balance, bal\
Show accounts and their balances.

_FLAGS

The balance command is hledger's most versatile command.
Note, despite the name, it is not always used for showing real-world account balances;
the more accounting-aware [balancesheet](#balancesheet)
and [incomestatement](#incomestatement) may be more convenient for that.

By default, it displays all accounts,
and each account's change in balance during the entire period of the journal.
Balance changes are calculated by adding up the postings in each account.
You can limit the postings matched, by a [query](#queries), to see fewer accounts, changes over a different time period, changes from only cleared transactions, etc.

If you include an account's complete history of postings in the report,
the balance change is equivalent to the account's current ending balance.
For a real-world account, typically you won't have all transactions in the journal;
instead you'll have all transactions after a certain date, and an "opening balances"
transaction setting the correct starting balance on that date.
Then the balance command will show real-world account balances.
In some cases the -H/--historical flag is used to ensure this (more below).

This command also supports the
[output destination](hledger.html#output-destination) and
[output format](hledger.html#output-format) options
The output formats supported are (in most modes):
`txt`, `csv`, `html`, and `json`.

The balance command can produce several styles of report:

<a name="classic-balance-report"></a>

### Single-period flat balance report

This is the default for hledger's balance command:
a flat list of all (or with a query, matched) accounts, showing full account names.
<!-- and their "exclusive" (subaccount-excluding) balances. -->
Accounts are sorted by [declaration order](https://hledger.org/hledger.html#declaring-accounts)
if any, and then by account name.
Accounts which have zero balance are not shown unless `-E/--empty` is used.
The reported balances' total is shown as the last line, unless disabled by `-N`/`--no-total`.

```shell
$ hledger bal
                  $1  assets:bank:saving
                 $-2  assets:cash
                  $1  expenses:food
                  $1  expenses:supplies
                 $-1  income:gifts
                 $-1  income:salary
                  $1  liabilities:debts
--------------------
                   0  
```

<a name="tree-mode"></a>

### Single-period tree-mode balance report

With the `-t/--tree` flag, accounts are displayed hierarchically,
showing subaccounts as short names indented below their parent.
(This is the default style in Ledger and in older hledger versions.)

```shell
$ hledger balance
                 $-1  assets
                  $1    bank:saving
                 $-2    cash
                  $2  expenses
                  $1    food
                  $1    supplies
                 $-2  income
                 $-1    gifts
                 $-1    salary
                  $1  liabilities:debts
--------------------
                   0
```

For more compact output, "boring" accounts containing a single
interesting subaccount and no balance of their own (`assets:bank` and
`liabilities` here) are elided into the following line, unless
`--no-elide` is used. And accounts which have zero balance and no
non-zero subaccounts are omitted, unless `-E/--empty` is used.

Account balances in tree mode are "inclusive" - they include the
balances of any subaccounts. Eg, the `assets` `$-1` balance here
includes the `$1` from `assets:bank:saving` and the `$-2` from
`assets:cash`. (And it would include balance posted to the `assets`
account itself, if there was any). Note this causes some repetition,
and the final total (`0`) is the sum of the top-level balances, not of
all the balances shown.

Each group of sibling accounts is sorted separately, 
by [declaration order](https://hledger.org/hledger.html#declaring-accounts) 
and then by account name.

### Multi-period balance report

Multi-period balance reports are a very useful hledger feature, activated
if you provide one of the
[reporting interval](#reporting-interval) flags, such as `-M`/`--monthly`.
They are similar to single-period balance reports, but they show the
report as a table, with columns representing one or more successive
time periods.
This is the usually the preferred style of balance report in hledger
(even for a single period).

