 'OLD=NEW' option on the command line.  This
       affects all entries.  It's useful for trying out aliases interactively.

       OLD  and  NEW  are  case  sensitive  full  account names.  hledger will
       replace any occurrence of the old account name with the new one.   Sub-
       accounts are also affected.  Eg:

              alias checking = assets:bank:wells fargo:checking
              # rewrites "checking" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking", or "checking:a" to "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking:a"

   Regex aliases
       There  is  also a more powerful variant that uses a regular expression,
       indicated by the forward slashes:

              alias /REGEX/ = REPLACEMENT

       or --alias '/REGEX/=REPLACEMENT'.

       REGEX is a case-insensitive regular expression.   Anywhere  it  matches
       inside  an  account name, the matched part will be replaced by REPLACE-
       MENT.  If REGEX contains parenthesised match groups, these can be  ref-
       erenced by the usual numeric backreferences in REPLACEMENT.  Eg:

              alias /^(.+):bank:([^:]+)(.*)/ = \1:\2 \3
              # rewrites "assets:bank:wells fargo:checking" to  "assets:wells fargo checking"

       Also  note that REPLACEMENT continues to the end of line (or on command
       line, to end of option argument), so it  can  contain  trailing  white-
       space.

   Multiple aliases
       You  can  define  as  many aliases as you like using directives or com-
       mand-line options.  Aliases are recursive - each alias sees the  result
       of  applying  previous  ones.   (This  is  different from Ledger, where
       aliases are non-recursive by default).  Aliases are applied in the fol-
       lowing order:

       1. alias  directives,  most recently seen first (recent directives take
          precedence over earlier ones; directives not yet seen are ignored)

       2. alias options, in the order they appear on the command line

   end aliases
       You  can  clear  (forget)  all  currently  defined  aliases  with   the
       end aliases directive:

              end aliases

   Default parent account
       You  can  specify  a  parent  account  which  will  be prepended to all
       accounts within a section of the journal.  Use  the  apply account  and
       end apply account directives like so:

              apply account home

              2010/1/1
                  food    $10
                  cash

              end apply account

       which is equivalent to:

              2010/01/01
                  home:food           $10
                  home:cash          $-10

       If  end apply account  is  omitted,  the effect lasts to the end of the
       file.  Included files are also affected, eg:

              apply account business
              include biz.journal
              end apply account
              apply account personal
              include personal.journal

       Prior to hledger 1.0, legacy account and end spellings were  also  sup-
       ported.

       A  default parent account also affects account directives.  It does not
       affect account names being entered via hledger add or hledger-web.   If
       account  aliases are present, they are applied after the default parent
       account.

   Periodic transactions
       Periodic transaction rules  describe  transactions  that  recur.   They
       allow you to generate future transactions for forecasting, without hav-
       ing to write them out explicitly  in  the  journal  (with  --forecast).
       Secondly, they also can be used to define budget goals (with --budget).

       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.):

              ~ monthly
                  expenses:rent          $2000
                  assets:bank:checking

       There is an additional constraint on the period expression:  the  start
       date   must   fall   on   a  natural  boundary  of  the  interval.   Eg
       monthly from 2018/1/1 is valid, but monthly from 2018/1/15 is not.

       Partial or relative dates (M/D, D, tomorrow, last week) in  the  period
       expression  can work (useful or not).  They will be relative to today's
       date, unless a Y default year directive is in  effect,  in  which  case
       they will be relative to Y/1/1.

       Period expressions must be terminated by two or more spaces if followed
       by additional fields.  For  example,  the  periodic  transaction  given
       below includes a transaction description "paycheck", which is separated
       from the period expression by a double space.  If not  for  the  second
       space,  hledger  would attempt (and fail) to parse "paycheck" as a part
       of the period expression.

              ;                                2 or more spaces
              ;                                      ||
              ;                                      vv
              ~ every 2 weeks from 2018/6/4 to 2018/9  paycheck
                  assets:bank:checking   $1500
                  income:acme inc

   Forecasting with periodic transactions
       With the --forecast flag,  each  periodic  transaction  rule  generates
       future transactions recurring at the specified interval.  These are not
       saved in the journal, but appear in all reports.  They will  look  like
       normal  transactions, but with an extra tag named recur, whose value is
       the generating period expression.