Multi-period balance reports come in several types, showing different information:

1. A balance change report: by default, each column shows the sum of
postings in that period, ie the account's change of balance in that
period. This is useful eg for a monthly income statement:

```shell
$ hledger balance --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 

```

2. A cumulative end balance report: with `--cumulative`, each column
shows the end balance for that period, accumulating the changes across
periods, starting from 0 at the report start date:

    ```shell
    $ hledger balance --quarterly income expenses -E --cumulative
    Ending balances (cumulative) in 2008:

                       ||  2008/03/31  2008/06/30  2008/09/30  2008/12/31 
    ===================++=================================================
     expenses:food     ||           0          $1          $1          $1 
     expenses:supplies ||           0          $1          $1          $1 
     income:gifts      ||           0         $-1         $-1         $-1 
     income:salary     ||         $-1         $-1         $-1         $-1 
    -------------------++-------------------------------------------------
                       ||         $-1           0           0           0 

    ```

3. A historical end balance report: with `--historical/-H`, each
column shows the actual historical end balance for that period,
accumulating the changes across periods, and including the balance
from any postings before the report start date. This is useful eg for
a multi-period balance sheet, and when you want to see balances only
after a certain date:

    ```shell
    $ hledger balance ^assets ^liabilities --quarterly --historical --begin 2008/4/1
    Ending balances (historical) in 2008/04/01-2008/12/31:

                          ||  2008/06/30  2008/09/30  2008/12/31 
    ======================++=====================================
     assets:bank:checking ||          $1          $1           0 
     assets:bank:saving   ||          $1          $1          $1 
     assets:cash          ||         $-2         $-2         $-2 
     liabilities:debts    ||           0           0          $1 
    ----------------------++-------------------------------------
                          ||           0           0           0 

    ```

Note that `--cumulative` or `--historical/-H` disable `--row-total/-T`, 
since summing end balances generally does not make sense.

With a reporting interval (like `--quarterly` above), the report
start/end dates will be adjusted if necessary so that they encompass
the displayed report periods. This is so that the first and last
periods will be "full" and comparable to the others.

The `-E/--empty` flag does two things in multicolumn balance reports:
first, the report will show all columns within the specified report
period (without -E, leading and trailing columns with all zeroes are
not shown). Second, all accounts which existed at the report start
date will be considered, not just the ones with activity during the
report period (use -E to include low-activity accounts which would
otherwise would be omitted).

The `-T/--row-total` flag adds an additional column showing the total
for each row.

The `-A/--average` flag adds a column showing the average value in
each row.

Here's an example of all three:

```shell
$ hledger balance -Q income expenses --tree -ETA
Balance changes in 2008:

            ||  2008q1  2008q2  2008q3  2008q4    Total  Average 
============++===================================================
 expenses   ||       0      $2       0       0       $2       $1 
   food     ||       0      $1       0       0       $1        0 
   supplies ||       0      $1       0       0       $1        0 
 income     ||     $-1     $-1       0       0      $-2      $-1 
   gifts    ||       0     $-1       0       0      $-1        0 
   salary   ||     $-1       0       0       0      $-1        0 
------------++---------------------------------------------------
            ||     $-1      $1       0       0        0        0 

(Average is rounded to the dollar here since all journal amounts are)
```

The `--transpose` flag can be used to exchange the rows and columns of
a multicolumn report.
     
When showing multicommodity amounts, multicolumn balance reports will
elide any amounts which have more than two commodities, since
otherwise columns could get very wide. The `--no-elide` flag disables
this. Hiding totals with the `-N/--no-total` flag can also help reduce
the width of multicommodity reports. 

When the report is still too wide, a good workaround is to pipe it
into `less -RS` (-R for colour, -S to chop long lines). 
Eg: `hledger bal -D --color=yes | less -RS`.

### Depth limiting

With a `depth:N` query, or `--depth N` option, or just `-N`, 
balance reports will show accounts only to the specified depth.
This is very useful to hide low-level accounts and get an overview.
Eg, limiting to depth 1 shows the top-level accounts:
```shell
$ hledger balance -N -1
                 $-1  assets
                  $2  expenses
                 $-2  income
                  $1  liabilities
```

Accounts at the depth limit will include the balances of any hidden subaccounts
(even in flat mode, which normally shows exclusive balances).

You can also drop account name components from the start of account names,
using `--drop N`. This can be useful to hide unwanted top-level detail.

### Colour support

In terminal output, when colour is enabled, the balance command shows negative amounts in red.