       Forecast transactions start on the first occurrence,  and  end  on  the
       last  occurrence,  of  their  interval within the forecast period.  The
       forecast period:

       o begins on the later of

         o the report start date if specified with -b/-p/date:

         o the day after the latest normal (non-periodic) transaction  in  the
           journal, or today if there are no normal transactions.

       o ends  on  the  report  end date if specified with -e/-p/date:, or 180
         days from today.

       where "today" means the current date at report time.   The  "later  of"
       rule  ensures that forecast transactions do not overlap normal transac-
       tions in time; they will begin only after normal transactions end.

       Forecasting can be useful for estimating balances into the future,  and
       experimenting  with  different  scenarios.   Note  the start date logic
       means that forecasted transactions are automatically replaced by normal
       transactions as you add those.

       Forecasting can also help with data entry: describe most of your trans-
       actions with periodic rules, and every so  often  copy  the  output  of
       print --forecast to the journal.

       You can generate one-time transactions too: just write a period expres-
       sion specifying a date with no report interval.  (You could also  write
       a  normal  transaction  with  a future date, but remember this disables
       forecast transactions on previous dates.)

   Budgeting with periodic transactions
       With the --budget flag, currently supported  by  the  balance  command,
       each  periodic transaction rule declares recurring budget goals for the
       specified accounts.  Eg the first example  above  declares  a  goal  of
       spending  $2000  on  rent  (and  also,  a goal of depositing $2000 into
       checking) every month.  Goals and actual performance can then  be  com-
       pared in budget reports.

       For  more  details, see: balance: Budget report and Cookbook: Budgeting
       and Forecasting.


   Transaction Modifiers
       Transaction modifier rules describe  changes  that  should  be  applied
       automatically  to  certain  transactions.  Currently, this means adding
       extra postings (also known as "automated postings").  Transaction modi-
       fiers are enabled by the --auto flag.

       A  transaction  modifier  rule  looks  quite like a normal transaction,
       except the first line is an  equals  sign  followed  by  a  query  that
       matches  certain  postings  (mnemonic:  = suggests matching).  And each
       "posting" is actually a posting-generating rule:

              = QUERY
                  ACCT  AMT
                  ACCT  [AMT]
                  ...

       The posting rules look just like normal postings, except the amount can
       be:

       o a  normal  amount  with a commodity symbol, eg $2.  This will be used
         as-is.

       o a number, eg 2.  The commodity symbol (if any) from the matched post-
         ing will be added to this.

       o a  numeric  multiplier,  eg  *2 (a star followed by a number N).  The
         matched posting's amount (and total price, if any) will be multiplied
         by N.

       o a  multiplier  with a commodity symbol, eg *$2 (a star, number N, and
         symbol S).  The matched posting's amount will be multiplied by N, and
         its commodity symbol will be replaced with S.

       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

       Postings added by transaction modifiers participate in transaction bal-
       ancing, missing amount inference and balance assertions,  like  regular
       postings.

EDITOR SUPPORT
       Add-on modes exist for various text editors, to make working with jour-
       nal files easier.  They add colour, navigation aids  and  helpful  com-
       mands.   For  hledger  users  who  edit  the journal file directly (the
       majority), using one of these modes is quite recommended.

       These were written with Ledger in mind,  but  also  work  with  hledger
       files:


       Editor
       --------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Emacs          http://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger-mode.html
       Vim            https://github.com/ledger/vim-ledger
       Sublime Text   https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Edit-
                      ing-Ledger-files-with-Sublime-Text-or-RubyMine
       Textmate       https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Using-TextMate-2
       Text   Wran-   https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Edit-
       gler           ing-Ledger-files-with-TextWrangler
       Visual  Stu-   https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?item-
       dio Code       Name=mark-hansen.hledger-vscode



REPORTING BUGS
       Report  bugs at http://bugs.hledger.org (or on the #hledger IRC channel
       or hledger mail list)


AUTHORS
       Simon Michael <simon@joyful.com> and contributors


COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2007-2016 Simon Michael.
       Released under GNU GPL v3 or later.


SEE ALSO
       hledger(1),     hledger-ui(1),     hledger-web(1),      hledger-api(1),
       hledger_csv(5), hledger_journal(5), hledger_timeclock(5), hledger_time-
       dot(5), ledger(1)

       http://hledger.org



hledger 1.12                     December 2018              hledger_journal(5)