### Sorting by amount

With `-S`/`--sort-amount`, accounts with the largest (most positive) balances are shown first.
For example, `hledger bal expenses -MAS` shows your biggest averaged monthly expenses first.

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 sign-flipping reports like `balancesheet` or `incomestatement`, 
which also support `-S`. Eg: `hledger is -MAS`.

### Percentages

With `-%` or `--percent`, balance reports show each account's value expressed
as a percentage of the column's total. This is useful to get an overview of
the relative sizes of account balances. For example to obtain an overview of
expenses:

```shell
$ hledger balance expenses -%
             100.0 %  expenses
              50.0 %    food
              50.0 %    supplies
--------------------
             100.0 %
```

Note that `--tree` does not have an effect on `-%`. The percentages are always
relative to the total sum of each column, they are never relative to the parent
account.

Since the percentages are relative to the columns sum, it is usually not useful
to calculate percentages if the signs of the amounts are mixed. Although the
results are technically correct, they are most likely useless. Especially in
a balance report that sums up to zero (eg `hledger balance -B`) all percentage
values will be zero.

This flag does not work if the report contains any mixed commodity accounts. If
there are mixed commodity accounts in the report be sure to use `-V`
or `-B` to coerce the report into using a single commodity.


<a name="multicolumn-balance-report"></a>

### Customising single-period balance reports

You can customise the layout of single-period balance reports with `--format FMT`,
which sets the format of each line. Eg:

```shell
$ hledger 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 (plus a newline) 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.
<!-- XXX retest:
Consistent column widths are not well enforced, causing ragged edges unless you set suitable widths.
Beware of specifying a maximum width; it will clip account names and amounts that are too wide, with no visible indication.
-->
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


### Budget report

There is also a special balance report mode for showing budget performance.
The `--budget` flag activates extra columns showing the budget goals for each account and period, if any.
For this report, budget goals are defined by [periodic transactions](journal.html#periodic-transactions).
This is very 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:
```journal
;; 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:
```shell
$ hledger balance -M --budget
Budget performance in 2017/11/01-2017/12/31:

                      ||                      Nov                       Dec 
======================++====================================================
 assets               || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] 
 assets:bank          || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] 
 assets:bank:checking || $-2445 [  99% of $-2480]  $-2665 [ 107% of $-2480] 
 expenses             ||   $495 [ 103% of   $480]    $565 [ 118% of   $480] 
 expenses:bus         ||    $49 [  98% of    $50]     $53 [ 106% of    $50] 
 expenses:food        ||   $396 [  99% of   $400]    $412 [ 103% of   $400] 
 expenses:movies      ||    $30 [ 100% of    $30]       0 [   0% of    $30] 
 income               ||  $1950 [  98% of  $2000]   $2100 [ 105% of  $2000] 
----------------------++----------------------------------------------------
                      ||      0 [              0]       0 [              0] 
```

This is different from a normal balance report in several ways:

- Only accounts with budget goals during the report period are shown, by default.

- In each column, in square brackets after the actual amount, 
  budget goal amounts are shown, and the actual/goal percentage.
  (Note: budget goals should be in the same commodity as the actual amount.)

- All parent accounts are always shown, even in flat mode. 
  Eg assets, assets:bank, and expenses above.

- Amounts always include all subaccounts, budgeted or unbudgeted, even in flat mode.

This means that the numbers displayed will not always add up!
Eg above, the `expenses`  actual amount includes the gifts and supplies transactions,
but the `expenses:gifts` and `expenses:supplies` accounts are not
shown, as they have no budget amounts declared.

This can be confusing. When you need to make things clearer, use the `-E/--empty` flag, 
which will reveal all accounts including unbudgeted ones, giving the full picture. Eg:

```shell
$ 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`:
```shell
$ 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] 
```

For more examples and notes, see [Budgeting](budgeting.html).

#### 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:

```journal
~ monthly in 2020
  (expenses:food)  $500

2020-01-15
  expenses:food    $400
  assets:checking
```
```shell
$ 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:

```shell
$ 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] 
```

#### Nested budgets

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:
```journal
~ 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:

```shell
$ 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:
```shell
$ 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] 
```

